"You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of 'Neere' by Andre Chenier," said the abbe. "Poets are sublime because they clothe both facts and feelings with ever-living images."
"Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?" said Ursula in a grieved tone. "We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of our souls."
"Well," said the doctor, smiling, "we must go out of the world, and when I am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune."
"When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will be to consecrate my life to you."
"To me, dead?"
"Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to redeem your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy, that he may not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon among the righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours."
That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certainty, confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul. A ray of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of this tenderness, covering his years to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden effect of grace had something that seemed electrical about it. The abbe clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl, astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had called him, looking into space as though his eyes beheld the dawn; then he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground as one humiliated.
"My God," he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, "if any one can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child presents to thee!"
He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and held out his hand.
"My dear pastor," he said, "I am become as a little child. I belong to you; I give my soul to your care."
Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply moved, recited the "Veni Creator" in a species of religious ecstasy. The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling together for the first time.
"What has happened?" asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
"My godfather believes in God at last!" replied Ursula.
"Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect," cried the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
"Dear doctor," said the good priest, "you will soon comprehend the grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest sceptics."
The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation, was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart, though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula's evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the responsible editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His dear child told him that he might know by how far he had advanced already in God's kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him attend, he had read the prayers and applied his own intelligence to them; from the first, he had risen to the divine idea of the communion of the faithful. The old neophyte understood the eternal symbol attached to that sacred nourishment, which faith renders needful to the soul after conveying to it her own profound and radiant essence.
When on leaving the church he had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely that he might once more thank his dear child for having led him to "enter religion,"--the beautiful expression of former days. He was holding her on his knee in the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly at the very moment when his relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their shameless fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula. His haste to return home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies as he left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the hatred Ursula had excited against them in the old man's mind.
