But to attend this deathbed of her belief and of her love, love that had already given itself over, too weak to struggle against dissolution, it was as if she had seen some horrible reversal of the law of death, spirit returning to earth, the incorruptible putting on corruption.
Not only was her house of life made desolate; it was defiled.

Dumb and ashamed, she abandoned herself like a child to the arms of God, too agonised to pray.
An hour passed.
Then slowly, as she knelt, the religious instinct regained possession of her.

It was as if her soul had been flung adrift, had gone out with the ebb of the spiritual sea, and now rocked, poised, waiting for the turn of the immortal tide.
Her lips parted, almost mechanically, in the utterance of the divine name.

Aware of that first motion of her soul, she gathered herself together, and concentrated her will upon some familiar prayer for guidance.

For a little while she prayed thus, grasping at old shadowy forms of petition as they went by her, lifting her sunken mind by main force from stupefaction; and then, it was as if the urging, steadying will withdrew, and her soul, at some heavenly signal, moved on alone into the place of peace..