Denise lay motionless, staring at the timbers of the roof. Ursula talked on.
“Our Mother in Heaven knows that we are frail creatures, and that sin is in the world, but it is the hiding of sin that brings us into perdition. It is meet for your penitence that I should speak to you of these infirmities. There is no shame so great that it may not be retrieved. But you must own your sin, my daughter, and humble yourself before Heaven.”
Denise’s hands moved restlessly over the coverlet.
“I have confessed it,” she said, “though it was not of my own seeking. God himself cannot condemn that as a lie.”
Ursula’s face grew more austere and forbidding. She detected hardness and obstinacy in Denise, and overlooked that sensitive pride that may seem reticent and cold.
“You speak too boastfully,” she said. “It may be that God wills it that I should bring you to humbleness and a sense of shame.”
“It is the truth, that I have suffered,” said Denise.
“Not yet perhaps, have you suffered sufficiently, for the proper chastening of the spirit. Think, girl, of God’s great goodness, and the compassion of Our Mother, and St. Helena, in snatching you from death, and the flames, you—one who had fallen, a broken vessel by the roadside, the companion of low women——”
Again Denise’s face flashed scarlet, but this time there was anger in the colour.
“Madame,” she said, “hard words do not bring us into Heaven. I have never been what you would have me pretend to be. And the woman, Marpasse, stood by me, and was my friend. She has a good heart, and for me, that covers a multitude of sins.”