“Ah! monsieur,” she cried, giving herself wholly up to him by a gesture, a look, such as the dying give.
“I understand you,” he said. “What is to be done? What will you become?”
They walked in silence the whole length of the balustrade, facing toward the plain. The solemn moment seemed propitious to the bearer of good tidings, the gospel messenger, and he took it.
“Suppose yourself now in the presence of God,” he said, in a low voice, mysteriously; “what would you say to Him?”
Madame Graslin stopped as though struck by a thunderbolt; she shuddered; then she said simply, in tones that brought tears to the rector’s eyes:—
“I should say, as Jesus Christ said: ‘Father, why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“Ah! Magdalen, that is the saying I expected of you,” cried Monsieur Bonnet, who could not help admiring her. “You see you are forced to appeal to God’s justice; you invoke it! Listen to me, madame. Religion is, by anticipation, divine justice. The Church claims for herself the right to judge the actions of the soul. Human justice is a feeble image of divine justice; it is but a pale imitation of it applied to the needs of society.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are not the judge of your own case, you are dependent upon God,” said the priest; “you have neither the right to condemn yourself nor the right to absolve yourself. God, my child, is a great reverser of judgments.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed.