Now whilst he was guarding the old oak-tree, for all the world as if it had been the gate of the Tuileries or the barracks, Josephine de Beaurepaire came suddenly out from the house and crossed the Pleasaunce:  her hair was in disorder, her manner wild:  she passed swiftly into the park.

Raynal recognized her as one of the family; and after a moment’s reflection followed her into the park with the good-natured intention of offering her a month to clear out instead of a day.

But it was not so easy to catch her:  she flew.  He had to take his scabbard in his left hand and fairly run after her.  Before he could catch her, she entered the little chapel.  He came up and had his foot on the very step to go in, when he was arrested by that he heard within.

Josephine had thrown herself on her knees and was praying aloud:  praying to the Virgin with sighs and sobs and all her soul:  wrestling so in prayer with a dead saint as by a strange perversity men cannot or will not wrestle with Him, who alone can hear a million prayers at once from a million different places,—­can realize and be touched with a sense of all man’s infirmities in a way no single saint with his partial experience of them can realize and be touched by them; who unasked suspended the laws of nature that had taken a stranger’s only son, and she a widow; and wept at another great human sorrow, while the eyes of all the great saints that stood around it and Him were dry.

Well, the soldier stood, his right foot on the step and his sword in his left hand, transfixed:  listening gravely to the agony of prayer the innocent young creature poured forth within:—­

“O Madonna! hear me:  it is for my mother’s life.  She will die—­she will die.  You know she cannot live if she is taken away from her house and from this holy place where she prays to you this many years.  O Queen of Heaven! put out your hand to us unfortunates!  Virgin, hear a virgin:  mother, listen to a child who prays for her mother’s life!  The doctor says she will not live away from here.  She is too old to wander over the world.  Let them drive us forth:  we are young, but not her, mother, oh, not her!  Forgive the cruel men that do this thing!—­they are like those who crucified your Son—­they know not what they are doing.  But you, Queen of Heaven, you know all; and, sweet mother, if you have kind sentiments towards me, poor Josephine, ah! show them now:  for you know that it was I who insulted that wicked notary, and it is out of hatred to me he has sold our beloved house to a hard stranger.  Look down on me, a child who loves her mother, yet will destroy her unless you pity me and help me.  Oh! what shall I say?—­what shall I do? mercy! mercy! for my poor mother, for me!”

Here her utterance was broken by sobs.

The soldier withdrew his foot quietly.  Her words had knocked against his very breast-bone.  He marched slowly to and fro before the chapel, upright as a dart, and stiff as a ramrod, and actually pale:  for even our nerves have their habits; a woman’s passionate grief shook him as a cannon fired over his head could not.