"Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be carried out." The prioress told a few beads. Fauchelevent held his tongue; then the lady continued,-- "I have consulted on this point several ecclesiastics, who labor in our Lord, who turn their attention to the exercise of clerical life, and reap an admirable harvest." "Reverend Mother, the knell is heard better here than in the garden." "Moreover, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint." "Like yourself, Reverend Mother." "She slept in her coffin for more than twenty years, by express permission of our Holy Father Pius VII." "The same who crowned the Emp--Bonaparte." For a clever man like Fauchelevent the recollection was ill-timed. Luckily the prioress, who was deep in thought, did not hear him, and went on,-- "Father Fauvent?" "Reverend Mother?" "Saint Diodorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, requested that only one word should be inscribed on his tombstone, _Acarus_, which means a worm, and it was done. Is that true?" "Yes, Reverend Mother." "The blessed Mezzocanes, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried under a gallows, and it was done." "That is true." "Saint Terentius, Bishop of Oporto, at the mouth of the Tiber on the sea, ordered that there should be engraved on his tombstone the symbol which was placed on the grave of parricides, in the hope that passers-by would spit on his tomb; and it was done, for the dead ought to be obeyed." "So be it." "The body of Bernard Guidonis, who was born in France, near Roche Abeille, was, as he ordered, and in defiance of the King of Castile, conveyed to the Church of the Dominicans of Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was Bishop of Tuy in Spain. Can you say the contrary?" "Certainly not, Reverend Mother." "The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse." A few beads were told in silence, and then the prioress resumed,-- "Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be buried in the coffin in which she has slept for twenty years." "That is but fair." "It is a continuation of sleep." "Then I shall have to nail her up in that coffin?" "Yes." "And we shall not employ the undertaker's coffin?" "Exactly." "I am at the orders of the most Reverend Community." "The four singing mothers will help you." "To nail up the coffin? I do not want them." "No, to let it down." "Where?" "Into the vault." "What vault?" "Under the altar." Fauchelevent started. "The vault under the altar?" "Yes." "But--" "You have an iron bar." "Yes, still--" "You will lift the stone by passing the bar through the ring." "But--" "We must obey the dead. It was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion to be buried in the vault under the chapel altar, not to be placed in profane soil, and to remain when dead at the place where she had prayed when alive. She asked this of us, indeed, ordered it." "But it is forbidden." "Forbidden by man, ordered by God." "Suppose it oozed out?" "We have confidence in you." "Oh! I am a stone of your wall."