*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51983 ***

THE SIN THAT WAS HIS

By Frank L. Packard

The Copp Clark Co. Toronto, Canada

1917

THE SIN THAT WAS HIS




CHAPTER I--THREE-ACE ARTIE

|OF Arthur Leroy, commonly known throughout the Yukon as Three-Ace
Artie, Ton-Nugget Camp knew a good deal--and equally knew very
little. He had drifted in casually one day, and, evidently finding the
environment remuneratively to his liking, had stayed. He was a bird of
passage--tarrying perhaps for the spring clean-up.

He was not exactly elegant in his apparel, for the conditions of an
out-post mining camp did not lend themselves to elegance; but he was
immeasurably the best dressed and most scrupulously groomed man that
side of Dawson. His hands, for instance, were very soft and white; but
then, he did no work--that is, of a nature to impair their nicety.

His name was somewhat confusing. It might be either French or English,
according to the twist that was given to its pronunciation--and
Three-Ace Artie could give it either twist with equal facility. He
confessed to being a Canadian--which was the only confession of any
nature whatsoever that Three-Ace Artie had ever been known to make. He
spoke English in a manner that left no doubt in the world but that it
was his native language--except in the mind of Canuck John, the only
French Canadian in the camp, who was equally positive that in the person
of Three-Ace Artie he had unquestionably found a compatriot born to the
French tongue.

A few old-timers around Dawson might have remembered, if it had not been
so commonplace an occurrence when it happened, that Leroy, as a very
young man, had toiled in over the White Pass; though that being only a
matter of some four years ago at this time, Leroy was still a very young
man, even if somewhat of a change had taken place in his appearance--due
possibly, or possibly not, to the rigours of the climate. Three-Ace
Artie since then had grown a full beard. But Leroy's arrival, being but
one of so many, the old-timers had found in it nothing to remember.

Other and more definite particulars concerning Three-Ace Artie, however,
were in the possession of Ton-Nugget Camp. Three-Ace Artie had no
temperance proclivities--but he never drank during business hours. No
one had ever seen a glass at his elbow when there was a pack of cards on
the table! Frankly a professional gambler, he was admitted to be a
good one--and square. He was polished, but not too suave; he was
unquestionably possessed of far more than an ordinary education, but
he never permitted his erudition to become objectionable; and he had a
reputation for coolness and nerve that Ton-Nugget Camp had seen enhanced
on several occasions and belied on none. He was of medium height, broad
shouldered, and muscular; he had black hair and black eyes; under the
beard the jaw was square; unruffled, he was genial; ruffled, he was
known to be dangerous; and, still too young to show the markings of an
ungracious life, his forehead was unwrinkled, and his skin clear and
fresh.

Also, during his three months' sojourn in Ton-Nugget Camp, he was
credited, not without reason, in having won considerably more than
he had lost. Upon these details rested whatever claim to an intimate
acquaintanceship with Three-Ace Artie the camp could boast; for the
rest, Ton-Nugget Camp, in common with the Yukon in general, was quite
privileged to hazard as many guesses as it pleased!

In a word, such was Three-Ace Artie's status in Ton-Nugget Camp when
there arrived one afternoon a young man, little more than a boy,
patently fresh from the East. And here, though Ton-Nugget Camp was quick
to take the newcomer's measure, and, ignoring the other's claim to the
self-conferred title of Gerald Rogers, promptly dubbed him the Kid, it
permitted, through lack of observation, a slight detail to escape its
notice that might otherwise perhaps have suggested a new and promising
field for its guesses concerning Three-Ace Artie.

Though at no more distant a date than a few days previous to his
arrival, the Kid had probably never seen a “poke” in his life before,
much less one filled with currency in the shape of gold dust, he had, in
the first flush of his entry to MacDonald's, and with the life-long
air of one accustomed to doing nothing else, flung a very new and
pleasantly-filled poke in the general direction of the scales at the end
of the bar, and, leaning back against the counter, supporting himself on
his elbows, proceeded to “set them up” for all concerned. MacDonald's,
collectively and individually, which is to say no small portion of
the camp, for MacDonald's was at once hotel, store, bar and general
hang-out, obeyed the invitation without undue delay, and was in the act
of enjoying the newcomer's hospitality when Three-Ace Artie strolled in.

Some one nearest the bar reached out a glass to the gambler over the
intervening heads, the cluster of men broke away that the ceremony of
introduction with the stranger might be duly performed--and Ton-Nugget
Camp, failing to note the sudden tightening of the gambler's fingers
around his glass, the startled flash in the dark eyes that was instantly
veiled by half dropped, sleepy lids, heard only Three-Ace Artie's, “Glad
to know you, Mr. Rogers,” in the gambler's usual and quietly modulated
voice.

Following that, however, not being entirely unsophisticated, Ton-Nugget
Camp stuck its tongue in its cheek and awaited developments--meanwhile
making the most of its own opportunities, for the Kid, boisterous, loose
with his money, was obviously too shining a mark for even amateurs
to overlook. Ton-Nugget Camp, therefore, was, while expectant, quite
content that Three-Ace Artie should, through motives which it attributed
to professional delicacy, avoid rather than make any hurried advances
toward intimacy with the newcomer; since, not feeling the restraint of
any professional ethics itself, Ton-Nugget Camp was enabled to take up
a few little collections on its own account via the stud poker route at
the expense of the Kid.

Two days passed, during which Three-Ace Artie, besides being little
in evidence, refrained entirely from pressing his attentions upon the
stranger; but despite this, thanks to the adroitness of certain members
of the community and his own all too frequent attendance upon the bar,
matters were not flourishing with the Kid. The Kid drank far more than
was good for him, played far more than was good for him, and, flushed
and fuddled with liquor, played none too well. True, there were those
in the camp who offered earnest, genuine and well-meant advice, amongst
them a grim old Presbyterian by the name of Murdock Shaw, who was
credited with being the head of an incipient, and therefore harmless,
reform movement--but this advice the Kid, quite as warmly as it was
offered, consigned to other climes in conjunction with its progenitors;
and, as a result, all that was left of his original poke at the
expiration of those two days was an empty chamois bag from which,
possibly by way of compensation, the offensive newness had been
considerably worn off.

“If he's got any more,” said the amateurs, licking their lips, “here's
hopin' that Three-Ace Artie 'll keep on overlookin' the bet!”

And then, the next afternoon, the Kid flashed another poke, quite as new
and quite as pleasantly-nurtured as its predecessor--and Three-Ace Artie
seemed to awake suddenly to the knock of opportunity at his door.

With just what finesse and aplomb the gambler inveigled the Kid into the
game no one was prepared co say--it was a detail of no moment, except to
Three-Ace Artie, who could be confidently trusted to take care of such
matters, when moved to do so, with the courtly and genial graciousness
of one conferring a favour on the other! But, be that as it may, the
first intimation the few loungers who were in MacDonald's at the time
had that anything was in the wind was the sight of MacDonald, behind the
bar, obligingly exchanging the pokes of both men For poker chips. The
loungers present thereupon immediately expressed their interest by
congregating around the table as Three-Ace Artie and the Kid sat down.

“Stud?” suggested Three-Ace Artie, with an engaging smile.

The Kid, already none too sober, nodded his head.

“And table stakes!” he supplemented, with a somewhat lordly flourish of
the replenished glass that he had carried with him from the bar.

“Of course!” murmured the gambler.

It was still early afternoon, but an afternoon of the long-night of the
northern winter, sunless, with only a subdued twilight without, and the
big metal lamps, hanging from the ceiling, were lighted. In the centre
of the room a box-stove alternately crackled and purred, its sheet-iron
sides glowing dull red. The bare, rough-boarded room, save for the
little group, was empty. Behind the bar, with a sort of curious, cynical
smile that supplied no additional beauty to his shrewd, hard-lined
visage, MacDonald himself propped his bullet-head in his hands, elbows
on the counter, to watch the proceedings.

Three-Ace Artie and the Kid began to play. Occasionally the door opened,
admitting a miner who took a brisk, fore-intentioned step or two
toward the bar--and catching sight of the game in progress, as though
magnet-drawn, immediately changed his direction and joined those already
around the table. But neither Three-Ace Artie nor the Kid appeared to
pay any attention to the constantly augmenting number of spectators.
The game see-sawed, fortune smiling with apparently unbiased fickleness
first on one, then on the other. The Kid grew a little more noisy, a
little more intoxicated--as MacDonald, from a mere spectator, became
an attendant at the Kid's frequent beck and call. Three-Ace Artie was
entirely professional--there was no glass at Three-Ace Artie's elbow,
when he lost he smiled good-humouredly, when he won he smoothed over the
other's discomfiture with self-deprecatory tact; he was unperturbed and
cordial, he bet sparingly and in moderation--to enjoy the game, as
it were, for the game's own sake, the stakes being, as it were again,
simply to supply a little additional zest and tang, and for no other
reason whatever!

And, then, little by little, the Kid began to force the game; and, as
the stakes grew higher, began to lose steadily, with the result that
an hour of play saw most of the chips, instead of a glass, flanking
Three-Ace Artie's elbow--and saw a large proportion of Ton-Nugget Camp,
to whom the word in some mysterious manner had gone forth, flanking the
table five and six deep.

The more the Kid lost, the more he drank. Whatever ease of manner,
whatever composure he had originally possessed was gone now. His hair
straggled unkemptly over his forehead, his cheeks were flushed, his lips
worked constantly on the butt of an unlighted cigarette.

The crowd pressed a little closer, leaned a little further over the
table. There was something almost fascinating in the deftness with which
the soft, white hands of Three-Ace Artie caressed the cards, there was
something almost fascinating, too, in the cool impassiveness of the
gambler's poise, and in the sort of languid selfpossession that lighted
the dark eyes; but Ton-Nugget Camp had lived too long in familiarity
with Three-Ace Artie to be interested in the gambler's personality at
that moment--its interest was centred in the game. The play now had all
the earmarks of a grand finale. There were big stakes on the table--and
the last of the Kid's chips. The crowd raised itself on tiptoes. Both
men turned their “hole” cards. Three-Ace Artie reached out calmly, drew
the chips toward him, smiled almost apologetically, and, picking up the
deck, riffled the cards tentatively--the opposite side of the table was
bare of stakes.

For a moment the Kid circled his lips with the tip of his tongue, and
flirted his hair back from his forehead with an uncertain, jerky motion
of his hand; then he snatched up his glass, spilled a portion of its
contents, gulped down the remainder, and began to fumble under his vest,
finally wrenching out a money-belt.

“Go on--what do you think!” he said thickly. “I ain't done yet! I'll
get mine back, an' yours, too! Table stakes--eh? I'll get you this
time--b'God! Table stakes--eh--again? What do you say?”

“Of course!” murmured Three-Ace Artie politely.

And then the crowd shuffled its feet uneasily. Murdock Shaw, who had
edged his way close to the table, leaned over and touched the Kid's
shoulder.

“I'd cut it out, if I was you, son,” he advised bluntly. “You're
drunk--and a mark!”

A sort of quick, sibilant intake of breath came from the circle around
the table. Like a flash, one of Three-Ace Artie's hands, from the deck
of cards, vanished under the table; and the dark eyes, the slumber gone
from their depths, narrowed dangerously on Murdock Shaw. Then Three-Ace
Artie smiled--unpleasantly.

“It isn't as though you were _new_ in the Yukon, Murdock”--there was a
deadliness in the quiet, level tones. “What's the idea?”

Like magic, to right and left, on each side of the table, the crowd
cleared a line behind the two men--then silence.

The gambler's hand remained beneath the table; his eyes cold, alert,
never wavering for the fraction of a second from the miner's face.

Perhaps a minute passed. The miner did not speak or move, save that his
lips tightened and the tan of his face took on a deeper hue.

Then Three-Ace Artie spoke again:

“Are you _calling_, Murdock?” he inquired softly.

The miner hesitated an instant, then turned abruptly on his heel.

“When I call you,” he said evenly, over his shoulder, “it will break you
for keeps--and you won't have long to wait, either!”

The Kid, who had been alternating a maudlin gaze from the face of one
man to the other, stood up now, and, hanging to the back of his chair,
watched the miner's retreat in a fuddled way.

“Say, go chase yourself!” he called out, in sudden inspiration--and,
glancing around for approval, laughed boisterously at his own drunken
humour.

The door closed on Murdock Shaw. The Kid slipped down into his chair,
dumped a handful of American double-eagles out of the money-belt--and,
reaching again for his glass, banged it on the table.

“Gimme another!” he shouted in the direction of the bar. “Hey--Mac--d'ye
hear! Gimme another drink!”

Three-Ace Artie's hands were above the table again--the slim, delicate,
tapering fingers shuffling, riffling, and reshuffling the cards.

MacDonald approached the table, and picked up the empty glass.

“Wait!” commanded the Kid ponderously, and scowled suddenly in the
throes of another inspiration. He pointed a finger at Three-Ace Artie.
“Say--give him one, too!” He wagged his head sapiently. “If he wants
any more chance at my money, he's got to have one, too! That's what!
Old guy's right about that! I'm the only one that's drunk--you've got to
drink, too! What'll you have--eh?”

The group had closed in around the table again, and now all eyes were
riveted, curiously, expectantly, upon Three-Ace Artie. If the gambler
had one fixed principle from which, as Ton-Nugget Camp had excellent
reasons for knowing, neither argument nor cajolery had ever moved him,
it was that of refusing to drink while he played--but now, while all
eyes were on Three-Ace Artie, Three-Ace Artie's eyes were on the pile of
American gold that the Kid had displayed. There was a quick little
curve to the gambler's lips, that became a slightly tolerant, slightly
good-natured smile--and then the crowd nodded significantly to itself.

“Why, certainly!” said Three-Ace Artie pleasantly. “Give me the same,
Mac.”

“That's the talk!” applauded the Kid.

Three-Ace Artie pushed the cards across the table.

“This is a new game!” announced the Kid. “Cut for deal. Table stakes!”

They cut. Three-Ace Artie won, riffled the cards several times, passed
them over to be cut again, and dealt the first card apiece face down.

The Kid examined his card in approved fashion by pulling it slightly
over the edge of the table and secretively turning up one corner; then,
still face down, he pushed it back, and, MacDonald, returning with the
glasses from the bar at that moment, reached greedily for his own and
tossed it off. He nodded with heavy satisfaction as Three-Ace Artie
drained the other glass. Again he examined his card as before.

“That's a pretty good card!” he stated with owlish gravity. “Worth
pretty good bet!” He laid a stack of his gold eagles upon the card.

Three-Ace Artie placed an equivalent number of chips upon his own card,
and dealt another apiece--face up now on the table. An eight-spot of
spades fell to the Kid; a ten-spot of diamonds to Three-Ace Artie.

“Worth jus' much as before!” declared the Kid--and laid another stack of
eagles upon the card.

“Mine's worth a little more this time,” smiled Three-Ace Artie--and
doubled the bet.

“Sure!” mumbled the Kid. “Sure thing!”

Again Three-Ace Artie dealt--a king of hearts to the Kid; a deuce of
hearts to himself.

The Kid's hand seemed to tremble eagerly, as he fumbled with his gold
eagles. He glanced furtively at the gambler--and then, as though trying
to read in Three-Ace Artie's face how far he might safely egg the other
on, he began to drop coin after coin upon his cards.

The crowd stirred a little uncomfortably. The Kid had undoubtedly the
better hand so far, but he had made a fool play--a blind man could have
read through the back of the card that was so carefully guarded face
down on the table. The Kid had a pair of kings against a possible pair
of tens or deuces on the gambler's side.

Three-Ace Artie imperturbably “saw” the bet--and coolly dealt the fourth
card. Another king fell to the Kid; another deuce to himself.

The Kid's eyes were burning feverishly now. He bet again, laughing,
chuckling drunkenly as he swept forward a generous share of his
remaining gold--and with a quiet, unostentatiously appraising glance at
what was left of the pile of eagles, Three-Ace Artie raised heavily.

Then, for the first time, the Kid hesitated, and a momentary frightened
look flashed across his face. He lifted the corner of his “hole” card
again and again nervously, as though to assure himself that he had made
no mistake--and finally laughed with raucous confidence again, and,
pushing the hair out of his eyes, demanded another drink, and returned
the raise.

The onlookers sucked in their breath--but this time approved the Kid's
play. The cards showed a pair of deuces and a ten-spot spread out before
Three-Ace Artie, a pair of kings and an eight-spot in front of the Kid.
But the Kid had already given his hand away, and with a king in the
“hole,” making three kings, Three-Ace Artie could not possibly win
unless his “hole” card was a deuce or a ten, and on top of that that his
next and final card should be a deuce or ten as well. It looked all the
Kid's way.

Three-Ace Artie again “saw” the other's raise--and dealt the last card.

There was a sudden shuffling of feet, as the crowd leaned tensely
forward. A jack fell face up before the Kid--a ten-spot fell before the
gambler. Three-Ace Artie showed two pairs--it all depended now on what
he held as his “hole” card.

But the Kid, either because he was too fuddled to take the possibilities
into account, or because he was drunkenly obsessed with the
invincibility of his own three kings, laughed hilariously.

“I got you!” he cried--and bet half of his remaining gold.

Three-Ace Artie's smile was cordial.

“Might as well go all the way then,” he suggested--and raised to the
limit of the Kid's last gold eagle.

The Kid laughed again. He had played cunningly--quite cunningly. The
gambler had fallen into the trap. All his hand showed was two kings.

“I'll see you! I'll see you!”--he was lurching excitedly in his chair,
as he pushed the rest of his money forward. “This is the time little old
two pairs are no good!” He turned his “hole” card triumphantly. “Three
kings” he gurgled--and reached for the stakes.

