The White Prophet, Volume II (of 2). Sir Hall Caine
and with a trembling voice she called to him, so he returned and stood by her side.
"Why are you doing this?" she said. "You know what I mean. Why are you doing it?"
"You know quite well why I am doing it, Helena. Ishmael was determined to go to his death. There was only one way to prevent him. I had to take it."
"But you are going to death yourself – isn't that so?"
He did not answer. He was trying not to look at her.
"Or perhaps you see some way of escape – do you?"
Still he did not speak – he was even trying not to hear her.
"If not, why are you going into Cairo instead of Ishmael?"
"Don't ask me that, Helena. I would rather not answer you."
Suddenly the tears came into her eyes, and after a moment's silence she said —
"I know! I understand! But remember your father. He loves you. You may not think it, but he does – I am sure he does. Yet if you go into Cairo you know quite well what he will do."
"My father is a great man, Helena. He will do his duty whatever happens – what he believes to be his duty."
"Certainly he will, but all the same, do you think he will not suffer! And do you wish to put him into the position of being compelled to cut off his own son? Is that right? Can anything – anything in the world – make it necessary?"
Gordon did not answer her, but under the strain of his emotion he tightened his lips, and his pinched nostrils began to dilate like the nostrils of a horse.
"Then remember your mother, too," said Helena. "She is weak and ill. It breaks my heart to think of her as I saw her last. She believes that you have fled away to some foreign country, but she is living in the hope that time will justify you, and then you will be reconciled to your father, and come back to her again. Is this how you would come back? … Oh, it will kill her! I'm sure it will!"
She saw that Gordon's strong and manly face was now utterly discomposed, and she could not help but follow up her advantage.
"Then think a little of me too, Gordon. This is all my fault, and if anything is done to you in Cairo it will be just the same to me as if I had done it. Do you wish me to die of remorse?"
She saw that he was struggling to restrain himself, and turning her beautiful wet eyes upon him and laying her hand on his arm, she said —
"Don't go back to Cairo, Gordon! For my sake, for your own sake, for our love's sake – "
But Gordon could bear no more, and he cried in a low, hoarse whisper —
"Helena, for heaven's sake, don't speak so. I knew it wouldn't be easy to do what I intended to do, and it isn't easy. But don't make it harder for me than it is, I beg, I pray."
She tried to speak again, but he would not listen.
"When you sent the message into Cairo which doomed Ishmael to death you thought he had killed your father. If he had really done so he would have deserved all you did to him. But he hadn't, whereas I had. Do you think I can let an innocent man die for my crime?"
"But, Gordon – " she began, and again he stopped her.
"Don't speak about it, Helena. For heaven's sake, don't! I've fought this battle with myself before, and I can't fight it over again – with your eyes upon me too, your voice in my ears, and your presence by my side."
He was trying to move away, and she was still clinging to his arm.
"Don't speak about our love, either. All that is over now. You must know it is. There is a barrier between us that can never – "
His voice was breaking and he was struggling to tear himself away from her, but she leapt to her feet and cried —
"Gordon, you shall hear me – you must!" and then he stopped short and looked at her.
"You think you were the cause of my father's death, but you were not," she said.
His mouth opened, his lips trembled, he grew deadly pale.
"You think, too, that there is a barrier of blood between us, but there is no such thing."
"Take care of what you are saying, Helena."
"What I am saying is the truth, Gordon – it is God's truth."
He looked blankly at her for a moment in silence, then laid hold of her violently by both arms, gazed closely into her face, and said in a low, trembling voice —
"Helena, if you knew what it is to live for months under the shadow of a sin – an awful sin – an unpardonable sin – surely you wouldn't … But why don't you speak? Speak, girl, speak!"
Then Helena looked fearlessly back into his excited face and said —
"Gordon, do you remember that you came to my room in the Citadel before you went in to that … that fatal interview?"
"Yes, yes! How can I forget it?"
"Do you also remember what I told you then, that whatever happened that day I could never leave my father?"
"Yes, certainly, yes."
"Do you remember that you asked me why, and I said I couldn't tell you because it was a secret – somebody else's secret?"
"Well?" His pulses were beating violently; she could feel them throbbing on her arms.
"Gordon," she said, "do you know what that secret was? I can tell you now. Do you know what it was?"
"What?"
"That my father was suffering from heart-disease, and had already received his death-warrant."
She waited for Gordon to speak, but he was almost afraid to breathe.
"He didn't know his condition until we arrived in Egypt, and then perhaps he ought to have resigned his commission, but he had been out of the service for two years, and the temptation to remain was too much for him, so he asked me to promise to say nothing about it."
Gordon released her arms and she sat down again. He stood over her, breathing fast and painfully.
"I thought you ought to have been told at the time when we became engaged, but my father said, 'No! Why put him in a false position, and burden him with responsibilities he ought not to bear?'"
Helena's own voice was breaking now, and as Gordon listened to it he was looking down at her flushed face, which was thinner than before but more beautiful than ever in his eyes, and a hundredfold more touching than when it first won his heart.
"I tried to tell you that day, too, before you went into the General's office, so that you might see for yourself, dear, that if you separated yourself from my father I … I couldn't possibly follow you, but there was my promise, and then … then my pride and … and something you said that pained and wounded me – "
"I know, I know, I know," he said.
"But now," she continued, rising to her feet again, "now," she repeated, in the same trembling voice, but with a look of joy and triumph, "now that you have told me what happened after your return to the Citadel, I see quite clearly – I am sure – perfectly sure – that my dear father died not by your hand at all, but by the hand and the will of God."
"Helena! Helena!" cried Gordon, and in the tempest of his love and the overwhelming sense of boundless relief he flung his arms about her and covered her face with kisses.
One long moment of immeasurable joy they were permitted to know, and then the hand of fate snatched at them again.
From their intoxicating happiness they were awakened by a voice. It was only the voice of the muezzin calling to mid-day prayers, but it seemed to be reproaching them, separating them, tearing them asunder, reminding them of where they were now, and what they were, and that God was over them.
Music fragment
Their lips parted, their arms fell away from each