“Yes!” The word came feverishly. The composure that she had been fighting to retain was slipping from her. “Yes—I must! I must!” She was close upon him, forcing him back toward the chair. Her eyes, dry and wide before, were swimming with sudden tears. “Oh, don't you understand! Oh, don't you understand! I am not kneeling to you as a man, I am kneeling to you as—as a—a priest—a priest of God—for—for I have sinned.”
She was on her knees—and, with a mental cry of anguish, Raymond slipped down into the chair. Yes, he understood—now—at last! He understood what, pray God, she should never realise he understood! She—Valérie—cared. And she was trying now—God, the cruelty of it!—and she was trying now to save herself, to protect herself, by forcing upon herself an actual physical acceptance of him as a priest. No! It was not so! It could not be so! He did not understand!
He would not have it so! He would not! It was only hell's trickery again—only that—and——
“Lay your hands on my head, father.” She caught his hands and lifted them, and laid them upon her bowed head—and as his hands touched her she seemed to tremble for an instant, and her hands tightened upon his. “Hold them there for a little while, father,” she murmured—and took her own hands away, and clasped them before her hidden face.
Raymond's countenance was ashen as he bent forward. What had that voice prompted him to do? Be the priest? Well, he was being the priest now—and he knew torment in the depths of a sacrilege at last before which his soul shrank back appalled. The soft hair was silken to the touch of his hands, and yet it burned and seared him as with brands of fire. It was Valérie's hair. It was Valérie's head that was bowed before him. It was Valérie, the one to whom his soul had called, who was kneeling to him—as a priest of God—to save herself!
“Say the Pater Noster with me, father,” she whispered.
He bent his head still lower—lower now that she might not by any chance glimpse his face. Like death it must look. He pressed his hands in assent upon her head—but it was Valérie's voice alone that faltered through the room.
“.... Sanctificetur nomen tuum—hallowed be Thy name... fiat voluntas tua—Thy will be done.... et dimitte nobis débita nostra—and forgive us our trespasses... et ne nos inducas in tentationem—and lead us not into temptation... sed libera nos a malo—but deliver us from evil... Amen.”
The lamp burned upon the desk; it lighted up the room—but before Raymond's eyes was only a blur, and nothing was distinct. And there was silence—silence for a long time.
And then Valérie spoke again.