he had, from childhood up,
armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without
weakness, and duty, without compromise. He, the man, had become a
judge and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones
without pity. She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed
her in this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through
her loathing for man.

They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.

The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the
long body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the
death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
of those last movements which precede eternal immobility.

A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up,
and the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and
out of breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself
a strong mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of
the last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.

He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is
a bread winner. He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
gesture: "Well, my poor children! I have come to help you pass these
last sad hours." But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. "Thank you, father,
but my brother and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last
chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us, as
we--we--used to be when we were small and our poor mo--mother----"

Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.

Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. "As you wish,
my children." He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
quietly, murmuring: "She was a saint!"

They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the
clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together
with the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land
except the occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some
belated insect. An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent
serenity surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her
and to appease nature itse