“Let me bring Father Gabriel to you,” said she. “He will give you whatever comfort God permits.”
“Do not suppose I shall tell Father Gabriel what you want to discover,” replied Papalier. “He has no business with more than my share of the affair: which is what you know already. I am too weak to talk—to Father Gabriel, or any one else.”
“But you need comfort. You will rest better afterwards.”
“Well, well; in the evening, perhaps. I must be quiet now. Comfort, indeed!” he muttered. “Yes, I want comfort enough, in the horrid condition I am in. But there is no comfort till one lies dead. I wish I were dead.”
He fell into a restless doze. Moved by his misery and melted by the thought that she had wronged him, all these years, by harbouring the image of his hand on her infant’s throat—distracted, too, by the new doubts that had arisen—Thérèse prayed and wept, wept and prayed, on behalf of Papalier and all sinners. Again and again she implored that these wretched hatreds, those miserable strifes, might be all hushed in the grave,—might be wholly dissolved in death.
She was just stealing to the door, intending to send for Father Gabriel, that he might be in readiness for the dying man’s confession, when Papalier started, cast his eyes round the room hurriedly, and exclaimed—
“It is in vain to talk of attaching them. If one’s eye is off them for one moment— Oh! you are there, Thérèse! I thought, after all I had done for you—after all I had spent upon you— I thought you would not go off with the rest. Don’t go— Thérèse—Thérèse!”
“I am here,” said she, perceiving that he no longer saw.
“I knew you would stay,” he said, very faintly. “I cannot spare you, my dear.”
The last words he said were—