a gallery where you may hide, and still see all that happens.
It is your last look at the lady, and I will give it to you, as you gave
me to know of my Jean."

"My last look?" I asked eagerly.

"She goes into the nunnery to-morrow, they say," was the reply. "Her
marriage is to be set aside by the bishop to-day--in the cathedral. This
is her last night to live as such as I--but no, she will be happier so."

"Madame," said I, "I am a heretic, but I listened when your husband
said, 'Mon grand homme de Calvaire, bon soir!' Was the cross less
a cross because a heretic put it to his lips? Is a marriage less a
marriage because a heretic is the husband? Madame, you loved your Jean;
if he were living now, what would you do to keep him. Think, madame, is
not love more than all?"

She turned to the dead body. "Mon petit Jean!" she murmured, but made
no reply to me, and for many minutes the room was silent. At last she
turned, and said, "You must come at once, for soon the priests will be
at the church. A little later I will bring you some breakfast, and you
must not stir from there till I come to fetch you--no."

"I wish to see Voban," said I.

She thought a moment. "I will try to fetch him to you by-and-bye," she
said. She did not speak further, but finished the sentence by pointing
to the body.

Presently, hearing footsteps, she drew me into another little room. "It
is the grandfather," she said. "He has forgotten you already, and he
must not see you again."

We saw the old man hobble into the room we had left, carrying in one arm
Jean's coat and hat. He stood still, and nodded at the body and mumbled
to himself; then he went over and touched the hands and forehead,
nodding wisely; after which he came to his armchair, and, sitting down,
spread the coat over his knees, put the cap on it, and gossiped with
himself:

"In eild our idle fancies all return,
The mind's eye cradled by the open grave."

A moment later, the woman passed from the rear of the house to the
vestry door of the cathedral. After a minute, seeing no one near, I
followed, came to the front door, entered, and passed up a side aisle
towards the choir. There was no one to be seen, but soon the woman came
out of the vestry and beckoned to me nervously. I followed her quick
movements, and was soon in a narrow stairway, coming, after fifty
steps or so, to a sort of cloister, from which we went into a little
cubiculum, or cell, with a wooden lattice door