Scarcely had the hammers begun their monotonous chorus, when the tragedy occurred. Convict 317 was seen to let his hammer suddenly fall, and gaze with terrified eyes into the hole near by. "Marie! Marie!" he shouted, in a voice charged with fear. Just as he reached the edge of the incline, and was about to jump down and clasp in his arms the dear, bedraggled figure, clad in the torn bridal robes, the sentry near the gate brought his rifle to the shoulder, and in a warning voice called out to the fleeing convict; but the latter failed to hear the warning. There was a puff of smoke, a sharp report, and convict 317 was seen to throw up his arms and fall.
When the guards reached the spot where they thought he had fallen, he was nowhere to be seen. They took a few steps forward and looked down the incline: there he was at the bottom, with his head resting on the bosom of a young girl, in strange array.
They sprang down and raised him—he would never occupy his cell again!
As the guards stooped wonderingly over the form of the girl, they failed to see in the distance the rapid approach of a carriage, which had passed the gate and was close upon them. Just as they were about to summon the convicts to carry the bodies into the yard, the carriage stopped, and she who had prayed so fervently for the lifeless ones, and had tried so hard to believe, sprang out and ran to where they were lying. Clasping her arms about them, she wept, and kissed them passionately.
"I am too late, too late!" she moaned in an agony of grief.
The Little Mother had instinctively known the road Marie had taken, and the moment consciousness returned to her in the bedroom, she had called a carriage and set out at once after her. The driver had driven furiously; his horse was covered with foam, but to no avail; Marie was near her sad journey's end when they started.
At first the guards were inclined to push the old creature away, but when they understood, from her grief, what relation the quiet forms bore to her, and heard snatches of their pitiful history fall, incoherently, from her lips, they drew back, and let her pour out her deep grief over them. With sympathizing hearts, at length they made a sign, and the convicts took up the bodies and bore them into the courtyard.
The Little Mother seemed too stunned to notice what they had done, and still sat sobbing and talking to herself.
The driver grew weary of waiting, and going to her side said softly, as he laid his hand on her shoulder: "Let me take you home; it is cold, and you are shivering."
She only crouched closer to the spot where they had lain, and talked on. Thinking she was speaking to him, the man bent his head to listen. "It is all my fault," he heard her say, "because I had not the faith—not the right faith—not the faith that Father Benoit meant—the faith that can remove mountains!"