"I will go just the same."

He, departed forthwith, thinking as he went at a jog-trot over the
snow of the grateful look that Maria had given him. The family made
ready for the night, computing meanwhile these new distances ...
Seventy miles there and back ... Roads deep in snow. The lamp was
left burning, and till morning the voice from the bed was never
hushed. Sometimes it was sharp with pain; sometimes it weakly strove
for breath. Two hours after daylight the doctor and the cure of St.
Henri appeared together.

"It was impossible for me to come sooner," the cure explained, "but
I am here at last, and I picked up the doctor in the village." They
sat at the bedside and talked in low tones. The doctor made a fresh
examination, but it was the cure who told the result of it. "There
is little one can say. She does not seem any worse, but this is not
an ordinary sickness. It is best that I should confess her and give
her absolution; then we shall both go away and be back again the day
after to-morrow."

He returned to the bed, and the others went over and sat by the
window. For some, minutes the two voices were beard in question and
response; the one feeble and broken by suffering; the other
confident, grave, scarcely lowered for the solemn interrogation.
After some inaudible words a hand was raised in a gesture which
instantly bowed the heads of all those in the house. The priest
rose.

Before departing the doctor gave Maria a little bottle with
instructions. "Only if she should suffer greatly, so that she cries