ut will over a body reduced to what
religion requires it to be. In this woman the soul dragged the flesh
as the Achilles of profane story dragged Hector; for fifteen years
she dragged it victoriously along the stony paths of life around the
celestial Jerusalem she hoped to enter, not by a vile deception, but
with acclamation. No solitary that ever lived in the dry and arid
deserts of Africa was ever more master of his senses than was Veronique
in her magnificent chateau, among the soft, voluptuous scenery of that
opulent land, beneath the protecting mantle of that rich forest, whence
science, the heir of Moses' wand, had called forth plenty, prosperity,
and happiness for a whole region. She contemplated the results of
twelve years' patience, a work which might have made the fame of many a
superior man, with a gentle modesty such as Pontorno has painted in
the sublime face of his "Christian Chastity caressing the Celestial
Unicorn." The mistress of the manor, whose silence was respected by
her companions when they saw that her eyes were roving over those vast
plains, once arid, and now fertile by her will, walked on, her arms
folded, with a distant look, as if to some far horizon, on her face.

XX. THE LAST STRUGGLE

Suddenly she stopped, a few feet from her mother, who looked at her as
the mother of Christ must have looked at her son upon the cross. She
raised her hand, and pointing to the spot where the road to Montegnac
branched from the highway, she said, smiling:--

"See that carriage with the post-horses; Monsieur Roubaud is returning
to us. We shall now know how many hours I have to live."

"Hours?" said Gerard.

"Did I not tell you I was taking my last walk?" she replied. "I have
come here to see for the last time this glorious scene in all its
splendor!" She pointed first to the village where the whole population
seemed to be collected in the church square, and then to the beautiful
meadows glowing in the last rays of the setting sun. "Ah!" she said,
"let me see the benediction of God in the strange atmospheric condition
to which we owe the safety of our harvest. Around us, on all sides,
tempests, hail, lightning, have struck incessantly and pitilessly. The
common people think thus, why not I? I do so need to see in this a happy
augury for what awaits me after death!"

The child stood up and took his mother's hand and laid it on his head.
Veronique, deeply affected by the action, so full of eloquence