, and his imagination was active. He
wondered if the soul up there rejoiced in the death of the beautiful
restless body, the passionate brooding mind. He could not see her face
from where he knelt, only the waxen hands clasping a crucifix. He
wondered if the face were peaceful in death, or peevish and angry as
when he had seen it last. If the great change had smoothed and sealed
it, then perhaps the soul would sink deep under the dark waters,
grateful for oblivion, and that cursed train could not awaken it for
years to come. Curiosity succeeded wonder. He cut his prayers short,
got to his weary swollen feet and pushed a chair to the bed. He mounted
it and his face was close to the dead woman's. Alas! it was not
peaceful. It was stamped with the tragedy of a bitter renunciation.
After all, she had been young, and at the last had died unwillingly.
There was still a fierce tenseness about the nostrils, and her upper lip
was curled as if her last word had been an imprecation. But she was very
beautiful, despite the emaciation of her features. Her black hair nearly
covered the bed, and her lashes looked too heavy for the sunken cheeks.

"_Pauvre petite_!" thought the priest. "No, she will not rest, nor would
she wish to. I will not sprinkle holy-water on her grave. It is wondrous
that monster can give comfort to any one, but if he can, so be it."

He went into the little oratory adjoining the bedroom and prayed more
fervently. But when the watchers came an hour later they found him in a
stupor, huddled at the foot of the altar.

When he awoke he was in his own bed in his little house beside the
church. But it was four days before they would let him rise to go about
his duties, and by that time the countess was in her grave.

The old housekeeper left him to take care of himself. He waited eagerly
for the night. It was raining thinly, a gray quiet rain that blurred the
landscape and soaked the ground in the Bois d'Amour. It was wet about
the graves, too; but the priest had given little heed to the elements in
his long life of crucified self, and as he heard the remote echo of the
evening train he hastened out with his holy-water and had sprinkled
every grave but one when the train sped by.

Then he knelt and listened eagerly. It was five days since he had knelt
there last. Perhaps they had sunk again to rest. In a moment he wrung
his hands and raised them to heaven. All the earth beneath him was
filled with lamentation. Th