“Presently I will go down to lie on that spot where he knelt before the altar.”
“Shall I assist you down, dear mademoiselle?” said Sister Macé with the solicitude of a sparrow trying to lift a wounded robin.
“No, Sister. But of your charity do this for me in my weakness. Go down and stand by the place. I have not known if any foot pressed it, and I will not have it profaned.”
Sister Macé, therefore, who respected all requests, and who herself had lain stretched on that cold stone pavement doing her religious penances, descended the stairs and stood near the altar; while her charge followed, holding by railing or sinking upon step, until she reached the square of stone where Dollard had knelt.
As a mother pounces upon her child in idolatrous abandon, so Claire fell upon that chill spot and encircled it with her arms, sobbing:
“Doubt not that I shall find you again, my Dollard, my Dollard! Once before I prayed mightily to Heaven for a blessing, and I got my blessing.”
While she lay there, cheer after cheer rose from the river-landing, wild enthusiasm bursting out again as soon as the last round had died away. The canoes had put out on their expedition. Those who watched them with the longest watching would finally turn aside to other things. But the woman on the chapel floor lay stretched there for twenty-four hours.