His thin hands moved restlessly. His leg moved, and the little bell tinkled—the bell that had been like the bell of a leper these years past.
“But you live, and you have years yet before you, in the providence of God. Luc Pomfrette, you blasphemed against your baptism, and horribly against God himself. Luc”—his voice got softer—“I knew your mother, and she was almost too weak to hold you when you were baptised, for you made a great to-do about coming into the world. She had a face like a saint—so sweet, so patient. You were her only child, and your baptism was more to her than her marriage even, or any other thing in this world. The day after your baptism she died. What do you think were her last words?”
There was a hectic flush on Pomfrette’s face, and his eyes were intense and burning as they looked up fixedly at the Cure.
“I can’t think any more,” answered Pomfrette slowly. “I’ve no head.”
“What she said is for your heart, not for your head, Luc,” rejoined the Cure gently. “She wandered in her mind, and at the last she raised herself up in her bed, and lifting her finger like this”—he made the gesture of benediction—“she said, ‘Luc Michele, I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’ Then she whispered softly: ‘God bless my dear Luc Michee! Holy Mother pray for him!’ These were her last words, and I took you from her arms. What have you to say, Luc Michee?”
The woman in the gallery was weeping silently behind her thick veil, and her worn hand clutched the desk in front of her convulsively. Presently she arose and made her way down the stair, almost unnoticed. Two or three times Luc tried to speak, but could not. “Lift me up,” he said brokenly, at last.
Parpon and the Little Chemist raised him to his feet, and held him, his shaking hands resting on their shoulders, his lank body tottering above and between them.
Looking at the congregation, he said slowly: “I’ll suffer till I die for cursing my baptism, and God will twist my neck in purgatory for—”
“Luc,” the Cure interrupted, “say that you repent.”
“I’m sorry, and I ask you all to forgive me, and I’ll confess to the Cure, and take my penance, and—” he paused, for breathing hurt him.