About midnight
Pray with all your heart , and I shall say a mass for her to-morrow -- a high mass with music , you understand . '' All day long Maria strove to stay the hidden advances of the disorder with her prayers , and every time that she returned to the bedside it was with a half hope that a miracle had been wrought , that the sick woman would cease from her groaning , sleep for a few hours and awake restored to health . It was not so to be ; the moaning ceased not , but toward evening it died away to sighing , continual and profound -- nature 's protest against a burden too heavy to be borne , or the slow inroad of death-dealing poison . About midnight came Eutrope Gagnon , bringing Tit ` Sebe the bone-setter . He was a little , thin , sad-faced man with very kind eyes . As always when called to a sick-bed , he wore his clothes of ceremony , of dark wellworn cloth , which he bore with the awkwardness of the peasant in Sunday attire . But the strong brown hands beyond the thread-bare sleeves moved in a way to inspire confidence .