agitation, to see if there might be any writing, any message addressed
to me; but there was nothing, nothing but this silent sign of those who
had been here. Naturally M. le Curé, who kept watch at the door, was
unacquainted with the cause of my emotion. The last room I entered was
my wife's. Her veil was lying on the white bed, as if she had gone out
that moment, and some of her ornaments were on the table. It seemed to
me that the atmosphere of mystery which filled the rest of the house was
not here. A ribbon, a little ring, what nothings are these? Yet they
make even emptiness sweet. In my Agnès's room there is a little shrine,
more sacred to us than any altar. There is the picture of our little
Marie. It is covered with a veil, embroidered with needlework which it
is a wonder to see. Not always can even Agnès bear to look upon the face
of this angel, whom God has taken from her. She has worked the little
curtain with lilies, with white and virginal flowers; and no hand, not
even mine, ever draws it aside. What did I see? The veil was boldly
folded away; the face of the child looked at me across her mother's bed,
and upon the frame of the picture was laid a branch of olive, with
silvery leaves. I know no more but that I uttered a great cry, and flung
myself upon my knees before this angel-gift. What stranger could know
what was in my heart? M. le Curé, my friend, my brother, came hastily to
me, with a pale countenance; but when he looked at me, he drew back and
turned away his face, and a sob came from his breast. Never child had
called him father, were it in heaven, were it on earth. Well I knew
whose tender fingers had placed the branch of olive there.

I went out of the room and locked the door. It was just that my wife
should find it where it had been laid.

I put my arm into his as we went out once more into the street. That
moment had made us brother and brother. And this union made us more