last incline, her hands gripped me so hard that my breath struggled to get free. A shuffle of running feet went before us down Eight Bells Street, and at the end I saw a crowd gathered and heard the sound of angry voices and fierce oaths. "Shall we go on?" I whispered back to Margery. By this time I was chill and sick for my cousin's sake. I rose and gained permission from Robin's murderers, for they seemed no less to me, to have the poor dead body, that had been so blithe and strong and loving, carried decently and quietly home; and then I touched Margery on the shoulder and said, "Come." I feared, at first, that she would not leave him; but happily she let me guide her as I would. I longed "Oh, for the dear Christ's sake," she that she might weep-her dry eyes said, "go on, go on!" At the edge of the crowd, the staring faces fitfully lit by lanterns, I dropped the reins and turned in the saddle to help Margery to her feet. But she was down before my hand touched her. I followed and glanced round upon the group. There were king's officers there, and in their midst Robin's friend and partner, John Drane, with blood upon his face. He caught my eye, and cried. "There's little good in bringing a live horse to a dead man." Then he spat blood upon the ground from his wounded mouth, and hurled himself upon his captors; but in a moment he was overcome. I would have held Margery back until I had had time to think, but she went straight through the people, who fell back on either hand, I following, and in the midst of them a man lay upon the ground with his face to the black sky. It was Robin Penridd open-eyed and dead, with a bullet through the lungs, and upon his breast there lay the handkerchief which Margery had wrought for him so tenderly, dark with blood. She stooped down and looked into his face, and then she fell upon her knees and fingered at his bosom, and then she looked round at me with such a hopeless, pleading, questioning terror in her eyes that I wished myself dead and happy in Robin's place. I understood why death had laid a hand tat day upon my spirit, and I, too, fell upon my knees beside the dead man within the circle of that silent company, and made the blessed sign and prayed. Alas, I had no comfort for my cousin Margery, and even God was very far away. hurt me-but she only turned and gave me her hand. "Come," I said, "we must go home." "Oh, Oliver, Oliver," she moaned, "we were too late." Then she turned fiercely, with bared teeth, upon the crowd, and cried: "Cowards, cowards, why could you not save him? What were any of your lives to his? Cowards, and worse than women!" She kissed him once upon the lips, and after he had been carried to his lonely house, we mounted the dead man's horse once more and set out for the last time that night upon the white road. The wind still surged across the marshes, the surf clamored on the beach, and Margery's hands were round me again, but she spoke no word. She laid her head against my shoulder after a time, and I felt her breathing; yet I had no joy even in that. At every step a dead hand seemed to pluck at my skirts to draw me back, and every now and then my mind rose into a frenzy of fear and pity that shook me to the soul. The touch of death seemed to be in the clammy, moving darkness round us; we were shadows flying from a presence that yet kept pace with us, and the night to me was full of this presence and a girl's tired heart. At last, as we neared the gate, Margery's hands relaxed a little and then closed again passionately as she broke into pitiful weeping. At this I was glad, with that gladness which is like a scourge; I dared not have left her still dry-eyed at her father's door. It was in this way that the white road, as it were, became the highway of my life. And still my thoughts, my memories, and my fears, and above all, my love, go up and down upon it; and in my dreams I see it bright in moonlight or blurred with rain, hear the beat of hoofs upon it, and live over again the piteous tragedy of that day and night. I still love my cousin Margery as I loved her then, and some day I shall tell her of my love; but she has had such sorrow as falls to few women to endure, and I have learned the grace of patience in the same bitter school of tribulation, so that I may be an old man before I dare to speak. Nay, even now, my youth is far behind me, and I think sometimes it left me forever in that wild night upon the white road. From The Cornhill Magazine. It is a city lying within the Conqueror's city, fine old Caen, whose squalid streets are touched into worthiness by their churches with color-flushed windows and stones carved long ago. The plenitude in these streets, not only of churches but of family rubbish-heaps, leads to the inference that the prayers of the Caennais absorb more time than do the punctilios of sanitation. The schoolgirl who stated that atmospheric air was composed of germs and small insects may perhaps have been dweller in this Norman