“Did she say that?” There was a tone of tender regret in the priest’s voice.
“She did. But, Father, I want to know how to deal with Belasez. Sometimes she will talk to me quite freely, and tell me all her thoughts and feelings: at other times I cannot get a word out of her.”
“Let her alone at the other times. What is the state of her mind?”
“She seems to have been very much struck, Father, with a sermon from your Bishop, wherein he proved out of her own Scriptures, she says, that our Lord is the Messiah whom the Jews believe. But I do not know if she has reached any point further than that. I think she hardly knows what to believe.”
“Only those sermons do good which God preaches,” said Bruno. Perhaps he spoke rather to himself than to Doucebelle. “Whenever the maiden will speak to thee, do not repulse her. Lead her, to the best of thy power, to see that Christ is God’s one cure for all evil. Yet He must teach it first to thyself.”
“I think He has done so—a little,” answered Doucebelle. “But, Father, will you not speak to her?”
“My child, we will both wait upon God, and speak the words He gives us, at the time He will. And remember,—whatever blunders men make,—Belasez is, after the flesh, nearer akin to Him than thou art. She is the kinswoman of the Lord Jesus. Let that thought spur thee on, if thou faint by the way.”
“Father! Our Lord was not a Jew?”
“He was a Jew, my daughter.”
Hardly any news could more have amazed Doucebelle.