A consciousness came over the household that sad change and revolution hung over the family. Jean Le Ber du Chesne was going away in the bloom of his days to that unknown bourn of which God alone knows the secret. It was very quiet in the death-chamber, where the young hero lay looking at the distant tapers, the one centre of light in the great gloomy room, gazing with eyes from which all conflict had departed, abstracted in their wistfulness. He had grown calm in absolute self-surrender, giving a sigh occasionally to what might have been, and feeling perhaps an awakening thrill of anticipation of what was to come. The room was filled with dusky, wavering shadows. On a _prie-dieu_ close at hand knelt Diane. The torture of one who had fought a protracted battle was ended by the hard-won victory over self. In this solemn hour she felt the stirring of some wider, grander life within, and the human eyes gazed appealingly across the darkness of present things, striving to see, no matter how indistinctly, the first faint glimmer of that light which glows beyond the grave. Farther from the bed, two nuns of the Congregation, Sister Marguerite Bourgeois, an aged woman whose serenity of countenance was like a benediction, and sister Berbier, Superior of the Convent of the Congregation, whispered together. Something stirred softly. At the sound of the measured, ill-assured movements, timid yet rushing, with a definite purpose underlying the desperate haste, even Diane raised her head, and the nuns, crossing themselves, drew closer together. A wan, hollow-eyed form, gliding from among the shadows, advanced towards the bed, stood for a moment gazing down upon du Chesne’s peaceful face, and then disappeared as noiselessly as it had entered. The strong and subtle tie of kindred had drawn Jeanne Le Ber from the seclusion of years. The spectators were awed by the sight of a mortal, divided from all human hopes and interests, yet still firmly bound to its inheritance of human woe. Night had passed. The stars paled in the sky, lingering shadows dispersed, the dawn was breaking in the east. Sister Berbier rose, and crossing the room, threw open the heavy wooden shutters. The fresh, cool air, moist and odorous, rushed in; and with it a searching ray of light, clear and terrible, fell upon the calm dead face on the pillow. CHAPTER XXVII. _A COMPLETED SACRIFICE._ “MY daughter, when the earthly hope that lights existence has faded, and we find it impossible to lay down our lives to perish in the grave beside it—when we can neither endure our trouble nor be reconciled to it—we can only disengage ourselves and leave it behind us, dead and buried. The true and genuine portion of our sorrow lives; the base regrets we must learn to cast from us; there is no companionship between the living and the dead,” Dollier de Casson assured Diane.