Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/415

 in a prison looking into your empty grave and knowing there is no escape till you fill it—perhaps not even then—while all the time the children are laughing at their play outside, and the scent of the summer roses comes in through the bars—the summer roses that your hands shall never reach, your lips shall never press! Ah! that is the ingenuity of the torture, when perhaps, to wear one of these roses in your bosom for an hour, you would barter your priesthood here, and your soul hereafter!"

"It must be hard sometimes," answered Cerise, kindly—"very hard; but is not that the whole value of the ordeal? What do we give up for our faith—even we poor women, who hold ourselves good Catholics?—three hours at most in the week, and a slice of the sirloin or the haunch on Friday. Oh, Florian, it is dreadful to me to think how little I can do to further the work of the Church! I feel as if a thousand strong men were pulling, with all their might, at a load, and I could only put one of my poor weak fingers on the rope for a second at a time."

"My daughter," he answered, assuming at once the sacerdotal character, "the weakest efforts, rendered with a will, are counted by the Church with the strongest. St. Clement says that 'if one, going on his daily business, shall move out of his way but two steps towards the altar, he shall not be without his reward.' Submit yourself to the Church and her ministers, in thought, word, and deed, so will she take your burden on her own shoulders, and be answerable for your welfare in this world and the next."

It was the old dangerous doctrine he had learned by rote and repeated to so many penitents during his ministration. He saw the full influence of it now, and wished, for one wild moment, that he could be a better Christian, or a worse! But when she turned her eyes on him so hopefully, so trustfully, the evil spirit was rebuked, and came out of the man, tearing him the while, and almost tempting him to curse her—the woman he worshipped—because, for the moment, her face was "as the face of an angel." He had a mind then to return to St. Omer at once—to trust himself no longer with this task, this duty, this penance, whatever their cruelty chose to call it—to confess his insubordination without reserve, and accept whatever penalty the Order