“All I have done is through you, my friends,” she said. “I have been useful, I can be so no longer. All is fruitful around us now; nothing is barren and desolated here except my heart. You well know, my dear rector, that I can only find peace and pardon there.”
She stretched her hand toward the cemetery. Never had she said as much since the day of her arrival, when she was taken with sudden illness at the same spot. The rector looked attentively at his penitent, and the habit of penetration he had long acquired made him see that in those simple words he had won another triumph. Veronique must have made a mighty effort over herself to break her twelve years’ silence with a speech that said so much. The rector clasped his hands with a fervent gesture that was natural to him as he looked with deep emotion at the members of this family whose secrets had passed into his heart.
Gerard, to whom the words “peace and pardon” must have seemed strange, was bewildered. Monsieur Ruffin, with his eyes fixed on Veronique, was stupefied. At this instant the carriage came rapidly up the avenue.
“There are five of them!” cried the rector, who could see and count the travellers.
“Five!” exclaimed Gerard. “Can five know more than two?”
“Ah,” cried Madame Graslin suddenly, grasping the rector’s arm, “the procureur-general is among them! What is he doing here?”
“And papa Grossetete, too!” cried Francis.
“Madame,” said the rector, supporting Veronique, and leading her apart a few steps, “show courage; be worthy of yourself.”
“But what can he want?” she replied, leaning on the balustrade. “Mother!” (the old woman ran to her daughter with an activity that belied her years.) “I shall see him again,” she said.
“As he comes with Monsieur Grossetete,” said the rector, “he can have none but good intentions.”