“Just a minute,” objected Three-Ace Artie blandly.

He faced his other card. “I've got another ten here. Full house--three
tens and a pair of deuces.”

A dead silence fell upon the room. The Kid, lurching in his chair,
stared in a dazed, stunned way at the other's cards--and then his face
went a deathly white. One hand crept aimlessly to his forehead and
brushed across his eyes; and after a moment, leaning heavily upon
the table, he stood up, still swaying. But he was not swaying from
drunkenness now. The shock seemed to have sobered him, bringing a
haggard misery into his eyes. The crowd watched, making no comment.
Three-Ace Artie, without lifting his eyes, was calmly engaged in
stacking the gold eagles into little piles in front of him. The Kid
moistened his lips with his tongue, attempted to speak--and succeeded
only in * swallowing hard once or twice. Then, with a pitiful effort to
pull himself together, he forced a smile.

“I--I can't play any more,” he said. “I'm cleaned out”--and turned away
from the table.

The crowd made way for him, following him with its eyes as he crossed
the room and disappeared through a back door at the side of the bar,
making evidently for his “hotel” room upstairs. Three-Ace Artie said
nothing--he was imperturbably pocketing the gold eagles now. The crowd
drifted away from the table, dispersed around the room, and some went
out. Three-Ace Artie rose from the table and carried the chips back to
the bar.

“Guess I'll cash in, Mac,” he drawled.

The proprietor pushed the two pokes across the bar.

“Step up, gentlemen!” invited the gambler amiably, wheeling with his
back against the bar to face the room.

An air of uneasiness, an awkward tension had settled upon the place.
Some few more went out; but the others, as though glad of the relief
afforded the situation by Three-Ace Artie's invitation, stepped promptly
forward.

Three-Ace Artie's hand encircled a stiff four-fingers of raw spirit.

“Here's how!” he said--and drained his glass.

Somebody “set them up” again; Three-Ace Artie repeated the
performance--and MacDonald's resumed its normal poise.

For perhaps half an hour Three-Ace Artie leaned against the bar, joining
in a dice game that some one had inaugurated; and then, interest in this
lagging, with a yawn and a casual remark about going up to his shack for
a snooze, he put on his overcoat, pulled his fur cap well down over his
ears, sauntered to the door--and, with a cheery wave of his hand, went
out.

But once outside the door, Three-Ace Artie's nonchalance dropped from
him, and he stood motionless in the dull light of the winter afternoon
peering sharply up and down the camp's single shack-lined street. There
was no one in sight. He turned quickly then, and, treading noiselessly
in the snow, stole along beside the building to a door at the further
end. He opened this cautiously, stepped inside, and, in semidarkness
here, halted again to listen. The sounds from the adjoining barroom
reached him plainly, but that was all. Satisfied that he was unobserved,
he moved swiftly forward to where, at the end of the sort of passageway
which he had entered, a steep, ladder-like stairway led upward. He
mounted this stealthily, gained the landing above, and, groping his way
now along a narrow hallway, suddenly flung open a door.

“Who's there!” came a quick, startled cry from within.

“Don't talk so loud--damn it!” growled Three-Ace

Artie, in a hoarse whisper. “You can hear yourself think through these
partitions!” He struck a match, and lighted a candle which he found on
the combination table and washing-stand near the bed.

The Kid's face, drawn and colourless, loomed up in the yellow light from
the edge of the bed, as he bent forward, blinking in a kind of miserable
wonder at Three-Ace Artie.

“You!” he gasped.

Three-Ace Artie closed the door softly.

“Some high-roller, you are, aren't you!” he observed caustically.

The Kid did not answer.

For a full minute Three-Ace Artie eyed the other in silence--then he
laughed shortly.

“I don't know which of us is the bigger damn fool--you trying to buy
a through ticket to hell; or yours truly for what I'm going to do now!
Maybe you have learned your lesson, maybe you haven't; but anyway I am
going to take the chance. I'm not here to preach, but I'll push a little
personal advice out of long experience your way. The booze and the
pasteboards won't get you anywhere--except into the kind of mess you are
up against now. If you are hankering for more of it, go to it--that's
all. It's your hunt!”

He flung the Kid's poke suddenly upon the table, and piled the gold
eagles beside it.

A flush crept into the Kid's cheeks. He leaned further forward, staring
helplessly, now at Three-Ace Artie, now at the money on the table.

“W-what do you mean?” he stammered.

“It isn't very hard to guess, is it?” said Three-Ace Artie quietly.
“Here's your money--but there's just one little condition tied to it. I
can't afford to let the impression get around that I'm establishing
any precedents--see? And if the boys heard of this they'd think I was
suffering from softening of the brain! You get away from here without
saying anything to anybody--and stay away. Bixley, one of the boys, is
going over to the next camp this afternoon--and you go with him.”

“You--you're giving me back the money?” faltered the Kid.

“Well, it sort of looks that way,” smiled Three-Ace Artie.

A certain dignity came to the Kid--and he held out his hand.

“You're a white man,” he said huskily. “But I can't accept it. I took it
pretty hard down there perhaps, it seemed to get me all of a sudden when
the booze went out; but I'm not all yellow. You won it--I can't take it
back. It's yours.”

“No; it's not mine”--Three-Ace Artie was still smiling. “That's the way
to talk, Kid. I like that. But you're wrong--it's yours by rights.”

“By rights?” The Kid hesitated, studying Three-Ace Artie's face. “You
mean,” he ventured slowly, “that the game wasn't on the level--that you
stacked the cards?”

Three-Ace Artie shook his head.

“I never stacked a card on a man in my life.”

“Then I don't understand what you mean,” said the Kid. “How can it be
mine by rights?”

“It's simple enough,” replied Three-Ace Artie. “I'm paying back a little
debt I owe, that's all. I figured the boys had pecked around about deep
enough on the outskirts of your pile, and that it was about time for me
to sit in and save the rest. I cleaned you out a little faster than I
expected, a little faster perhaps than the next man will if you try it
again--but not any the less thoroughly. It's the 'next man' I'm trying
to steer you away from, Kid.”

“Yes, I know”--the Kid spoke almost mechanically. “But a debt?”--his
eyes were searching the gambler's face perplexedly now. Then suddenly:
“Who are you?” he demanded. “There's something familiar about you. I
thought there was the first time I saw you the other afternoon. And yet
I can't place you.”

“Don't try,” said Three-Ace Artie softly. He reached out and laid his
hand on the other's shoulder. “It wouldn't do you or me any good. There
are some things best forgotten. I'm telling you the truth, that's all
you need to know. You're entitled to the money--and another chance. Let
it go at that. You agree to the bargain, don't you? You leave here with
Bixley this afternoon--and this is between you and me, Kid, and no one
else on earth.”

For a moment the Kid's gaze held steadily on Three-Ace Artie; then his
eyes filled.

“Yes; I'll go,” he said in a low voice. “I guess I'm not going to forget
this--or you. I don't know what I would have done, and I want to tell
you----”

“Never mind that!” interrupted Three-Ace Artie with sudden gruffness.
“It's what you do from now on that counts. You've got to hurry now. Any
of the boys will show you Bixley's shack, if you don't know where it is.
Just tell Bixley what you want, and he'll take you along. He'll be glad
of company on the trail. Shake!” He caught the other's hand, wrung it
in a hard grip--and turned to the door. “Good luck to you, Kid!” he
said--and closed the door behind him.

As cautiously as he had entered, Three-Ace Artie made his way downstairs
again; and, once outside, started briskly in the direction of his shack,
that he had acquired, bag and baggage, shortly after his arrival in
the camp, from a miner who was pulling out. It was some three or four
hundred yards from MacDonald's, and as he went along, feet crunching in
the snow from his swinging stride, he began quite abruptly to whistle a
cheery air. It was too bitterly cold, however, to whistle, so instead he
resorted to humming pleasantly to himself.

He stamped the snow from his feet as he reached the shack, opened the
door, and went in. A few embers still glowed in the box-stove, and he
threw on a stick of wood and opened the damper. He lighted a lamp, and
stood for a moment looking around him. There was a bunk at one side of
the shack, the table, the stove, a single chair, a few books on a rude
shelf, a kit bag in one corner, a skin of some sort on the floor, and
a small cupboard containing supplies and cooking utensils. Three-Ace
Artie, however, did not appear to be obsessed with the inventory of his
surroundings. There was a whimsical smile on his lips, as he pulled off
his fur cap and tossed it on the bunk.

“I guess,” said Three-Ace Artie, “it will give the Recording Angel quite
a shock to chalk one up on the other side of the page for me!”




CHAPTER II--THE TOAST

|THREE-ACE ARTIE, sprawled comfortably cally at the book he held in his
hand, a copy of Hugo's _Claude Gueux_ in French, tossed it to the foot
of the bunk, and sat up, dangling his legs over the edge.

A mood that had long been a stranger to him, a mellow mood, as he had
defined it to himself, had kept him away from MacDonald's that night. It
was the glow of self-benediction, as it were, ever since he had left the
boy's room that afternoon, though it had puzzled him to some extent
to explain its effect upon himself--that, for instance, the corollary
should take the form of a quiet evening, a pipe, and Hugo.

He shrugged his shoulders. It had been so nevertheless. His shoulders
lifted again--it was decidedly an incongruous proceeding for one known
as Three-Ace Artie!

His thoughts reverted to the Kid. No one had come to the shack since he
had returned from the hotel, but he knew the Kid had left the camp, for
he had watched from the shack window as Bixley and the boy had passed
down the street together. The Kid would not play the fool again for a
while, that was certain--whatever he did eventually.

Three-Ace Artie stared introspectively at the lamp, out at full length
upon his bunk, yawned, and looked at his watch. It was already after
midnight. He glanced a little quizzically.

Kid, of course! He had been conscious of an inward flame for a
moment--then for the third time shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess I'll turn in,” he muttered.

He bent down to untie a shoe lace--and straightened up quickly again. A
footstep sounded from without, there was a knock upon the door, the door
opened--and with the inrush of air the lamp flared up. Three-Ace Artie
reached out swiftly to the top of the chimney, protecting the flame with
the flat of his hand, and, as the door closed again, stared with cool
surprise at his visitor. The last time he had seen Sergeant Marden,
of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, had been the year before at
Two-Strike-Mountain, where each had followed a gold rush--for quite
different reasons!

“Hello, sergeant!” he drawled. “I didn't know you were in camp.”

“Just got in around supper-time,” replied the other. “I've been up on
the Creek for the last few weeks.”

Three-Ace Artie smiled facetiously.

“Any luck?” he inquired.

“I got my man,” said the sergeant quietly.

“Of course!” murmured Three-Ace Artie softly. “You've got a reputation
for doing that, sergeant.” He laughed pleasantly. “But you haven't
dropped in on _me_ officially, have you?”

Sergeant Marden, big, thick-set, with a strong, kindly face, with gray
eyes that lighted now in a gravely humorous way shook his head.

“No,” he answered. “I'm playing the 'old friend' rôle to-night.”

“Good!” exclaimed Three-Ace Artie heartily. “Peel off your duds then,
and--will you have the bunk, or the chair? Take your choice--only make
yourself at home.” He stepped over to the cupboard, and, while the
sergeant pulled off his cap and mitts, and unbuttoned and threw back his
overcoat, Three-Ace Artie procured a bottle of whisky and two glasses,
which he set upon the table. “Help yourself, sergeant,” he invited
cordially.

The sergeant shook his head again, as he drew the chair toward him and
sat down.

“I don't think I'll take anything to-night,” he said.

“No?”--Three-Ace Artie's voice expressed the polite regret of a perfect
host. “Well, fill your pipe then,” he suggested hospitably, as he
seated himself on the edge of the bunk. He began to fill his own pipe
deliberately, apparently wholly preoccupied for the moment with that
homely operation--but his mind was leaping in lightning flashes back
over the range of the four years that he had spent in the Yukon. What
_exactly_ did Sergeant Marden of the Royal North-West Mounted want with
him to-night? He had known the other for a good while, it was true--but
not in a fashion to warrant the sergeant in making a haphazard social
call at midnight after what must have been a long, hard day on the
trail.

A match, drawn with a long sweep under the table, crackled; Sergeant
Marden lighted his pipe, and flipped the match-stub stovewards.

“It looks as though Canuck John wouldn't pull through the night,” he
said gravely.

“Canuck John!” Three-Ace Artie sat up with a jerk, and glanced sharply
at the other. “What's that you say?”

Sergeant Marden removed his pipe slowly from his lips.

“Why, you know, don't you?” he asked in surprise.

“No, I don't know!” returned Three-Ace Artie quickly. “I haven't been
out of this shack since late this afternoon; but I saw him this morning,
and he was all right then. What's happened?”

“He shot himself just after supper--accident, of course--old story,
cleaning a gun,” said the sergeant tersely.

“Good God!” cried Three-Ace Artie, in a low, shocked way--and then he
was on his feet, and reaching for his cap and coat. “I'll go up there
and see him. You don't mind, sergeant, if I leave you here? I guess I
knew Canuck John better than any one else in camp did, and--” His coat
half on, he paused suddenly, his brows gathering in a frown. “After
supper, you said!” he muttered slowly. “Why, that's hours ago!” Then,
his voice rasping: “It's damned queer no one came to tell me about this!
There's something wrong here!” He struggled into his coat.

“He's been unconscious ever since they found him,” said Sergeant Marden,
his eyes fixed on the bowl of his pipe as he prodded the dottle down
with his forefinger. “The doctor's just come. You couldn't do any good
by going up there, and”--his eyes lifted and met Three-Ace Artie's
meaningly--“take it all around, I guess it would be just as well if you
didn't go. Murdock Shaw and some of the boys are there, and--well, they
seem to feel they don't want you.”

For a moment Three-Ace Artie stood motionless, regarding the other in a
half angry, half puzzled way; then, his weight on both hands, he leaned
forward over the table toward Sergeant Marden.

“In plain English, and in as few words as you can put it, what in hell
do you mean by that?” he demanded levelly.

“All right, if you want it that way, I'll tell you,” said Sergeant
Marden quietly. “I guess perhaps the short cut's best. They've given you
until to-morrow morning to get out of Ton-Nugget Camp.”

“I beg your pardon?” inquired Three-Ace Artie with ominous politeness.

Sergeant Marden produced a poke partially filled with gold dust and laid
it on the table.

“What's that?”--Three-Ace Artie's eyes were hard.

“It's the price you paid Sam MacBride for this shack and contents when
he went away. The boys say they want to play fair.”

And then Three-Ace Artie laughed--not pleasantly. Methodically he
removed his overcoat, hung it on its peg, and sat down again on the edge
of the bunk.

“Let's see the rest of your hand, sergeant”--his voice was deadly quiet.
“I don't quite get the idea.”

“I wasn't here myself this afternoon,” said Sergeant Marden; “but they
seem to feel that the sort of thing that happened kind of gives the
community a bad name, and that separating a youngster, when he's drunk,
from his last dollar is a bit too raw even for Ton-Nugget Camp. That's
about the size of the way it was put up to me.”

It seemed to Three-Act Artie that in some way he had not quite heard
aright; or that, if he had, he was being made the object of some,
unknown to its authors, stupendously ironical joke--and then, as
he glanced at the officer's grim, though not altogether unfriendly
countenance, and from Sergeant Marden to the bag of gold upon the table,
a bitter, furious anger surged upon him. His clenched fist reached out
and fell smashing upon the table.

“So that's it, is it!” he said between his teeth. “This is some of
Murdock Shaw's work--the snivelling, psalm-singing hypocrite! Well, he
can't get away with it! I've a few friends in camp myself.”

“Fairweather friends, I should say,” qualified the sergeant, busy again
with his pipe bowl. “You said yourself that no one had been near the
shack here. The camp appears to be pretty well of one mind on the
subject.”

“Including the half dozen or more who started after the Kid to begin
with!”--Three-Ace Artie's laugh was savage, full of menace. “Are they
helping to run me out of camp, too!”

“You seem to have got a little of _everybody's_ money,” suggested
Sergeant Marden pointedly. “Anyway, I haven't seen any sign of them
putting up a fight for you.”

“Quite so!” There was a sudden cold self-possession in Three-Ace Artie's
tones. “Well, I can put up quite a fight for myself, thank you. I'm not
going! It's too bad Shaw didn't have the nerve to come here and tell me
this. I----”

“I wouldn't let him,” interposed the sergeant, with a curious smile.
“That's why I came myself.”

Three-Ace Artie studied the other's face for an instant.

“Well, go on!” he jerked out. “What's the answer to that?”

“That I am going on to Dawson in the morning, and that I thought perhaps
you might be willing to come along.”

Three-Ace Artie's under jaw crept out the fraction of an inch, and his
eyes narrowed.

“I thought you said you weren't here officially!”

“I'm not--at least, not yet.”

“Well, it sounds mighty like an arrest to me!” snarled Three-Ace Artie.
He stood up abruptly, and once more leaned over the table. His dark eyes
flashed. “But that doesn't go either--not in the Yukon! You can't hold
me for anything I've done, and you ought to know better than to think
you can do any bluffing with me and get away with it! Murdock Shaw is.
evidently running this little game. I gave him a chance to call my hand
this afternoon--and he lay down like a whipped pup! That chance is still
open to him--but he can't do it by proxy! That's exactly where you and I
stand, Marden--don't try the arrest game!”

