He was still of some use even in this parish.
Whatever her face had been in the past, illness and suffering had refined it. He stayed there long, for he found that she needed him. She unburdened herself to him. She was sorry she had been rude to him that time. She had been a sinful woman. She said she had tried of late to live a good life, since that day he had spoken to her, but she now found that she had not. She had wanted to be a believer and she had gone to hear him preach one day after that, but now she did not seem to believe anything. They told her that she must repent. She wanted to repent, but she could not feel. She was in the dark and she feared she was lost. The old man had taken his seat by her side, and he now held her hand and soothed her tenderly.
“Once, perhaps,” he said doubtfully, “though God only knows that, but certainly no longer. Christ died for you. You say you wanted to change, that you tried to ask God’s pardon and to live a better life even before you fell ill. Do you think you could want this as much as God wanted it? He put the wish into your heart. Do you think He would now let you remain lost? Why, He sent His Son into the world to seek and to save the lost. He has sent me to you to-night to tell you that He has come to save you. It is not you that can save yourself, but He, and if you feel that it is dark about you, never mind—the path is still there. One of the old Fathers has said that God sometimes puts His children to sleep in the dark.”
“But I have been—You don’t know what I have been,” she murmured. The old man laid his hand softly on her head.
“He not only forgave the Magdalen, for her love of Him, but He vouchsafed to her the first sight of His face after His resurrection.”
“I see,” she said simply.
A little later she dozed off, but presently roused up again. A bell was ringing somewhere in the distance. It was the ushering in of the Christmas morn.
“What is that?” she asked feebly.
He told her.
“I think if I were well, if I could ever be good enough, I should like to join the church,” she said. “I remember being baptized—long ago.”