The priest laughed.
"Confess," he said, looking him in the face, "confess that you are saying to yourself, 'It was not worth while to put myself out, for I am no further advanced, this good fellow, the priest, practises expectant medicine; instead of cutting short my crises with energetic remedies, he palters, advises me to go to bed early, not to catch cold—'"
"Oh, Monsieur l'Abbé," protested Durtal.
"Yet I do not wish to treat you like a child, or talk to you like a woman; now attend to me!
"The way in which your conversion has worked leaves me in no doubt whatever. There has been what Mysticism calls the divine touch, only—note this—God has dispensed with human intervention, even with the interference of a priest, to bring you back into the road you have left for more than twenty years.
"Now we cannot reasonably suppose that the Lord has acted lightly, and that He will now leave His work unaccomplished. He will carry it through if you put no obstacle in His way.
"In fact you are at this moment like a block in His hands; what will He do with it? I do not know, but since He has kept to Himself the conduct of your soul, let Him act; be patient, He will explain His action; trust in Him, He will help you; be content to protest with the Psalmist: 'Doce me facere voluntatem tuam, quia Deus meus es tu.'
"I tell you again I believe in the preventive virtue, the formal power of the Sacraments. I quite understand the system of Père Milleriot, who obliged those persons to communicate whom he thought would afterwards fall again into sin. For their only penance he obliged them to communicate again and again, and he ended by purifying them with the Sacred Species, taken in large doses. It is a doctrine at once realistic and exalted.
"But reassure yourself," continued the abbé, looking at Durtal, who seemed wearied, "I do not intend to experiment on you in this way; on the contrary, my advice is that in the state of ignorance in which we are of God's will, you abstain from the Sacraments.
"For you should desire them, and it should come from you rather than from Him; be sure that sooner or later you will thirst for Penance, hunger for the Eucharist. Well, when unable to restrain yourself longer, you ask for pardon and entreat to be allowed to approach the Holy Table, we shall see, we will ask Him what way He will choose to take, in order to save you."