For a baby cried softly, hopelessly, and from a grave beyond came a
mother's anguished attempt to still it.

"Ah, the good God!" she cried. "I, too, thought it was the great call,
and that in a moment I should rise and find my child and go to my
Ignace, my Ignace whose bones lie white on the floor of the sea. Will he
find them, my father, when the dead shall rise again? To lie here and
doubt!--that were worse than life."

"Yes, yes," said the priest; "all will be well, my daughter."

"But all is not well, my father, for my baby cries and is alone in a
little box in the ground. If I could claw my way to her with my
hands--but my old mother lies between us."

"Tell your beads!" commanded the priest, sternly--"tell your beads, all
of you. All ye that have not your beads, say the 'Hail Mary!' one
hundred times."

Immediately a rapid, monotonous muttering arose from every lonely
chamber of that desecrated ground. All obeyed but the baby, who still
moaned with the hopeless grief of deserted children. The living priest
knew that they would talk no more that night, and went into the church
to pray till dawn. He was sick with horror and terror, but not for
himself. When the sky was pink and the air full of the sweet scents of
morning, and a piercing scream tore a rent in the early silences, he
hastened out and sprinkled his graves with a double allowance of
holy-water. The train rattled by with two short derisive shrieks, and
before the earth had ceased to tremble the priest laid his ear to the
ground. Alas, they were still awake!