“By searching. The last hour I have gone through every building looking for you and came in course to this outhouse.”
“May the saints ease your dying hour for this kindness, father. Oh that you had come while Aileen was alive!”
“Fret not over the past, Gerald; there is work calling for you which you must rise and do.”
“I have no heart to lift my head: I want to die and be with Aileen.”
“A wish natural to the flesh, my son, but I taught you to little avail if I did not ground you in the belief that it is the duty of the Christian to so direct the blind sorrow of fallen humanity that it become an impulse to more strenuous discharge of our daily duties. Aileen is dead; requiescat en pace. Is your sorrow for her to be a selfish sorrow that will add to your load of sin; or shall it become an incitement to you to do for those around you what she would wish you to do could she speak?”
“Do not ask me; I cannot forget her.”
“You are not asked to forget her. May you ever see her in your mind’s eye, beckoning you on to works of faith and mercy; may her precious memory be your inspiration to do what duty calls from your hand.”
“There is no need of my help now.”
“No need! I tell you every hour there are Irish men and women dying within a furlong of you for lack of the commonest help. Before I came here, I found sick who had not had their fever assuaged by a drop of water for 18 hours; children who had not tasted a bite since yesterday; the dead lying beside the living, and all because there is none to help.”
“I do not understand why that should be on land. There is plenty of food and help in Quebec.”