ne over on the right who was noiselessly
going the way of the cross. Yet Pere 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:

"_Benissez-moin, mo' Pere, pa'ce que mo peche_." (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. Pere 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!"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable

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