Now the mere touch of the paper in
his hand gave him a sense of returning weakness, dissatisfaction,
and longing. The home of his boyhood, the rushing of the Rhone, a
seat in a shady nook of the garden, Madeline, his sister,
prattling beside him, and his mother singing somewhere about the
house--it all came back and went over him and through him, making
his heart sink strangely, while another voice, the sweetest ever
heard--but she was ineffable and her memory a forbidden fragrance.
Father Beret tottered across the forlorn little room and knelt
before the crucifix holding his clasped hands high, the letter
pressed between than. His lips moved in prayer, but made no sound;
his whole frame shook violently.
It would be unpardonable desecration to enter the chamber of
Father Beret's soul and look upon his sacred and secret trouble;
nor must we even speculate as to its particulars. The good old man
writhed and wrestled before the cross for a long time, until at
last he seemed to receive the calmness and strength he prayed for
so fervently; then he rose, tore the letter into pieces so small
that not a word remained whole, and squeezed them so firmly
together that they were compressed into a tiny, solid ball, which
he let fall through a crack between the floor puncheons. After
waiting twenty years for that letter, hungry as his heart was, he
did not even open it when at last it arrived.
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