The Father Confessor, Stories of Death and Danger. Dora Sigerson Shorter
tion>
Dora Sigerson Shorter
The Father Confessor, Stories of Death and Danger
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066073084
Table of Contents
I. The Father Confessor
"I had thought for a glad moment you loved me. A week ago I hoped for a different answer. Will you tell me why this is?"
"A week ago; that is a long time."
"I see; you had not then met him."
"No, I had not met him; and yet I seem always to have known him."
"You do not know him, you idealize. Your vivid imagination, your love of romance and beauty, blind you. He is cruel and unscrupulous."
"How dare you speak to me so?"
"I dare because I love. Oh, it is not jealousy. Only give him up, and I will go away where you will see me no more. Can you not read his eyes? They are so cruel. He would kill a person if he hated him."
"His eyes, they are not cruel; they are full of—love, and he does not hate me."
"He would kill a woman if he grew tired of her."
"Oh, you must not speak so. I love him, and—he has asked me to be his wife."
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
****
The priest stood at the bedside of the dying woman, he looked down upon her and wondered at her face. Her hair had turned pure white, and she so young. Her eyes were the eyes of a hare, full of watching, always seeming to be expecting some sudden fright. Her nervous hands, for ever twitching, kept pulling at the blankets and moving unceasingly.
"I sent for you," she said, with a weak smile," to tell you how wrong you were. He has been good to me, and loves me so. I pray God for his sake not to let me die."
The door was flung open and a man staggered in. The woman stretched out her thin arms to him, and then saw his face. She gave a shrill death cry, and rising from her bed, fell towards him. The priest made a step to raise her, but drew back, giving the man his place. Laying the dead woman back on the bed, the man broke into loud sobs.
"What has happened," said the stern priest, "that you burst into a sick-room with your face like that?"
"They said she was worse, and I rushed down afraid."
"You have frightened her to death."
The man grew as white as she was.
"Frightened her to death?" he repeated.
"Look at your face," said the priest.
The man stood before the glass. Up the left side of his throat and face there seemed to be a great red gash. The blood from it was on his collar and shirt.
"Oh," he said, "I must have cut myself. I was shaving when the maid rushed up to say my wife was worse, and had sent for a priest."
He drew a wet cloth across his face, and the crimson was gone; only a little scratch to make all that blood!
The priest closed the door, and went out into the night.
****
For the second time that year the priest stood in the same house, and this time too, by the bedside of a dying person. Now it was the man who lay there broken, where the wheels of a heavy van had crossed him. The tortured creature cried to the priest, "Confession! confession!"
"I am here," the priest answered. He bent his head nearer the pillow.
"You see that book—that book?" whispered the man.
"I see no book."
"There, upon the table—De Quincey's Essay."
"Yes, Murder as One of the Fine Arts; what of it?"
"I read it—and I thought of murder as a fine art. No poisons, or knives, of stifling for me. I planned a murder that no one could hang me for, or prove against me. A fine art! Oh, I had found the art! Hear me! hear me!"
"I hear you."
"Shall I ever be forgiven? Nobody ever suspected me—she did not suspect."
"She?"
"A woman; I will tell you the story. Come nearer. Why do you look at me like that? I do not know you. Do you hate me? Are you not a priest?"
"Yes, a priest; God forgive me! Continue in peace, I am listening."
"Yes, yes. O heavens! what torture! My murder had no suffering like this, like the death You give me, oh God!"
"Hush, hush; be patient. It is your punishment. Pray for forgiveness."
"I will pray, yes, yes; but I must tell you first of my sin. I must