“Yes,” she said, with the simplicity of a grief which has reached the point of making no attempt at concealment. “I see plainly that you have fallen into the gulf of apathy,” he cried. “If there is a degree of physical suffering at which all sense of modesty expires, there is also a degree of moral suffering in which all vigor of soul is lost; I know that.” She was surprised to hear that subtle observation and to find such tender pity from this village rector; but, as we have seen already, the exquisite delicacy which no passion had ever touched gave him the true maternal spirit for his flock. This _mens devinior_, this apostolic tenderness, places the priest above all other men and makes him, in a sense, divine. Madame Graslin had not as yet had enough experience of Monsieur Bonnet to know this beauty hidden in his soul like a spring, from which flowed grace and purity and true life. “Ah! monsieur,” she cried, giving herself wholly up to him by a gesture, a look, such as the dying give. “I understand you,” he said. “What is to be done? What will you become?” They walked in silence the whole length of the balustrade, facing toward the plain. The solemn moment seemed propitious to the bearer of good tidings, the gospel messenger, and he took it. “Suppose yourself now in the presence of God,” he said, in a low voice, mysteriously; “what would you say to Him?” Madame Graslin stopped as though struck by a thunderbolt; she shuddered; then she said simply, in tones that brought tears to the rector’s eyes:-- “I should say, as Jesus Christ said: ‘Father, why hast thou forsaken me?’” “Ah! Magdalen, that is the saying I expected of you,” cried Monsieur Bonnet, who could not help admiring her. “You see you are forced to appeal to God’s justice; you invoke it! Listen to me, madame. Religion is, by anticipation, divine justice. The Church claims for herself the right to judge the actions of the soul. Human justice is a feeble image of divine justice; it is but a pale imitation of it applied to the needs of society.” “What do you mean by that?” “You are not the judge of your own case, you are dependent upon God,” said the priest; “you have neither the right to condemn yourself nor the right to absolve yourself. God, my child, is a great reverser of judgments.” “Ah!” she exclaimed. “He _sees_ the origin of things, where we see only the things themselves.” Veronique stopped again, struck by these ideas, that were new to her.