Her mother's sobs broke out again; but Nathalie looked only at the doctor.
"Yes, dear child, you will last to-day, I think; but try and be calm, and not disturb yourself at the shortness of the time."
Her hands dropped in a kind of collapse of despair.
"So soon, so soon!" she said, "and so much to do—so much to atone for!"
"Shall we send for a clergyman?" the doctor asked.
"Shall I fetch you Father Lennard?" inquired Val, stooping over her.
Her face brightened a little. The gray old priest had baptized her, an infant, had confirmed her a young girl, rind she had loved and reverenced him more than any one else on earth.
"Yes, yes," she said, eagerly. "Bring Father Lennard. Oh, how short the time is, and so much to be done."
Mr. Blake found Father Lennard at home, and had to go over again the weary story of wrong-doings and falsehood. He was a very old man; his hair had grown gray in his holy calling, and he was long used to tales of sorrow and sin—sorrow and sin, that go so surely hand in hand. He had learned to listen to such recitals—as a pitiful doctor, who knows all the ailments poor human nature is subject to, does to stories of bodily suffering—tenderly, sadly, but with no surprise. He had known Nathalie Marsh from babyhood; he had had a father's affection for the pretty, gentle, blue-eyed little girl, who had knelt at his confessional so often, lisping out her childish faults; he had moaned for her tragic fate; and he had nothing but pity, and prayer, and sorrow for her now.
Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were in the room with the dying girl when they returned; Mrs. Marsh sitting at the foot of the bed, weeping incessantly, and the pale governess kneeling beside the pillows, holding the cold thin hands in hers, and reading prayers for the sick out of a missal. Both arose when the Father entered, and the dying face lit up with a sudden light of recognition and hope.