When the footsteps of his last penitent had died away down the church, M. des Graves sat still, thinking of the morrow. He was going to say Mass in the open very early. After waiting for a few minutes, he took off his stole. As he did so, he heard the moan of the leathern door at the end of the church, and he slipped it on again with a little sigh for he was very tired. So dusk was it growing that he considered whether he should light the altar candles; and as he looked towards them his heart began suddenly to quicken. There was something familiar in the footsteps coming up the church. . . . Unable to resist the impulse, slowly, afraid, he turned his head to look.
Yes, it was Gilbert—Gilbert, tall, erect, booted and spurred, girt under his sword-belt with the white scarf of leadership, the red patch of the Sacred Heart on his breast. He walked straight up to the altar steps and knelt down, and the clank of his sword on the stone told the priest that it was no vision.
And into Gilbert’s confession, before he had ended, was suddenly woven a snatch of the Vexilla regis, that hymn which they would all chant on the morrow as they marched, which some one passing the church was singing in a low voice of singular sweetness. The words drifted in through the shattered windows:—
“O crux, ave, spes unica;
Hoc passionis tempore,
Auge piis justitiam,
Reisque dona veniam”—
and died away as the singer passed on. But as M. des Graves raised in absolution a hand that shook a little, he heard Gilbert murmur to himself the last line, and then say, in a steady voice: “I should like you to lay my sword on the altar, Father. It has never been offered.”
The priest stood up. He was obliged to support himself by the rails. Gilbert unbuckled his sword, scabbard and all, and M. des Graves took it from his hands, and, going to the dark and outraged shrine, laid it thereon. Then he sank on his knees, his arms outstretched on the stone, and his head bowed upon it.