community, and in that case she came near being justified of her thesis. No stranger who suffers his nose to travel forth into the public highway undefended by smelling-salts, can harbor the smallest doubt of the need of hospitals in this place. a Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames, stony warnings to those who would plunge into matrimony without first considering tables of relationship; and round these two churches congregate nowadays the sick in body and mind. For the noble ladies of La Trinité, Matilda's Abbey, tend the wards in the hospital, whose park kisses their walls; and almost under the shadow of William's austere St. Etienne lies that wonderful composite house of mercy, the convent of Le Bon Sauveur, where many human miseries bring themselves to be healed and comforted. Thanks to its distinguished connections, the former foundation in earlier days seems to have been able to conduct itself with not a little flourish. Thus we read that in 1729 the citizens of Caen fired seven volleys of cannon to honor the arrival of a great lady as Abbess at La Trinité, and the thrifty-minded chronicler adds regretfully that they would not have fired more than three, but that they thought her sister, the Princess de Carignan, was with her. "Noble dame Marie-Anne de Verus" made, however, but shabby return to the town of Caen for its lavishness in welcome and gunpowder. Little more than a year later it was discovered that she was employing agents to smuggle large quantities of wine into the Abbaye. Wherefore there was some little unpleasantness with the authorities, and great heartburnings resulted, and a still greater lawsuit. It was not surprising that the Caennais, accustomed to the amplitude and aristocratic methods of this royal sisterhood, should dub the struggling congregation of Le Bon Sauveur, in its baby days, "le petit couvent." That it should ever have been thus named seems incredible to the visitor We all know well the story of the Conqueror's marriage with Matilda of Flanders, and how the twain snapped their fingers at remonstrant abbots and condemnatory councils, and lived awhile triumphantly in what the Church considered very naughty wed-in a hurry, who begins at the wrong lock. But with the flight of a brace of years compunctions pricked, and the royal sinners devised each a solid expiation of their naughtiness. Thus at opposite poles of the good town of Caen arose the two penance-built churches, William's and Matilda's, the end, and, marvelling at the stinginess of convents in the matter of exits and entrances, has to circumambulate something like a mile of walls before reaching the gates. For "le petit couvent" is not only big but huge, and covers seventeen acres of the old town of Caen, town, is left for our guessing. Certainly she, of all others, brought up from babyhood in its narrow, filthy streets, must have known to the full the nameless horrors that lurked in them, the sicknesses that pained and the poverty that gnawed, and known too with a compassion born of fellowship. We are told that in 1733 the "coqueluche," that old-time cousin to influenza, ran riot in dirty Caen during Lent, and resulted in such an enfeebled plight of the inhabitants that it was found necessary to officially sanction the reopening of the butchers' shops. This is little cause for wonder, since the convent, and go back to her native within its mighty walls of native stone two thousand motley humans suffer and work and pray. Here Napoleon's schoolfellow, the never too lucky Bourrienne, came to die. Here that gay dog, Beau Brummell, lived out the tattered remnant of his low-pitched life. Though, as the great doors opened before him, the old creditor-ridden Beau cried out in despair at entering what his mazed senses took to be a prison, yet it was here that he found the kindliness which the world denied when the clothes supply failed, and debts took the place of money. Captain Jesse, in his "Life of Brummell," tells how, at his entrance into the convent-asylum, the poor old Beau was helped to his rooms by Auguste, his friend's servant, and by one of the sisters, who, despite her holy robings, he insisted upon taking for Auguste's wife. Auguste was a lucky fellow, he remarked to the sister in a burst of gallantry, as they went along, "car vous êtes bien une jolie femme!" It was in 1731 that "le petit couvent" began its career, very quietly, with no flourish and no volleys of cannon, for it was a lowly born woman's venture. Anne Leroy was the daughter of an insignificant tradesman, who drove his little business in one of Caen's meau streets. She was brought up to earn her living as a dressmaker, but, being devoutly minded, she before long forsook her trade, and entered the convent at St. Lô, near Bayeux, hoping by this step to serve both God and her fellows. For to the average woman in the France of olden days the path to devoted philanthropy led commonly through convent gates. The lavish vices and prejudices of the time