not forget to pray for you both. To-morrow I shall
offer my Mass for you both, begging our Lord to pre-
serve you in safety. And I hope you will sometimes
pray for me, and for all who are charged with the
care of souls, that we may not fail before heaven in
our duty.9
# # #
After they had left him he stood very still; and
erect he stood, in spite of his years, as a man might
stand who faced death with courage. And he strove
to lift up his heart to God, to lift it beyond the love of
the creature, so that it might serve none other than
God. But his heart would rise only a very little and
must always return to the place whence it came —
perhaps because it was wiser than he, knowing better
where it would find its Creator.
• §5
Ghristophe stood with his mother on the platform.
The train was late, trains were always late these
days and when they arrived, overcrowded.
Loup was there, and Madame Roustan was there
with her arm through Jan's, and Eusebe who had
hobbled along by the aid of a stick and immediately
joined the family group, and he reeking of drink
every time he exhaled, to the great indignation of
Madame Roustan. But for all his foul breath the
old pagan was sober, and because he was sober was
melancholy, so that his eye kept filling with tears
which he smudged away with a dirty forefinger; then
he wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt with his
usual splendid disdain of convention.
Oh, but quite a number of people had come:
Goundran together with his pretty Aurano ; the
Simons, in memory of Guillaume their son; the Her-
GG