In the meantime, night had fallen. Deposited at the head of the darkened alcove, the dead form might indistinctly be traced through its covering of linen, as though it were sketched in marble. Higher up hung a Christ, in ivory, the head bent forward, and the arms extended. Geneviève knelt down near the bed, and remained there for a long time, with her head leaning upon her joined hands. Half-aloud she murmured a prayer; but whilst her lips repeated faithfully every word, their meaning was not taken in by her mind. When she had finished it, she raised herself up mechanically, and looked about her; her brain was a gloomy chaos. Putting up both hands to her forehead, she pressed it, with a stifled cry, as though she sought to stay that whirlwind of confused and lacerating thoughts. There was, for some few moments, a struggle between her will and her despair; finally the former gained the ascendant; she stepped towards the door and opened it. Her husband had taken refuge on the platform with Francine, to remove her from the harrowing sight of placing the body in its shroud. Geneviève could see him standing near the parapet; the little girl was at his feet, with her head resting on his knees. Since the death of her sister, she had not spoken a word. Fixed in one place, with eyes dilated and lips compressed, she seemed to be endeavouring to comprehend what had occurred. Her two small hands hung down inactive, and her naked feet appeared to be glued to the ground. Seeing her thus, under the early rays of the moon that were playing in her light-coloured tresses, Geneviève was, as it were, brought back to herself. A flash passed across the blankness of her expression; her nostrils dilated; a flood of tears gushed from her eyes. Springing towards the child, she seized it in her arms with a sort of doleful passionateness, to which Francine at once and amply responded, by an outburst of sobs and caresses. For a long time there was nothing but an interchange of broken appeals and unfinished phrases. The little girl would go on asking for her sister, while the mother, whose despair was revived by such demands, compelled herself to smother them beneath her kisses. At last, her strength exhausted, she let her arms, that upheld Francine, drop down, and felt that she was gently withdrawn from her. It was Mathieu, who placed the child upon the ground. He then led the mother a little further apart, and obliged her to sit down upon the stone-bench, leaning her back against the parapet. She tried to raise herself up, as she stretched out her hands. --"My child!" she stammered through her sobbings; "I want my child!" --"In good time thou shalt see her," said Ropars, who according to the custom of the Bretagne peasantry only _thee'd_ and _thou'd_ Geneviève, when under the influence of strong emotion; "but first thou must listen with all attention, for what I have to tell thee is of the deepest consequence."