After some alight conversation, entered
into on his part, I am certain, with an intention of discovering on what
terms of confidence I stood with my uncle, he paused, and said gravely—

“I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you have
shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in Antwerp—one Bridget
Fitzgerald.”

“Bridget Fitzgerald!” exclaimed I. “In Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all that
you can about her.”

“There is much to be said,” he replied. “But may I inquire if this
gentleman—if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which you
and I stand informed?”

“All that I know, he knows,” said I, eagerly laying my hand on my uncle’s
arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room. “Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may differ
from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that there are
evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of our evil
thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt
action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, which I dare not
disbelieve—as some sceptics would have us do—the sin of witchcraft. Of
this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw her last, many prayers have been offered in our churches,
many masses sung, many penances undergone, in order that, if God and the
holy saints so willed it, her sin might be blotted out. But it has not
been so willed.”

“Explain to me,” said I, “who you are, and how you come connected with
Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more. If I am
impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in consequence
bewildered.”

There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice
with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his
acquaintance with Bridget. “I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and so
it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the Sherburnes at
Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I became the
confessor of the whole family, isolated as they were from the offices of
the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour who professed the
true faith. Of course, you are aware that facts revealed in confession
are sealed as in the grave; but I learnt enough of Bridget’s character to
be convinced that I had to do with no common woman; one powerful for good
as for evil. I believe that I was able to give her spiritual assistance
from time to time, and that she looked upon me as a servant of that Holy
Church, which has such wonderful power of moving men’s hearts, and
relieving them of the burden of their sins. I have known her cross the
moors on the wildest nights of storm, to confess and be absolved; and
then she would return, calmed and subdued, to her daily work about her
mistress, no one witting where she had been during the hours that most
passed in sleep upon their beds. After her daughter’s departure—after
Mary’s mysterious disappearance—I had to impose many a long penance, in
order to wash away the sin of impatient repining that was fast leading
her into the deeper guilt of blasphemy. She set out on that long journey
of which you have possibly heard—that fruitless journey in search of
Mary—and during her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former
duties at Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more of Bridget. “Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in the evening, along
one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading into the Meer Straet, I saw
a woman sitting crouched up under the shrine of the Holy Mother of
Sorrows. Her hood was drawn over her head, so that the shadow caused by
the light of the lamp above fell deep over her face; her hands were
clasped round her knees. It was evident that she was some one in
hopeless trouble, and as such it was my duty to stop and speak. I
naturally addressed her first in Flemish, believing her to be one of the
lower class of inhabitants. She shook her head, but did not look up. Then I tried French, and she replied in that language, but speaking it so
indifferently, that I was sure she was either English or Irish, and
consequently spoke to her in my own native tongue. She recognized my
voice; and, starting up, caught at my robes, dragging me before the
blessed shrine, and throwing herself down, and forcing me, as much by her
evident desire as by her action, to kneel beside her, she exclaimed:

“‘O Holy Virgin! you will never hearken to me again, but hear him; for
you know him of old, that he does your bidding, and strives to heal
broken hearts. Hear him!’

“She turned to me. “‘She will hear you, if you will only pray. She never hears _me_: she
and all the saints in heaven cannot hear my prayers, for the Evil One
carries them off, as he carried that first away. O, Father Bernard, pray
for me!’

“I prayed for one in sore distress, of what nature I could not say; but
the Holy Virgin would know. Bridget held me fast, gasping with eagerness
at the sound of my words. When I had ended, I rose, and, making the sign
of the Cross over her, I was going to bless her in the name of the Holy
Church, when she shrank away like some terrified creature, and said—

“‘I am guilty of deadly sin, and am not shriven.’

“‘Arise, my daughter,’ said I, ‘and come with me.’  And I led the way
into one of the confessionals of St. Jaques. “She knelt; I listened. No words came. The evil powers had stricken her
dumb, as I heard afterwards they had many a time before, when she
approached confession. “She was too poor to pay for the necessary forms of exorcism; and
hitherto those priests to whom she had addressed herself were either so
ignorant of the meaning of her broken French, or her Irish-English, or
else esteemed her to be one crazed—as, indeed, her wild and excited
manner might easily have led any one to think—that they had neglected the
sole means of loosening her tongue, so that she might confess her deadly
sin, and, after due penance, obtain absolution. But I knew Bridget of
old, and felt that she was a penitent sent to me. I went through those
holy offices appointed by our Church for the relief of such a case. I
was the more bound to do this, as I found that she had come to Antwerp
for the sole purpose of discovering me, and making confession to me. Of
the nature of that fearful confession I am forbidden to speak. Much of
it you know; possibly all. “It now remains for her to free herself from mortal guilt, and to set
others free from the consequences thereof. No prayers, no masses, will
ever do it, although they may strengthen her with that strength by which
alone acts of deepest love and purest self-devotion may be performed. Her words of passion, and cries for revenge—her unholy prayers could
never reach the ears of the holy saints!