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“Why dost thou think of that now–here in the grave where it matters not, even to the living?”

“I know not; but it was of that night when Ignace went down that I thought as the living breath went out of me. Of what didst thou think as thou layest dying?”

“Of the money I owed to Dominique and could not pay. I sought to ask my son to pay it, but death had come suddenly and I could not speak. God knows how they treat my name to-day in the village of St. Hilaire.”

“Thou art forgotten,” murmured another voice. “I died forty years after thee and men remember not so long in Finisterre. But thy son was my friend and I remember that he paid the money.”

“And my son, what of him? Is he, too, here?”

“Nay; he lies deep in the northern sea. It was his second voyage, and he had returned with a purse for the young wife, the first time. But he returned no more, and she washed in the river for the dames of Croisac, and by-and-by she died. I would have married her, but she said it was enough to lose one husband. I married another, and she grew ten years in every three that I went to the grande peche. Alas for Brittany, she has no youth!”

“And thou? Wert thou an old man when thou camest here?”

“Sixty. My wife came first, like many wives. She lies here. Jeanne!”

“Is’t thy voice, my husband? Not the Lord Jesus Christ’s? What miracle is this? I thought that terrible sound was the trump of doom.”

“It could not be, old Jeanne, for we are still in our graves. When the trump sounds we shall have wings and robes of light, and fly straight up to heaven. Hast thou slept well?”

“Ay! But why are we awakened? Is it time for purgatory? Or have we been there?”

“The good God knows. I remember nothing. Art frightened? Would that I could hold thy hand, as when thou didst slip from life into that long sleep thou didst fear, yet welcome.”

“I am frightened, my husband. But it is sweet to hear thy voice, hoarse and hollow as it is from the mould of the grave. Thank the good God thou didst bury me with the rosary in my hands,” and she began telling the beads rapidly.

“If God is good,” cried Francois, harshly, and his voice came plainly to the priest’s ears, as if the lid of the coffin had rotted, “why are we awakened before our time? What foul fiend was it that thundered and screamed through the frozen avenues of my brain? Has God, perchance, been vanquished and does the Evil One reign in His stead?”

“Tut, tut! Thou blasphemest! God reigns, now and always. It is but a punishment He has laid upon us for the sins of earth.”

“Truly, we were punished enough before we descended to the peace of this narrow house. Ah, but it is dark and cold! Shall we lie like this for an eternity, perhaps? On earth we longed for death, but feared the grave. I would that I were alive again, poor and old and alone and in pain. It were better than this. Curse the foul fiend that woke us!”

“Curse not, my son,” said a soft voice, and the priest stood up and uncovered and crossed himself, for it was the voice of his aged predecessor. “I cannot tell thee what this is that has rudely shaken us in our graves and freed our spirits of their blessed thraldom, and I like not the consciousness of this narrow house, this load of earth on my tired heart. But it is right, it must be right, or it would not be at all–ah, me!”

For a baby cried softly, hopelessly, and from a grave beyond came a mother’s anguished attempt to still it.

“Ah, the good God!” she cried. “I, too, thought it was the great call, and that in a moment I should rise and find my child and go to my Ignace, my Ignace whose bones lie white on the floor of the sea. Will he find them, my father, when the dead shall rise again? To lie here and doubt!–that were worse than life.”