And, oh, I prayed, sister--I prayed for his poor soul with all my own.

'If there is one noble or gentle thing he has ever done through all his life,' I prayed, 'Jesus remember it--Christ do not forget.' We who are human do so few things that are noble--oh, surely one must count." The duchess's head lay near her sister's breast, and she had fallen a- sobbing--a-sobbing and weeping like a young broken child.
"Oh, brave and noble, pitiful, strong, fair soul!" she cried.

"As Christ loved you have loved, and He would hear your praying.

Since you so pleaded, He would find one thing to hang His mercy on." She lifted her fair, tear-streaming face, clasping her hands as one praying.
"And I--and I," she cried--"have I not built a temple on his grave?
Have I not tried to live a fair life, and be as Christ bade me?
Have I not loved, and pitied, and succoured those in pain?
Have I not filled a great man's days with bliss, and love, and wifely worship?
Have I not given him noble children, bred in high lovingness, and taught to love all things God made, even the very beasts that perish, since they, too, suffer as all do?
Have I left aught undone?
Oh, sister, I have so prayed that I left naught.

Even though I could not believe that there was One who, ruling all, could yet be pitiless as He is to some, I have prayed That--which sure it seems must be, though we comprehend it not--to teach me faith in something greater than my poor self, and not of earth.
Say this to Christ's self when you are face to face--say this to Him, I pray you! Anne, Anne, look not so strangely through the window at the blueness of the sky, sweet soul, but look at me." For Anne lay upon her pillow so smiling that 'twas a strange thing to behold.