“I'm not going to--at least, not yet,” said the sergeant again. “It's
not a question of law. The day may come when the lid goes on out here,
but so far the local millennium hasn't dawned. There's no dispute there.
I told you I came in here on the 'old friend' basis, and I meant it.
I've known you off and on a bit for quite a while; and I always liked
you for the reputation you had of playing square. There's no talk of
crookedness now, though I must confess you've pulled something a little
thinner than I thought it was in you to do. However, let that go. I
don't want to butt in on this unless I have to--and that's why I'm
trying to get you to come away with me in the morning. If you don't,
there'll be trouble, and then I'll have to take a hand whether I want to
or not.”

“By God!”--the oath came fiercely, involuntarily from Three-Ace Artie's
lips. The irony of it all was upon him again. The injustice of it galled
and maddened him. And yet--tell them the truth of the matter? He would
have seen every last one of them consigned to the bottomless pit first!
The turbulent soul of the man was aflame. “Run out of camp, eh!”---it
was a devil's laugh that echoed around the shack. “That means being run
out of the Yukon! I'd have to get out, wouldn't I--out of the Yukon--ha,
ha!--my name would smell everywhere to high heaven!”

“I'm not sure but that's exactly what I would do if I were you,” said
Sergeant Marden simply. “The fact you've got to face is that you're
black-balled--and the easiest way to swallow a nasty dose is to swallow
it in a gulp, isn't it?” He got up from his chair and laid his hand
on Three-Ace Artie's shoulder. “Look here, Leroy,” he said earnestly,
“you've got a cool enough head on you not to play the fool, and you're
a big enough sport to stand for the cards whatever way they turn. I want
you to say that you'll come along with me in the morning--I'll get out
of here early before any one is about, or I'll go now if you like, if
that will help any. It's the sensible thing to do. Well?”

“I don't know, Marden--I don't know!” Three-Ace Artie flung out shortly.

“Yes, you do,” insisted the sergeant quietly. “You know a fight wouldn't
get you anywhere--if you got one or two of them, Murdock Shaw for
instance, you'd simply be hung for your pains. They mean business, and
I don't want any trouble--why make any for me when it can't do you any
good? I'm putting it to you in a friendly way; and, besides that, it's
common sense, isn't it?” His grip tightened in a kindly pressure on
Three-Ace Artie's shoulder. “I'm right, ain't I? What do you say?”

“Oh, you're right enough!”--a hard smile twisted Three-Ace Artie's lips.
“There's no argument about that. I'd have to go anyway, I know that--but
I'm not keen on going without giving them a run for their money that
they'd remember for the rest of their lives!”

“And at the same time put a crimp into your own,” said Sergeant Marden
soberly. He held out his hand. “You'll come, won't you?”

Twice Three-Ace Artie paced the length of the shack. Logically, as he
had admitted, Marden was right; but battling against logic was a sullen
fury that prompted him to throw consequences to the winds, and, with
his back to the wall, invite Ton-Nugget Camp to a showdown. And then,
abruptly, the gambler's instinct to throw down a beaten hand, when bluff
would be of no avail and holding it would only increase his loss, turned
the scales, and he halted before Sergeant Marden.

“I'll go,” he said tersely.

There was genuine relief in the officer's face.

“And I'll stick to my end of the bargain!” the sergeant exclaimed
heartily. “When do you want to start?”

“It makes damned little odds to me!” Three-Ace Artie answered gruffly.
“Suit yourself.”

“All right,” said the sergeant. “In that case I'll put in a few hours'
sleep, and we'll get away before the camp is stirring.” He buttoned up
his overcoat, put on his cap, and moved toward the door. “I've got a
team of huskies, and there's room on the sled for anything you want to
bring along. You can get it ready, and I'll call for you here.”

Three-Ace Artie nodded curtly.

Sergeant Marden reached out to open the door, and, with his hand on the
latch, hesitated.

“Don't go up there, Leroy,” he said earnestly, jerking his head in the
direction of the upper end of the camp. “Canuck John is unconscious, as
I told you--there's nothing you could do.”

But Three-Ace Artie had turned his back. To Canuck John and Sergeant
Marden he was equally oblivious for the moment. He heard the door close,
heard the sergeant's footsteps outside recede and die away. He was
staring now at the bag of gold upon the table. It seemed to mock and
jeer at him, and suddenly his hands at his sides curled into clenched
and knotted fists--and after a moment he spoke aloud in French.

“It was the first decent thing I ever did in my life”--he was smiling in
a sort of horrible mirth. “Do you appreciate that, my very dear friend
Raymond? It is exquisite! _Sacré nom de Dieu_, it is magnificent! It was
the first decent thing you ever did in your life--think of that, _mon
brave!_ And see how well you are paid for it! They are running you out
of camp!”

He turned and flung himself down on the bunk, his hands still fiercely
clenched. Black-balled, Sergeant Marden had called it! Well, it was not
the first time he had been black-balled! Here, in the Yukon, the name
of Three-Ace Artie was to be a stench to the nostrils; elsewhere, in the
city of his birth, he, last of his race, had already dragged an honoured
and patrician name in the mire.

A red flame of anger swept his cheeks. What devil's juggling with the
cards had brought that young fool across his path, and brought the
memories of the days gone by, and brought him an indulgence in weak,
mawkish sentimentality! A debt, he had told the boy!

The red flamed into his face again--and yet again. Curse the memories!
Once aroused they would not down. Even the old schooldays crowded
themselves upon him--and at that he jeered out at himself in bitter
raillery. Brilliant, clever in those days, outstripping many beyond his
years, as glib with his Latin as with his own French tongue, his father
had designed him for the Roman Catholic priesthood, and he, Raymond
Chapelle, the son of the rich seigneur, of one of the oldest families in
French Canada, instead of becoming a priest of God had become--Three-Ace
Artie, the pariah of Ton-Nugget Camp!

Would it not make all hell scream with glee! It brought unholy humour
to himself. He--a priest of God! But he had not journeyed very far along
that road--even before he had finished school he had had a fling or two!
It had been easy enough. There was no mother, and he did not know his
father very well. There had been great style and ceremony in that huge,
old, lumbering, gray-stone mansion in Montreal--but never a home! His
father had seemed concerned about him in one respect only--a sort of
austere pride in his accomplishments at school. Produce proof of that,
and money was unstinted. It had come very easily, that money--and gone
riotously even as a boy. Then he had entered college, and half way
through his course his father had died. He had travelled fast after
that--so fast that only a blur of wreckage loomed up out of those
few years. A passion for gambling, excess without restraint, a _roué_
life--and his patrimony, large as it was, was gone. Family after family
turned their backs upon him, and his clubs shut their doors in his face!
And then the Yukon--another identity--and as much excitement as he could
snatch out of his new life!

There was a snarl now on his lips. It had been a furious pace back
there in Montreal, but whose business was it save his own! He was not
whimpering about it. He could swallow his own medicine without asking
anybody else to make a wry face over it for him! Regrets? What should
he regret--save that he had lost the money that would enable him to
maintain the old pace! Regrets! He would not even be thinking of it now
if that young fool had not crossed his path, and he, the bigger fool of
the two, had not tried to play the game of the blind leading the blind!

Repay a debt! Fie had not even displayed originality--only a sort of
absurd mimicry of the boy's father! He was taunting himself now, mocking
at himself mercilessly. What good had it done! How much different would
it be with young Rogers than it had been with himself when Rogers'
father, an old and intimate friend of his own father's, had taken him
home one night just before the final crash, and had talked till dawn in
kindly earnestness, pleading with him to change his ways before it was
too late! True, it had had its effect. The effect had lasted two days!
But somehow, for all that, he had never been able to forget the old
gentleman's face, and the gray hairs, and the soft, gentle voice,
and the dull glow of the fire in the grate that constantly found a
reflection in the moist eyes fixed so anxiously upon him.

What imp of perversity had inspired him to consider that a debt, and
prompt him to repay it to the son! Why had he not left well enough
alone! What infernal trick of memory had caused him to recognise the boy
at the moment of their first meeting! He had known the other in the old
days only in the casual way that one of twenty-two would know a boy of
fifteen still in short trousers!

He started up from the bunk impulsively, walked to the stove, wrenched
the door open, flung in another stick of wood savagely, and began to
pace the shack with the sullen fury of a caged beast. The passion within
the man was rising to white heat. Run out of Ton-Nugget Camp! The
story would spread. A nasty story! It meant that he was run out of the
Yukon--his four years here, and not unprofitable years, at an end! It
was a life he had grown to like because it was untrammelled; a life
in which, at least in intervals, when the surplus cash was in hand, he
could live in Dawson for a brief space at a dizzier pace than ever!

He was Three-Ace Artie here--or Arthur Leroy--it did not matter
which--one took one's choice! And now--what was he to be next--and
where!

Tell them what he had done, crawl to them, beg them to let him
stay--never! If he answered them at all, it would be in quite a
different way, and--his eyes fixed again upon the bag of gold that
Sergeant Marden had left on the table. A bone flung to a cur as he was
kicked from the door! The finger nails bit into the palms of Three-Ace
Artie's hands.

“Damn you!” he gritted, white-lipped. “Damn every one of you!”

And this was his reward for the only decent thing that he could remember
ever having done in his life--the thought with all its jibing mockery
was back once more. It added fuel to his fury. It was he, not the Kid,
who had had his lesson! And it was a lesson he would profit by! If it
was the only decent thing he had ever done--it would be the last! They
had intended him for a priest of God in the old days! He threw back his
head and laughed until the room reverberated with his hollow mirth. He
had come too damnably near to acting the part that afternoon, it seemed!
A priest of God! Blasphemy, unbridled, unlicensed, filled his soul. He
snatched up the bottle of whisky, and poured a glass full to the brim.

“A toast!” he cried. “On your feet, Raymond! Up, Monsieur Leroy! Artie,
Three-Ace Artie--a toast! Drink deep, _mes braves!_” He lifted the glass
above his head. “To our liege lord henceforth, praying pardon for our
lapse from grace! To his Satanic Majesty--and hell!” He drained the
glass to its dregs, and bowed satirically. “I can not do honour to the
toast, sire, by snapping the goblet stem.” He held up the glass again.
“It is only a jelly tumbler, and so--” It struck with a crash against
the wall of the shack, as he hurled it from him, and smashed to
splinters.

For a moment, clawing at his throat as the raw spirit burned him,
staring at the broken glass upon the floor, he stood there; then, with a
short laugh, he pushed both table and chair closer to the stove and sat
down--and it was as though it were some strange vigil that he had set
himself to keep. Occasionally he laughed, occasionally he filled the
other glass and drank in gulps, occasionally he thought of Canuck
John, who spoke English very poorly and whose eager snatching at the
opportunity to speak French had brought about a certain intimacy between
them, and, thinking of Canuck John, there came a sort of wondering frown
as at the intrusion of some utterly extraneous thing, occasionally as
his eyes encountered the bag of gold there came a glitter into their
depths and his lips parted, hard drawn, over set teeth; but for the most
part he sat with a fixed, grim smile, his hands opening and shutting on
his knees, staring straight before him.

Once he got up, and, making the circuit of the shack, collected his
personal belongings and packed them into his kit bag--and from under a
loose plank in the corner of the room took out a half dozen large and
well-filled pokes, tucked them carefully away beneath the clothing in
the bag, strapped up the bag, replaced the loosened plank, and returned
to his chair.

Sullen, bitter, desperate, soul reckless with the knowledge that all
men's hands were against him, as his were against them, he sat there.
The hours passed unreckoned and unnoticed. There was no dawn to come,
for there was no sun to rise; but it grew a little lighter. A stillness
as of the dead hung over Ton-Nugget Camp; and then out of the stillness
a dog barked--and became a yapping chorus as others joined in.

He reached out mechanically for the bottle--it was empty. He stared at
it for a moment in bewildered surprise. It had been full, untouched
when he had placed it on the table. He stood up--steadily, firmly. He
stretched out his hand in front of him, and studied it critically--there
was not a tremor. His hand dropped to his side. One could absorb a good
deal of liquor under mental stress without resultant physical effect! He
was not drunk. Only his nerves were raw and on edge. That bag of gold
on the table! His eyes narrowed again upon it for the hundredth time.
It flaunted itself in his face. It had become symbolic of the unanimous
contempt with which Ton-Nugget Camp bade him be gone! Damn their cursed
insolence! It was an entirely inadequate reply to go away and simply
leave it lying there on the table--and yet what else was there to do?
The dogs were barking again. That would be Marden harnessing up his
huskies. The sergeant would be along now in another minute or two.

He turned from the table, picked up his overcoat, put it on, and
buttoned it to the throat. He put on his cap, jerked his kit bag up from
the floor, slung one strap over his shoulder, moved toward the door--and
paused to gaze back around the room. The lamp burned on the table, the
empty whisky bottle, the glass, the bag of gold beside it; in the
stove a knot crackled with a report like a pistol shot. Slowly his
eyes travelled around over the familiar surroundings, his home of four
months; and slowly the colour mounted in his cheeks--and suddenly, his
eyes aflame, a low, tigerish cry on his lips, he flung the kit bag from
his shoulder to the ground.

They would tell the story through the Yukon of how he had fleeced and
robbed a drunken boy of his last cent on earth--but they would never
tell the story of how he had slunk away in the darkness like a whipped
and mangy cur! He feared neither God nor devil, norman, nor beast! That
had been his lifelong boast, his creed. He feared them now no more than
he had ever feared them! He listened. There was a footstep without, but
that was Marden's. Not one of all the camp afoot to risk contamination
by bidding him goodbye! Well, it was not good-bye yet! Ton-Nugget Camp
would remember, his adieu! Passion was rocking the man to the soul, the
sense of bitter injury, smarting like a gaping wound, was maddening him
beyond all self-control. He tore loose the top button of his coat--and
turned sharply to face the door. Here was Marden now. He wanted no
quarrel with Mar-den, but----

The door opened. He felt himself mechanically push his cap back on his
forehead, felt a sort of unholy joy sweep in a wild, ungovernable surge
upon him, felt every muscle of his body stiffen and grow rigid in a
fierce and savage elation, and he heard a sound that he meant for a
laugh chortle from his lips. It was not Marden standing there--it was
Murdock Shaw.

And then he spoke.

“Come in, and shut the door, Murdock,” he said in a velvet voice. “I
thought my luck was out tonight.”

“It's not worth while,” the miner answered. “Mar-den's getting ready to
go now, and I only came to bring you a message from Canuck John.”

“I've got one for you that you'll remember longer!”--Three-Ace Artie's
smile was ghastly, as he moved back toward the table in a kind of
inimical guarantee that the floor space should be equally divided
between them. “Come in, Murdock, if you are a man--_and shut that
door_.”

The miner did not move.

“Canuck John is dead,” he said tersely.

“What's that to do with me--or you and me!”--there was a rasp in
Three-Ace Artie's voice now. “It's you who have started me on the little
journey that I'm going to take, you know, and it's only decent to use
the time that's left in bidding me good-bye.”

“I didn't come here to quarrel with you,” Shaw said shortly. “Canuck
John regained consciousness for a moment before he died. He couldn't
talk much--just a few words. We don't any of us know his real name, or
where his home is. From what he said, it seems you do. He said: 'Tell
Three-Ace Artie--give goodbye message--my mother and--' And then he
died.”

Three-Ace Artie's fingers were twisting themselves around the bag of
gold that he had picked up from the table.

“I thought so!” he snarled. “You were yellow this afternoon. I thought
you hadn't the nerve to come here, unless you figured you were safe some
way or another. And so you think you are going to hide behind a dead man
and the sanctimonious pathos of a dying message! Well, I'll see you
both damned first! Do you hear!” White to the lips with the fury that,
gathering all through the night, was breaking now, he started toward the
other, his hand clutching the bag of gold.

Involuntarily the miner stepped back still closer to the door.

“That's not the way out for you!” whispered Three-Ace Artie hoarsely.
“If you take it, I'll drop you in the snow before you're ten yards up
the street! Damn you, we'll play this hand out now for keeps! You've
started something, and we'll finish it. You've rid the camp and rid
Alaska of a tainted smell, have you? You sneaked around behind my back
with your cursed righteousness to give me a push further on the road to
hell! I know your kind--and, by God, I know your breed! Four years ago
on the White Pass you took a man's last dollar for a hunk of bread. He
could pay or starve! You sleek skunk--do you remember? Your conscience
has been troubling you perhaps, and so you went around the camp and
collected this, did you--_this!_” He held up the bag of gold above his
head. “No? You didn't recognise me again? Well, no matter--take it back!
Tell Ton-Nugget Camp I gave it back to you--to keep!” In a flash his arm
swept forward, and, with all his strength behind it, he hurled the bag
at the other's head.

It struck full on the miner's forehead--and dropped with a soft thud on
the floor. The man reeled backward, swayed, and clawed at the wall of
the shack for support--and while he swayed a red spot dyed his forehead,
and a crimson stream ran zigzag down over eye and cheek.

And Three-Ace Artie laughed, and stooped, and picked up his kit bag,
and swung one strap over one shoulder as before--Sergeant Marden,
stern-faced, was standing on the threshold of the open door.

“I guess my luck is out after all. You win, Murdock!” smiled Three-Ace
Artie grimly--and brushed past the sergeant out of the shack.

The dog-team was standing before the door. He dropped his kit bag on
the sled, and strode on down the street. Here and there lights were
beginning to show from the shack windows. Once a face was pressed
against a pane to watch him go by, but no voice spoke to him. It was
silent, and it was dark.

Only the snow was white. And it was cold--cold as death.

Presently Sergeant Marden and the dog-team caught up with him.

“He'll need a stitch or two in his head,” said the sergeant gruffly.

Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie, made no
reply. In his soul was anarchy; in his heart a bitter mockery that
picked a quarrel with Almighty God.




