between her lips. The sudden joy of finding the father's spirit in the
son, who had grown all at once to be a man, almost killed her.

"Angel of heaven," she cried, weeping, "by one word you have effaced
all my sorrows. Ah! I can bear them.--This is my son," she said, "I
bore, I reared this man," and she raised her hands above her, and
clasped them as if in ecstasy, then she lay back on the pillow.

"Mother, your face is growing pale!" cried the lad.

"Some one must go for a priest," she answered, with a dying voice.

Louis wakened Annette, and the terrified old woman hurried to the
parsonage at Saint-Cyr.

When morning came, Mme. Willemsens received the sacrament amid the
most touching surroundings. Her children were kneeling in the room,
with Annette and the vinedresser's family, simple folk, who had
already become part of the household. The silver crucifix, carried by
a chorister, a peasant child from the village, was lifted up, and the
dying mother received the Viaticum from an aged priest. The Viaticum!
sublime word, containing an idea yet more sublime, an idea only
possessed by the apostolic religion of the Roman church.

"This woman has suffered greatly!" the old cure said in his simple
way.

Marie Willemsens heard no voices now, but her eyes were still fixed
upon her children. Those about her listened in terror to her breathing
in the deep silence; already it came more slowly, though at intervals