A great wave of color came over Rose's face at the mention of her child. She would like to speak of him at once, yet she restrained herself.
"Dear little girl," she said, in her low, soothing voice, "you are so young, so delightfully young. See, I have just been explaining to you, yet you do not listen. You will have to learn for yourself. The experience of one woman does not help another. Yet let me read to you, who think it so painful a thing to be denied anything that one wants, a few sentences from our good archbishop."
Bidiane sprang lightly to her feet, and Rose went to a bookcase, and, taking out a small volume bound in green and gold, read to her: "'Marriage is a high and holy state, and intended for the vast majority of mankind, but those who expand and merge human love in the divine, espousing their souls to God in a life of celibacy, tread a higher and holier path, and are better fitted to do nobler service for God in the cause of suffering humanity.'"
"Those are good words," said Bidiane, with twitching lips.
"It is of course a Catholic view," said Rose; "you are a Protestant, and you may not agree perfectly with it, yet I wish only to convince you that if one is denied the companionship of one that is beloved, it is not well to say, 'Everything is at an end. I am of no use in the world.'"
"I think you are the best and the sweetest woman that I ever saw," said Bidiane, impulsively.
"No, no; not the best," said Rose, in accents of painful humility. "Do not say it,—I feel myself the greatest of sinners. I read my books of devotion, I feel myself guilty of all,—even the blackest of crimes. It seems that there is nothing I have not sinned in my thoughts. I have been blameless in nothing, except that I have not neglected the baptism of children in infancy."
"You—a sinner!" said Bidiane, in profound scepticism. "I do not believe it."
"None are pure in the sight of our spotless Lord," said Rose, in agitation; "none, none. We can only try to be so. Let me repeat to you one more line from our archbishop. It is a poem telling of the struggle of souls, of the search for happiness that is not to be found in the world. This short line is always with me. I cannot reach up to it, I can only admire it. Listen, dear child, and remember it is this only that is important, and both Protestant and Catholic can accept it—'Walking on earth, but living with God.'"
Bidiane flung her arms about her neck. "Teach me to be good like you and Mr. Nimmo. I assure you I am very bad and impatient."