himself on his mother's breast.

"My son," said the mother, weeping, "listen to Monsieur Bonnet; he risks
his life, the dear rector, in going to you to--" she hesitated, and then
said, "to the gate of eternal life."

Then she kissed Jean's head and held it to her breast for some moments.

"Will he, indeed, go with me?" asked Jean, looking at the rector, who
bowed his head in assent. "Well, yes, I will listen to him; I will do
all he asks of me."

"You promise it?" said Denise. "The saving of your soul is what we
seek. Besides, you would not have all Limoges and the village say that a
Tascheron knows not how to die a noble death? And then, too, think that
all you lose here you will regain in heaven, where pardoned souls will
meet again."

This superhuman effort parched the throat of the heroic girl. She was
silent after this, like her mother, but she had triumphed. The criminal,
furious at seeing his happiness torn from him by the law, now quivered
at the sublime Catholic truth so simply expressed by his sister. All
women, even young peasant-women like Denise, know how to touch these
delicate chords; for does not every woman seek to make love eternal?
Denise had touched two chords, each most sensitive. Awakened pride
called on the other virtues chilled by misery and hardened by despair.
Jean took his sister's hand and kissed it, and laid it on his heart in a
deeply significant manner; he applied it both gently and forcibly.

"Yes," he said, "I must renounce all; this is the last beating of my
heart, its last thought. Keep them, Denise."

And he gave her one of those glances by which a man in crucial moments
tries to put his soul into the soul of another human being.

This thought, this word, was, in truth, a last testament, an unspoken
legacy, to be as faithfully transmitted as it was trustfully given. It
was so fully understood by mother, sister, and priest, that they all
with one accord turned their faces from each other, to hide their tears
and keep the secret of their thoughts in their own breasts. Those few
words were the dying agony of a passion, the farewell of a soul to the
glorious things of earth, in accordance with true Catholic renunciation.
The rector, comprehending the majesty of all great human things, even
criminal things, judged of this mysterious passion by the enormity of
the sin. He raised his eyes to heaven as if to invoke the mercy of God.
Thence come the consolations, the infinite tenderne