barred to the ordinary woman of the world the wide field for work which lay open to secular sisterhoods. Thus when the altruistic passion touched the ex-needlewoman, she in her St. Lô convent had to "faire sa profession," to take the three great vows which shear life of its fulness, before her career of fellow-service could begin. The motive which made her presently leave Possibly it was some such plague and the rumors of misery radiating from it, that drew the devout Caennaise from her convent to help her fellow-townsmen. Whatever the cause may have been, Anne Leroy left St. Lô in 1731, and, going back to Caen, devoted herself to tending the sick and sad and suffering, and drew around her other women eager for the same pitiful task. "Her sole idea," as they say in the mighty convent that arose from her efforts, "was to do as her Saviour had done on earth." They lived in Vaucelles, these sisters, in the heart of the city's poverty; they taught young girls, they visited the sick, they took into their own quarters poor lunatic women, and there ministered to them. And truly no more urgent work than this last could they have chosen, for in history there are few blacker blots of cruelty and ignorance than the old-time treatment of the insane. There were no Masters in Lunacy in Anne Leroy's days, no decent asylums, little compassion for madness, and less knowledge of its causes. A lunatic was a person of uncertain, inexplicable, and often dangerous habits. Society feared him, tucked him away somewhere out of sight with the aid of keys and chains, and passed by on the other side. In all probability this Gallio-like attitude meant for the lunatics a far greater sum of suffering than that involved in the impetuous treatment of a younger civilization, with its ducklings, and whippings, and like active but transi tory measures. But whether or no the poor creatures found swift agony preferable to imprisonment, their history unfortunately leaves no doubt of the existence of both in great bounty, of horrors and barbarity unimaginable, of the deprivation of all that their dulled sense could grasp of life and its joys. In Caen the pillared Palais de Justice stands where once stood the old gaol, part of which was known as "La Tour des Foux." Here were stowed away those wretched beings who were not as their fellows; here their days dragged out to years with a ghastly accompaniment of heavy chains, insufficient food, and lack of all things desirable. Kindness, consideration, pity-of these they probably knew less than wild beasts in captivity. Vincent de Paul had indeed preached, but Dr. Pinel had not yet practised. Wherefore Anne Leroy in her quiet way tried to build a seemly harbor for this human wreckage. She began, naturally, with the women, and with some success, apparently, for when the volcano of the Revolution burst, this little community, which it scattered with the rest, consisted of twelve sisters and sixteen lunatic women. Owing to the disturbances of the Revolution, it was not till 1804 that the prosperous period of the Bon Sauveur Sisterhood began. Then their director, the Abbé Jamet, came to their assistance with no halfhearted aid, and obtained for them the larger premises of the Capucines, as numbers bade fair to increase. Doing as Christ had done on earth proved a widely comprehensive scheme, upon which secular authorities were in time brought to look favorably. A loan was granted, and the work grew. The old building of the Capucines thus forms the nucleus of the present acreage of Le Bon Sauveur. It is a joy to artists' eyes, that low-built old quadrangle, with its age-tinted roofs and narrow cloisters, and grateful minglement of sun and shadow. In summer the begonia beds blaze amid the prim little walks, and heliotrope scents the air round the quaintly sheltered well whose pagoda-cover ever forbids entrance of the sunny glare. One side of the quadrangle is the nuns' common room-a grand space, rich in many windows, many chairs, and many portraits of sweet womanly faces, all uniformed in the ugly scapular that so surely kills the prettiness of the merely pretty. From all sides they look down on us, these honored women, some old, some not so old, the "mothers" of the convent who have gone to their rest. On one side of the fireplace hangs the portrait of Mère Leroy, a strong-featured, somewhat stern face, with more of command than of sweetness in it. There, too, is pictured the Abbé Jamet, benefactor and faithful co-worker, who shares the honors of the convent with its foundress. A tablet in the chapel of the male lunatics tells how for two years the good abbé was paralyzed, and was only cured by the healing touch of the Bishop of Bayeux, wherefore he built the chapel as a thank-offering, and died very soon after. So he lies ever among them, there in the little garden chapel, a peaceful statued figure, with praying hands, bathed in a perpetual glory of golden light. The consul-general's loan, with its resultant larger