Catholics -- United States -- Fiction; Love stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
“My dear,” said Sister Bonaventure with her smile, which Cis found at
once illuminative and baffling, “as to that we can only pray and hope;
pray that she may have the grace she so sorely needs; hope that when
she receives the sacraments they may have the soil to work on in which
they always are fruitful. The poor things who die in our infirmary
rarely refuse the last offices, and we try to make them fit to receive
them; after that--” Sister Bonaventure waved her hands expressing the
Infinite Mercy, and the incomprehensibility of human minds. “I think
they are probably sorry, and God is anxious to go half-way to meet
a parting soul. Habit dulls us all; perhaps God has to come farther
toward all of us than we think He does, even to the best of us.”
“What a miracle to be where Myrtle Moore was, yet to die with you
Sisters praying around her!” cried Cis, tears in her eyes.
“What a miracle it is to die anywhere, yet with immortality and
infinity around us!” cried Sister Bonaventure. “Cicely, we are so
surrounded with miracles, so accustomed to handling them, that we are
obtuse! Now, my dear, this woman’s former husband, who is still her
husband, for they were married by a priest, and their divorce does not
touch the fact--what about him? He should be sent for, if she grows
as much worse within a week as our doctor and our Sister Infirmarian
expects her to. She does not know where he is, and we are completely at
sea as to how to look for him. Could you make a suggestion?”
“Did you know, Sister, that I was going to marry him, not knowing that
he had ever been married? And that he would not deceive me, so, at the
last minute--our home was preparing--he told me that he was divorced?”
cried Cis.
“Was that the way of it?” asked Sister Bonaventure serenely. “No, I did
not know anything whatever, but I surmised that there was something to
know, that your interest in the patient was not fully explained by your
rescue of her. Have you his address, my dear?”
“He can always be reached through his firm, the main house, in
Chicago,” replied Cis. “I have that address; yes, Sister. Shall I give
it to you?”
She wondered at the matter-of-course way in which the nun received her
brief statement that she had almost, though innocently, married a man
already married. She had not dealt enough with the Religious of her
faith to know that they rarely seem to be surprised by human vagaries,
and still more rarely betray a shock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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