he 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 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