"Remember--you especially, Rose--that life--will not last for ever--but--there is one beyond it; that will. Endeavour to inherit it. Will you not kiss me for the last time?"
They leaned over her, one by one, their aching hearts beating against the counterpane, the tears raining from their eyes.
"You--will--come--to me--in heaven?"
Barely had the words left her lips--and they were the last that either of them heard her utter--when Louise, with a solemn face, full of mighty importance, threw the corridor door wide open, and whispered something which only the nurse caught. She jumped up, thrust her chair behind her, and dropped down upon her knees where she stood.
"What in the world has taken her?" ejaculated Rose.
"Don't you understand?" was Mary's hurried answer, drawing Rose after her, and escaping to the drawing-room.
They saw it through the open door. The line of priests, in their white robes, coming up the stairs; the silver crucifix borne before them; the "Bon Dieu" sacredly covered from observation. Louise sank on her knees in the passage, as the nurse had done in the room, and they swept past her with solemn step, towards Adeline's chamber, looking neither to the right nor left. They had come to bestow absolution, according to the rights of the Roman Catholic faith--to administer to her the Sacrament of the dying.
[CHAPTER XXX.]
THE RECEPTION OF THE DEAD
It was a sad day to describe--that next one. Adeline had died a little before midnight, fully conscious to the last, and quite peaceful; all her relatives, and they only, surrounding her bed.