Victor Le Roy seemed to have some suspicion of what was passing in her thoughts.  He did not need to watch her changeful face in order to understand them.

“I advise you to still think of this,” said he.  “Recall your father’s life, and then ask yourself if it is likely that He who is Love requires the sacrifice of your youth and your strength before your father shall receive from Him what He has promised to give to all who trust in Him.  Take God at his word, and you will be obliged to give up all this priest-trash.”

IV.

Victor Le Roy spoke these words quietly, as if aware that he might safely leave them, as well as any other true words, to the just sense of Jacqueline.

She was none the happier for them when she returned that night to the little city room, the poor lodging whose high window overlooked both town and country, city streets and harvest-fields, and the river flowing on beyond the borders of the town,—­no happier through many a moment of thinking, until, as it were by an instant illumination, she began to see the truth of the matter, as some might wonder she did not instantly perceive it, if they could omit from observation this leading fact, that the orphan girl was Jacqueline Gabrie, child of the Church, and not a wise and generous person, who had never been in bondage to superstitions.

For a long time after her return to her lodging she was alone.  Elsie was in the street with the rest of the town, talking, as all were talking, of the sight that Meaux should see to-morrow.

Besides Jacqueline, there was hardly another person in this great building, six stories high, every room of which had usually a tenant at this hour.  She sat by her window, and looked at the dusky town, over which the moon was rising.  But her thoughts were far away; over many a league they wandered.

Once more she stood on the playground of her toilsome childhood.  She recalled many a year of sacrificing drudgery, which now she could not name such,—­for another reason than that which had heretofore prevented her from calling it a sacrifice.  She remembered these years of wrong and of extortion,—­they received their proper name now,—­years whose mirth and leisure she had quietly foregone, but during which she had borne a burden that saddened youth, while it also dignified it,—­a burden which had made her heart’s natural cheerfulness the subject of self-reproach, and her maiden dreams and wishes matter for tears, for shame, for confession, for prayer.

Now Victor Le Roy’s words came to her very strangely; powerfully they moved her.  She believed them in this solitude, where at leisure she could meditate upon them.  A vision more fair and blessed than she had ever imagined rose before her.  There was no suffering in it, and no sorrow; it was full of peace.  Already, in the heaven to which she had hoped her toil would give him at length admission, her father had found his home.  There was a glory in his rest not reflected from her filial love, but from the all-availing love of Christ.