Amélie and Héloise remained long in the Chapel of Saints, kneeling upon the hard floor as they prayed with tears and sobs for the soul of the Bourgeois and for God's pity and forgiveness upon Le Gardeur.
To Amélie's woes was added the terrible consciousness that, by this deed of her brother, Pierre Philibert was torn from her forever. She pictured to herself his grief, his love, his despair, perhaps his vengeance; and to add to all, she, his betrothed bride, had forsaken him and fled like a guilty thing, without waiting to see whether he condemned her.
An hour ago Amélie had been the envy and delight of her gay bridesmaids. Her heart had overflowed like a fountain of wine, intoxicating all about her with joy at the hope of the speedy coming of her bridegroom. Suddenly the idols of her life had been shattered as by a thunderbolt, and lay in fragments around her feet.
The thought came upon her like the rush of angry wings. She knew that all was over between her and Pierre. The cloister and the veil were all that were left to Amélie de Repentigny.
“Héloise, dearest sister!” exclaimed she, “my conscience tells me I have done right, but my heart accuses me of wrong to Pierre, of falseness to my plighted vows in forsaking him; and yet, not for heaven itself would I have forsaken Pierre. Would that I were dead! Oh, what have I done, Héloise, to deserve such a chastisement as this from God?”
Amélie threw her arms around the neck of Héloise, and leaning her head on her bosom, wept long and without restraint, for none saw them save God.
“Listen!” said Héloise, as the swelling strain of the organ floated up from the convent chapel. The soft voices of the nuns mingled in plaintive harmony as they sang the hymn of the Virgin:
“Pia Mater! Fons amoris!
Me sentire vim doloris
Fac, ut tecum lugeam!”
Again came the soft pleading notes of the sacred hymn:
“Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animae donetur
Paradisi gloria! Amen!”