tinge that one sees on the bodies of saints preserved by miracle.  In her look is that mingling of calm and suffering that points to a soul at once tried by sorrow and imbued with religion.  After the lapse of an hour, while no movement had disturbed the profound silence which reigned about the bed of death, the king trembled slightly; opened his eyes, and endeavoured feebly to raise his head.  They thanking the physician and priest with a smile, who had both hastened to arrange his pillows, he begged the queen to come near, and told her in a low voice that he would speak with her a moment alone.  The doctor and confessor retired, deeply bowing, and the king followed them with his eyes up to the moment when one of the doors closed behind them.  He passed his hand across his brow, as though seeking to collect his thoughts, and rallying all his forces for the supreme effort, pronounced these words: 

“What I must say to you, Sancha, has no concern with those two good persons who were here a moment ago:  their task is ended.  One has done all for my body that human science could teach him, and all that has come of it is that my death is yet a little deferred; the other has now absolved me of all my sins, and assured me of God’s forgiveness, yet cannot keep from me those dread apparitions which in this terrible hour arise before me.  Twice have you seen me battling with a superhuman horror.  My brow has been bathed in sweat, my limbs rigid, my cries have been stifled by a hand of iron.  Has God permitted the Evil Spirit to tempt me?  Is this remorse in phantom shape?  These two conflicts I have suffered have so subdued my strength that I can never endure a third.  Listen then, my Sandra, for I have instructions to give you on which perhaps the safety of my soul depends.”

“My lord and my master,” said the queen in the most gentle accents of submission, “I am ready to listen to your orders; and should it be that God, in the hidden designs of His providence, has willed to call you to His glory while we are plunged in grief, your last wishes shall be fulfilled here on earth most scrupulously and exactly.  But,” she added, with all the solicitude of a timid soul, “pray suffer me to sprinkle drops of holy water and banish the accursed one from this chamber, and let me offer up some part of that service of prayer that you composed in honour of your sainted brother to implore God’s protection in this hour when we can ill afford to lose it.”

Then opening a richly bound book, she read with fervent devotion certain verses of the office that Robert had written in a very pure Latin for his brother Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, which was in use in the Church as late as the time of the Council of Trent.

Soothed by the charm of the prayers he had himself composed, the king was near forgetting the object of the interview he had so solemnly and eagerly demanded and letting himself lapse into a state of vague melancholy, he murmured in a subdued voice, “Yes, yes, you are right; pray for me, for you too are a saint, and I am but a poor sinful man.”