CHAPTER III--THE CURÉ

|RAYMOND CHAPELLE, once known as Three-Ace Artie, and now, if the
cardcase in his pocket could be relied upon for veracity, as one Henri
Mentone--though the cardcase revealed neither when nor where that
metamorphosis had taken place, nor yet again the nature of Monsieur
Henri Mentone's pursuits in life--was engaged in the rather futile
occupation of staring out through the car window into a black and
objectless night. He was not, however, deeply concerned with the night,
for at times he shifted his gaze around the smoking compartment, which
he had to himself, and smiled cynically. The winter of the Yukon had
changed to the springtime of lower French Canada--it was a far cry from
Ton-Nugget Camp, from Dawson and the Pacific, to the little village of
St. Marleau on the banks of the St. Lawrence, where the river in its
miles of breadth was merging with the Atlantic Ocean!

St. Marleau! That was where Canuck John had lived, where the old folks
were now--if they were still alive. The cynical smile deepened. The only
friend he had was--a dead man! The idea rather pleased him, as it had
pleased him ever since he had started for the East. Perhaps there was a
certain sentimentality connected with what he was about to do, but
not the sickly, fool sentimentality that he had been weak enough to be
guilty of with the Kid in Ton-Nugget Camp! He was through with that!
Here, if it was sentiment at all, it was a sentiment that appealed to
his sporting instincts. Canuck John had put it up to him--and died. It
was a sort of trust; and the only man who trusted him was--a dead man.
He couldn't throw a dead man down!

He laughed softly, drumming with his carefully manicured fingers on the
window pane. Besides, there was too much gossip circulating between the
Pacific Coast and Alaska to make it profitable for a gambler who
had been kicked out of the Yukon for malpractice to linger in that
locality--even if he had shaved off his beard! The fingers, from the
window pane, felt in a sort of grimly ruminative way over the smooth,
clean-shaven face. So, as well East as anywhere, providing always that
he gave Montreal a wide berth--which he had!

Canuck John, of course, had not meant to impose any greater trust than
the mere writing of a letter. But, like Murdock Shaw and the rest of
Ton-Nugget Camp, he, Raymond, did not know Canuck John's name. If Canuck
John had ever told him, and he had a hazy recollection that the other
once had done so, he had completely forgotten it. Of St. Marleau,
however, Canuck John had spoken scores of times. That made a letter
still possible, of course--to the postmaster of St. Marleau. But it was
many years since Canuck John had left there; Canuck John could not write
himself and therefore his people would have had no knowledge of his
whereabouts, and to write the postmaster that a man known as Canuck
John had died in Ton-Nugget Camp was, to say the least of it, open
to confusing possibilities in view of the fact that in those many and
intervening years Canuck John was not likely to have been the only one
who had left his native village to seek a wider field. And since he,
Raymond, was coming East in any event, he was rather glad than otherwise
that for the moment he had a definite objective in view.

Anyway, Canuck John had been a good sort--and that was all there was
to it! And, meanwhile, this filled in, as it were, a hiatus in his own
career, for he had not quite made up his mind exactly in what direction,
or against whom specifically, he could pit his wits in future--to the
best advantage to himself. One thing only was certain, henceforth he
would be hampered by no maudlin consideration of ethics, such, for
instance, as had enabled him to state truthfully to the Kid that he had
never stacked a card in his life. To the winds with all that! He had had
his lesson! Fish to his net, hereafter, would be all that came his way!
If every man's hand was against him, his own would not remain palsied!
For the moment he was in funds, flush, and well provided for; and for
the moment it was St. Marleau and his dead friend's sorry legacy--to
those who might be dead themselves! That remained to be seen! After
that, as far as he was concerned, it was _sauve qui peut_, and--

Monsieur Henri Mentone looked up--and, with no effort to conceal his
displeasure, Monsieur Henri Mentone scowled. A young priest had entered
the smoking compartment, and was now in the act of settling himself on
the opposite seat.

“Good evening,” nodded the other pleasantly. “I think we have been
travelling companions since Quebec.” He produced a cigar, lighted it,
and smiled. “It is not a very pleasant night, is it? There appears to be
a very high wind.”

Raymond Chapelle rattled a newspaper out of his pocket, rattled it open
brusquely--and retired behind it.

“It appears to be windy!” he growled uninvitingly.

He glanced at the remainder of his cigar. It was a very good cigar, and
he did not care to sacrifice it by giving the other all the elbow
room that the entire smoking compartment of the car afforded--as he,
otherwise, would not have hesitated an instant to do! If his soul
had nurtured any one especial hatred in its late period of bitter and
blasphemous fury, it was a hatred of religion and all connected with
it. He detested the sight of a priest. It always made him think of that
night in Ton-Nugget Camp when memories had got the better of him. A
priest of God! He hated them all. And he made no distinction as between
creeds. They were all alike. They were Murdock Shaws! And he, if his
father had had his way, would now be wearing a _soutane_, and dangling
a crucifix from his neck, and sporting one of those damnable round hats
like the man in front of him!

“Do you know this country at all?” inquired the priest.

“I do not,” Raymond answered curtly from behind his paper.

The other did not appear to notice the rebuff.

“No more do I,” he said engagingly. “I have never been below Quebec
before, and I am afraid, unfortunately, that I am about to suffer for my
ignorance. I am going to St. Marleau.”

Raymond lowered his paper, and for the first time gave the other more
than a casual glance. He found his _vis-à-vis_ to be dark-eyed, of
rather pleasant features--this he admitted grudgingly--and a young man
of, he judged, about his own age.

“What is the matter with St. Marleau?” Personal interest prompted him
to ask the question; nothing could prompt him to infuse even a hint of
affability into his tones.

The priest shrugged his shoulders, and smiled whimsically.

“The matter with St. Marleau is that it is on the bank of the river,
and that the station is three miles away. I have been talking to the
conductor. I did not know that before.”

Raymond had not known it before either. The information did not please
him. He had taken it as a matter of course that the railroad would set
him down at the village itself.

“Well?” he prompted sourly.

“It was what caused me to take a particular interest in the
weather”--the priest waved his cigar philosophically. “I shall have to
walk, I presume. I am not expected until to-morrow, and the conductor
tells me there is nothing but a small station where we stop.”

Raymond would have to walk too.

“It is unfortunate!” he observed sarcastically. “I should have thought
that you would have provided against any such contingencies by making
inquiries before you started.”

“That is true,” admitted the priest simply. “I am entirely to blame, and
I must not complain. I was pleasurably over-excited perhaps. It is my
first charge, you see. The curé of St. Marleau, Father Allard, went away
yesterday for a vacation--for the summer--his first in many years--he
is quite an old man”--the young priest was waxing garrulous, and was no
longer interesting. Raymond peered out of the car window with a new and
personal concern in the weather. There was no rain, but the howl of the
wind was distinctly audible over the roar of the train.

“I was to have arrived to-morrow, as I said”--the priest was rattling
on--“but having my preparations all completed to-day and nothing to
detain me, I--well, as you see, I am here.”

Raymond was picturing realistically, and none too happily, a three-mile
walk on a stormy night over a black, rutted country road. The prospect
was not a soothing one.

“Monsieur is perhaps a commercial traveller?” ventured the young curé
amiably, by way of continuing the conversation.

Raymond folded his paper deliberately, and replaced it in his pocket.
There was a quick, twisted smile on his lips, but for the first time his
voice was cordiality itself.

“Oh, no,” he said. “On the contrary, I make my living precisely as
does Monsieur le Curé, except perhaps that I have not always the same
certainty of success.”

“Ah!” The young priest leaned forward interestingly. “Then you----”

“Yes,” said Raymond, and now a snarl crept into his voice. “I let
some one else toil for the money--while I hold out the hat!” He rose
abruptly, and flung his cigar viciously in the general direction of the
cuspidor. “I am a parasite on my fellow men, monsieur--a gambler,” he
said evenly, and walked to the door.

Over his shoulder he caught the amazement on the young priest's face,
then the quick, deep flush of indignation--and then the corridor shut
him off from the other, and he chuckled savagely to himself.

He passed on into the main body of the car, took his bag from the rack
over the seat that he had occupied, and went on into the next car in the
rear. The priest, he had noticed, had previously been occupying the
same car as himself. He wanted no more of the other! And as for making
a companion of him on the walk from the station to St. Marleau, he would
sooner have walked with the devil! As a matter of fact, he was prepared
to admit he would not have been wholly averse to the devil's company.
But a priest of God! The cynical smile was back on his lips. They were
all alike--he despised them all. But he nevertheless confessed to a
certain commiseration; he was sorry for God--the devil was much less
poorly served!





CHAPTER IV--ON THE ROAD TO ST. MARLEAU

|RAYMOND descended from the train on the opposite side from the station
platform. He proposed that Monsieur le Curé, _pro tem_., of St. Marleau,
should have a start sufficient to afford a guarantee against the
possibility of any further association with the other that night!

A furious gust of wind eddied down the length of the train, caught at
his travelling bag, and banged it violently against his knees. He swore
earnestly to himself, as he picked his way further back across the
siding tracks to guard against the chance of being seen from the
platform when the train started on again. It was obviously not going to
be a pleasant experience, that walk! It was bad enough where he stood,
here on the trackside, somewhat sheltered by the train; in the open the
wind promised to attain the ferocity of a young tornado!

The train pulled out; and across the tracks a light glimmered from a
window, and behind the light a building loomed up black and formless.
The light, filtering out on the platform, disclosed two figures--the
priest, and, evidently, the station agent.

Raymond sat down on his bag and waited. It was intensely dark, and
he was far enough away to be secure from observation. He grinned
maliciously, as he watched a shadowy sort of pantomime in which the
priest clutched and struggled continually with his _soutane_ as the wind
kept wrapping it around his legs.

The other might be less infatuated with skirts by the time St. Marleau
was reached!

The two figures moved down the platform together, and Raymond lost sight
of them in the darkness. He rose, picked up his bag, walked a few yards
along the track in the opposite direction to that which they had taken,
crossed over the mainline, and clambered upon the platform. Here he
stumbled over a trunk. The curé's, presumably! He continued on along the
platform slowly--under the circumstances a little information from the
station agent would not come in amiss. He jammed his slouch hat firmly
down on his head, and yanked the brim savagely over his eyes against the
wind. This was likely to prove considerably more than he had bargained
for! Three miles of it! And for what! He began to call himself a fool.
And then, the station agent returning alone from the lower end of the
platform, head down, buffeting the wind, and evidently making for the
curé's trunk to house it for the night, Raymond stepped forward and
accosted the other.

The man brought himself up with a jerk. Raymond drew the other into the
shelter of the station wall. In the meagre light from the window a few
yards away, he could make out the man's face but very indistinctly; and
the other, in his turn, appeared equally at a disadvantage, save that,
possibly, expecting it to be an acquaintance from the village, he found
a stranger instead.

“_'Cré nom!_” ejaculated the man in surprise. “And where did you come
from?”

“From the train--naturally,” Raymond answered. “You were busy with some
one, and I waited.”

“Yes, that is so! I see!” The other nodded his head. “It was Father
Aubert, the young curé who is come to the village. He has but just
started, and if you are going to St. Marleau, and hurry, you will have
company over the road.”

“Never mind about him!” said Raymond shortly. “I am not looking for that
kind of company!”

“_Tiens!_” exclaimed the man a little blankly. “Not that kind of
company--but that is strange! It is a bad night and a lonely walk--and,
I do not know him of course, but he seemed very pleasant, the young
curé.”

“I daresay,” said Raymond, and shrugged his shoulders. “But I do not
intend to walk at all if I can help it. Is there no horse to be had
around here?”

“But, no!”--the other's tones expressed mild reproof at the question.
“If there had been, I would have procured it for the curé. There is
nothing. It is as near to the village as anywhere.”

“And that is three miles!” muttered Raymond irritably.

“It is three miles by the road, true, monsieur; but the village itself
is not nearly so far. There is a short cut. If you take the path that
leads straight ahead where the road turns off to the left to circle the
woods, it will bring you to the brow of the hill overlooking the village
and the river, and you will come out just where the road swings in again
at the tavern. You save at least a mile.”

Raymond brightened.

“Ah! A tavern!” he cried. “That is better! I was beginning to think the
cursed----”

“But--wait!” the man laughed suddenly. “It is not what you think! I
should not advise you to go there.”

“No?” inquired Raymond, “and why not?”

“She is an old hag, an _excommuniée_, old Mother Blondin, who lives
there--and her son, who is come back for the past week from God knows
where with a scar all over his ugly face, is no better. It is not a
tavern at all. That is a name we have for it amongst ourselves. We call
it the tavern because it is said that she makes her own _whiskey-blanc_
and sells it on the sly, and that there are some who buy it--though when
her son is back she could not very well have enough for any customers.
He has been drunk for a week, and he is a devil.”

“Your Mother Blondin is evidently no fool!” observed Raymond ironically.
“And so it is said there are some who buy it--eh? And in turn I suppose
she could buy out every farmer in the village! She should have money,
your Mother Blondin! Hers is a profitable business.”

“Yes,” said the other. “For me, that is the way I look at it. It is
gossip that her stocking is well lined; but I believe the gossip. It is
perhaps well for her if it is so, for she will need it. She is getting
old and does not see very well, though, _bon Dieu_, she is still sharp
enough with her wits! But”--his shoulders lifted in a shrug--“the way to
the village, eh? Well, whether you take the road or the path, you arrive
at Mother Blondin's. You go down the hill from there, and the village is
on each side of you along the bank of the river. Ask at the first house,
and they will show you the way to Madame Dussault's--that is the only
place to go. She keeps a boarding house whenever there is anybody to
board, for it is not often that any stranger comes to St. Marleau. Are
you going to stay long?”

“I don't know,” said Raymond pleasantly--and ignored the implied
invitation for further confidences.

“Well, if you like,” offered the station agent, “you can leave your bag
here, and it can go over with the cure's trunk in the morning. He said
he would send somebody for it then. You won't find it easy carrying that
bag a night like this.”

“Oh, it's only a small one; I guess I can manage it all right,” said
Raymond lightly. He extended his hand--the priest was far enough along
by now so that he would not overtake the other; and, though it was still
early, not much after eight o'clock, the countryside was not given to
keeping late hours, and, if he was to reach St. Marleau before this
Dussault household, for instance, had retired for the night, it was time
he started. “Much obliged for the information! Goodnight!” he smiled,
and picked up his bag--and a moment later, the station behind him, was
battling in the face of furious wind gusts along the road.

It was very dark; and the road was execrable, full of ruts and hollows
into which he was continually stumbling. He had a flashlight in his bag;
but, bad as the walking was, it was, after all, he decided, the lesser
of the two evils--if he used the flashlight, he ran a very large risk of
inviting the companionship of the priest ahead of him! Also, he had not
gone very far before he heartily regretted that he had not foregone the
few little conveniences that the bag contained, and had left the thing
behind. The wind, as it was, threatened to relieve him of it a score of
times. Occasionally he halted and turned his back, and stood still for a
breathing spell. His mood, as he went along, became one that combined
a sullen stubbornness to walk ten miles, if necessary, once he had
started, and an acrimonious and savage jeer at himself for having ever
been fool enough to bring about his present discomfiture.

Finally, however, he reached the turn of the road referred to by the
station agent, and here he stood for a moment debating with himself the
advisability of taking the short cut. His eyes grown accustomed to the
darkness, he could distinguish his surroundings with some distinctness,
and he made out a beaten track that led off in the same direction which,
until then, he had been following; but also, a little beyond this
again, he made out a black stretch of wooded land. He shook his head
doubtfully. The short cut was a mere path at best, and he might, or
might not, be able to follow it through the trees. If he lost it, and it
would be altogether too easy a thing to do, his predicament would not
be enviable. It was simply a question of whether the mile he might
save thereby was worth the risk. He shook his head again--this time
decisively.

“I'm not much on the 'straight and narrow' anyhow!” he muttered
facetiously--and started on again, following the road.

Gradually the road and the trees began to converge; and presently,
the road swerving again, this time sharply toward the river, he found
himself travelling through the woods, and injected into the midst of
what seemed like the centre of some unearthly and demoniacal chorus
rehearsing its parts--the wind shrieked through the upper branches of
the trees, and moaned disconsolately through the lower ones; it cried
and sobbed; it screamed, and mourned, and sighed; and in the darkness,
still blacker shapes, like weird, beckoning arms, the limbs swayed to
and fro. And now and then there came a loud, ominous crackle, and then a
crash, as a branch, dried and rotten, came hurtling to the ground.

“Damn it,” confessed Raymond earnestly to himself, “I don't like this! I
wish St. Marleau was where Canuck John is now!”

He quickened his pace--or, rather, tried to do so; but it was much
blacker here than out in the open, and besides the road now appeared to
be insanely full of twists and turns, and in spite of his efforts his
progress was no faster.

It seemed interminable, never-ending. He went on and on. A branch
crashed down louder than before somewhere ahead of him. He snarled in
consonance with the wind-shrieks and the wind-moans that now came to
hold a personal malevolence in their pandemonium for himself. His coat
caught once on a projecting branch and was torn. He cursed Canuck John,
and cursed himself with abandon. And then abruptly, as the road twisted
again, he caught the glimmer of a light through the trees--and his eyes
upon the light, rather than upon the ground to pick his way, he stumbled
suddenly and pitched forward over something that was uncannily soft and
yielding to the touch.

With a startled cry, Raymond picked himself up. It was the body of a man
sprawled across the road. He wrenched open his bag, and, whipping out
his flashlight, turned it upon the other.

