“‘God will not forget.’
“‘God has forgotten already. I shall be shot for this. I have disobeyed orders.’
“Monsieur, it was the mood of the confessional, was it not? And this man was indeed an instrument of God. Do you blame me that I heard his confession, and that I gave him comfort—he, an alien, an enemy, a Prussian, who had saved Mont César and did not know why he had saved it, except that God had led him? He knew that von Manteuffel had learned of his disobedience; he knew that death and disgrace were before him; yet knowing these things he had persisted, and Mont César was saved.
“Monsieur, God’s will is strange, and the seed that God plants bears strange fruit. All men long for immortality; all men long for something which will bear their name to posterity, and he who had saved Mont César—do you blame him if he longed to be held in remembrance by the monks of our monastery? I promised to place his photograph here where you see it. I promised to write on it ‘The Saviour of Mont César’—as you see. I swore by the cross I wear that all this should be done, and yet—it was God’s will, monsieur—the German was not satisfied. I could see that his mind was tormented still.
“‘Promise me one thing more, Herr monk,’ he begged.
“‘What is it?’ I asked.
“‘Promise me just one thing more.’
“‘Very well. I promise, my son,’ I said. You see, monsieur, I called him ‘son,’ for he was a true son of the Church although a Prussian, and he had obeyed the voice of the good God although he was my enemy.
“‘Your processions on holy days, you monks sing in them?’
“‘We sing, my son.’