parated from
her only by the choir parapet, its dilating, contracting eyes never
moving for an instant. As the song died away, came again that awful
tremor, indicative of the coming death-spring, and again she sang,--this
time the old _Pange lingua_, its sonorous Latin sounding in the deserted
church like the voice of dead centuries.

And so she sang, on and on, hour after hour,--hymns and _chansons_,
folk-songs and bits from comic operas, songs of the boulevards
alternating with the _Tantum ergo_ and the _O Filii et Filiae_. It
mattered little what she sang. At last it seemed to her that it mattered
little whether she sang or no; for her brain whirled round and round
like a dizzy maelstrom, her icy hands, griping the hard rail, alone
supported her dying body. She could hear no sound of her song; her body
was numb, her mouth parched, her lips cracked and bleeding; she felt
the drops of blood fall from her chin. And still she sang, with the
yellow palpitating eyes holding her as in a vice. If only she could
continue until dawn! It must be dawn so soon! The windows were growing
gray, the rain lashed outside, she could distinguish the features of the
horror before her; but the night of death was growing with the coming
day, blackness swept down upon her; she could sing no more, her tortured
lips made one last effort to form the words, "Mother of God, save me!"
and night and death came down like a crushing wave.

But her prayer was heard; the dawn had come, and Polou unlocked the
porch-door for Father Augustin just in time to hear the last agonized
cry. The maniac turned in the very act of leaping on his victim, and
sprang for the two men, who stopped in dumb amazement. Poor old Pierre
Polou went down at a blow; but Father Augustin was young and fearless,
and he grappled the mad animal with all his strength and will. It would
have gone ill even with him,--for no one can stand against the bestial
fury of a man in whom reason is dead,--had not some sudden impulse
seized the maniac, who pitched the priest aside with a single movement,
and, leaping through the door, vanished forever.

Did he hurl himself from the cliffs in the cold wet morning, or was he
doomed to wander, a wild beast, until, captured, he beat himself in vain
against the walls of some asylum, an unknown pauper lunatic? None ever
knew.

The colony at Pontivy was blotted out by the dreary tragedy, and Notre
Dame des Eaux sank once more into silence and solitu