premises, enabled the sisters to give the lunatics better housing and treatment than had been possible in the old buildings. At the demolition of the Tour des Foux the mad folk were taken to the gaol at Beaulieu, and brought thence after a while to the kindly shelter of Le Bon Sauveur, where compassionate women followed the lead of the Paris doctor in forbidding chains, and neglect and cruelty were of the past. The lunatics were human beings once more. But the sisters did not limit themselves to this one branch of good works. There are three schools within their walls; one for demoiselles de famille, one for middle-class girls, one for the youngsters of the poor folk of Caen. In the infirmaries the four resident doctors treat not only inmates, but whatsoever of broken limbs and casualties the surrounding Caennais bring to them. The sisters go forth and nurse the poor, they distribute food and medicine to the needy, and carry their sympathy and kindly faces into the smelliest streets. As the great doors shut out the grimy Rue Caponnière, there comes a vision of a sunlit court of low buildings, catching a hint of tropic grandeur from the huge palms and yuccas which grow in wooden buckets, glorying in the glare. From among the palms a gate opens upon the quarters of the deaf-mutes, a cheery place enough, though rife with strange, unhuman sounds. There are some sixty of them in all sizes, these bungled creatures to whom Mother Nature has been so strangely stingy. The sisters labor patiently to bridge the gulf, and some with this their lifetask have marred their faces and widened their silently speaking mouths at which the children stare with such intentness. The little ones' labored answers come curiously, with unexpected catches of breath, and with tones and turns which show the undefrauded heirs of vocal ages that the small ears cannot listen to the small lips' strivings. To children of a larger growth are taught divers trades: they learn to be joiners, weavers, tailors, and what not. Both big and little take kindly to physical exercises, and a delight and joy to most, though possibly not to their more completely sensed neighbors, is the beating of a drum, which looks as though they instinctively sought to cheat the fate which condemned them to make less noise in the world than their fellows. The little wicket swings behind us on the voiceless dwellers, and we are out among the palms again, and cross courts and quadrangles bright with flowers, and cool cloistered walks and shady avenues. There, under the lee of the men's infirmary, goes a knot of blue-bloused inmates, interested and busy with their truck-load, their warder dressed even as they. Here in the shade saunter brightly dressed ladies, with a keen-eyed sister in attendance. They might be taken for whole-minded were it not that their gait bewrayeth them, as is also the case with the little regiment of poorer women whom the sisters are bringing to help in the great laundry. Specklessly clean are they, shady hats tied well under their chins, smiles on their meaningless faces; but their path zigzags, they are prone to halts and vacuous starings. Then the sisters touch the lax arms gently and remind them of business, and they go forward again with large dragging steps. So we follow up through the mighty wooden washhouse, four wide stories of cleanliness, with their tenantry of steam and water and myriad pendant sheets and stockings. Peeping through a trap-door we see under a cool arch below, framed as in a picture, the strong-armed women of the town who help their less competent fellows within the convent walls. Blue-bodiced, bent-necked, they kneel on the brink of the little Odon's shadowed ripples, and emptying basketfuls whiten in their hands, while behind them sits the quiet sister, supervising, arranging, handing this or that, a black-robed figure whose face we see not. And turning back through the farmyard, with its orderly perspective of chewing cows, we reach at last the huge kitchens, where the faces of the army of sisters redden amid stoves and boilers, where in cohorts and battalions the milk-puddings flaunt their little span, where the domestic coffee-pot stands six feet high, and the sight of the soup supply evolves disbelief in a parallel hunger. And on over the way into the bread-cutting room, where an amiable lunatic, bubbling with the importance of his mission, turns the machine which changes ponderous loaves into thin shreds for potage. Thence to the home of the said loaves, a russet wheaten glory from floor to ceiling, ponderous verily, but fleeting, for each hungry day swallows seven hundred of the stoutest. But the Titanic bakery replenishes gamely, for the monster proportions of its mixing-troughs seem to laugh at the little men who work them. Further on, the cider-press has a house to itself, and sunk steps lead to the cider's penultimate goal-two barrels of gigantic girth, whose inwards, we are told, are cleaned by no mere mop, but by several |