s when called to a sick-bed, he wore his clothes of
ceremony, of dark wellworn cloth, which he bore with the awkwardness
of the peasant in Sunday attire. But the strong brown hands beyond
the thread-bare sleeves moved in a way to inspire confidence. They
passed over the limbs and body of Madame Chapdelaine with the most
delicate care, nor did they draw from her a single cry of pain;
thereafter he sat for a long time motionless beside the couch,
looking at her as though awaiting guidance from a source beyond
himself. But when at last he broke the silence it was to say: "Have
you sent for the cure? ... He has been here. And will he return?
To-morrow; that is well."

After another pause he made his frank avowal.--"There is nothing I
can do for her. Something has gone wrong within, about which I know
nothing; were there broken bones I could have healed them. I should
only have had to feel them with my hands, and then the good God
would have told me what to do and I should have cured her. But in
this sickness of hers I have no skill. I might indeed put a blister
on her back, and perhaps that would draw away-the blood and relieve
her for a time. Or I could give her a draught made from beaver
kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well
known. But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would
work a cure."

His speech was so honest and straightforward that he made them one
and all feel what manner of thing was a disorder of the human
frame--the strangeness and the terror of what is passing behind the
closed door, which those without can only fight clumsily as they
grope in dark uncertainty.

"She will die if that be God's pleasure."

Maria broke into quiet tears; her father, not yet understanding, sat
with his mouth half-open, and neither moved nor spoke. The
bone-setter, this sentence given, bowed his head and held his
pitiful eyes for long upon the sick woman. The browned hands that
now availed him not lay upon his knees; leaning forward a little,
his back bent, the gentle sad spirit seemed in silent communion with
its maker--"Thou hast bestowed upon me the gift of healing bones
that are broken, and I have healed them; but Thou hast denied me
power over such ills as these; so must I let this poor woman die."

For the first time now the deep marks of illness upon the mother's
face appeared to husband and children as more than the passing
traces of suffering, as imprints from the hand of deat