Agnes is startled at the proposition, but it does not repel her as it once would have done. This much, at least, unbelief will do for its victims, if they have been Protestant—it destroys that intense prejudice against the Catholic clergy which is the very life of Protestantism. Indeed, it often ploughs up the soil of the mind, and roots out the weeds of prejudice and bigotry, leaving a fair chance for the seeds of the true faith to find root. Agnes has been a very thoughtful woman, and has often suspected that there must be some divine influence in the Catholic religion to bind its believers to it, and to sustain them as she has seen no others held and sustained. In Mrs. Vanderlyn, she has perceived, through all her own perplexity and grief, a marked example of this divine assistance. Now that the way is open, she feels a yearning to lay hold of the same support. It is the desperate groping of a despairing soul for something beyond itself. Moreover, she has seen the gentle face of F. Francis, and heard the kind tones of his voice. So she answers humbly:
“If he will let me, Protestant as I am, trouble him with my affairs, I would be indeed glad to have his advice. He must be often called to comfort distressed Catholics, who keep nothing back from their priests.”
“Indeed he is—none oftener. Then I will tell your part of this sad story to him first. He, of course, knows mine already. What shall I call you to him, dear? You will be Mrs. Thorndyke still to him and to me, but you may not like to hear the name from us, and we must designate you.”
“Call me Agnes Rodney—my father’s name may yet be mine. This is the second time I have taken it back. I gave my boy that name. Poor child! He has no other now.”
The boy has been sleeping on the pillows of a sofa for some time, happily hidden from Mrs. Vanderlyn’s sight by the back of his mother’s chair. As he turns now in his sleep, Agnes rouses him, and leads him from the room.
On the following day, Agnes is asked by a servant to come to Mrs. Vanderlyn’s room. She suspects that it is to meet F. Francis, and she is not mistaken. It is not so great a trial to her as she has feared, for Mrs. Vanderlyn has told the story first to him.
From this interview she goes with a chastened spirit, and yet with more of comfort than she has thought it possible for her to feel. He has not spared her in the matter of how much she has been blamable all through her trials in not bearing with her husband more patiently and dutifully, and, above all, in tampering with divorce. He has shown her how the church regards marriage: not as a civil contract, but as a sacrament; and that, in his eyes, she is still John Thorndyke’s wife. So the wish of Mrs. Vanderlyn that Martin might be persuaded to legally marry Agnes after her own death, could not be granted while Agnes had yet a husband. True, the law has freed her from that tie, but no Catholic could bid her take any such advantage. Moreover, it is very doubtful if she will ever see Vanderlyn again. No thought of pursuit or of punishment ever enters her mind. To work for herself and her boy is now all that is left for her, and F. Francis promises to try to find that work for her to do. In the meantime, it is arranged that she shall stay for the present with Mrs. Vanderlyn, making no difference in her name to the landlady, to whom she says that they have discovered that they are remotely connected.
“I guessed it would turn out so,” says the landlady, “and I am right glad the poor soul has found a friend. I think she grows worse very fast. She won’t last long.”
The landlady is not wrong in her conclusions. From this time, Agnes devotes herself to the care of Mrs. Vanderlyn in her fast-failing strength. Indeed, did Agnes not fill the place of nurse, a hired one would be necessary, for the invalid has no relatives in the country upon whom to call. She was an only child, and her father the only one left of his family. From him she has inherited a small competence which has placed her above want and above the need of trying to wring from her husband any support. It was this which tempted him to come so meanly to her, even while living with Agnes, for pecuniary aid, well knowing, as he did, her generous nature.
It is a loving, but short task for Agnes to perform. In little more than three months, Margaret Vanderlyn is dead. But what a missionary even on her dying bed she has proved herself! Agnes sees now what it was that gave the angelic patience, and lent such a glory to the last days of her friend. Day by day, she has been necessarily thrown within the influence and teaching of F. Francis. The soil has indeed been ready, and, after Mrs. Vanderlyn’s burial, she feels, in her desolate condition, that only in the bosom of kind Mother Church is there any consolation for her. Perhaps, too, the desire to get as far as possible from all the infidel tendencies and teachings which Vanderlyn had brought to bear upon her mind makes her turn to the church as the surest and safest refuge. So Agnes Rodney becomes a Catholic, and a sincere one. As she kisses the crucifix, which was Mrs. Vanderlyn’s, she feels that she is a Magdalen, and longs to pour some precious ointment over her Saviour’s feet.