The man lay upon his back, motionless, inert; the white, ghastly face,
blood-streaked, was twisted at a sharp angle to the body, disclosing a
gaping wound in the head that extended from the temple back across
the skull--and a yard away, mute testimony to its tragic work, lay the
rotten limb of a tree, devoid of leaves, perhaps ten feet in length and
of the thickness of one's two fists, its end jagged and splintered where
it had snapped away from its parent trunk.

It was the priest--Father Aubert, the young curé of St. Marleau.




CHAPTER V--THE “MURDER”

|RAYMOND stooped to the other's side. He called the man's name--there
was no answer. He lifted the priest's head--it sagged limply back again.
He felt quickly for the heart beat--there was no sign of life. And then
Raymond stood up again.

It was the nature of the man that, the sudden shock of his discovery
once over, he should be cool and unperturbed. His nerves were not easily
put to rout under any circumstances, and a life in the Great North,
where the raw edges were turned only too often, left him, if not
calloused, at least composed and, in a philosophical way, unmoved at the
sight before him.

“Tough luck--even for a priest!” he muttered, not irreverently. “The
man's dead, right enough.”

He glanced around him, and his eyes fixed again on the glimmer of
light through the trees. That was the tavern undoubtedly--old Mother
Blondin's, the ex_communiée_. He shrugged his shoulders, and a grim
smile flickered across his lips. She too had her quarrel with the
church, but even so she would hardly refuse temporary sanctuary to a
dead man. The priest couldn't be left here lying in the road, and if
Mother Blondin's son was not too drunk to help carry the body to
the house, it would solve the problem until word could be got to the
village.

He took up his bag--he could not be cumbered with that when he returned
to get the priest--and, the trees sparser here on what was obviously the
edge of the woods, with the window light to guide him and his flashlight
to open the way, he left the road and began to run directly toward the
light.

A hundred yards brought him out into a clearing--and then to his disgust
he discovered that, apart possibly from another rent or two in his
clothing, he had gained nothing by leaving the road. It had evidently
swung straight in toward the house from a point only a few yards further
on from where he had left the priest, for he was now alongside of it
again!

He grinned derisively at himself, slipped his flashlight into his
pocket--and, on the point of starting toward the house, which, with only
a small yard in front of it, was set practically on the edge of the road
itself, he halted abruptly. There was only one lighted window that he
could see, and this was now suddenly darkened by a shadowy form from
within, and indistinctly he could make out a face pressed close against
the window pane.

Raymond instinctively remained motionless. The face held there, peering
long and intently out into the night. It was rather strange! His own
approach could not have been heard, for the howl of the wind precluded
any possibility of that; and neither could he be seen out here in the
darkness. What was it that attracted and seemed to fascinate the watcher
at the window? Mechanically, he turned his head to look behind and
around him. There was nothing--only the trees swaying in the woods;
the scream and screech, and the shrill whistling of the wind; and, in
addition now, a rumbling bass, low, yet perfectly distinct, the sullen
roar of beating waves. He looked back at the window--the face was gone.

Raymond moved forward curiously. There was no curtain on the window,
and a step or two nearer enabled him to see within. It was a typical
bare-floored room of the _habitant_ class of smaller house that combined
a living room and kitchen in one, the front door opening directly upon
it. There was a stove at one end, with a box of cordwood beside it;
drawn against the wall was a table, upon which stood a lighted lamp;
and a little distance from the table, also against the wall, was an old,
gray-painted, and somewhat battered _armoire_, whose top was strewn with
crockeryware and glass dishes--there was little else in evidence, save a
few home-made chairs with thong-laced seats.

Raymond's brows gathered in a puzzled frown. Diagonally across the room
from the window and directly opposite the stove was a closed door, and
here, back turned, the man who had been peering out of the window--for
the man was the only occupant of the room--was crouched with his ear
against the panel. His bewilderment growing, Raymond watched the other.
The man straightened up after a moment, faced around into the room, and,
swaying slightly, a vicious smile of satisfaction on his lips, moved
stealthily in the direction of the table.

And now Raymond had no difficulty in recognising the man from the
station agent's vivid, if cursory, description. It was Mother Blondin's
son. A devil, the agent had called the other--and the man looked it! An
ugly white scar straggled from cheek bone to twisted lip, the eyes were
narrow and close set, the hair shaggy, and the long arms dangling from a
powerful frame made Raymond think of a gorilla.

Reaching the table, the man paused, looked furtively all around the
room, and again appeared to be listening intently; then he stretched out
his hand and turned the lamp half down.

Raymond's frown deepened. The other was undoubtedly more or less drunk,
but that did not explain the peculiar and, as it were, ominous way
in which he was acting. What was the man up to? And where was Mother
Blondin?

The man moved down the room in the direction of the stove; and, the
light dim now, Raymond stepped close to the window for a better view.
The man halted at the end of the room, once more looked quickly all
about him, gazed fixedly for an instant at the closed door where
previously he had held his ear to the panel--and reached suddenly up
above his head, the fingers of both hands working and clawing in a
sort of mad haste at an interstice in the wall where the rough-squared
timbers came imperfectly together.

And then Raymond smiled sardonically. He understood now. It was old
Mother Blondin's “stocking”! She had perhaps not been as generous as the
son considered she might have been! The man was engaged in the filial
occupation of robbing his own mother!

“Worthy offspring--if the old dame doesn't belie her reputation!”
 muttered Raymond--and stepped to the front door. “However, it's an ill
wind that blows nobody good, and, if the priest suffered, Mother Blondin
can at least thank my interruption incident thereto for the salvage of
her cash.” He opened the door and walked in coolly. “Good evening!” he
said pleasantly.

The man whirled from the wall--and with a scream, half of pain and half
of startled, furious surprise, was jerked back against the wall again.
His hand was caught as though in a trap. The hiding place had quite
evidently been intended by Mother Blondin for no larger a hand than her
own! The man had obviously wormed and wriggled his hand in between the
timbers--and his hand would not come out with any greater ease than it
had gone in! He wrenched at it, snarling and cursing now, stamping with
his feet, and hurling his maledictions at Raymond's head.

“It is not my fault, my friend,” said Raymond calmly. “Shall I help
you?”

He started forward--and stopped halfway across the room. The man had
torn his hand loose, sending a rain of coin clinking to the floor, and,
fluttering after it like falling leaves, a score or two of banknotes
as well; and now, leaping around, he snatched up a heavy piece of the
cordwood, and, swinging it about his head, his face working murderously,
sprang toward Raymond.

The bag dropped from Raymond's hand, and his face hardened. He had not
bargained for this, but if----

With a snarl and an oath the man was upon him; the cordwood whistled in
its downward sweep, aimed full at his head. He parried the blow with his
forearm, and, with a lightning-like movement, side-stepped and sent his
right fist crashing to the other's jaw.

It staggered the man for an instant--but only for an instant. Bellowing
with rage, dropping the cordwood, heedless of the blows that Raymond
battered into his face, by sheer bulk and weight he closed, his arms
circling Raymond's neck, his fingers feeling for a throat-hold.

Around the room they staggered, swaying, lurching. The man was half
drunk, and, caught in the act of thievery, his fury was demoniacal.
Again and again Raymond tried to throw the other off. The man was
too big, too powerful for close quarters, and his only chance was an
opportunity to use his fists. They panted heavily, the breath of the one
hot on the other's cheek; and then, as they swung, Raymond was conscious
that the door of the rear room was open, and that a woman was standing
on the threshold. It was only a glance he got--of an old hag-like face,
of steel-rimmed spectacles, of tumbling and dishevelled gray hair--the
man's fingers at last were tightening like a vise around his throat.

But the other, too, had seen the woman.

“_Voleur!_ Thief!” he yelled hoarsely. “Smash him on the head with the
stick, mother, while I hold him!”

“You devil!” gritted Raymond--and with a wrench, a twist, his strength
massed for the one supreme effort, he tore himself loose, hurling the
other backward and away from him.

There was a crash of breaking glass as the man smashed into the
_armoire_; a wild laugh from the woman in the doorway--and, for the
first time, a cry from Raymond's lips. The man snatched up a revolver
from the top of the _armoire_.

But quick as the other was, Raymond was quicker as he sprang and
clutched at the man's hand. His face was sternly white now with the
consciousness that he was fighting for no less than his life. Here,
there, now across the room, now back again they reeled and stumbled,
struggling for possession of the weapon, as Raymond strove to tear it
from his antagonist's grasp. And now the woman, screaming, ran forward
and picked up the piece of cordwood, and circling them, screaming still,
aimed her blows at Raymond.

One struck him on the head, dazing him a little... his brain began to
whirl... he could not wrench the revolver from the man's hand... it
seemed as though he had been trying through an eternity... his hands
seemed to be losing their strength... another desperate jerk from
the other like that and his hold would be gone, the revolver in the
unfettered possession of this whisky-maddened brute, whose lips, like
fangs, were flecked with slaver, in whose eyes, bloodshot, burned the
light of murder... his fingers were slipping from their grip, and----

There was a blinding flash; the roar of the report; the revolver
clattered to the floor; a great, ungainly bulk seemed to Raymond to
waver and sway before him in most curious fashion, then totter and crash
with an impact that shook the house--or was it that ghastly, howling
wind!--to the ground.

Raymond reeled back against the _armoire_, and hung there gasping,
panting for his breath, sweeping his hand again and again across his
forehead. He was abominably dizzy. The room was swinging around and
around; there were two figures, now on the ceiling, now on the floor--a
man who lay flat on his back with his arms and legs grotesquely
extended, and whose shirt was red-splotched; and a hag with streaming
gray hair, who rocked and crooned over the other.

“Dead! Dead! Dead!”--the wail rose into a high and piercing falsetto.
The hag was on her feet and running wildly for the front door. “Murder!
Thief! Murder! Murder!”

The horrible screeching died away; and a gust of wind, swirling in
through the door that blew open after the woman, took up the refrain:
“Murder--murder--_murder!_”

His head ached and swam. He was conscious that he should set his wits at
work, that he should think--that somehow he was in peril. He groped his
way unsteadily to where his bag lay on the floor. As he reached it, the
wind blew the lamp out. He felt around inside the bag, found his flask,
and drank greedily.

The stimulant cleared his brain. He stood up, and stared around him in
the darkness. His mind was active enough now--grimly active. If he were
caught, he would swing for murder! He had only acted in self-defence, he
had not even fired the shot, the revolver had gone off in the man's
own hand--but there wasn't a chance for him, if he were caught. The
old hag's testimony that he had come there as a thief--that was what
undoubtedly she believed, and undoubtedly what she would swear--would
damn him. And--cursed irony!--that conversation with the station
agent, innocent enough then, would corroborate her now! Nor had he any
reputation to fall back upon to bolster up his story if he faced the
issue and told the truth. Reputation! He could not even give a plausible
account of himself without making matters worse. A gambler from the
Klondike! The _roué_ of Montreal! Would that save him!

His only hope was to run for it--and at once. It could not be very far
to the village, and it would not be long before that precious old hag
had alarmed the community and returned with the villagers at her heels.
But where would he go? There were no trains! It would be a man-hunt
through the woods, and with so meagre a start that sooner or later they
would get him. And even if he evaded them at first he would have no
chance to get very far away from that locality, and ultimately he would
have to reckon on the arrival of the police. It was probable that old
Mother Blondin could not recognise him again, for the light had been
turned down and she was partially blind; and he was certain that the
station agent would not know his face again either--but both could, and
would, supply a general description of his dress, appearance and
build that would serve equally as well to apprehend him in that thinly
populated country where, under such circumstances, to be even a stranger
was sufficient to invite suspicion.

Well, if to run for it was his only chance, he would take it! He stooped
for his bag, and, in the act, stood suddenly motionless in a rigid sort
of way. No! There was perhaps another plan! It seemed to Raymond that
he held his breath in suspense until his brain should pass judgment upon
it. The priest! The dead priest, only a little way off out there on the
road! No--it was not visionary, nor wild, nor mad. If they _found_ the
man that they supposed had murdered the old woman's son, they would
not search any further. That was absurdly obvious! The priest was not
expected until to-morrow. The only person who knew that the priest had
arrived, and who knew of his, Raymond's, arrival, was the station agent.
But the quarry once run to earth, there would be no reason for anybody,
as might otherwise be the case in a far-flung pursuit, going to the
station on a night like this. The priest's arrival therefore would not
become known to the villagers until the next morning at the earliest,
and quite probably not until much later, when some one from the village
should drive over to meet the train by which he was expected to arrive.
As a minimum, therefore, that gave him ten or twelve hours' start--and
with ten or twelve hours free from pursuit, he could take very good care
of the “afterwards”! Yes, it was the way! The only way! From what
the priest had said in the train, it was evident that he was a total
stranger here, and so, being unknown, the deception would not be
discovered until the station agent told his story. Furthermore, the
wound in the priest's head from the falling limb of the tree would be
attributed to the blow the old hag had struck _him_ on the head with the
cordwood! The inference, plausible enough, would be that he had run from
the house wounded, only to drop at last to the ground on the spot
where the priest, _dressed as the murderer_, was found! And
besides--yes--there was other evidence he could add! The revolver, for
instance!

Quick now, his mind made up, Raymond snatched the flashlight from his
pocket, swept the ray around the floor, located the weapon, and, running
to it, picked it up and put it in his pocket.

Every second was counting now. It might be five, or ten, or fifteen
minutes before they got back from the village, he did not know--but
every moment was priceless. There was still work to be done out there on
the road, even after he was through here!

He was across the room now by the rear wall, gathering up the coins
and bills that the dead man had scattered on the floor. These, like the
revolver, he transferred to his pocket. A thief, had been their cry.
That was the motive! Well, he would corroborate it! There would be no
mistake--until to-morrow--about their having found the guilty man!

His hand was a slimmer hand than Blondin's--it slipped easily into the
chink between the timbers. It was like a hollow bowl inside, and there
was more money there. He scooped it out. Twice his hand went in again,
until the hiding place was empty; and then, running back across the
room, he grabbed up his bag, and rushed from the house.

An instant he paused to listen as he reached the road; but there was
only the howl of the storm, no sound that he could hear as yet from the
direction of the village--though, full of ominous possibilities, he did
not know how far away the village was!

He ran on again at top speed, flashing his way along with his light, the
wind at his back aiding him now. It would not matter if a stray gleam
were seen by any one, if he could only complete his work in time--it
would only be proof, instead of inference, that the murderer had run
from the house along the road to the spot where he was found.

He reached the priest, set down his bag, and, taking up the broken limb
of the tree, carried it ten yards away around the turn of the road, and
flung it in amongst the trees; then he was back once more, and bending
over the priest. He worked swiftly now, but coolly and with grim
composure, removing the priest's outer garments. He noted with intense
relief that there was no blood on the clerical collar--that the blood,
due to the twisted position of the other's head, had trickled from the
cheek directly to the ground. It would have been an awkward thing--blood
on the collar!

It was not easy work. The limp form seemed a ton-weight in his arms, as
he lifted it now this way, now that, to get off the other's clothes. And
at times he recoiled from it, though the stake he was playing for was
his life. It was unnerving business, and the hideous moaning of the wind
made it worse. And mostly he must work by the sense of touch, for he
could not hold the flashlight and still use both hands. But it was done
at last, and now he took off his own clothes, and hastily donned the
priest's.

He must be careful now--a single slip, something overlooked in his
pockets perhaps might ruin everything, and the ten or twelve hours'
start, that was all he asked for, would be lost; but, equally, the
pockets must not be too bare! He was hurriedly going through his
discarded garments now. Mother Blondin's money and the revolver, of
course, must be found there.

The cardcase, yes, that could not do any harm... there were no letters,
no one ever wrote to him... the trifling odds and ends must be left in
the pockets too, they lent colour if nothing else... but his own money
was quite a different matter, and he had the big sum in bills of large
denominations with him that he had exchanged for the pokes of gold dust
which he had brought from the Yukon. He tucked this money securely away
under the _soutane_ he was now wearing, and once more bent over the
priest.

He had now to dress the priest in his, Raymond's, clothes. It was not
readily accomplished; it was even more difficult than it had been
to undress the man; and besides, as he worked now, he found himself
fighting to maintain his coolness against a sort of reckless haste to
have done with it that was creeping upon him. It seemed that he had been
hours at the work, that with every second now the villagers in full cry
must come upon him. Curse it, could he never button that collar and knot
that tie! Why did the man's head wobble like that! The vest now! Now the
coat!

He stood up finally at the end, and flirted his hand across his brow.
His forehead was clammy wet. He shivered a little; then, lips tight, he
pulled himself together. He must make certain, absolutely certain that
he had done nothing, or left nothing undone to rob him of those few
precious hours that were so necessary to his escape.

He nodded after a moment in a kind of ghastly approval--he had even hung
the other's crucifix around his neck! There remained only the exchange
of hats, and--yes, the bag--was there anything in the bag that would
betray him? He dropped his own hat on the ground a yard away from the
priest's head where the other's hat had rolled, picked up the priest's
hat, and put it on--then bent down over the bag.

He lifted his head suddenly, straining his ears to listen. What was
that! Only the howl and unearthly moaning of the wind? It must have
been, and his nerves were becoming over-strung, for the wind was blowing
from the direction of the village, and it seemed as though the sound he
had thought he heard, that he could not have defined, had come from the
other direction. But the bag! Was there anything in it that he should
not leave? He turned the flashlight into its interior, began to rummage
through its contents--and then, kneeling there, it was as though he were
suddenly frozen into that posture, bereft of all power of movement.

