ome
in here, if they should awake--they are too young to look at death."

Gabriel's blood curdled when he heard these words--when he touched his
grandfather's hand, and felt the chill that it struck to his own--when
he listened to the raging wind, and knew that all help was miles and
miles away from the cottage. Still, in spite of the storm, the darkness,
and the distance, he thought not for a moment of neglecting the duty
that had been taught him from his childhood--the duty of summoning the
priest to the bedside of the dying. "I must call Perrine," he said, "to
watch by you while I am away."

"Stop!" cried the old man. "Stop, Gabriel; I implore, I command you not
to leave me!"

"The priest, grandfather--your confession--"

"It must be made to you. In this darkness and this hurricane no man can
keep the path across the heath. Gabriel, I am dying--I should be dead
before you got back. Gabriel, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, stop
here with me till I die--my time is short--I have a terrible secret that
I must tell to somebody before I draw my last breath! Your ear to my
mouth--quick! quick!"

As he spoke the last words, a slight noise was audible on the other
side of the partition, the door half opened, and Perrine appeared at
it, looking affrightedly into the room. The vigilant eyes of the old
man--suspicious even in death--caught sight of her directly.

"Go back!" he exclaimed faintly, before she could utter a word; "go
back--push her back, Gabriel, and nail down the latch in the door, if
she won't shut it of herself!"

"Dear Perrine! go in again," implored Gabriel. "Go in, and keep the
children from disturbing us. You will only make him worse--you can be of
no use here!"

She obeyed without speaking, and shut the door again.

While the old man clutched him by the arm, and repeated, "Quick! quick!
your ear close to my mouth," Gabriel heard her say to the children (who
were both awake), "Let us pray for grandfather." And as he knelt down
by the bedside, there stole on his ear the sweet, childish tones of his
little sisters, and the soft, subdued voice of the young girl who was
teaching them the prayer, mingling divinely with the solemn wailing
of wind and sea, rising in a still and awful purity over the hoarse,
gasping whispers of the dying man.

"I took an oath not to tell it, Gabriel--lean down closer! I'm weak, and
they mustn't hear a word in that room--I took an oath not to tell it;
but death is a w