Never had the majesty of grief seemed so great to Julie. The two words
sank straight into her heart with the weight of infinite sorrow. The
gentle, sonorous tones troubled her heart. Ah! that full, deep voice,
charged with plangent vibration, was the voice of one who had suffered
indeed.

"And if I do not die, monsieur, what will become of me?" The Marquise
spoke almost reverently.

"Have you not a child, madame?"

"Yes," she said stiffly.

The cure gave her such a glance as a doctor gives a patient whose life
is in danger. Then he determined to do all that in him lay to combat
the evil spirit into whose clutches she had fallen.

"We must live on with our sorrows--you see it yourself, madame, and
religion alone offers us real consolation. Will you permit me to come
again?--to speak to you as a man who can sympathize with every
trouble, a man about whom there is nothing very alarming, I think?"

"Yes, monsieur, come back again. Thank you for your thought of me."

"Very well, madame; then I shall return very shortly."

This visit relaxed the tension of soul, as it were; the heavy strain
of grief and loneliness had been almost too much for the Marquise's
strength. The priest's visit had left a soothing balm in her heart,