There was thus spared him knowledge of the great change that had taken
place regarding her within the counsels of the Order; nor, perhaps, was
he ever to learn of the other changes, more eventful still, that were
now fast closing in upon her destiny.
When the Creator wishes to create a woman, the beauty of whose nature is
to prefigure the types of an immortal world, He endows her more
plenteously with the faculty of innocent love. The contravention of this
faculty has time after time resulted in the most memorable tragedies
that have ever saddened the history of the race. He had given to the
nature of Pauline Cambron two strong, unwearying wings: the pinion of
faith and the pinion of love. It was His will that she should soar by
the use of both. But they had denied her the use of one; and the vain
and bewildered struggles which marked her life thenceforth were as those
of a bird that should try to rise into the air with one of its wings
bound tight against its bosom.
After the illness which followed upon the events of that terrible day,
she took towards her own conduct the penitential attitude enjoined by
her religion. There is little need to lay bare all that followed. She
had passed out of her soft world of heroic dreams into the hard world of
unheroic reality. She had chosen a name to express her sympathy with the
sorrows of the world, and the sorrows of the world had broken in upon
her. Out of the white dawn of the imagination she had stepped into the
heat and burden of the day.
Long after penances and prayers were over, and by others she might have
felt herself forgiven, she was as far as ever from that forgiveness
which comes from within. It is not characteristic of a nature such as
hers to win pardon so easily for such an offence as she considered hers.
Indeed, as time passed on, the powers of her being seemed concentrated
more and more in one impassioned desire to expiate her sin; for, as time
passed on, despite penances and prayers, she realised that she still
loved him.
As she pondered this she said to herself that peace would never come
unless she should go elsewhere and begin life over in some place that
was free from the memories of her fall, there was so much to remind her
of him. She could not go into the garden without recalling the day when
they had walked through it side by side. She could not cross the
threshold of the church without being reminded that it was the scene of
her unfaithfulness and of her exposure. The graveyard, the footpath,
across the fields, the observatory--all were full of disturbing images.
And therefore she besought the Mother Superior to send her away to some
one of the missions of the Order, thinking that thus she would win
forgetfulness of him and singleness of heart.
But while the plan of doing this was yet being considered by the Mother
Superior, there happened one of those events which seem to fit into the
crises of our lives as though determined by the very laws of fate. The
attention of the civilised world had not yet been fixed upon the heroic
labours of the Belgian priest, Father Damien, among the lepers of the
island of Molokai. But it has been stated that near the convent are the
monks of La Trappe. Among these monks were friends of the American
priest, Brother Joseph, who for years was one of Father Damien's
assistants; and to these friends this priest from time to time wrote
letters, in which he described at great length the life of the leper
settlement and the work of the small band of men and women who had gone
to labour in that remote and awful vineyard. The contents of these
letters were made known to the ecclesiastical superior of the convent;
and one evening he made them the subject of a lecture to the assembled
nuns and novices, dwelling with peculiar eloquence upon the devotion of
the three Franciscan Sisters who had become outcasts from human society
that they might nurse and teach leprous girls, until inevitable death
should overtake them also.
Among that breathless audience of women there was one soul on whom his
words fell with the force of a message from the Eternal. Here, then, at
last, was offered her a pathway by following meekly to the end of which
she might perhaps find blessedness. The real Man of Sorrows appeared to
stand in it and beckon her on to the abodes of those abandoned creatures
whose sufferings He had with peculiar pity so often stretched forth His
hand to heal. When she laid before the Mother Superior her petition to
be allowed to go, it was at first refused, being regarded as a momentary
impulse; but months passed, and at intervals, always more earnestly, she
renewed her request. It was pointed out to her that when one has gone
among the lepers there is no return; the alternatives are either
lifelong banishment, or death from leprosy, usually at the end of a few
years. But always her reply was--
"In the name of Christ, Mother, let me go!"
Meantime it had become clear to the Mother Superior that some change of
scene must be made. The days of Sister Dolorosa's usefulness in the
convent were too plainly over.
It had not been possible in that large household of women to conceal the
fact of her unfaithfulness to her vows. As one black veil whispered to
another--as one white veil communed with its attentive neighbour--little
by little events were gathered and pieced together, until, in different
forms of error and rumour, the story became known to all. Some from
behind window lattices had watched her in the garden with the young
stranger on the day of his visiting the convent. Others had heard of his
lying wounded at the farm-house. Still others were sure that under
pretext of visiting old Martha she had often met him in the fields. And
then the scene on the steps of the church, when she had returned soiled
and torn and fainting.
So that from the day on which she arose from her illness and began to go
about the convent, she was singled out as a target for those small
arrows which the feminine eye directs with such faultless skill at one
of its own sex. With scarcely perceptible movements they would draw
aside when passing her, as though to escape corrupting contact. Certain
ones of the younger Sisters, who were jealous of her beauty, did not
fail to drop inuendoes for her to overhear. And upon some of the
novices, whose minds were still wavering between the church and the
world, it was thought that her example might have a dangerous influence.
It is always wrong to judge motives; but it is possible that the head of
the Order may have thought it best that this ruined life should take on
the halo of martyrdom, from which fresh lustre would be reflected upon
the annals of the church. However this may be, after about eighteen
months of waiting, during which correspondence was held with the
Sandwich Islands, it was determined that Sister Dolorosa should be
allowed to go thither and join the labours of the Franciscan Sisters.
From the day when consent was given she passed into that peace with
which one ascends the scaffold or awaits the stake. It was this look of
peace that Gordon had seen on her face as she moved hither and thither
about the shrine.
Only a few weeks after he had thus seen her the day came for her to go.
Of those who took part in the scene of farewell she was the most
unmoved. A month later she sailed from San Francisco for Honolulu; and
in due time there came from Honolulu to the Mother Superior the
following letter. It contains all that remains of the earthly history of
Pauline Cambron--