She died with a
pleading for pardon and mercy upon her lips, and Bayard came back a
better man. He says he will devote the remainder of his life to an
atonement for his past, and this is what I have been waiting to hear
before I could die in peace. I cannot presume to say," Hortense added
humbly, "that my poor prayers alone could have brought about these
wonderful conversions, but I suppose they have helped, the good
sisters at Notre Dame always told us to 'ask and we should receive,'
and I believe them now. What is the pledge I have made to the fruit it
has yielded? The happiness which the world affords is well lost in
such a cause as this. Is it not, my Amey?"
"Indeed it is," I answered earnestly, "but all the same I think you
have done the most noble and heroic of Christian actions in enlisting
against your own earthly happiness to favor such a cause however
worthy it may be."
"I do not regret it now, Amey," she said with a sweet, sad smile;
"when we look back upon our lives from the watch-tower of a dawning
eternity we are glad to see some noble effort standing out in relief
from all the daily transgressions that confront us. I wish now there
were more such purposes in my empty life."
"This one comprised all others, it seems to me," I put in, earnestly,
"you renounced even the possible and uncertain joys of the world. You
lived under the yoke of this voluntary self-sacrifice, which was
bringing you nearer and nearer every day to your reward.
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