Part 158 (2/2)

”Bless thee! Bless thee! So then the eyes that now can scarce see thee, they are so troubled by the pest, and the lips that shall not touch thee to taint thee, will still be before thee, as they were when we were young and thou didst love me.”

”When I did love thee, Margaret! Oh, never loved I thee as now.”

”Hast not told me so of late.”

”Alas! hath love no voice but words? I was a priest; I had charge of thy soul; the sweet offices of a pure love were lawful; words of love imprudent at the least. But now the good fight is won, ah me! Oh my love, if thou hast lived doubting of thy Gerard's heart, die not so: for never was woman loved so tenderly as thou this ten years past.”

”Calm thyself, dear one,” said the dying woman, with a heavenly smile.

”I know it: only being but a woman, I could not die happy till I had heard thee say so. Ah, I have pined ten years for those sweet words.

Hast said them; and this is the happiest hour of my life. I had to die to get them; well, I grudge not the price.”

From this moment a gentle complacency rested on her fading features. But she did not speak.

Then Gerard, who had loved her soul so many years, feared lest she should expire with a mind too fixed on earthly affection. ”Oh my daughter,” he cried, ”my dear daughter, if indeed thou lovest me as I love thee, give me not the pain of seeing thee die with thy pious soul fixed on mortal things.

”Dearest lamb of all my fold, for whose soul I must answer, oh think not now of mortal love, but of His who died for thee on the tree. Oh let thy last look be heavenwards, thy last word a word of prayer.”

She turned a look of grat.i.tude and obedience on him. ”What saint?” she murmured: meaning, doubtless, ”what saint should she invoke as an intercessor.”

”He to whom the saints themselves do pray.”

She turned on him one more sweet look of love and submission, and put her pretty hands together in prayer like a child.

”Jesu!”

This blessed word was her last. She lay with her eyes heavenwards, and her hands put together.

Gerard prayed fervently for her pa.s.sing spirit. And when he had prayed a long time with his head averted, not to see her last breath, all seemed unnaturally still. He turned his head fearfully. It was so.

She was gone.

Nothing left him now, but the earthly sh.e.l.l of as constant, pure, and loving a spirit, as ever adorned the earth.

FOOTNOTE:

[M] Let me not be understood to apply this to the bare outline of the relation. Many bishops and priests, and not a few popes had wives and children as laymen; and entering orders were parted from the wives and not from the children. But in the case before the reader are the additional features of a strong surviving attachment on both sides, and of neighbourhood, besides that here the man had been led into holy orders by a false statement of the woman's death. On a summary of all the essential features, the situation was, to the best of my belief, unique.

CHAPTER XCIX

A PRIEST is never more thoroughly a priest than in the chamber of death.

Gerard did the last offices of the Church for the departed, just as he should have done them for his smallest paris.h.i.+oner. He did this mechanically, then sat down stupefied by the sudden and tremendous blow; and not yet realizing the pangs of bereavement. Then in a transport of religious enthusiasm he kneeled and thanked Heaven for her Christian end.

And then all his thought was to take her away from strangers, and lay her in his own churchyard. That very evening a covered cart with one horse started for Gouda, and in it was a coffin, and a broken-hearted man lying with his arms and chin resting on it.

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