The eye of the priest rested on her with content; God would not reject this soul, in spite of its great faults and imperfections. Never yet, old as he was, had he met with her equal in power for good, as for evil. He looked at the wounded man who unconsciously clenched his fist in defiance. It almost angered him that he should despise the noblest gift that earth can offer man--a devoted love; that through his indifference he should have had it in his power to harden a heart so noble in its nature and capable of such high-minded sacrifice. "You stupid peasant-lout," he muttered between his teeth.
Wally looked at him enquiringly: she had not understood.
There was a knock at the door, and at the same moment the doctor entered the room. Wally trembled so that she was obliged to hold by the bedpost. Here was the man on whose lips hung redemption or condemnation. A crowd of people pressed in after him to hear what he would say, but he soon turned them all out again. "This is no place for curiosity; the sick man must have the most perfect quiet," he said decidedly, and shut the door. He was a man of few words. Only, when he took the bandage from the sick man's head, "There has been foul play again here," he muttered.
Wally stood white and silent as a statue. The curé purposely avoided looking at her; he feared to disturb her self-possession. The examination began; anxious silence reigned in the little chamber. Wally stood by the window with averted face while the surgeon examined the wounds and used his probe. She had picked up something from the ground which she held convulsively clasped between her hands, and pressed again and again to her lips. It was the thorn-crowned head of the Redeemer that she had broken in the night. "Forgive, forgive," she prayed, pale and quivering in her deadly anguish. "Have mercy on me--I deserve nothing--but let Thy mercy be greater than my sin."
"None of the wounds are mortal," said the doctor in his dry way. "The fellow must have joints like an elephant."
Then Wally's strength went from her. The chord, too long and too highly strung, gave way, and loudly sobbing she threw herself on her knees by the bed, and buried her face in Joseph's pillows. "Oh, thank God! Thank God!"
"What is the matter with her?" asked the doctor. The priest answered him by a sign that he understood.
"Come, collect yourself," he said, "and help me to put on the bandages."
Wally sprang up at once, wiped the tears from her eyes, and lent a helping hand. The priest observed with secret pleasure that she assisted the doctor as carefully and skilfully as a sister of charity; she did not tremble, she wept no more, she showed a steady and quiet self-control--the true self-control of love. And withal there was a glory on her brow, a glory in the midst of sorrow, so that the priest hardly knew her.
"She will do yet--she will do," he said joyfully to himself, like a gardener who sees some treasured faded plant suddenly put forth new shoots.