KYRIE ELEISON.
The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
burning before the tabernacle in Père Jerome's little church might have
hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence
that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.
The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;
then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some
projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house
of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and
re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The
search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would
tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and
belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an
unexceptionable eyewitness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)
Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding
in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Père Jerome's vision
now--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of
man, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and
feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome
eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots
of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean
Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his
tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one
expression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinking
female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She
sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the
small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted
face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the
recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,
nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired
priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of
invitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come to
confession this afternoon."
By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any
glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from
station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly
going the way of the cross. Yet Père Jerome tarried.
"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would
come."
A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a
subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt
noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,
in the voice he had waited to hear:
"_Bénissez-moin, mo' Père, pa'ce que mo péché_." (Bless me, father, for
I have sinned.)
He gave his blessing.
"_Ainsi soit-il_--Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft
accents of the Creole _patois_, continued:
"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to
blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned
exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through my
fault, through my most grievous fault_.' I confessed on Saturday, three
weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance
enjoined. Since then----" There she stopped.
There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she
rose up again, and in a moment she said:
"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the
half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She
is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh Olive, my
own daughter!"
She ceased, and was still. Père Jerome waited, but no sound came. He
looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting
on her arms--motionless.
He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.
"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not
move.
He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and
called her by name:
"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there
was life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed from
his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to
heaven and cried:
"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"