I went back to the village at once to carry the good news, for it was the loneliness of the cure that had weighed so heavily on every heart, though none among them dare brave his displeasure by setting aside his command. The quarantine was observed as rigidly as ever, but fresh hope and confidence beamed upon every face, and I felt that they no longer avoided me, as they had begun to do before Tardif's arrival. Now Monsieur Laurentie could leave his patient, and sit under the sheltering eaves in the cool of the morning or evening, while his people could satisfy themselves from a distance that he was still in health.

The physician whom Jean fetched from Noireau spoke vaguely of Richard's case. It was very malignant, he said, full of danger, and apparently his whole constitution had been weakened by some protracted and grave malady. We must hope, he added.

Whether it was in hope or fear I awaited the issue, I scarcely know. I dared not glance beyond the passing hour; dared not conjecture what the end would be. The past was dead; the future yet unborn. For the moment my whole being was concentrated upon the conflict between life and death, which was witnessed only by the cure and Tardif.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

THE LAST DEATH.

It seemed to me almost as if time had been standing still since that first morning when Monsieur Laurentie had left my side, and passed out of my sight to seek for my husband in the fever-smitten dwelling. Yet it was the tenth day after that when, as I took up my weary watch soon after daybreak, I saw him crossing the court again, and coming toward me.

"What had he to say? What could impel him to break through the strict rule which had interdicted all dangerous contact with himself? His face was pale, and his eyes were heavy as if with want of rest, but they looked into mine as if they could read my inmost soul.

"My daughter," he said, "I bade you leave even your duty in my keeping.

Now I summon you to fulfil it. Your duty lies yonder, by your husband's side in his agony of death."

"I will go," I whispered, my lips scarcely moving to pronounce the words, so stiff and cold they felt.

"Stay one moment," he said, pityingly. "You have been taught to judge of your duty for yourself, not to leave it to a priest. I ought to let you judge now. Your husband is dying, but he is conscious, and is asking to see you. He does not believe us that death is near; he says none but you will tell him the truth. You cannot go to him without running a great risk. Your danger will be greater than ours, who have been with him all the time. You see, madame, he does not understand me, and he refuses to believe in Tardif. Yet you cannot save him; you can only receive his last adieu. Think well, my child. Your life may be the forfeit."

"I must go," I answered, more firmly; "I will go. He is my husband."

"Good!" he said, "you have chosen the better part. Come, then. The good God will protect you."

He drew my hand through his arm, and led me to the low doorway. The inner room was very dark with the overhanging eaves, and my eyes, dilated by the strong sunlight, could discern but little in the gloom.

Tardif was kneeling beside a low bed, bathing my husband's forehead. He made way for me, and I felt him touch my hand with his lips as I took his place. But no one spoke. Richard's face, sunken, haggard, dying, with filmy eyes, dawned gradually out of the dim twilight, line after line, until it lay sharp and distinct under my gaze. I could not turn away from it for an instant, even to glance at Tardif or Monsieur Laurentie. The poor, miserable face! the restless, dreary, dying eyes!

"Where is Olivia?" he muttered, in a hoarse and labored voice.

"I am here, Richard," I answered, falling on my knees where Tardif had been kneeling, and putting my hand on his; "look at me. I am Olivia."

"You are mine, you know," he said, his fingers closing round my wrist with a grasp as weak as a very young child's.--"She is my wife, Monsieur le Cure."

"Yes," I sobbed, "I am your wife, Richard."

"Do they hear it?" he asked, in a whisper.

"We hear it," answered Tardif.

A strange, spasmodic smile flitted across his ghastly face, a look of triumph and success. His fingers tightened over my hand, and I left it passively in their clasp.

"Mine!" he murmured.

"Olivia," he said, after a long pause, and in a stronger voice, "you always spoke the truth to me. This priest and his follower have been trying to frighten me into repentance, as if I were an old woman. They say I am near dying. Tell me, is it true?"

The last words he had spoken painfully, dragging them one after another, as if the very utterance of them was hateful to him. He looked at me with his cold, glittering eyes, which seemed almost mocking at me, even then.

"Richard," I said, "it is true."

"Good God!" he cried.

His lips closed after that cry, and seemed as if they would never open again. He shut his eyes weariedly. Feebly and fitfully came his gasps for breath, and he moaned at times. But still his fingers held me fast, though the slightest effort of mine would have set me free. I left my hand in his cold grasp, and spoke to him whenever he moaned.

"Martin," he breathed between his set teeth, though so low that only my ear could catch the words, "Martin--could--have saved--me."

