Since she had known the child was dead, she had not stirred, except to resist, moaning, every attempt to lift her from the floor, where she had cast herself, and except that she shuddered and repulsed Jules, especially, whenever he went near her.
We went into the room where she lay. My good brother stooped, and spoke to her in his tender, manly fashion, and lifted her, with a resolution to which she yielded, and seated her on a sofa beside his wife, whose kind arms closed round her suffering sister.
And suddenly some one had come in whom Rose could not see, for her eyes were pressed to that womanly bosom. John's wife made a little warning gesture that kept us others silent.
It was poor Jean himself; he came in as if in search of somewhat; he was deadly pale, and perhaps half unconscious what he did. He was without shoes, and his clothes and blond hair and beard were tumbled and disordered—just as when they had laid him on his bed. When he saw Rose, he came straight up to her, and sat down on her other side.
"Ma pauvre Rose," said he piteously—
She gave a cry and start of terror, and turned and saw him. The poor fellow's broken heart was in his face; she could not mistake the sweet-natured anguish there. Half bewildered by his inconceivable grief, he had gone to her, instinctively, like a child, for sympathy and comfort.
"Ma pauvre Rose," said he, brokenly; "notre petit—"
Passionately she took his great head between her hands, and drew it down on her bosom, and kissed it passionately weeping at last.
And we all came out softly, and left them—left them to that Pity which sends us the wholesome agony of such tears.