The priest waited, but the woman remained silent.
Did she remember, he asked severely, the words of our Savior, that "he who looketh in lust, committeth adultery." If she kept this idol in her heart, no priest had power to forgive her sins in His name. Her choice was before her, her Lord or her flesh.
Her head was bowed, her hands clasped before her, and she felt tears trickle slowly upon her knuckles.
"Oh, I promise, Father," she whispered, "to try never to think of him any more, and to put him out of my mind—when—the thought comes—unbidden."
The sincerity of her intention was evident in the tones of her voice and she was offered her penance; to be hereafter scrupulous in her religious observances; to hear one mass a week besides the Sunday mass for two months; to say her prayers night and morning always reverently on her knees, not standing or in bed; with the addition of five Our Fathers and Hail Marys night and morning until her penance was completed; to endeavor to influence her family to go with her to Sunday mass each week; and to examine her conscience daily.
The wise and gentle old priest had not been harsh with her, and she accepted humbly and gratefully the penance he imposed.
He prayed to God to regard her mercifully and to lead her to eternal life, then raising his right hand he recited over her the consecrated syllables of the sacrament, ending with the solemn words of peace, Ego te absolvo a peccatis in nomine Patris, here he made the sign of the cross, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. (I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.)
Georgia left the confessional and went to the other part of the church to pray for a clean and strengthened spirit.
The Sunday following she went with Jim, Al and Mrs. Talbot to the cathedral where pontifical mass was celebrated. Encrusted with the accumulated observances of centuries of faith, it is, perhaps, the most intricate, aesthetic and impressive religious rite ever practiced by mankind.
From the archbishop seated on his throne, wearing his two-horned mitre in sign of the two testaments, his emerald ring as spouse of the Church, his silken tunic and dalmatic, his gloves of purity; with his shepherd's crosier in his hand, his woolen pallium over his shoulders, bound with three golden pins in memory of the three nails which fastened Him; from the archbishop crowned with gold to the least acolyte in surplice of white to recall His life, and cassock of black to recall His sorrow, the hierarchical symbolism is complex, mysterious, complete, beautiful.