It was only a lantern--but it seemed as though he were bathed in
a blistering flood of light that poured full upon him, that burst
suddenly, without warning, from around the turn of the road in the
direction away from the village. He felt the colour ebb from his face;
he knew a sickly consciousness of doom. He was caught--caught in the
priest's clothes! Shadowy outlined there, was a horse and wagon. A
woman, carrying the lantern, was running toward him--a man followed
behind. The wind rose in demoniacal derision--the damnable wind that,
responsible for everything that night, had brought this crowning
disaster upon him!

A girl's voice rang out anxiously:

“What is it? Oh, what is it? What has happened?” Raymond felt himself
grow unnaturally calm. He leaned solicitously over the priest's form.

“I do not know”--he was speaking with sober concern. “I found this man
lying here as I came along. He has a wound of some sort in his head, and
I am afraid that he is dead.”

The man, stepping forward, crossed himself hurriedly.

The girl, with a sharp little cry, knelt down on the other side of the
priest--and in the lantern's glimmer Raymond caught a glimpse of great
dark eyes, of truant hair, wind-tossed, that blew about a young, sweet
face that was full now of troubled sympathy.

“And you,” she said quickly; “you are the new curé, monsieur. The
station agent told us you had come, and we drove fast, my uncle and I,
to try and catch up with you.”

Raymond's eyes were on the priest's form. There was no need to simulate
concern now, it was genuine enough, and it was as if something cold and
icy were closing around his heart. He was not sure--great God, it was
not possible!--but he thought--he thought the priest had moved. If that
were so, he was doubly trapped! Cries came suddenly from the direction
of the village, from the direction of old Mother Blondin's house. He
heard himself acknowledging her remark with grave deliberation.

“Yes,” he said, “I am Father Aubert.”




CHAPTER VI--THE JAWS OF THE TRAP

|VOLEUR! Thief! Murder! Murder!”--it rose a high, piercing shriek, and
the wind seemed to catch up the words and eddy them around, and toss
them hither and thither until the storm and the night and the woods
were full of ghouls chanting and screaming and gibbering their hideous
melody: “_Voleur!_ Thief! Murder! Murder!”

The girl, from the other side of the prostrate priest, rose in quick
alarm to her feet, and lifted the lantern high above her head to peer
down the road.

“Listen!” she cried. “What does it mean? See the lights there! Listen!”

The lantern lifted now, Raymond could no longer see the priest's face.
He slipped his hand in desperately under the man's vest. He had felt
there once before for the heart beat when he had first stumbled upon the
other. In God's name, where was his nerve! He needed it now more than he
had ever needed it in all his dare-devil career before. He had _thought_
the priest had moved. If the man were alive, he, Raymond, was not only
in a thousandfold worse case than if he had run for it and taken his
chances--he had forfeited whatever chance there might have been. The
mere fact that he had attempted to disguise himself, to assume the
priest's garments as a means of escape, damned him utterly, irrevocably
upon the spot. His hand pressed hard against the other's body. Yes,
there was life there, a faint fluttering of the heart. No--no, it was
only himself--a tremor in his own fingers. And then a miserable sense of
disaster fell upon him. The wind howled, those shrieks still rang out,
there came hoarse shouts and the pound of running feet, but above it
all, distinct, like a knell of doom, came a low moan from the priest
upon the ground.

Sharply, as though it were being suddenly seared and burned, Raymond
snatched away his hand; and his hand struck against something hard,
and mechanically he gripped at it. The man was _alive!_ The glare of
lanterns, many of them, flashed from the turn of the road. The village
was upon the scene. The impulse seized him to run. There was the horse
and wagon standing there. His lips tightened. Madness! That would be but
the act of a fool! It was his wits, his brain, his nerve that was his
only hope now--that cool, callous nerve that had never failed him in a
crisis before.

A form, unkempt, with gray, streaming, dishevelled hair, rushed upon him
and the priest, and thrust a lantern into the faces of them both. It was
the old hag, old Mother Blondin.

“Here he is! Here he is!” she screamed. “It is he!”--her voice kept
rising until, in a torrent of blasphemous invective, it attained an
ear-splitting falsetto.

It seemed to Raymond that a hundred voices were all talking at once;
that the villagers now, as they closed in and clustered around him, were
as a multitude in their numbers; and there was light now, a blaze of it,
from a host of accursed lanterns jiggling up and down, each striving to
thrust itself a little further forward than its fellow. And then upon
Raymond settled a sort of grim, cold, ironical composure. The stakes
were very high.

“If you want your life, play for it!” urged a voice within him.

The old hag, in an abandoned paroxysm of grief, rage and fury, was
cursing, and shaking her lantern and her doubled fist at the priest;
and, not content with that, she now began to kick viciously at the
unconscious form.

Raymond rose from his knees, and laid one hand quietly upon her arm.

“Peace, my daughter!” he said softly. “You are in the presence of Holy
Church, and in the presence perhaps of death.”

She whirled upon him, her wrinkled old face, if possible, contorted more
furiously than before.

“Holy Church!” she raved. “Holy Church! Ha, ha! What have I to do with
Holy Church that kicked me from its doors! Will Holy Church give me back
my son? And what have you to do with this, you smooth-faced hypocrite!
It is the law I want, not you to stand there and mumble while you smugly
paw your crucifix!”

It came quick and sharp--an angry sibilant murmur from the crowd, a
threatening forward movement. Mechanically, Raymond's fingers fell away
from the crucifix. It was the crucifix, dangling from his neck, that
he had unconsciously grasped as he had snatched away his hand from the
priest's body--and it was the crucifix that, equally unconscious of it,
he had been grasping ever since. Strange that in his agitation he should
have grasped at a crucifix! Strange that the act and his unconscious
poise, as he held the crucifix, should have lent verisimilitude to the
part he played, the rôle in which he sought sanctuary from death!

His hand raised again. The murmuring ceased; the threatening stir was
instantly checked. And then Raymond took the old woman by the shoulders,
and with kindly force placed her in the arms of the two nearest men.

“She does not know what she is saying,” he said gently. “The poor woman
is distraught. Take her home. I do not understand, but she speaks of her
son being given back to her, and----”

“It is a murder, _mon père_,” broke in one of the men excitedly. “She
came running to the village a few minutes ago to tell us that her
son had been killed. It is this man here in the road who did it. She
recognises him, you see. There is the wound in his head, and she said
she struck him there with a piece of wood while he was struggling with
her son.”

The old woman was in hysteria now, alternately sobbing and laughing, but
no longer struggling.

“Murdered! Her son--murdered!” Raymond gasped in a startled way. “Ah,
then, be very good to her! It is no wonder that she is beside herself.”

They led her laughing and crying away.

“The law! The law! I demand the law on him!”--her voice, now guttural,
now shrill, quavering, virulent, out of control, floated back. “_Sacré
nom de Dieu_, a life for a life, he is the murderer of my son!”

And now, save for the howling of the storm, a silence fell upon the
scene. Raymond glanced quickly about him. What was it now, what was
it--ah, he understood! They were waiting for _him_. As though it were
the most obvious thing in the world to do, as though no one would dream
of doing anything else, the villagers, collectively and singly, laid
the burden of initiative upon his clerically garbed shoulders. Raymond
dropped upon his knees again beside the priest, pretending to make a
further examination of the other's wound. He could gain a moment or two
that way, a moment in which to think. The man, though still unconscious,
was moaning constantly now. At any moment the priest might regain his
senses. One thing was crucial, vital--in some way he must manouvre so
that the other should not be removed from his own immediate surveillance
until he could find some loophole of escape. Once the man began to talk,
unless he, Raymond, were beside the other to stop the man's mouth, or at
least to act as interpreter for the other's ramblings--the man was sure
to ramble at first, or at least people could be made to believe so--he,
Raymond, would be cornered like a rat in a trap, and, more to be feared
even than the law, the villagers, in their fury at the sacrilege they
would consider he had put upon them in the desecration of their priest,
would show him scant ceremony and little mercy.

He was cool enough now, quite cool--with the grim coolness of a man who
realises that his life depends upon his keeping his head. Still he bent
over the priest. He heard a girl's voice speaking rapidly--that would
be the girl with the great dark eyes who had come upon him with the
lantern, for there was no other woman here now since he had got rid
temporarily of that damnable old hag.

“... It is Father Aubert, the new curé. Labbée, at the station, told us
he had arrived unexpectedly. We have brought his trunk that he was going
to send for in the morning, and we drove fast hoping to catch up with
him so that he would not have to walk all the way. We found him here
kneeling beside that man there, that he had stumbled over as he came
along. Labbée told us, too, of the other. He said the man seemed anxious
to avoid Monsieur le Curé, and hung around the station until Father
Aubert had got well started toward St. Marleau. He must have taken the
path to the tavern, or he would not have been here ahead of Monsieur le
Curé, and----”

Raymond reached into the open travelling bag on the ground beside him,
took out the first article coming to hand that would at all serve the
purpose, a shirt, and, tearing it, made pretense at binding up the
priest's head.

“My thanks to you, mademoiselle!” he muttered soberly under his breath.
“If it were not for the existence of that path----!” He shrugged his
shoulders, and, his head lowered, a twisted smile flickered upon his
lips.

The girl had ceased speaking. They were all clustered around him,
watching him. Short exclamations, bearing little evidence of good will
toward the unconscious man, came from first one and then another.

“... _Meurtrier!_... He will hang in any case! ... The better for him if
he dies there!... What does it matter, the blackguard!...”

Raymond rose to his feet.

“No,” he said reprovingly. “It is not for us to think in that way. For
us, there is only a very badly wounded man here who needs our help and
care. We will give that first, and leave the rest in the hands of those
who have the right to judge him if he lives. See now, some of you lift
him as carefully as possible into the wagon. I will hold his head on my
lap, and we will get to the village as quickly as we can.”

It was a strange procession then that began to wend its way toward the
village of St. Marleau. The wagon proved to be a sort of buckboard, and
Raymond, clambering upon it, sitting with his back propped against the
seat, held the priest's head upon his knees. Upon the seat itself
the girl and her uncle resumed their places. With the unconscious man
stretched out at full length there was no room for the trunk; but, eager
to be of service to their new curé, so kind and gentle and tender to
even a criminal for whom the law held nothing in reserve but the gallows
and a rope, who was tolerant even of Mother Blondin in her blasphemies,
the villagers quarrelled amongst themselves for the privilege of
carrying it.

They moved slowly--that the wounded man might not be too severely
jarred. Constantly the numbers around the wagon were augmented. Women
began to appear amongst them. The entire village was aroused. St.
Marleau in all its history had known no such excitement before. A murder
in St. Marleau--and the murderer caught, and dying they said, was being
brought back to the village in the arms of the young curé, who had,
a cause even for added excitement, arrived that evening instead of
to-morrow as had been expected. Tongues clacked and wagged. It was like
a furious humming accompaniment to the howling of the wind. But out of
respect to the curé who held the dying man on his knees, they did not
press too closely about the wagon.

They passed the “tavern,” which was lighted now in every window, and
some left the wagon at this point and went to the “tavern,” and others
who had collected at the “tavern” joined the wagon. They began to
descend the hill. And now along the road below, to right and left,
lights twinkled from every house. They met people coming up the hill.
There were even children now.

Head bent over the priest, that twisted smile was back on Raymond's
lips. The man moaned at intervals, but showed no further sign of
returning consciousness. Would the other live--or die? Raymond's hands,
hidden under the priest's head, were clenched. It was a question of his
own life or the other's now--wasn't it? What hell-inspired ingenuity had
flung him into this hideous maze in which at every twist and turn, as
he sought some avenue of escape, he but found, instead, the way barred
against him, his retreat cut off, and peril, like some soulless,
immutable thing, closing irrevocably down upon him! He dared not leave
the priest; he dared not surrender the other for an instant--lest
consciousness should return. _But if the man died!_

Raymond's face, as a ghastly temptation came, was as white as the
upturned face between his knees. If the man died it would be simple
enough. For a few days, for whatever time was necessary, he could play
the rôle of priest, and then in some way--his brain was not searching
out details now, there was only the sure confidence in himself that he
would be equal to the occasion if only the chance were his--then in some
way, without attendant hue and cry, without the police of every city in
America loosed upon him, since the “murderer” of the old hag's son
would be dead, he could disappear from St. Marleau. But the man was not
dead--yet. And why should he even think the man would die! Because he
_hoped_ for it? His lips twitched; and his hands, with a slow, curious
movement, unclenched, and clenched again--and then with a sort of
mental wrench, his brain, alert and keen, was coping with the immediate
situation, the immediate danger.

The girl and her uncle were talking earnestly together on the seat. And
now, for all that he had not thrust himself forward in what had so far
transpired, the man appeared to be of some standing and authority in the
neighbourhood, for, turning from the girl, he called sharply to one of
the crowd. A villager hurried in response to the side of the wagon, and
Raymond, listening, caught snatches of the terse, low-toned instructions
that were given.

The doctor at Tournayville, and at the same time the police...
yes--to-night... at once....

“_Bien sur!_” said the villager briskly, and disappeared in the crowd.

Then the girl spoke. Raymond could not hear very distinctly, but it was
something about her mother being unprepared, and from that about a room
downstairs, and he guessed that they were discussing where they would
take the wounded man.

He straightened up suddenly. That was a subject which concerned him very
intimately. There was only one place where the priest could go, and that
was where he, Raymond, went. They were on the village street now, and,
twisting his head around to look ahead, he could make out the shadowy
form of the church steeple close at hand.

“Monsieur,” he called quietly to the man on the seat, “we will take this
poor fellow to the _presbytère_, of course.”

“Oh, but, Father Aubert”--the girl turned toward him quickly--“we were
just speaking of that. It would not be at all comfortable for you. You
see, even your own room there will not be ready for you, since you were
not expected to-night, and you will have to take Father Allard's, so
that if this man went there, too, there would be no bed at all for you.”

“I hardly think I shall need any bed to-night, mademoiselle,” Raymond
said gravely. “The man appears to be in a very critical condition. I
know a little something of medicine, and I could not think of
leaving him until--I think I heard your uncle say they were going to
Tournayville for a doctor--until the doctor arrives.”

“Yes, Monsieur le Curé,” said the man, screwing around in his seat,
“that is so. I have sent for the doctor, and also for the police--but it
is eight miles to Tournayville, and on a night like this there will be a
long while to wait, even if the doctor is to be found at once.”

“You have done well, monsieur,” commended Raymond--but under his breath,
with a savage, ironical jeer at himself, he added: “And especially about
the police, curse you!”

“But, Monsieur le Curé,” insisted the girl anxiously, “I am sure
that----”

“Mademoiselle is very kind, and it is very thoughtful of her,” Raymond
interposed gratefully; “but under the circumstances I think the
_presbytère_ will be best. Yes; I think we must decide on the
_presbytère_.

“But, yes, certainly--if that is Monsieur le Curé's wish,” agreed the
man. “Monsieur le Curé should know best. Valérie, jump down, and run on
ahead to tell your mother that we are coming.”

Valérie! So that was the girl's name! It seemed a strangely incongruous
thought that here, with his back against the wall, literally fighting
for his life, the name should seem somehow to be so appropriate to that
dark-eyed face, with its truant, wind-tossed hair, that had come upon
him so suddenly out of the darkness; that face, sweet, troubled, in
distress, that he had glimpsed for an instant in the lantern's light.
Valérie! But what was her other name? What had her mother to do with the
_presbytère_, that the uncle should have sent her on with that message?
And who was the uncle, this man here, and what was his name? And how
much of all this was he, as Father Aubert, supposed already to know? The
curé of the village, Father Allard--what correspondence, for instance,
had passed between him and Father Aubert? A hundred questions were on
his lips. He dared not ask a single one. They had turned in off the road
now and were passing by the front of the church. He lowered his head
close down to the priest's. The man still moaned in that same low and,
as it were, purely mechanical way. Some one in the crowd spoke:

“They are taking him to the _presbytère_.”

At the rear of the wagon, amongst the bobbing lanterns, surrounded by
awe-struck children and no less awe-struck women, he saw the trunk being
trundled along by two men, each grasping one end by the handle. The
crowd took up its spokesman's lead.

... To the _presbytère_.... They are going to the _presbytère_.... The
curé is taking him to the _presbytère_...

“Yes, damn you!” gritted Raymond between his teeth. “To the
_presbytère_--for the devil's masquerade!”




CHAPTER VII--AT THE PRESBYTÈRE


|IT was Valerie who held the lamp; and beside her in the doorway stood
a gentle-faced, silverhaired, slim little old lady--and the latter was
another Valerie, only a Valerie whom the years in their passing had
touched in a gentle, kindly way, as though the whitening hair and the
age creeping upon her were but a crowning. And Raymond, turning to
mount the stoop of the _presbytère_, as some of the villagers lifted the
wounded priest from the wagon, drew his breath in sharply, and for an
instant faltered in his step. It was as though, framed there in the
doorway, those two forms of the women, those two faces that seemed to
radiate an innate sanctity, were like guardian angels to bar the way
against a hideous and sacrilegious invasion of some holy thing within.
And Valerie's eyes, those great, deep, dark eyes burned into him.
And her face, that he saw now for the first time plainly, was very
beautiful, and with a beauty that was not of feature alone--for her
expression seemed to write a sort of creed upon her face, a creed that
frankly mirrored faith in all around her, a faith that, never having
been startled, or dismayed, or disillusioned, and knowing no things for
evil, accepted all things for good.

And Raymond's step faltered. It seemed as though he had never seen a
woman's face like that--that it was holding him now in a thrall that
robbed his surroundings momentarily of their danger and their peril.

And then, the next instant, that voice within him was speaking again.

