It was some time after our Mary had been buried. The terrible and mysterious cause of her death was known only to God and to me. Though her loving mother was still weeping over her grave, she had soon been forgotten, as usual, by the greatest part of those who had known her: but she was constantly present to my mind. I never entered the confessional-box without hearing her solemn, though so mild, voice telling me, "There must be somewhere something wrong in the auricular confession. Twice I have been destroyed by my confessors; and I have known several others who have been destroyed in the same way."
More than once, when her voice was ringing in my ears from her tomb, I had shed bitter tears on the profound and unfathomable degradation into which I, with the other priests, had to fell in the confessional-box. For many, many times, stories as deplorable as that of this unfortunate girl were confessed to me by city as well as country females.
One night I was awakened by the rumbling noise of thunder, when I heard some one knocking at the door. I hastened out of bed to ask who was there. The answer was that the Rev. Mr. —— was dying, and that he wanted to see me before his death. I dressed myself, and was soon on the highway. The darkness was fearful; and often, had it not been for the lightning which was almost constantly tearing the clouds, we should not have known where we were. After a long and hard journey through the darkness and the storm, we arrived at the house of the dying priest. I went directly to his room, and really found him very low; he could hardly speak. With a sign of his hand he bade his servant-girl and a young man who were there go out, and leave him alone with me.
Then, with a low voice, he said, "Is it you who prepared poor Mary to die?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Please tell me the truth. Is it the fact that she died the death of a reprobate, and that her last words were, 'Oh, my God! I am lost'?"
I answered: "As I was the confessor of that girl, and we were talking together on matters which pertained to her confession, in the very moment that she was unexpectedly summoned to appear before God, I cannot answer your question in any way; please, then, excuse me if I cannot say any more on that subject: but tell me who can have assured you that she died the death of a reprobate."
"It was her own mother," answered the dying man. "She came, last week, to visit me, and when she was alone with me, with many tears and cries, she said how her poor child had refused to receive the last sacraments, and how her last cry was, 'I am lost!'" She added that that cry, 'Lost!' was pronounced with such a frightful power that it was heard through all the house."
"If her mother has told you that," I replied, "you may believe what you please about the way that poor child died. I cannot say a word—you know it—about that matter."
"But if she is lost," rejoined the old, dying priest, "I am the miserable one who has destroyed her. She was an angel of purity when she came to the convent. Oh! dear Mary, if you are lost, I am a thousandfold more lost! Oh, my God, my God! what will become of me? I am dying; and I am lost!"