"I'm glad you were able to get here before the end came," said my father.
"Oh, if you could only know how she loved you all!"
The Breton suddenly broke down and cried like a child. When he could
control himself he said, "It was but this very morning that I passed her on
the street. She seemed just like a happy bird as she waved me 'good
day,'--and now--now--to find her dying here!"
"May the dear Lord's will be done!" said Teresa.
The poor Breton had buried his face in his hands, but suddenly looking up,
he said humbly,
"You're quite right, Mademoiselle Teresa--but, you see, Mademoiselle Paula
was more to me than it seems she could mean to any one of you. I was a
drunkard and a robber--a monster of iniquity! I was despised and hated and
feared by everybody, and for good reason. But there in Celestina's kitchen
that day, Mademoiselle was not afraid to take these rough hands--these
hands that had been so often stained with crime and violence in her own
pure white ones to tell me she would help me! She it was who taught me to
pray. She it was who had prayed for me while I was in prison. I have seen
men ground to pieces in the gears of a machine in the factory.
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