“You fool!” it whispered fiercely. “What are you doing! If you want your
life, play for it! Look around you! A false move, a rational word from
the lips of that limp thing they are carrying there behind you, and
these people, who believe where you mock, who would kneel if you but
lifted your hand in sign of benediction, would turn upon you with the
merciless fury of wild beasts! You fool! You fool! Do you like the feel
of hemp, as it tightens around your neck!”

And then Raymond lifted his head, and his eyes, and with measured pace
walked forward up the steps to where the two women stood.

Valérie's introduction was only another warning to him to be upon his
guard--she seemed to imply that he naturally knew her mother's name.

“Father Aubert, this is my mother,” she said.

With a sort of old-world grace, the elder woman bowed.

“Ah, Monsieur le Curé,” she said quickly, “what a terrible thing to have
happened! Valérie has just told me. And what a welcome to the parish for
you! Not even a room, with that _pauvre_ unfortunate, _misérable_
and murderer though he is, and----”

“But it is a welcome of the heart, I can see that,” Raymond interposed,
and smiled gravely, and took both of the old lady's hands in his own.
“And that is worth far more than the room, which, in any case, I
shall hardly need to-night. It is you, not I, who should have cause
to grumble, for, to my own unexpected arrival, I bring you the added
trouble and inconvenience of this very badly wounded and, I fear, dying
man.”

“But--that!” she exclaimed simply. “But Monsieur le Curé would never
have thought of doing otherwise! Valérie meant only kindness, but she
should not have made any other suggestion. It is for nothing else, if
not this, the _presbytère! Le pauvre misérable_”--she crossed herself
reverently--“even if he has blood that thought of doing otherwise!
Valérie meant only kindness, but she should not have made any other
suggestion. It is for nothing else, if not this, the _presbytère! Le
pauvre misérable_”--she crossed herself reverently--“even if he has
blood that is not his own upon him.”

They were coming up the steps, carrying the wounded priest.

“This way!” said the little old lady softly. “Valérie, dear, hold your
lamp so that they can see. Ah, _le pauvre misérable_; ah, Monsieur le
Curé!”

The girl leading, they passed down a short hallway, entered a bedroom at
the rear of the house, and Valérie set the lamp upon the table.

Raymond motioned to the men to lay the priest upon the bed. He glanced
quietly about him, as he moved to the priest's side. He must get these
people away--there were reasons why he should be alone. Alone! His brain
was like some horrible, swirling vortex. Why alone? For what reasons?
Not that hellish purpose that had flashed so insidiously upon him
out there on the ride down to the _presbytère!_ Not that! Strange how
outwardly calm, how deadly calm, how composed and self-possessed he was,
when such a thought had even for an instant's space found lodgment in
his soul. It was well that he was calm, he would need to be calm--he
was doing what that inner monitor had told him to do--he was playing the
game--he was playing for his life. Well, he had only to dismiss these
men now, who hung so curiously awe-struck about the bed, and then get
rid of the women--no, they had gone now; Valérie, with her beautiful
face, and those great dark eyes; and the mother, whose gray hair did
not seem to bring age with it at all, and--no, they were back again--no,
they were not--those were not women's steps entering the room.

He had been making pretence at loosening the priest's collar, and he
looked up now. The trunk! He had forgotten all about the trunk. The
newcomers were two men carrying the trunk. They set it down against the
wall near the door. It was a little more than probable that they had
seized the opportunity afforded by the trunk to see what was going on
in the room. They would be favoured amongst their fellows without! They,
too, hats in hand, stared, curious and awe-struck, toward the bed.

“Thank you, all of you,” Raymond heard himself saying in a low tone.
“But go now, my friends, go quietly; madame and her daughter will give
me any further assistance that may be needed.”

They filed obediently from the room--on tiptoe--their coarse, heavy
boots squeaking the more loudly therefor. Raymond's hands sought the
priest's collar again, to loosen it this time with a definite object in
view. He had changed only his outer garments with the other. He dared
not have the priest undressed until he had made sure that there were no
tell-tale marks on the underclothing; a laundry number, perhaps, that
the police would pounce instantly upon. He found himself experiencing
a sort of facetious soul-grin--detectives always laid great stress upon
laundry marks!

Again he was interrupted. With the collar in his hand, his own collar,
that he had removed now from the priest's neck, he turned to see Valérie
and her mother entering the room. They were very capable, those two--too
capable! They were carrying basins of water, and cloths that were
obviously intended for bandages. He had not meant to use any bandages,
he had meant to--what?

He forced a grave smile of approval to his lips, and nodded his head.

The elder woman glanced about her a little in surprise.

“Oh, are the men gone!” she exclaimed. “_Tiens!_ The stupids! But I will
call one of them back, and he will help you undress _le pauvre_, Father
Aubert.”

It was only an instant before Raymond answered; but it seemed, before he
did so, that he had been listening in a kind of panic for long minutes
dragged out interminably to that inner voice that kept telling him to
play the game, play the game, and that only fools lost their heads at
insignificant little unexpected denouements. She was only suggesting
that the man should be undressed; whereas the man must under no
circumstances be undressed until--until----

“I think perhaps we had better not attempt it in his condition until
the doctor arrives, madame,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, as though his
words were weighted with deliberation. “It might do far more harm than
good. For the present, I think it would be better simply to loosen his
clothing, and make him as comfortable as possible in that way.”

“Yes; I think so, too,” said Valérie--she had moved a little table to
the bedside, and was arranging the basins of water and the cloths upon
it.

“Of course!” agreed the little old lady simply. “Monsieur le Curé knows
best.”

“Yes,” said Valérie, speaking in hushed tones, as she cast an anxious
look at the white, blood-stained face upon the bed, “and I think it is
a mercy that Father Aubert knows something about medicine, for
otherwise the doctor might be too late. I will help you, Monsieur le
Curé--everything is ready.”

He knew nothing about medicine--there was nothing he knew less about!
What fiend had prompted him to make such a claim!

“I am afraid, mademoiselle,” he said soberly, “that my knowledge is far
too inadequate for such a case as this.”

“We will be able to do something at least, father”--there was a brave,
troubled smile in her eyes as she lifted them for an instant to his; and
then, bending forward, with deft fingers she removed the torn piece of
shirt from the wounded man's head.

And then, between them, while the mother watched and wrung out the
cloths, they dressed the wound, a ghastly, unsightly thing across the
side of the man's skull--only it was Valerie, not he, who was efficient.
And strangely, as once before, but a little while before, when out there
in front of the house, it was Valerie, and not the man, and not the
wound, and not the peril in which he stood that was dominant, swaying
him for the moment. There was a wondrous tenderness in her hands as
she worked with the bandages, and sometimes her hands touched his; and
sometimes, close together, as they leaned over the bed together, her
hair, dark, luxuriant, brushed his cheek; and the low-collared blouse
disclosed a bare and perfect throat that was white like ivory; and the
half parted lips were tender like the touch of her fingers; and in her
face at sight of the gruesome wound, bringing an added whiteness,
was dismay, and struggling with dismay was a wistful earnestness and
resolution that was born of her woman's sympathy; and she seemed to
steal upon and pervade his senses as though she were some dream-created
vision, for she was not reality at all since his subconsciousness told
him that in actual reality no one existed at all except that
moaning thing upon the bed--that moaning thing upon the bed and
himself--himself, who seemed to be swinging by a precarious hold, from
which even then his fingers were slipping away, over some bottomless
abyss that yawned below him. “Valérie! Valérie!” He was repeating her
name to himself, as though calling to her for aid from the edge of that
black gulf, and----

“Fool!” jeered that inner voice. “Have you never seen a pretty girl
before? She'd be the first to turn upon you, if she knew!”

“You lie!” retorted another self.

“Where's Three-Ace Artie gone?” inquired the voice with cold contempt.

Raymond straightened up. Valérie, turning from the bed, gathered the
basins and soiled cloths together, and moved quietly from the room.

“Will he live, father?”--it was the little gray-haired woman, Valérie's
mother, Valérie's older self, who was looking up into his face so
anxiously, whose lips quivered a little as she spoke.

Would the man _live!_ A devil's laugh seemed suddenly to possess
Raymond's soul. They would be alone together, that gasping, white-faced
thing on the bed, and himself; they would be alone together before
the doctor came--he would see to that. There had been interruption,
confusion... his brain itself was confusion... extraneous thoughts had
intervened... but they would be _alone_ presently. And--great God!--what
hellish mockery!--she asked _him_ if this man would _live!_

“I am afraid”--he was not looking at her; his hand, clutching at the
skirt of the _soutane_ he wore, closed and tightened and clenched--“I am
afraid he will not live.”

“Ah, _le pauvre!_” she whispered, and her eyes filled with tears. “Ah,
Monsieur le Curé, I do not know these things so well as you. It is true
that he is a very guilty man, but is not God very good and tender and
full of compassion, father? Oh, I should not dare to say these things,
for it is you who know what is right and best”--she had caught his
sleeve, and was leading him across the room. “And Mother Church,
Monsieur le Curé, is very merciful and very tender and very
compassionate too--and, oh--and, oh--can there not be mercy and love
even for such as he--must he lose his soul too, as well as his life?”

Raymond, in a blind, wondering way, stared at her. The tears
were streaming down her cheeks now. They had halted before a low,
old-fashioned cupboard, an _armoire_ much like the _armoire_ in the old
hag's house, and now she opened the doors in the lower portion, and took
out a worn and rusty black leather bag, and set it upon the top of the
_armoire_.

“It is only to show you where it is, father, if--if it might be so--even
for him--the Sacrament”--and, turning, she crossed the room, and meeting
Valérie upon the threshold drew the girl away with her, and closed the
door softly.

It was a bag such as the parish priests carried with them on their
visits to the sick and dying. Raymond eyed it sullenly. The Sacrament!

“What have I to do with that!” he snarled beneath his breath.

“Are you not a priest of God?”

He whirled like a flash, startled, sweeping his glances around the room.
And then he laughed in smothered, savage relief. It was only that voice
within that chose a cursed mockery this time to put him upon his guard.

He was staring now at the sprawled form on the bed, at a red stain that
was already creeping through the fresh bandages. His face grew hard and
set; a flush came and died away, leaving it an ashen gray.

And then he stepped to the door--and listened--and locked it.




CHAPTER VIII--THOU SHALT NOT KILL

|IT seemed as though the stillness of death were already in the room;
a stillness that was horrible and unnerving in contrast with the shrill
swirling of the wind without, and the loud roar and pound of the waves
breaking upon the shore close at hand beneath the windows.

His face still set as in a rigid mould, features drawn in hard, sharp
lines, then ashen gray now even upon the lips, Raymond crossed from the
door to the nearer of the two windows. It was black outside, inky black,
unnaturally black, relieved only by a wavering, irregular line of white
where the waves broke into foam along the rocky beach--and this line,
as it wavered, and wriggled, and advanced, and receded seemed to lend an
uncanny ghostlike aspect to the blackness, and, as he strained his eyes
out of the window, he shuddered suddenly and drew back. But the next
instant he snarled fiercely to himself. Was he to lose his nerve because
it was black outside, and because the waves were running high and
creaming along the shore! He would have something shortly that would
warrant him in losing his nerve if he faltered now--the hemp around
his neck, rasping, chafing at his throat, the horrible prickling as the
rough strands grew taut!

He clutched at his throat mechanically, rubbing it with his fingers
mechanically--and, as fiercely as before, snarled again. Enough of
this! He was neither fool nor child. There was a sure way out from that
dangling noose, cornered, trapped though he was--and he knew the way
now. He reached up and drew down the window shade, and passed quickly to
the other window and drew down the shade there as well.

And then he turned, and stepped to the bed, and bent over the priest.

There was the underclothing first. He must make sure of that--that there
would be no marks of identification--that there would be nothing to rise
up against him, a mute and mocking witness to his undoing. He loosened
the man's clothing. It would not be necessary to take off the outer
garments. It was much easier here with the man on a bed, and a light
in the room than it had been out there on the road, and--ah! Lips
compressed, he nodded sharply to himself. The undergarments were new.
That precluded laundry marks--unless the man had had some marking put
upon them himself. No, there was nothing--nothing but the maker's tag
sewn in on the shirt at the back of the neck. He turned the priest over
on the bed to complete his examination. There was nothing on any
other part of the garments. The socks, then, perhaps? He pulled up
the trousers' legs hurriedly. No, there was nothing there, either. He
reached out to turn the priest over again--and paused. He could snip
that maker's tag from the neck of the shirt just as easily in the
position in which the man now lay, and--and the man's face would not
be staring up at him. There was a cursed, senseless accusation in that
white face, and the lip muscles twitched as though the man were about
to shout aloud, to scream out--_murder!_ If only the fool had died out
there in the woods, and would stop that infernal low moaning noise, and
those strangling inhalations as he gasped for breath!

Automatically, Raymond's fingers sought his penknife in its accustomed
place in his vest pocket--and slipped down a smooth, unobstructed
surface. His eyes followed his fingers in a sort of dazed, perplexed
way, and then he laughed a little huskily. The _soutane!_ He had
forgotten for the moment that he was a priest of God! It was the other
who wore the vest, it was in the other's pocket that the knife was to be
found. He had forgotten the devil's masquerade in the devil's whispering
that was in his soul!

He snatched the knife from the vest pocket, opened it, cut away the
cloth tag, and with infinite pains removed the threads that had held the
tag in place. He returned the knife to the vest pocket, and tucked the
little tag away in one of his own pockets; then hastily rearranged
the other's clothing again, and turned the man back into his original
position upon the bed.

And now! He glanced furtively all around the room. His hands crept out,
and advanced toward the priest. It was a very easy thing to do. No one
would know. No one but would think the man had died naturally. _Died!_
It was the first time he had allowed his mind to frame a concrete
expression that would fit the black thing that was in his soul.

A bead of sweat spurted out from his forehead. His hands somehow would
not travel very fast, but they were all the time creeping nearer to the
priest's throat. He had only to keep on forcing them on their way...
and it was not very far to go... and, once there, it would only take an
instant. God, if that white face would not stare up at him like that...
the eyes were closed of course... but still it stared.

Raymond touched his lips with the tip of his tongue, and again and again
circled the room with his eyes. Was that somebody there outside the
window? Was that a step out there in the passageway? Were those
_voices_ that chattered and gibbered from everywhere?

He jerked back his hands, and they fell to his sides, and he shivered.
What was it? What was the matter? What was it that he had to do? It
wasn't murder. That was a lie! The man wouldn't live anyhow, but he
might live long enough to talk. It was his life or the other's, wasn't
it? If he were caught now, there was no power on earth could save him.
On earth? What did he mean by that? What other power was there? It was
only a trite phrase he had used.

What was he hesitating about? It was the only chance he had.

“Get it done! Get it done, and over with, you squeamish fool!” prodded
that inner voice savagely.

His hands crept out again. Of course! Of course! He knew that. He must
get it done and over with. Only--only, great God, why did his hands
tremble so! He lifted one of them to his forehead and drew it away
dripping wet. What did that voice want to keep nagging him for! He knew
what he had to do. It was the only way. If the priest were dead,
he, Raymond, would be safe. There would be no question as to who the
murderer of Blondin was--and the priest would be buried and that would
be the end of it. And--yes! He had it all now. It was almost too simple!
He, Raymond, as the curé of the village, after a day or two, would meet
with an accident. A boating accident--yes, that was it! They would find
an upturned boat and his hat floating on the water perhaps--but they
would never find the body! He need only, in the interval of those few
days, gather together from somewhere some clothes into which he could
change, hide in the woods after the “accident,” and at night make his
final escape.

“Of course!” snapped the voice impatiently. “I've been telling you that
all along! There would be no further investigation as to the murder; and
only a sorrowful search along the shore, free from all suspicion, for
the body of Father Aubert. Well, why don't you act? Are you going to
fling your life away? Are you afraid? Have you forgotten that it is
growing late, that very soon now the doctor and the police will be
here?”

Afraid! No; he wasn't afraid of God or devil, or man or beast--that was
his creed, wasn't it? Only that damnable face still stared up at him,
and he couldn't get his hands near enough to--to do the work.

Slowly, inch by inch, his face as white and set as chiselled marble, his
hands crept forward again. How soft the bare, exposed throat looked that
was almost at his finger tips now. Would it _feel_ soft to the touch,
or--he swayed unsteadily, and crouched back, that cold shiver passing
over him. It was strange that he should shiver, that he should find it
cold. His brain was afire, and it whirled, and whirled, and whirled;
and devils laughed in his soul--and yet he stood aghast at the abhorrent
deed.

Wait! He would be able to think clearly in an instant. He must do it--or
die himself. Yes, yes; it was the _touch_ of his flesh against the
other's flesh from which he shrank, the _feel_ of his fingers on the
other's throat that held him back--that was it! Wait! He would remedy
that. That would have been a crude, mad way in any case. What had he
been thinking of! It would have left a mark. It would have been sure to
have left a mark. Perhaps they would not have noticed it, but it would
have invited the risk. There was a better way, a much better way--and a
way in which that face wouldn't be able to stare up at him any more, a
way in which he wouldn't hear that moaning, and that rattling, and
that struggling for breath. The man was almost dead now. It was only
necessary to take that other pillow there, and hold it tightly over
the other's face. _That_ wouldn't leave any mark. Yes, the pillow! Why
hadn't he thought of that before! It would have been all over by now.

Once more his hands began to creep up and outward. He leaned far over
the bed, reaching for the pillow--and something came between the
pillow and his hands. He glanced downward in a startled way. It was the
crucifix hanging from his neck. With a snarl, he swung it away. It came
back and struck against his knuckles. He tried to wrench it from his
neck. It would not come--but, instead, one hand slipped through the
chain, and pushed the crucifix outward, and for an instant held it there
between him and that white, staring face. He pulled his hand away. And
the crucifix swung backward and forward. And he reached again for the
pillow, and the crucifix was still between. And his hands, trembling,
grew tangled in the chain.

