The Forgiver of Sins

"I SAY UNTO THEE UNTIL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN"

IX

The Forgiver of Sins

"A Priest, for Christ's sake, a priest," moaned the man.

A white-faced sister of charity upon whom had developed the appalling task of caring for the long rows of wounded at the dressing station before they were entrained and sent south to the hospital, hovered over the stretcher.

"My poor man," she whispered, "there is no priest here."

"I can't die without confession--absolution," was the answer. "A priest, get me a priest."

Next to and almost touching the cot on which the speaker writhed in his death agony lay another man apparently in a profound stupor. He wore the uniform of a private soldier and his eyes were bandaged. His face had been torn to pieces by shrapnel, fragments of which had blinded him.

At that instant he came out of that stupor. Perhaps the familiar words recalled him to himself. He moved his hand slightly. The sister saw his lips tremble. She bent low.

"Who seeks confession, absolution?" he whispered. "I am a priest."

"You are wounded, dying, father."

"How can I die better than shriving a fellow sinner?"

That was true. The heroic woman turned to the man who still kept up his monotonous appeal.

"The man next to you," she said, "dying like you, is a priest."

"Father," cried the first man with sudden strength. "I must confess before I die."

"Lift me up," said the priest.

The woman slipped her arm about his shoulders and raised him.

"The sister?" began the other.

"I shall be blind and deaf," said the woman.

"Speak on," whispered the priest.

"I have been a great sinner--there isn't time to confess all."

"What is heaviest upon your soul, my son?"

"A woman's fate."

"Ah."

"There were two who loved her--a dozen years ago--she preferred me--I took her away."

"Did you marry her?"

"No. And then we quarreled--I deserted her. When I came to seek her she was gone--young, innocent, penniless, alone in Paris--I have sought her and never found her."

"What is your name?" asked the priest suddenly with a fierce note in his quivering voice.

"Father, can I be forgiven?" answered the man giving his name.

The dying soldier stared anxiously up at his bandaged comrade, at the nun who had hid her face behind the shoulder of the priest. He noticed that her body was shaking.

"And the woman's name?"

The priest suddenly sat upright. He shook off the sister's restraining hand. He tore the bandage from his own face. He bent over the dying man as he murmured the woman's name.

"Wretch," he cried, "look at me."

His face was gashed and cut and torn but something remained by which the other recognized him.

"You!" he cried shrinking away.

"I loved her, too," said the priest. "I would have married her. When she went away with you Holy Church received me."

"Mercy," cried the soldier uplifting his hand.

"What mercy did you show her?"

The priest could not see but he could feel. His hand seized the other's throat.

"My father," interposed the nun. "He has confessed. G.o.d will forgive, even as I."

"Who are you?" asked the blind priest, fearfully.

"The woman!" cried the dying man shaking off the other's hand and lifting himself up.

The sight came back to the priest on the instant. The fierce agony that filled his blinded eyes seemed to give place to the gentle touch of a hand upon them. He seemed to hear a mighty word--_Ephphatha_--that meant "be opened." Light flooded his soul. Looking up he was aware of two figures. One of the twain, an old man, gray bearded, was appealing to the other, clad in white raiment and youthful. And the priest suddenly recalled an old and well-known story of a fellow servant who would not have mercy.

"Father, forgive--" whispered the man before him.

As the voice of the dying sinner died away in the silence all was dark again. The priest saw no more, but the horrible pain in his eyes did not return. Over his torn features came a look of calm. He lifted his arm.

His wavering hand cut the air in the sign of the cross.

"_Absolvo te_," he murmured as he pitched forward dead upon the breast of the dying.