As she hesitated, the crowd about her again demanded the offender’s name.
Yet she hesitated. Then, turning to the trembling Roman, who each moment feared to hear her name the name of Adalgisa, the high priestess raised her right hand to her head, took from it the holy wreath, worn as the badge of purity; bent low her head, and said, “I—I am that guilty one!” So her better nature had conquered. All pride and anger gone! In her rage she would have denounced Adalgisa; but her sense of justice triumphed, and she denounced herself.
With a world of shame and repentance seething within him, the Roman cried, “No! believe her not, she speaketh knowing not what she sayeth!”
Still hiding her face, she said, “Norma speaketh the shameful truth!” And she saw her white-headed father draw away, degraded, from his brethren.
She crept up to her husband, and in her looks she told him what a loving wife he had destroyed. Then she whispered it was a destiny that they should die together, their ashes mingling on the same pile, and the same winds scatter them abroad.
All his old love for her returned in this sublime moment. Joy—a dying joy for her filled all his soul. She saw him look upon her as of old, with loving eyes, though they were now filled with pitying tears. “Pardon!” he cried—the most blessed words she could hear; for women will die that they may forgive men; “Pardon!”
But ere she could speak, her father crept up to her, and whispered that she had spoken falsely—that she was not so fallen—that she was yet pure. Then aloud he cried, “If the unyielding god who sees us holds back his angry thunder thou art guiltless!” Again he whispered, “Norma—my daughter—thou art guiltless.”
What is it that she says which makes him start in horror? What is it that makes the blood redden his aged forehead? She has told him of her children—her living children.
He draws his robe from her, as though pollution were in her touch. His trembling feet bear him from her—his daughter—the once proud, magnificent high priestess.
But she follows him—prays to him to save them. Still his head is erect, and his eyes are tearless. She is his own flesh and blood. She bids him think of her own early days; she hoarsely cries that in a few minutes she shall be dead, and again she prays him to seek her children, who are with Clotilda, and to watch over them. Gradually his head falls lower and lower on his breast. At last, without fear of pollution, he lays his hand upon her head, and promises to fulfil her last desire.