that child, and that at this very moment, now as I speak, there is
perhaps, above our heads, a soul accusing us before a Judge whose eye is
on us. Let us make the best use of this last respite; let us make an
effort, if we still may, to repair, as far as we are able, the evil that
we have wrought. If the child survives us, let us come to his aid; if he
is dead, let us seek his forgiveness. Let us cast our crime from us. Let
us ease our consciences of its weight. Let us strive that our souls be
not swallowed up before God, for that is the awful shipwreck. Bodies go
to the fishes, souls to the devils. Have pity on yourselves. Kneel down,
I tell you. Repentance is the bark which never sinks. You have lost your
compass! You are wrong! You still have prayer."

The wolves became lambs--such transformations occur in last agonies;
tigers lick the crucifix; when the dark portal opens ajar, belief is
difficult, unbelief impossible. However imperfect may be the different
sketches of religion essayed by man, even when his belief is shapeless,
even when the outline of the dogma is not in harmony with the lineaments
of the eternity he foresees, there comes in his last hour a trembling of
the soul. There is something which will begin when life is over; this
thought impresses the last pang.

A man's dying agony is the expiration of a term. In that fatal second he
feels weighing on him a diffused responsibility. That which has been
complicates that which is to be. The past returns and enters into the
future. What is known becomes as much an abyss as the unknown. And the
two chasms, the one which is full by his faults, the other of his
anticipations, mingle their reverberations. It is this confusion of the
two gulfs which terrifies the dying man.

They had spent their last grain of hope on the direction of life; hence