lessed release from them."

I wrung the hand of the good man, whose look and voice soothed the pangs
of others without sharpening them.

"We are praying God to help her," he continued; "for she, so saintly, so
resigned, so fit to die, has shown during the last few weeks a horror of
death; for the first time in her life she looks at others who are full
of health with gloomy, envious eyes. This aberration comes less, I
think, from the fear of death than from some inward intoxication,--from
the flowers of her youth which ferment as they wither. Yes, an evil
angel is striving against heaven for that glorious soul. She is passing
through her struggle on the Mount of Olives; her tears bathe the white
roses of her crown as they fall, one by one, from the head of this
wedded Jephtha. Wait; do not see her yet. You would bring to her the
atmosphere of the court; she would see in your face the reflection of
the things of life, and you would add to the bitterness of her regret.
Have pity on a weakness which God Himself forgave to His Son when He
took our nature upon Him. What merit would there be in conquering if we
had no adversary? Permit her confessor or me, two old men whose worn-out
lives cause her no pain, to prepare her for this unlooked-for meeting,
for emotions which the Abbe Birotteau has required her to renounce.
But, in the things of this world there is an invisible thread of divine
purpose which religion alone can see; and since you have come perhaps
you are led by some celestial star of the moral world which leads to the
tomb as to the manger--"

He then told me, with that tempered eloquence which falls like dew upon
the heart, that for the last six months the countess had suffered daily
more and more, in spite of Monsieur Origet's care. The doctor had come
to Clochegourde every evening for two months, striving to rescue her
from death; for her one cry had been, "Oh, save me!" "To heal the body
the heart must first be healed," the doctor had exclaimed one day.

"As the illness increased, the words of this poor woman, once so gentle,
have grown bitter," said the Abbe. "She calls on earth to keep her,
instead of asking God to take her; then she repents these murmurs
against the divine decree. Such alternations of feeling rend her heart
and make the struggle between body and soul most horrible. Often the
body triumphs. 'You have cost me dear,' she said one day to Jacques and
Madeleine; but in a moment, recalled to God