But a great, white, purified love had swept over the young
clergyman. The girl he worshipped could never now be a reproach to
his calling, she was proved blameless as a baby, and out of his
great human love arose the divine calling, the Christ-like sense
of forgiveness, the God-like forgetfulness of injury and suffering
done to his and to him, and once more his soft, rich voice broke
the stillness of the Northern night, as the Anglican absolution of
the dying fell from his lips in merciful tenderness:
"O Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve
all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy
forgive thee thine offences, and by His authority committed to me
I absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Beaver was holding the lantern close to the penitent's face;
Cragstone, kneeling beside him, saw that the end had come already,
and, after making the sign of the Cross on the dead Indian's
forehead, the young priest arose and went silently out into the
night.
* * * * *
The sun was slipping down into the far horizon, fretted by the
inimitable wonder of islands that throng the Georgian Bay; the
blood-colored skies, the purpling clouds, the extravagant beauty
of a Northern sunset hung in the west like the trailing robes of
royalty, soundless in their flaring, their fading; soundless as the
unbroken wilds which lay bathed in the loneliness of a dying day.
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