I received a fresh shock as I neared Clochegourde.  Jacques, Madeleine, and the Abbe Dominis were kneeling at the foot of a wooden cross placed on a piece of ground that was taken into the enclosure when the iron gate was put up, which the count and countess had never been willing to remove.  I sprang from the carriage and went towards them, my heart aching at the sight of these children and that grave old man imploring the mercy of God.  The old huntsman was there too, with bared head, standing a little apart.

I stooped to kiss Jacques and Madeleine, who gave me a cold look and continued praying.  The abbe rose from his knees; I took him by the arm to support myself, saying, “Is she still alive?” He bowed his head sadly and gently.  “Tell me, I implore you for Christ’s sake, why are you praying at the foot of this cross?  Why are you here, and not with her?  Why are the children kneeling here this chilly morning?  Tell me all, that I may do no harm through ignorance.”

“For the last few days Madame le comtesse has been unwilling to see her children except at stated times.—­Monsieur,” he continued after a pause, “perhaps you had better wait a few hours before seeing Madame de Mortsauf; she is greatly changed.  It is necessary to prepare her for this interview, or it might cause an increase in her sufferings —­death would be a blessed release from them.”

I wrung the hand of the good man, whose look and voice soothed the pangs of others without sharpening them.

“We are praying God to help her,” he continued; “for she, so saintly, so resigned, so fit to die, has shown during the last few weeks a horror of death; for the first time in her life she looks at others who are full of health with gloomy, envious eyes.  This aberration comes less, I think, from the fear of death than from some inward intoxication,—­from the flowers of her youth which ferment as they wither.  Yes, an evil angel is striving against heaven for that glorious soul.  She is passing through her struggle on the Mount of Olives; her tears bathe the white roses of her crown as they fall, one by one, from the head of this wedded Jephtha.  Wait; do not see her yet.  You would bring to her the atmosphere of the court; she would see in your face the reflection of the things of life, and you would add to the bitterness of her regret.  Have pity on a weakness which God Himself forgave to His Son when He took our nature upon Him.  What merit would there be in conquering if we had no adversary?  Permit her confessor or me, two old men whose worn-out lives cause her no pain, to prepare her for this unlooked-for meeting, for emotions which the Abbe Birotteau has required her to renounce.  But, in the things of this world there is an invisible thread of divine purpose which religion alone can see; and since you have come perhaps you are led by some celestial star of the moral world which leads to the tomb as to the manger—­”

He then told me, with that tempered eloquence which falls like dew upon the heart, that for the last six months the countess had suffered daily more and more, in spite of Monsieur Origet’s care.  The doctor had come to Clochegourde every evening for two months, striving to rescue her from death; for her one cry had been, “Oh, save me!” “To heal the body the heart must first be healed,” the doctor had exclaimed one day.