He returned to the bed, and the others went over and sat by the window.  For some, minutes the two voices were beard in question and response; the one feeble and broken by suffering; the other confident, grave, scarcely lowered for the solemn interrogation.  After some inaudible words a hand was raised in a gesture which instantly bowed the heads of all those in the house.  The priest rose.

Before departing the doctor gave Maria a little bottle with instructions.  “Only if she should suffer greatly, so that she cries out, and never more than fifteen drops at a time.  And do not let her have any cold water to drink.”

She saw them to the door, the bottle in her hand.  Before getting into the sleigh the cure took Maria aside and spoke a few words to her.  “Doctors do what they can,” said he in a simple unaffected way, “but only God Himself has knowledge of disease.  Pray with all your heart, and I shall say a mass for her to-morrow—­a high mass with music, you understand.”

All day long Maria strove to stay the hidden advances of the disorder with her prayers, and every time that she returned to the bedside it was with a half hope that a miracle had been wrought, that the sick woman would cease from her groaning, sleep for a few hours and awake restored to health.  It was not so to be; the moaning ceased not, but toward evening it died away to sighing, continual and profound—­nature’s protest against a burden too heavy to be borne, or the slow inroad of death-dealing poison.

About midnight came Eutrope Gagnon, bringing Tit’Sebe the bone-setter.  He was a little, thin, sad-faced man with very kind eyes.  As always when called to a sick-bed, he wore his clothes of ceremony, of dark wellworn cloth, which he bore with the awkwardness of the peasant in Sunday attire.  But the strong brown hands beyond the thread-bare sleeves moved in a way to inspire confidence.  They passed over the limbs and body of Madame Chapdelaine with the most delicate care, nor did they draw from her a single cry of pain; thereafter he sat for a long time motionless beside the couch, looking at her as though awaiting guidance from a source beyond himself.  But when at last he broke the silence it was to say:  “Have you sent for the cure? ...  He has been here.  And will he return?  To-morrow; that is well.”

After another pause he made his frank avowal.—­” There is nothing I can do for her.  Something has gone wrong within, about which I know nothing; were there broken bones I could have healed them.  I should only have had to feel them with my hands, and then the good God would have told me what to do and I should have cured her.  But in this sickness of hers I have no skill.  I might indeed put a blister on her back, and perhaps that would draw away-the blood and relieve her for a time.  Or I could give her a draught made from beaver kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well known.  But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would work a cure.”