"What, would you have? A man must do his duty!"

A DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET

She had died painlessly, tranquilly, like a woman whose life was
irreproachable, and she now lay on her back in bed, with closed eyes,
calm features, her long white hair carefully arranged as if she had
again made her toilet ten minutes before her death, all her pale
physiognomy so composed, now that she had passed away, so resigned
that one felt sure a sweet soul had dwelt in that body, that this
serene grandmother had spent an untroubled existence, that this
virtuous woman had ended her life without any shock, without any
remorse.

On his knees, beside the bed, her son, a magistrate of inflexible
principles, and her daughter Marguerite, in religion, Sister Eulalie,
were weeping distractedly. She had from the time of their infancy
armed them with an inflexible code of morality, teaching them a
religion without weakness and a sense of duty without any compromise.
He, the son, had become a magistrate, and, wielding the weapon of the
law, he struck down without pity the feeble and the erring. She, the
daughter, quite penetrated with the virtue that had bathed her in this
austere family, had become the spouse of God through disgust with men.

They had scarcely known their father; all they knew was that he had
made their mother unhappy without learning any further details. The
nun passionately kissed one hand of her dead mother, which hung down,
a hand of ivory like that of Christ in the large crucifix which lay
on the bed. At the opposite side of the prostrate body, the other hand
seemed still to grasp the rumpled sheet with that wandering movement
which is called the fold of the dying, and the lines had retained
little wavy creases as a memento of those last motions which precede
the eternal motionlessness. A few light taps at the door caused the
two sobbing heads to rise up, and the priest who had just dined,
entered the apartment. He was flushed, a little puffed, from the
effects of the process of digestion which had just commenced; for he
had put a good dash of brandy into his coffee in order to counteract
the fatigue caused by the last nights he had remained up and that
which he anticipated from the night that was still in store for him.
He had put on a look of sadness, that simulated sadness of the priest
to whom death is a means of livelihood. He made the sign of the cross,
and coming over to them with his professional gesture said: