As I lay, during the first
days of my recovery, examining my own heart, and considering in
what manner it would be my duty to act toward your father when I
was restored to health, a thought came into my mind which calmed,
comforted, and resolved all my doubts. I said within myself, 'In
a few months more I shall be called to be one of the chosen
ministers of God. If I am worthy of my vocation, my first desire
toward this man who has attempted to take my life should be, not
to know that human justice has overtaken him, but to know that he
has truly and religiously repented and made atonement for his
guilt. To such repentance and atonement let it be my duty to call
him; if he reject that appeal, and be hardened only the more
against me because I have forgiven him my injuries, then it will
be time enough to denounce him for his crimes to his fellow-men.
Surely it must be well for me, here and hereafter, if I begin my
career in the holy priesthood by helping to save from hell the
soul of the man who, of all others, has most cruelly wronged me.'
It was for this reason, Gabriel--it was because I desired to go
straightway to your father's cottage, and reclaim him after he
had believed me to be dead--that I kept the secret and entreated
of my superiors that I might be sent to Brittany. But this, as I
have said, was not to be at first, and when my desire was
granted, my place was assigned me in a far district.
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