He began to repeat softly, lessons they had taught him--prayers and scraps of hymns, sometimes Latin, sometimes French.

Once, after a pause, he began to recite, quite clearly, a Latin Psalm-- "O Domine, libera animam meam: misericors Dominus et justus; et Deus miseretur....

Convertere, anima mea, in requiem tuam, quia Dominus benefecit tibi"-- Again there was a silence, for he was deaf to all earthly voices, and the wife and daughter knelt side by side and listened to those strange broken sentences, which seemed to come from a mind dead to all outward influences, yet not wholly unconscious of its own state.
Once he said "Mary;" but though she held his hand still clasped in hers, his wife could not make her voice heard in answer.

Then he talked again murmuringly of old times; and last of all when the low musical tones had grown very feeble, but were musical still, Mary heard, "Mon Dieu, j'espere avec une ferme confiance"-- There the words seemed to fail, until they grew audible again for one last moment--"la vie eternelle." So he grew silent for ever in this life..