"Then the Abbé Poivron administered the last sacrament to my uncle with all the customary prayers and remitted all his sins, while my mother sobbed, kneeling near her brother. Suddenly, however, she exclaimed: 'He recognized me; he pressed my hand; I am sure he recognized me!!!... and that he thanked me! Oh, God, what happiness!'
"Poor Mamma! If she had known or guessed to whom those thanks ought to have been addressed!
"They laid my uncle on his bed; he was certainly dead that time.
"'Madame,' Mélani said, 'we have no sheets to bury him in; all the linen belongs to those two young ladies,' and when I looked at the omelette which they had not finished, I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the same time. There are some strange moments and some strange sensations in life, occasionally!
"We gave my uncle a magnificent funeral, with five speeches at the grave. Baron de Croiselles, the Senator, showed in admirable terms, that God always returns victorious into well-born souls which have gone astray for a moment. All the members of the Royalist and Catholic party followed the funeral procession with the enthusiasm of triumphers, speaking of that beautiful death, after a somewhat restless life."
Viscount Roger ceased speaking, and those around him laughed. Then somebody said: "Bah! That is the story of conversions in Extremis."