That was as bad as poisoning the
Sacrament! I should have kept it sweet and pure; I should have let
the Church go, and been honest! I should have seen to it that the
child of my love grew up to honour his father,--not to merely live
for the murder of him! Yes!--I know what I should have done--I know
what I have not done--and I am afraid I shall always know! Unless I
can do something to atone I have a strange feeling that I shall pass
from this world to the next--and that the first thing I shall see
will be her face! Her face as I saw it when the sunshine made a halo
round her hair, and she prayed to her guardian angel."
He shuddered slightly, and his voice died away in a half whisper.
The Cardinal pressed his hand again warmly and tenderly.
"Courage, courage!" he said. "It is true we cannot do away with our
memories,--but we can try and make them sweet. And who knows how
much God may help us in the task? Never forget the words that tell
us how 'the angels rejoice more over one sinner that repenteth than
over ninety and nine just persons.'"
"Ah!" and the Abbe smiled, recovering somewhat of his usual manner,
"And that is so faithfully enforced upon us, is it not? The Churches
are all so lenient? And Society is so kind?--so gentle in its
estimate of its friends? Our Church, for example, has never
persecuted a sinner?--has never tortured an unbeliever? It has been
so patient, and so unwearying in searching for stray sheep and
bringing them back with love and tenderness and pity to the fold?
And Churchmen never say anything which is slanderous or cruel? And
we all follow Christ's teaching so accurately? Yes!--Ah well--I
wonder! I wonder what will be the end! I wonder why we came into
life at all--I wonder why we go! Fortunately for me, by and by,
there will be an end of all wondering, and you can write above my
tomb, 'Implora pace'! The idea of commencing a new life is to me,
horrible,--I prefer 'Nirvana' or nothingness.
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