“Yes, I am going there,” she said, pointing towards the great stage. “Paulette has given me these to wear”—she touched the robe—“and I only ask your blessing now. Oh, believe, believe me, I can speak for those who are innocent and those who are guilty; for those who pray and those who cannot pray; for those who confess and those who dare not! I can speak the words out of my heart with gladness and agony, Monsieur,” she urged, in a voice vibrating with feeling.
A luminous look came into the Cure’s face. A thought leapt up in his heart. Who could tell!—this pure girl, speaking for the whole sinful, unbelieving, and believing world, might be the one last conquering argument to the man.
He could not read the agony of spirit which had driven Rosalie to this—to confess through the words of Mary Magdalene her own woe, to say it out to all the world, and to receive, as did Paulette Dubois, every day after the curtain came down, absolution and blessing. She longed for the old remembered peace.
The Cure could not read the struggle between her love for a man and the ineradicable habit of her soul; but he raised his hand, made the sacred gesture over leer, and said: “Go, my child, and God be with you.”
He could not see her for tears as she hurried away to where Paulette Dubois awaited her—the two at peace now. At the hands of the lately despised and injurious woman Rosalie was made ready to play the part in the last act, none knowing save the few who appeared in the final tableau, and they at the last moment only.
The bell began to toll.
A thousand people fell upon their knees, and with fascinated yet abashed and awe-struck eyes saw the great tableau of Christendom: the three crosses against the evening sky, the Figure in the centre, the Roman populace, the trembling Jews, the pathetic groups of disciples. A cloud passed across the sky, the illusion grew, and hearts quivered in piteous sympathy. There was no music now—not a sound save the sob of some overwrought woman. The woe of an oppressed world absorbed them. Even the stolid Indians, as Roman soldiers, shrank awe-stricken from the sacred tragedy. Now the eyes of all were upon the central Figure, then they shifted for a moment to John the Beloved, standing with the Mother.
“Pauvre Mere! Pauvre Christ!” said a weeping woman aloud.
A Roman soldier raised a spear and pierced the side of the Hero of the World. Blood flowed, and hundreds gasped. Then there was silence—a strange hush as of a prelude to some great event.
“It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” said the Figure.