g.
What purpose, indeed, had she? She turned her thought from this
question, but it would not let her alone. Again and yet again she turned
to meet it, and thus would surely have at length its satisfying answer.

John Leclerc might pass through this ordeal, as from the first she
had expected of him. But she listened to the speech of many of her
fellow-laborers. Some prophecies which had a sound incredible escaped
them. She did not credit them, but they tormented her. They contended
with one another. John, some foretold, would certainly retract. One day
of public whipping would suffice. When the blood began to flow, he would
see his duty clearer! The men were prophesying from the depths and the
abundance of their self-consciousness. Others speculated on the final
result of the executed sentence. They believed that the "obstinacy" and
courage of the man would provoke his judges, and the executors of his
sentence,--that with rigor they would execute it,--and that, led on
by passion, and provoked by such as would side with the victim, the
sentence would terminate in his destruction. Sooner or later, nothing
but his life would be found ultimately to satisfy his enemies.

It might be so, thought Jacqueline Gabrie. What then? what then?--she
thought. There was inspiration to the girl in that cruel prophecy. Her
lifework was not ended. If Christ was the One Ransom, and it did truly
fall on Him, and not on her, to care for those beloved, departed from
this life, her work was still for love.

John Leclerc disabled or dead, who should care then for his aged mother?
Who should minister to him? Who, indeed, but Jacqueline?

Living or dying, she said to herself, with grand enthusiasm,--living or
dying, let him do the Master's pleasure! She also was here to serve that
Master; and while in spiritual things he fed the hungry, clothed the
naked, gave the cup of living water, visited the imprisoned, and the
sick of sin, she would bind herself to minister to him and his old
mother in temporal things; so should he live above all cares save those
of heavenly love. She could support them all by her diligence, and in
this there would be joy.

She thought this through her toil; and the thought was its own reward.
It strengthened her like an angel,--strengthened heart and faith. She
labored as no other peasant-woman did that day,--like a beast of burden,
unresisting, patient,--like a holy saint, so peaceful and assured, so
conscious of the