“Yes,” the dying woman answered, faintly. “I hope I am forgiven, and that I shall find rest beyond the grave. I used to pray so much in the cottage when I was alone—pray sometimes all night with my face on the cold floor. But the peace I asked for would not come. There was always a horror of blackness before me until I came here, when the darkness has been clearing, and now there is peace and joy, for I feel that God forgives me all my sin, and you, my child, have forgiven me too, and called me _mother_, and Phil is alive and safe. I’ve nothing more to live for, and I am so glad to die.” She talked but little after that, and when she did speak her mind was wandering in the past, now at Chateau des Fleurs, now in Rome, where she watched by her mistress’ bedside, but mostly in Marseilles, where her baby was born, “her darling little girl baby,” whom she bade Queenie be kind to when she was gone. Then she talked of Margery and Paris, and the apartments in the Rue St. Honore, until her voice was only a whisper, and Queenie could not distinguish a word. She was dying very fast, and just at the last, before her life went out forever, Queenie bent over her, and kissing her softly, whispered: “Mother, do you know that I am here—Queenie—your little girl?” “Yes, yes,” she gasped, and a look of unutterable love and satisfaction shone in the eyes which looked up at Queenie. “_I know_ you are Queenie—the baby born at Marseilles—my own—and you kiss me and call me _mother_. God bless you, my child, and make you very happy. I am glad for your sake that I am going away. Good-by, my darling, good-by!” She never spoke again, though it was an hour or more before Queenie loosed her hold of the hand which clung so tightly to hers, and closing the eyes which looked at her to the last, smoothed the bed-clothes decently, and then going out to Pierre, who was waiting in the hall, told him that all was over. * * * * * Sister Christine was dead, and there was mourning for her in the city where she was so well known, and where her kindness and gentleness and courage had won her so many friends, some of whom followed her remains to their last resting-place, and wept for her as one long known and well beloved. Every respect which it was possible under the circumstances to pay her was paid to her. Many gathered about the grave where they buried her, just after the sun setting on the same day of her death. It was Queenie who prepared her for the coffin, suffering no other hands to touch her but her own. “She nursed me when I was a baby, and I must care for her now,” she said to Sister Agatha, when she remonstrated with her and offered to take the task from her hands. And to Queenie it was a mournful pleasure thus to care for the woman who had been her mother, and who, she felt, was truly good and repentant at the last.