Wrestling I've fallen, and I've rose up again;
Mostly I've stood--
I've had good bone and blood;
Others went down, though fighting might and main.
Now death steps in--
Death the price of sin.
The fall it will be his; and though I strive and strain,
One blow will close my eyes, and I shall never waken."

"Good enough for Ba'tiste," said Duclosse the mealman.

The wave of feeling was now altogether with Francois, and presently he
walked away with Jeanne Marchand and her mother, and the crowd dispersed.
Jeanne was very happy for a few hours, but in the evening she was
unhappy, for she saw Francois going towards the house of the Seigneur;
and during many weeks she was still more unhappy, for every three or four
days she saw the same thing.

Meanwhile Francois worked as he had never before worked in his life.
Night and day he was shut in his shop, and for two months he came with
no epitaphs for the Cure, and no new tombstones were set up in the
graveyard. The influence of the lady at the Seigneury was upon him, and
he himself believed it was for his salvation. She had told him of great
pieces of sculpture she had seen, had sent and got from Quebec City,
where he had never been, pictures of some of the world's masterpieces in
sculpture, and he had lost himself in the study of them and in the depths
of the girl's eyes. She meant no harm; the man interested her beyond
what was reasonable in one of his station in life. That was all, and all
there ever was.