A tall bank of palms, with ferns sprawling at their base, reared itself directly in front of him.The floor was of mosaic, and he saw now that there were rugs upon it, and that there were chairs and sofas, and other signs of habitation.
It was, indeed, only half a greenhouse, for the lower part of it was in rosewood panels, with floral paintings on them, like a room.
Moving to one side of the barrier of palms, he discovered, to his great surprise, the figure of Michael, sitting propped up with pillows in a huge easy-chair.The sick man was looking at him with big, gravely intent eyes.His face did not show as much change as Theron had in fancy pictured.
It had seemed almost as bony and cadaverous on the day of the picnic.The hands spread out on the chair-arms were very white and thin, though, and the gaze in the blue eyes had a spectral quality which disturbed him.
Michael raised his right hand, and Theron, stepping forward, took it limply in his for an instant.Then he laid it down again.The touch of people about to die had always been repugnant to him.He could feel on his own warm palm the very damp of the grave.
"I only heard from Father Forbes last evening of your--your ill-health," he said, somewhat hesitatingly.He seated himself on a bench beneath the palms, facing the invalid, but still holding his hat."I hope very sincerely that you will soon be all right again.""My sister is lying down in her room," answered Michael.
He had not once taken his sombre and embarrassing gaze from the other's face.The voice in which he uttered this uncalled-for remark was thin in fibre, cold and impassive.
It fell upon Theron's ears with a suggestion of hidden meaning.
He looked uneasily into Michael's eyes, and then away again.
They seemed to be looking straight through him, and there was no shirking the sensation that they saw and comprehended things with an unnatural prescience.
"I hope she is feeling better," Theron found himself saying.
"Father Forbes mentioned that she was a little under the weather.I dined with him last night.""I am glad that you came," said Michael, after a little pause.
His earnest, unblinking eyes seemed to supplement his tongue with speech of their own."I do be thinking a great deal about you.I have matters to speak of to you, now that you are here."Theron bowed his head gently, in token of grateful attention.
He tried the experiment of looking away from Michael, but his glance went back again irresistibly, and fastened itself upon the sick man's gaze, and clung there.
"I am next door to a dead man," he went on, paying no heed to the other's deprecatory gesture."It is not years or months with me, but weeks.Then I go away to stand up for judgment on my sins, and if it is His merciful will, I shall see God.So I say my good-byes now, and so you will let me speak plainly, and not think ill of what I say.
You are much changed, Mr.Ware, since you came to Octavius, and it is not a change for the good."Theron lifted his brows in unaffected surprise, and put inquiry into his glance.
"I don't know if Protestants will be saved, in God's good time, or not," continued Michael."I find there are different opinions among the clergy about that, and of course it is not for me, only a plain mechanic, to be sure where learned and pious scholars are in doubt.
But I am sure about one thing.Those Protestants, and others too, mind you, who profess and preach good deeds, and themselves do bad deeds--they will never be saved.
They will have no chance at all to escape hell-fire.""I think we are all agreed upon that, Mr.Madden,"said Theron, with surface suavity.
"Then I say to you, Mr.Ware, you are yourself in a bad path.
Take the warning of a dying man, sir, and turn from it!"The impulse to smile tugged at Theron's facial muscles.
This was really too droll.He looked up at the ceiling, the while he forced his countenance into a polite composure, then turned again to Michael, with some conciliatory commonplace ready for utterance.But he said nothing, and all suggestion of levity left his mind, under the searching inspection bent upon him by the young man's hollow eyes.
What did Michael suspect? What did he know? What was he hinting at, in this strange talk of his?
"I saw you often on the street when first you came here,"continued Michael."I knew the man who was here before you--that is, by sight--and he was not a good man.But your face, when you came, pleased me.I liked to look at you.
I was tormented just then, do you see, that so many decent, kindly people, old school-mates and friends and neighbors of mine--and, for that matter, others all over the country must lose their souls because they were Protestants.
At my boyhood and young manhood, that thought took the joy out of me.Sometimes I usen't to sleep a whole night long, for thinking that some lad I had been playing with, perhaps in his own house, that very day, would be taken when he died, and his mother too, when she died, and thrown into the flames of hell for all eternity.It made me so unhappy that finally I wouldn't go to any Protestant boy's house, and have his mother be nice to me, and give me cake and apples--and me thinking all the while that they were bound to be damned, no matter how good they were to me."The primitive humanity of this touched Theron, and he nodded approbation with a tender smile in his eyes, forgetting for the moment that a personal application of the monologue had been hinted at.
