Frederick raised his swollen features to gaze with astonishment in the priest’s face.
‘I mean what I say! Love cannot die! Your wife is gone from your mortal gaze, but she still exists and her love exists with her. And now is the time for you to show the world if you did love her or not. I am not questioning your passion for her earthly body. I understand she was very beautiful, and such things take a great hold on men’s fancies. But her body is no longer here for you to lavish your affection upon. What are you going to do for her soul?’
‘Were I a good man, I would pray for it; but who would hear the prayers of such a sinner as I am? Besides, my darling was infinitely purer and better than myself! She can have no need of my prayers.’
‘That is to say, then, that she was not mortal, for all mortals have need of each other’s help. Besides, if she had no need of your prayers, have you none of your own?’
‘Ah! father, you touch me on the raw there. I have felt, even since I comprehended what the awful news they brought me meant, as if it were a judgment upon me for my sins—as if the Lord had taken my innocent darling in His exceeding wrath at my past wickedness.’
‘In His love, not His wrath,’ interposed the priest gently; but Frederick did not heed him.
‘Ever since I lost her,’ he went on, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, ‘I have done nothing but think of Rhoda Berry, and that girl down at Southampton, and other certain black marks on my unhappy life. But is God so hard as that? Can He have stricken down my angel by so cruel a death, just as she was happy with me, because I have made a beast of myself? Why her, and not me? I was the sinner. I should have been the sufferer.’
‘And you are suffering greatly, my son; but it is a suffering which may result in exceeding joy. Why did the Almighty not take you, instead of your wife—the girl whom you led to fly in the face of her parents and to err greatly on that account. I think I can tell you. He was too gracious to cut you off in the midst of your sins, without giving you a chance of reparation, and, by taking her instead, he has left you behind to pray for the salvation of her soul. Frederick, that poor child is even now holding out her pale hands to you, through the gates of purgatory, and saying, “Husband! it was you who led me astray; it is to you I look to release me from these purgatorial fires. Show your great love for me, by dedicating the rest of your life to this pious purpose, so that, when I have risen, I may join my prayers to yours, and requite your goodness by praying for you.” This poor girl was not of our faith; she was a heretic, so much the more does it behove all those who loved her to entreat the Blessed Mother of God to use her interest with her Son in order to gain her salvation. If you love her, Frederick, as you say you do, now is the time to prove it. Come back to the Church you have deserted, and spend your future life so as you may meet your wife again, when your time comes to leave this world.’
‘You mean,’ said Frederick, ‘that I shall give up my fortune to the Church, as my godfather intended I should do. Well, if you will use it in masses for the repose of my poor darling’s soul, you may have it. It is worth nothing to me now. My life, to all intents and purposes, is over.’
‘I do not mean only that,’ replied the priest; ‘I do not think that the Church would accept your money without yourself. But you must not forget, Frederick, what was your sainted mother’s wish and aim. She designed you, her favourite son, for the service of the Church—she educated you for that purpose, but, as soon as you were left without her counsel and guidance, you abandoned your studies and elected to go your own way. But the Church has never given you up. She considers you still as her child and disciple, and is ready at any time to welcome you back into her ranks. A very few more months of study would fit you to pass the necessary examination for ordination as a priest. Is it no inducement to you to know that, in that capacity, you might offer the Mass, every time you celebrated it, for the repose of your wife’s soul—that you would live, as it were, in the presence of God, pleading for her, and for your eternal re-union? If you really desire her everlasting salvation—if you long to meet her again, and in a state of bliss—if you regret your past life and desire to lead a purer one in the future, you will take it up where you dropped it at your mother’s death, and fit yourself for eternity.’