“Father!” she said, in a tone of mingled amazement and inquiry.
“What now, my daughter?”
“People always speak of love as weak, if not wicked.”
“People often talk of what they do not understand, my child. ‘God is love.’ Think not, therefore, that God resembles a worldly fancy which springs to-day, and fades away to-morrow. His is the heavenly love which can never die, which is ready to sacrifice all things, which so looks to the true welfare of the beloved that it will give thee any earthly suffering rather than see thee sink into perdition by thy sins. This is real love, daughter: and thou canst not sin in giving it to Belasez or to any other.”
“Yet, Father,” said Doucebelle in a puzzled tone, “the religious give up love when they go into the cloister. I do not understand. A Sister of Saint Ursula may not leave her convent, even if her own mother lies dying, and pleads hard to see her. And though some priests do wed,”—this had not yet, in England, ceased to be the case—“yet people always seem to think the celibate priests more holy, as if that were more in accordance with the will of God. Yet God tells us to love each other. I cannot quite understand.”
If Doucebelle could have seen, as well as spoken, through the confessional grating, assuredly she would have stopped sooner. For the agony that was working in every line of Father Bruno’s face would have been terrible to her to see. But she only thought that it was a long while before he answered her, and she wondered at the hard, constrained tone in his voice.
“Child!” he said, “does any one but God ‘quite understand’? Do we understand ourselves?—and how much less each other? It is only love that understands. He who most loves God will best understand men. And for the rest,—O Lord who hast loved us, pardon the blunders and misunderstandings of Thy people, and save Thy servants that trust in Thee!—Now go, my child,—unless thou hast more to say. Absolvo te.”
Doucebelle rose and retired. But she did not know that Father Bruno heard no more confessions. She only heard that he was not at home when dinner was served; and when he appeared at supper, he looked very worn and white, as if after a weary journey.