There was another long silence. I could hear the chirping of the sparrows in the thatched roof, but no other sound broke the deep stillness. Monsieur Laurentie and Tardif stood at the foot of the bed, looking down upon us both, but I only saw their shadows falling across us. My eyes were fastened upon the face I should soon see no more. The little light there was seemed to be fading away from it, leaving it all dark and blank; eyelids closed, lips almost breathless; an unutterable emptiness and confusion creeping over every feature.

"Olivia!" he cried, once again, in a tone of mingled anger and entreaty.

"I am here," I answered, laying my other hand upon his, which was at last relaxing its hold, and falling away helplessly. But where was he?

Where was the voice which half a minute ago called Olivia? Where was the life gone that had grasped my hand? He had not heard my answer, or felt my touch upon his cold fingers.

Tardif lifted me gently from my place beside him, and carried me away into the open air, under the overshadowing eaves.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

FREE.

The rest of that day passed by like a dream. Jean had come down with the daily supply of food, and I heard Monsieur Laurentie call to him to accompany me back to the presbytery, and to warn every one to keep away from me, until I could take every precaution against spreading infection. He gave me minute directions what to do, and I obeyed them automatically and mechanically. I spent the whole day in my room alone.

At night, after all the village was silent, with the moon shining brilliantly down upon the deserted streets, the sound of stealthy footsteps came to me through my window. I pulled the casement open and looked out. There marched four men, with measured steps, bearing a coffin on their shoulders, while Monsieur Laurentie followed them bareheaded. It was my husband's funeral; and I sank upon my knees, and remained kneeling till I heard them return from the little cemetery up the valley, where so many of the cure's flock had been buried. I prayed with all my heart that no other life would be forfeited to this pestilence, which had seemed to have passed away from us.

But I was worn out myself with anxiety and watching. For three or four days I was ill with a low, nervous fever--altogether unlike the terrible typhoid, yet such as to keep me to my room. Minima and Mademoiselle Therese were my only companions. Mademoiselle, after talking that one night as much as she generally talked in twelve months, had relapsed into deeper taciturnity than before. But her muteness tranquillized me.

Minima's simple talk brought me back to the level of common life. My own nervous weeping, which I could not control, served to soothe me. My casement, almost covered by broad, clustering vine-leaves, preserved a cool, dim obscurity in my room. The village children seemed all at once to have forgotten how to scream and shout, and no sound from the street disturbed me. Even the morning and evening bell rang with a deep, muffled tone, which scarcely stirred the silence. I heard afterward that Jean had swathed the bell in a piece of sackcloth, and that the children had been sent off early every morning into the woods.

But I could not remain long in that idle seclusion. I felt all my strength returning, both of body and mind. I began to smile at Minima, and to answer her childish prattle, with none of the feeling of utter weariness which had at first prostrated me.

"Are we going to stay here forever and ever?" she asked me, one day, when I felt that the solitary peace of my own chamber was growing too monotonous for me.

"Should you like to stay, Minima?" I inquired in reply. It was a question I must face, that of what I was going to do in the future.

"I don't know altogether," she said, reflectively. "The boys here are not so nice as they used to be at home. Pierre says I'm a little pagan, and that's not nice, Aunt Nelly. He says I must be baptized by Monsieur Laurentie, and be prepared for my first communion, before I can be as good as he is. The boys at home used to think me quite as good as them, and better. I asked Monsieur Laurentie if I ought to be baptized over again, and he only smiled, and said I must be as good a little girl as I could be, and it did not much matter. But Pierre, and all the rest, think I'm not as good as them, and I don't like it."

I could not help laughing, like Monsieur Laurentie, at Minima's distress. Yet it was not without foundation. Here we were heretics amid the orthodox, and I felt it myself. Though Monsieur le Cure never alluded to it in the most distant manner, there was a difference between us and the simple village-folk in Ville-en-bois which would always mark us as strangers in blood and creed.

"I think," continued Minima, with a shrewd expression on her face, which was beginning to fill up and grow round in its outlines, "I think, when you are quite well again, we'd better be going on somewhere to try our fortunes. It never does, you know, to stop too long in the same place. I'm quite sure we shall never meet the prince here, and I don't think we shall find any treasure. Besides, if we began to dig they'd all know, and want to go shares. I shouldn't mind going shares with Monsieur Laurentie, but I would not go shares with Pierre. Of course when we've made our fortunes we'll come back, and we'll build Monsieur Laurentie a palace of marble, and put Turkey carpets on all the floors, and have fountains and statues, and all sorts of things, and give him a cook to cook splendid dinners. But we wouldn't stay here always if we were very, very rich; would you, Aunt Nelly?"

"Has anybody told you that I am rich?" I asked, with a passing feeling of vexation.

"Oh, no," she said, laughing heartily, "I should know better than that.

You're very poor, my darling auntie, but I love you all the same. We shall be rich some day, of course. It's all coming right, by-and-by."