mother! she was not on my side), 'when it is known that the foolish are
often chosen to confound the wise.' But Agnès, my wife, it was she who
gave me the best consolation. She turned to me with the tears in her
beautiful eyes.

'Mon ami,' she said, 'let Monseigneur St. Lambert say what he will. He
is not God that we should put him above all. There were other saints
with other thoughts that came for thee and for me!'

All this contradiction was over when Agnès and I together took our
flowers on the _jour des morts_ to the graves we love. Glimmering among
the rest was a new cross which I had not seen before. This was the
inscription upon it:--


À PAUL LECAMUS
PARTI
LE 20 JUILLET, 1875
AVEC LES BIEN-AIMÉS


On it was wrought in the marble a little branch of olive. I turned to
look at my wife as she laid underneath this cross a handful of violets.
She gave me her hand still fragrant with the flowers. There was none of
his family left to put up for him any token of human remembrance. Who
but she should have done it, who had helped him to join that company and
army of the beloved? 'This was our brother,' she said; 'he will tell my
Marie what use I made of her olive leaves.'

THE END