“God’s ways are inscrutable,” answered Cathelineau, “and his paths are not plain to mortal eyes; but it is not the less our duty to struggle on to do those things which appear to us to be acceptable to Him.  But should these sad days come, should atheism and the love of blood stride without control through our villages; if it be doomed that our houses are to be burnt and our women to be slaughtered, why should all remain to be a prey to our enemies?  Ah, Mademoiselle leave this devoted country for a while, take your sweet cousin with you; bid M. de Lescure send away his young wife:  it is enough that men should have to fight with demons; men can fight and die, and suffer comparatively but little, but female beauty and female worth will be made to suffer ten thousand deaths from the ruthless atrocities of republican foes.”

Agatha shuddered at the picture which Cathelineau’s words conjured up, but her undaunted courage was not shaken.

“God will temper the wind to the shorn lamb,” said she.  “Neither I, nor Marie will leave our brothers, nor will Madame de Lescure leave her husband; it is little we can do to hasten victory, but we can lessen suffering and administer comfort, when comfort is most required.  Had you, Cathelineau, loved some woman above all others, and been loved by her; had you had with you in your struggle some dear sister, or perhaps still dearer wife, would you have asked her to go from you, that you might have battled on, and struggled, and at last have died alone?”

“By God’s dear love, I would,” said he, raising himself, as he spoke, upon his bed.  “My most earnest prayer to her should have been to leave me.”

“And when she refused to do so; when she also swore by God’s dear love, that she would stay with you till the last; as she would have done, Cathelineau, if she loved you as—­as you should have been loved; would you then have refused the comfort her love so longed to give you?”

“I know not then what I would have done,” said he, after lying with his eyes closed for a few moments without answering.  “I have never known such love.  Our women love their husbands and their brothers, but it is only angels love with such a love as that.”

“Such is the love a man deserves who gives his all for his King and his country.  If our husbands, and our brothers, and our dear friends, Cathelineau, are brave and noble, we will endeavour to imitate them; as long as there is an abiding-place for them in the country, there are duties for us.  If God vouchsafed to spare you your life a while, that you might live to be the instrument of restoring His worship, do you think that I would run from your bedside, because I heard that the rebels were near you?  Oh, Cathelineau! you do not know the passive courage of a woman’s heart.”

Cathelineau listened to her with all his ears, and gazed on her with all his eyes, as she spoke to him.  It seemed to him as though another world had opened to his view even before his death; as though paradise could give him no holier bliss than to gaze on that face, and to listen to that voice.