ess."

"I wish to think, madame," replied the doctor, in spite of himself half
frightened at the marquise, "that this your first question is only put by
way of a general thesis, and has nothing to do with your own state. I
shall answer the question without any personal application. No, madame,
in this life there are no unpardonable sinners, terrible and numerous
howsoever their sins may be. This is an article of faith, and without
holding it you could not die a good Catholic. Some doctors, it is true,
have before now maintained the contrary, but they have been condemned as
heretics. Only despair and final impenitence are unpardonable, and they
are not sins of our life but in our death."

"Sir," replied the marquise, "God has given me grace to be convinced by
what you say, and I believe He will pardon all sins--that He has often
exercised this power. Now all my trouble is that He may not deign to
grant all His goodness to one so wretched as I am, a creature so unworthy
of the favours already bestowed on her."

The doctor reassured her as best he could, and began to examine her
attentively as they conversed together. "She was," he said, "a woman
naturally courageous and fearless; naturally gentle and good; not easily
excited; clever and penetrating, seeing things very clearly in her mind,
and expressing herself well and in few but careful words; easily finding
a way out of a difficulty, and choosing her line of conduct in the most
embarrassing circumstances; light-minded and fickle; unstable, paying no
attention if the same thing were said several times over. For this
reason," continued the doctor, "I was obliged to alter what I had to say
from time to time, keeping her but a short time to one subject, to which,
however, I would return later, giving the matter a new appearance and
disguising it a little. She spoke little and well, with no sign of
learning and no affectation, always, mistress of herself, always composed
and saying just what she intended to say. No one would have supposed
from her face or from her conversation that she was so wicked as she must
have been, judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It is
surprising, therefore--and one must bow down before the judgment of God
when He leaves mankind to himself--that a mind evidently of some
grandeur, professing fearlessness in the most untoward and unexpected
events, an immovable firmness and a resolution to await and to endure
death if so it mu