sprinkled every grave, rising sometimes from a bed of pain, at other
times defying wind and rain and hail. And for a while he believed that
his holy device had deepened the sleep of his dead, locked them beyond
the power of man to awake. But one night he heard them muttering.

It was late. There were but a few stars on a black sky. Not a breath of
wind came over the lonely plains beyond, or from the sea. There would be
no wrecks to-night, and all the world seemed at peace. The lights were
out in the village. One burned in the tower of Croisac, where the young
wife of the count lay ill. The priest had been with her when the train
thundered by, and she had whispered to him:

"Would that I were on it! Oh, this lonely lonely land! this cold echoing
château, with no one to speak to day after day! If it kills me, _mon
père_, make him lay me in the cemetery by the road, that twice a day I
may hear the train go by--the train that goes to Paris! If they put me
down there over the hill, I will shriek in my coffin every night."

The priest had ministered as best he could to the ailing soul of the
young noblewoman, with whose like he seldom dealt, and hastened back to
his dead. He mused, as he toiled along the dark road with rheumatic
legs, on the fact that the woman should have the same fancy as himself.

"If she is really sincere, poor young thing," he thought aloud, "I will
forbear to sprinkle holy-water on her grave. For those who suffer while
alive should have all they desire after death, and I am afraid the count
neglects her. But I pray God that my dead have not heard that monster
to-night." And he tucked his gown under his arm and hurriedly told his
rosary.