My Little Lady Part 42

When she came down again Louise had reappeared, and was waiting to conduct them to the churchyard. The child went on in front, and they followed her in silence down the village street. It was already evening, the sun had sunk behind the hills; the men were returning from their work; the children were playing and shouting, and the women stood gossiping before their doors. All was life and animation in the little village, where a strange, silent woman had once pa.s.sed to and fro, with deeds and words of kindness for the suffering and sorrowful, but who would be seen there no more.

"There is the grave," says Louise, pointing it out to them. It was in a corner of the little graveyard; the earth was still fresh over it, and the black cross at its head was one of the newest amongst the hundred similar ones round about. Graham dismissed the child with a gratuity, and he and Madelon went up to the grave. There was no name, only the initials J. M. R.

painted on the cross beneath the three white tears, and the customary "_Priez pour elle!_" Some one had hung up a wreath of immortelles, and a rose-tree, twined round a neighbouring cross, had shed its petals above Jeanne-Marie's head.

Madelon knelt down and began to pull out some weeds that had sprung up, whilst Graham stood looking on. Long afterwards, one might fancy, would that hour still live in his memory--the peaceful stillness brooding over the little graveyard, the sunset sky, the sheltering hills, the scent of the falling roses, and Madelon, in her dark dress, kneeling by the grave.

Her task was soon accomplished, but she knelt on motionless.

Who shall say of what she was thinking? Something perhaps of the real meaning of life, of its great underlying sadness, enn.o.bled by patient suffering, by unselfish devotion, for presently she turned round to Graham.

"Oh, Horace," she said, "help me to be good; I am not, you know, but I would like to be----and you will help me."

"My little Madelon!" he raised her up, he took her in his arms. "We will both try to be good, with G.o.d's help. The world is all before us, to work in, and do our best--we will do what we can; with G.o.d's help, I say, we will do what we can."

They drove swiftly back towards Liege; the air blew freshly in their faces, the sunset colours faded, the stars came out one by one. As they vanish from our sight, they seem to fade into the mysterious twilight land. For them, as for us, other suns will rise, other days will dawn, but we shall have no part in them; between them and us falls the darkness of eternal separation.

THE END.