se sears my heart. Do
you not see, in the very coming of the _procureur-general_, a command
from heaven echoing the voice in my own soul which cries to me:
Confess!"

The two priests, the prince of the Church as well as the humble rector,
these two great lights, each in his own way, stood with their
eyes lowered and were silent. Deeply moved by the grandeur and the
resignation of the guilty woman, the judges could not pronounce her
sentence.

"My child," said the archbishop at last, raising his noble head,
macerated by the customs of his austere life, "you are going beyond the
commandments of the Church. The glory of the Church is to make her dogma
conform to the habits and manners of each age; for the Church goes
on from age to age in company with humanity. According to her present
decision secret confession has taken the place of public confession.
This substitution has made the new law. The sufferings you have endured
suffice. Die in peace: God has heard you."

"But is not this desire of a guilty woman in conformity with the law
of the first Church, which has enriched heaven with as many saints
and martyrs and confessing souls as there are stars in the firmament?"
persisted Veronique, vehemently. "Who said: _Confess yourselves to one
another_? Was it not the disciples, who lived with the Saviour? Let
me confess my shame publicly on my knees. It will redeem my sin to the
world, to that family exiled and almost extinct through me. The world
ought to know that my benefactions are not an offering, but the payment
of a debt. Suppose that later, after my death, something tore from my
memory the lying veil which covers me. Ah! that idea is more than I can
bear, it is death indeed!"

"I see in this too much of calculation, my child," said the archbishop,
gravely. "Passions are still too strong in you; the one I thought
extinct is--"

"Oh! I swear to you, Monseigneur," she said, interrupting the prelate
and fixing her eyes, full of horror, upon him, "my heart is as purified
as that of a guilty and repentant woman can be; there is nothing now
within me but the thought of God."

"Monseigneur," said the rector in a tender voice, "let us leave
celestial justice to take its course. It is now four years since I have
strongly opposed this wish; it is the only difference that has ever come
between my penitent and myself. I have seen to the depths of that soul,
and I know this earth has no longer any hold there. Though the tea