o held, already lighted, the wax-taper which was to be
placed in the hand of the young girl. And the Bishop, not willing
to acknowledge the state of unconsciousness in which she remained,
determining to go even to the end of the rite, that God might have time
in which to work, pronounced the formula:--

"_Accipe lampadem ardentem, custodi unctionem tuam, ut cum Dominus ad
judicandum venerit, possis occurrere ei cum omnibus sanctis et vivas in
saecula saeculorum_." ("Receive this light, and keep the unction thou
hast received, that when the Lord shall come to judgment thou mayest
meet Him with all His saints, and live with Him for ever and ever.")

"Amen," replied the Abbe.

But when they endeavoured to open Angelique's hand and to press it round
the taper, the hand, powerless, as if already dead, escaped them and
fell back upon her breast.

Then, little by little, Monseigneur yielded to a great nervous
trembling. It was the emotion which, for a long time restrained,
now broke out within him, carrying away with it the last rigidity of
priesthood. He dearly loved her, this child, from the day when she had
come to sob at his feet, so innocent, and showing so plainly the pure
freshness of her youth. Since then, in his nights of distress, he had
contended chiefly against her, to defend himself from the overwhelming
tenderness with which she inspired him. At this moment she was worthy of
pity, with this pallor of death, with an ethereal beauty which showed,
however, so deep a suffering that he could not look at her without his
heart being secretly overwhelmed with distress.

He could no longer control himself. His eyelids were swollen by the
great tears which at last rolled down his cheeks. She must not die in
this way: he was conquered by her touching charms even in death, and all
his paternal feelings went out towards her.

Then Monseigneur, recalling to mind the numerous miracles of his race,
the power which had been given them by Heaven to heal, thought that
doubtless God awaited his consent as a father. He invoked Saint Agnes,
before whom all his ancestors had offered up their devotions, and as
Jean V d'Hautecoeur prayed at the bedside of those smitten by the plague
and kissed them, so now he prayed and kissed Angelique upon her lips.

"If God wishes, I also wish it."

Immediately Angelique opened her eyelids. She looked at the Bishop
without surprise as she awoke from her long trance, and, her lips still
warm f