NTO THE DEEP SILENCE

There came an evening in April when Madame Chapdelaine would not
take her place at the supper table with the others.

"There are pains through my body and I have no appetite," she said,
"I must have strained myself to-day lifting a bag of flour when I
was making bread. Now something catches me in the back, and I am not
hungry."

No one answered her. Those living sheltered lives take quick alarm
when the mechanism of one of their number goes wrong, but people who
wrestle with the earth for a living feel little surprise if their
labours are too much for them now and then, and the body gives way
in some fibre.

While father and children supped, Madame Chapdelaine sat very still
in her chair beside the stove. She drew her breath hard, and her
broad face was working.

"I am going to bed," she said presently. "A good night's sleep, and
to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that.
You will see to the baking, Maria."

And indeed in the morning she was up at her usual hour, but when she
had made the batter for the pancakes pain overcame her, and she had
to lie down again. She stood for a minute beside the bed, with both
hands pressed against her back, and made certain that the daily
tasks would be attended to.

"You will give the men their food, Maria, and your father will lend
you a hand at milking the cows if you wish it. I am not good for
anything this morning."

"It will be all right, mother; it will be all right. Take it
quietly; we shall have no trouble."

For two days she kept her bed, with a watchful eye over everything,
directing all the household affairs.

"Don't be in the least anxious," her husband urged again and again.
"There is hardly anything to be done in the house beyond the
cooking, and Maria is quite fit to look after that--everything else
too, by thunder! She is not a little child any longer, and is as
capable as yourself. Lie there quietly, without stirring; and be
easy in your mind, instead of tossing about all the time under the
blankets and making yourself worse...."

On the third day she gave up thinking about the cares of the house
and began to bemoan herself.

"Oh my God!" she wailed. "I have pains all over my body, and my
bead is burning. I think that I am going to die."

Her husband tried to cheer her with his Clumsy pleasantries. "You
are going to die when the good God wills it, and according to my way
of thinking that will not be for