iled. Others raised the cry, and
the lament became general. The widow took a pair of scissors that hung
at her waist, cut off her hair, and laid the locks in her husband's
hand. Deep silence fell on them all.

"That act means that she will not marry again," said Benassis; "this
determination was expected by many of the relatives."

"Take it, dear lord!" she said; her emotion brought a tremor to her
voice that went to the hearts of all who heard her. "I have sworn to be
faithful; I give this pledge to you to keep in the grave. We shall thus
be united for ever, and through love of your children I will live on
among the family in whom you used to feel yourself young again. Oh! that
you could hear me, my husband! the pride and joy of my heart! Oh! that
you could know that all my power to live, now you are dead, will yet
come from you; for I shall live to carry out your sacred wishes and to
honor your memory."

Benassis pressed Genestas' hand as an invitation to follow him, and they
went out. By this time the first room was full of people who had come
from another mountain commune; all of them waited in meditative silence,
as if the sorrow and grief that brooded over the house had already
taken possession of them. As Benassis and the commandant crossed the
threshold, they overheard a few words that passed between one of the
newcomers and the eldest son of the late owner.

"Then when did he die?"

"Oh!" exclaimed the eldest son, a man of five-and-twenty years of age,
"I did not see him die. He asked for me, and I was not there!" His voice
was broken with sobs, but he went on: "He said to me the night before,
'You must go over to the town, my boy, and pay our taxes; my funeral
will put that out of your minds, and we shall be behindhand, a thing
that has never happened before.' It seemed the best thing to do, so
I went; and while I was gone, he died, and I never received his last
embrace. I have always been at his side, but he did not see me near him
at the last in my place where I had always been."

"_The master is dead!_"

"Alas! he is dead, and I was not there to receive his last words and
his latest sigh. And what did the taxes matter? Would it not have been
better to lose all our money than to leave home just then? Could all
that we have make up to me for the loss of his last farewell. No. _Mon
Dieu!_ If _your_ father falls ill, Jean, do not go away and leave him,
or you will lay up a lifelong regret for yourself."