“Hast not told me so of late.”
“Alas! hath love no voice but words? I was a priest; I had charge of thy soul; the sweet offices of a pure love were lawful; words of love imprudent at the least. But now the good fight is won, ah me! Oh my love, if thou hast lived doubting of thy Gerard's heart, die not so; for never was woman loved so tenderly as thou this ten years past.”
“Calm thyself, dear one,” said the dying woman, with a heavenly smile. “I know it; only being but a woman, I could not die happy till I had heard thee say so. Ah! I have pined ten years for those sweet words. Hast said them, and this is the happiest hour of my life. I had to die to get them; well, I grudge not the price.”
From this moment a gentle complacency rested on her fading features. But she did not speak.
Then Gerard, who had loved her soul so many years, feared lest she should expire with a mind too fixed on earthly affection.
“Oh my daughter,” he cried, “my dear daughter, if indeed thou lovest me as I love thee, give me not the pain of seeing thee die with thy pious soul fixed on mortal things.
“Dearest lamb of all my fold, for whose soul I must answer, oh think not now of mortal love, but of His who died for thee on the tree. Oh, let thy last look be heavenwards, thy last word a word of prayer.”
She turned a look of gratitude and obedience on him. “What saint?” she murmured: meaning doubtless, “what saint should she invoke as an intercessor.”
“He to whom the saints themselves do pray.”
She turned on him one more sweet look of love and submission, and put her pretty hands together in a prayer like a child.