The priest laid the wafer on her lips, and she fell back gently on the bed with closed eyes and clasped hands. Except for the motion of her lips, she seemed to have died, so pale was her face, so feeble the breath that issued from her bosom.
The priest concluded the other ceremonies of the extreme unction, but she did not open her eyes. He left the cell, and the assistants followed him.
The Carmelite nun, who had first met Mary, now came to her where she knelt, and touching her gently on the shoulder, said:--
"My sister, the rule of our order forbids that you should stay any longer in this cell."
"Bertha! Bertha!" said Mary, sobbing, "do you hear what they say to me? My God! after living together twenty years without being parted for a single day, and then separated for eleven years,--not to be allowed one hour together when we are parting for eternity!"
"You may stay in the house until I am dead, my sister and it will make me happy to think you are near me and praying for me."
Mary bent down to kiss her dying sister for the last time, but the nun interposed, saying:--
"Do not turn our blessed mother's mind from the celestial path she now has entered, by vain, earthly thoughts."
"Oh, I will not leave her thus!" cried Mary, flinging herself on Bertha's bed and putting her lips to those of her sister. Bertha's lips replied by a feeble quiver, then she gently pushed her sister away from her. But the hand that made this motion had no power to rejoin the other, and it fell inert upon the bed.
The nun advanced, and without a tear, without a sigh, without a sign of emotion upon her face, she took that dying hand, joined it to the other, and laid them clasped upon Bertha's breast. Then she gently pushed Mary to the door.