“Thou shalt not kill!”--it was not that inner voice; it was a voice like
the girl's, like Valerie's, soft and full of a divine compassion. And
her fingers in tenderness seemed to be working with that bandaged head;
and the dark eyes, deep and steadfast, were searching his soul. “Thou
shalt not kill!”

And with a low, horror-stricken cry, Raymond staggered backward from the
bed, and dropped into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.




CHAPTER IX--UNTIL THE DAWN

|THE man upon the bed moaned continuously now; the wind swirled around
the corners of the house; the waves pounded in dull, heavy thuds upon
the shore without--but Raymond heard none of it. It seemed as though he
were exhausted, spent, physically weak, as from some Titanic struggle.
He did not move. He sat there, head bowed, his hands clasped over his
face.

And then, after a long time, a shudder shook his frame--and he rose
mechanically from his chair. The door was locked, and subconsciously he
realised that it should not be found locked when that somebody--who
was it?--yes, he remembered now--the doctor from Tournayville, and the
police--it should not be found locked when the doctor and the police
arrived, because they would naturally ask him to account for the reason
of it. He crossed to the door, unlocked it, and returned to the chair.

And now he stared at the crucifix upon his breast. For the second time
that night it had played a strange and unaccountable rôle. He lifted
his hand to his head. His head still ached from the blow the old hag
had struck him with the piece of wood. That was what was the matter.
His head ached and he could not therefore think logically, otherwise
he would not be fool enough to hold the crucifix responsible for--for
preventing him from what he had been about to do a little while ago.

His face grew cynical in its expression. The crucifix had nothing to
do with it, nor had the vision of the girl's eyes, nor had the imagined
sound of Valérie's voice--those things were, all of them, but the form
his true self had taken to express itself when he had so madly tormented
himself with that hellish purpose. If it had not been things like that,
it would have been something else. He could not have struck down a
wounded and defenceless man, he could not have committed murder in cold
blood like that. He had recoiled from the act, because it was an act
that was beyond him to perform, that was all. That man there on the bed
was as safe, as far as he, Raymond, was concerned, as though they were
separated by a thousand miles.

“Sophistry!” sneered that inner voice. “You are a weak-kneed fool, and
very far from a heroic soul that has been tried by fire! Well, you will
pay for it!” Raymond cast a quick startled glance at the bed, and half
rose from his seat. What--again? Was that thought back again? He sank
back in the chair, gripping the chair-arms until his knuckles cracked.

“I won't!” he mumbled hoarsely. “By God--I won't! Maybe--maybe the man
will die.”

And then impulsively he was on his feet, and pacing the room, a sweep of
anger upon him.

“What had I to do with all this!” he cried, in low, fierce tones. “And
look at me!”--he had halted before the dresser, and was glaring into the
mirror. “_Look at me!_” A face whose pallor was enhanced by the black
clerical garb gazed contortedly back at him; the crucifix, symbol
of peace, hung from about his neck. He tucked it hastily inside the
_soutane_. “Look at me!” he cried, and clenched his fist and shook it at
the mirror. “Three-Ace Artie! That's you there, Three-Ace Artie! God or
the devil has stacked the cards on you, and----”

He swung sharply about--listening; and, on the instant, with grave
demeanour, his face soberly composed, faced the doorway.

The door opened, and two men stepped into the room. One was a big
man, bearded, with a bluff and hearty cast of countenance that seemed
peculiarly fitting to his immense breadth of shoulder; the other, a sort
of foil as it were, was small, sharp featured, with roving black eyes
that, as he stood on the threshold and on tiptoe impatiently peered over
the big man's shoulder, darted quick little glances in all directions
about him. The small man closed the door with a sort of fussily
momentous air.

“_Tiens_, Monsieur le Curé”--the big man extended his hand to Raymond.
“I am Doctor Arnaud. And this is Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief
of police of Tournayville. Hum!”--he glanced toward the bed. “Hum!”--he
dropped Raymond's hand, and moved quickly to the bedside.

Raymond shook hands with the little man.

“Bad business! Bad business!”--the assistant chief of police of
Tournayville continued to send his darting glances about the room, and
the while he made absurd clucking noises with his tongue. “Yes, very
bad--very bad! I came myself, you see.”

There was much about the man that afforded Raymond an immense sense of
relief. He was conscious that he infinitely preferred Monsieur Dupont,
assistant chief of the Tournayville police, to Sergeant Marden, of the
Royal North-West Mounted.

“Yes,” said Raymond quietly, “I am afraid it is a very serious matter.”

“Not at all! Not at all!” clucked Monsieur Dupont, promptly
contradicting himself. “We've got our man--eh--what?” He jerked his hand
toward the bed. “That's the main thing. Killed Théophile Blondin, did
he? Well, quite privately, Monsieur le Curé, he might have done worse,
though the law does not take that into account--no, not at all, not at
all. Blondin, you understand, Monsieur le Curé, was quite well known to
the police, and he was”--Monsieur Dupont pinched his nose with his thumb
and forefinger as though to escape an unsavoury odour--“you understand,
Monsieur le Curé?”

“I did not know,” replied Raymond. “You see, I only----”

“Yes, yes!” interrupted Monsieur Dupont. “Know all that! Know all that!
They told me on the drive out. You arrived this evening, and found this
man lying on the road. Rude initiation to your pastorate, Monsieur le
Curé. Too bad!” He raised his voice. “Well, Doctor Arnaud, what is the
verdict--eh?”

“Come here and help me,” said the doctor, over his shoulder. He was
replacing the bandage, and now he looked around for an instant at
Raymond. “I can't improve any on that. It was excellent--excellent,
Monsieur le Curé.”

“The credit is not mine,” Raymond told him. “It was Mademoiselle
Valérie. But the man, doctor?”

“Not a chance in a thousand”--the doctor shook his head. “Concussion of
the brain. We'll get his clothes off, and make him comfortable. That's
about all we can do. He'll probably not last through the night.”

“I will help you,” offered Raymond, stepping forward.

“It's not necessary, Monsieur le Curé,” said the doctor. “Monsieur
Dupont here can----”

“No,” interposed Monsieur Dupont. “Let Monsieur le Curé help you. We
will kill two birds with one stone that way. We have still to visit the
Blondin house. We do not know this man's name. We know nothing about
him. While you are undressing him, I will search through his clothing.
Eh? Perhaps we shall find something. I do not swallow whole all the
story I have heard. We shall see what we shall see.”

Raymond glanced swiftly at Monsieur Dupont. Because the man clucked with
his tongue and had an opinion of himself, he was perhaps a very long way
from being either stupid or a fool. Monsieur Dupont might not prove so
preferable to Sergeant Marden as he had been so quick to imagine.

“Yes,” agreed Raymond. “Monsieur Dupont is right, I am sure. I will
assist you, doctor, while he makes his search.”

Monsieur Dupont stepped briskly around to the far side of the bed,
and peered intently into the unconscious man's face, as he waited for
Raymond and the doctor to hand him the first article of clothing. He
kept clucking with his tongue, and once his eyes narrowed significantly.

Raymond experienced a sense of disquiet. Was the man simply posing for
effect, or was he acting naturally--or was there something that had
really aroused the other's suspicions. He handed the priest's coat, or,
rather, his own, to Monsieur Dupont.

Monsieur Dupont began to go through the pockets--like one accustomed to
the task.

“Hah, hah!” he ejaculated suddenly. “Monsieur le Curé, Monsieur le
Docteur, I call you both to witness! All this loose money in the side
pocket! The side pocket, mind you, and the money loose! It bears out the
story that they say Mother Blondin tells about the robbery. I was not
quite ready to believe it before. See!” He dumped the money on the bed.
“You are witnesses.” He gathered up the money again and replaced it
in the pocket. “And here”--from another pocket he produced the
revolver--“you are witnesses again.” He broke the revolver.
“Ah--h'm--one shot fired! You see for yourselves? Yes, you see. Very
well! Continue, messieurs! There may be something more, though it would
certainly appear that nothing more was necessary.” He nodded crisply at
both Raymond and the doctor.

The vest yielded up the cardcase. Monsieur Dupont shuffled over the
dozen or so of neatly printed cards that it contained.

“_Là, là!_” said he sharply. “Our friend is evidently a smooth one. One
of the clever kind that uses his brains. Very nice cards--very plausible
sort of thing, eh? Yes, they are. Very! Henri Mentone, eh? Henri
Mentone, alias something--from nowhere. Well, messieurs, is there still
by any chance something else?”

There was nothing else. Monsieur Dupont, however, was not satisfied
until he had examined, even more minutely than Raymond had previously
done, the priest's undergarments. The doctor turned from the bed.
Monsieur Dupont rolled all the clothing into a bundle, and tucked it
under his arm.

“Well, let us go, doctor!” jerked out Monsieur Dupont. “If he dies, he
dies--eh? In any case he can't run away. If he dies, there is Mother
Blondin to consider, eh? She struck the blow. They would not do much to
her perhaps, but she would have to be held. It is the law. If he does
not die, that is another matter. In any case I shall remain in the
village to keep an eye on them both--yes? Well then, well then--eh?
--let us go!”

The doctor glanced hesitantly toward the bed.

“I have done all that is possible for the moment,” he said; “but perhaps
I had better call madame. She and mademoiselle have insisted on sitting
up out there in the front room.”

Raymond's head was bowed.

“Do not call them,” he said gravely. “If the man is about to die, it is
my place to stay, doctor.”

“Yes--er--yes, that is so,” acquiesced the doctor. “Very well then, I'll
pack them off to bed. I shan't be long at Mother Blondin's. Must pay an
official visit--I'm the coroner, Monsieur le Curé. I'll be back as soon
as possible, and meanwhile if he shows any change”--he nodded in the
direction of the bed--“send for me at once. I'll arrange to have some
one of the men remain out there within call.”

“Very well,” said Raymond simply. “You will be gone--how long, doctor?”

“Oh, say, an hour--certainly not any longer.”

“Very well,” said Raymond again.

He accompanied them to the door, and closed it softly behind them
as they stepped from the room. And now he experienced a sort of cool
complacency, an uplift, the removal as of some drear foreboding that had
weighed him down. The peril in a very large measure had vanished. The
policeman had swallowed the bait, hook and all; and the doctor had said
there was not one chance in a thousand that the man would live until
morning. Therefore the problem resolved itself simply into a matter of
two or three days in which he should continue in the rôle of curé--after
that the “accident,” and this accursed St. Marleau could go into
mourning for him, if it liked, or do anything else it liked! He would be
through with it!

But those two or three days! It was not altogether a simple affair,
that. If only he could go now--at once! Only that, of course, would
arouse suspicion--even if the man did not regain consciousness, and did
not blurt out something before he died. But why should he keep harping
on that point? Any fool could see that his safest game was to play the
hand he held until the “murderer” was dead and buried, and the matter
legally closed forever. He had already decided that a dozen times,
hadn't he? Well then, these two or three days! He must plan for these
two or three days. There were things he should know, that he would be
expected to know--not mere church matters; his Latin, the training of
the old school days, a prayer-book, and his wits would carry him through
anything of such a nature which might intervene in that short time. But,
for instance, the mother of Valérie--who was she? How did she come to
be in charge of the _presbytère?_ What was her name--and Valérie's? It
would be very strange indeed if, coming there for the summer to supply
for Father Allard, he was not acquainted with all such details.

Raymond's glance fell upon the trunk. The next instant he was hunting
through his pockets, but making an awkward business of it thanks to the
unaccustomed skirt of his _soutane_. A bunch of keys, however, rewarded
his efforts. He stepped over to the trunk, trying first one key and
then another. Finally, he found the right one, unlocked the trunk--and,
suddenly, his hand upon the uplifted lid, the blood left his face,
and he stood as though paralysed, staring at the doorway. He was
caught--caught in the act. True, she had knocked, but she had opened
the door at the same time. The little old lady, Valerie's mother, was
standing there looking at him--and the trunk was open.

“Monsieur le Curé,” she said, “it is only to tell you that we have made
up a couch for you in the front room that you can use when the doctor
returns.”

He found his voice. Somehow she did not seem at all surprised that he
had the trunk open.

“It is very kind and thoughtful of you, madame.”

“_Mais, non!_” she exclaimed, with a smile. “But, no! And if you need
anything before the doctor gets back, father, you have only to call. We
shall hear you.”

“I will call if I need you”--Raymond was conscious that he was speaking,
but that the words came only in a queer, automatic kind of a way.

She poked her head around the door for a sort of anxious, pitying,
quick-flung glance at the bed; then looked questioningly at Raymond.

Raymond shook his head.

“_Ah, le pauvre! Le pauvre misérable!_” she whispered. “Good-night,
Monsieur le Curé. Do not fail to call if you want us.”

The door closed. As once before in a night of vigil, in that far-north
shack, Raymond stretched out his hand before him to study it. It was not
steady now--it trembled and shook. He looked at the trunk--and then a
low, hollow laugh was on his lips. A fool and a child he was, and his
nerves must be near the breaking point. Was there anything strange, was
there anything surprising in the fact that Monsieur le Curé should be
discovered in the act of opening Monsieur le Curé's trunk! And it had
brought a panic upon him--and his hand was shaking like an old man's.
He was in a pretty state, when coolness was the only thing that stood
between him and--the gallows! Damn that cursed moaning from the bed!
Would it never cease!

For a time he stood there without moving; and then, his composure
regained, the square jaw clamped defiantly against his weakness, he drew
up a chair, and, sitting down, began to rummage through the trunk.

“François Aubert--eh?” he muttered, as he picked up a prayerbook and
found the fly-leaf autographed. “So my name is François! Well, that is
something!” He opened another book, and, on the fly-leaf again, read an
inscription. “'To my young friend'--eh? and from the Bishop! The Bishop
of Montigny, is it? Well, that also is something! I am then personally
acquainted with this Monsignor Montigny! I will remember that! And--ha,
these!--with any luck, I shall find what I want here.”

He took up a package of letters, ran them over quickly--and frowned in
disappointment. They were all addressed in a woman's hand. He was not
interested in that. It was the correspondence from Father Allard that he
wanted. He was about to return the letters to the trunk and resume his
search, when he noticed that the topmost envelope bore the St. Marleau
postmark. He opened it hurriedly--and his frown changed to a nod of
satisfaction. It was, after all, what he wanted. Father Allard was
blessed with the services of a secretary, that was the secret--Father
Allard's signature was affixed at the bottom of the neatly written page.

Raymond leaned back in his chair, and proceeded to read the letters.
Little by little he pieced together, from references here and there, the
information that he sought. It was a sort of family arrangement, as it
were. The old lady was Father Allard's sister, and her name was Lafleur;
and the husband was dead, since, in one instance, Father Allard referred
to her as the “Widow Lafleur,” instead of his customary “my sister,
Madame Lafleur.” And the uncle, who it now appeared was the notary and
likewise the mayor of the village, was Father Allard's brother.

Raymond returned the letters to the trunk, and commenced a systematic
examination of the rest of its contents, which, apart from a somewhat
sparse wardrobe, consisted mainly of books of a theological nature. He
was still engaged in this occupation, when he heard the front door open
and close. He snatched the prayer-book out of the trunk, shut down the
lid, and, with a finger between the closed pages of the book, stood up
as the doctor came briskly into the room.

“I'm back a little ahead of time, you see,” announced Doctor Arnaud with
a pleasant nod, and stepped at once across the room to the wounded man.

For perhaps five minutes the doctor remained at the bedside; then,
closing his little black bag, he laid it upon the table, and turned to
Raymond.

“Now, father,” he said cheerily, “I understand there's a couch all ready
for you in the front room. I'll be here for the balance of the night.
You go and get some sleep.”

Raymond motioned toward the bed.

“Is there any change?” he asked.

The doctor shook his head.

“Then,” said Raymond quietly, “my place is still here.” He smiled
soberly. “The couch is for you, doctor.”

“But,” protested the doctor, “I----”

“The man is dying. My place is here,” said Raymond again. “If you are
needed, I have only to call you from the next room. There is no reason
why both of us should sit up.”

“Hum--_tiens_--well, well!”--the doctor pulled at his beard. “No, of
course, not--no reason why both should sit up. And if you insist----”

“I do not insist,” interposed Raymond, smiling again. “It is only that
in any case I shall remain.”

“You are a fine fellow, Monsieur le Curé,” said the bluff doctor
heartily. He clapped both hands on Raymond's shoulders. “A fine fellow,
Monsieur le Curé! Well, I will go then--I was, I confess it, up all last
night.” He moved over to the door--and paused on the threshold. “It is
quite possible that the man may revive somewhat toward the end, in which
case--Monsieur Dupont has suggested it--a little stimulation may enable
us to obtain a statement from him. You understand? So you will call me
on the instant, father, if you notice anything.”

“On the instant,” said Raymond--and as the door closed behind the
doctor, he went back to his seat in the chair.

The man would die, the doctor had said so again. That was assured.
Raymond fingered the prayer-book that he still held abstractedly. That
was assured. It seemed to relieve his brain from any further necessity
of thinking, thinking, thinking--his brain was very weary. Also he was
physically weary and tired. But he was safe. Perhaps a few days of this
damnable masquerade, but then it would be over.

He began to turn the pages of the prayer-book--and then, with a
whimsical shrug of his shoulders, he began to read. He must put the
night in somehow, therefore why not put it in to advantage? To refresh
his memory a little with the ritual would be a safeguard against those
few days that he must still remain in St. Marleau--as Father François
Aubert!

He read for a little while, then got up and went to the bed to look at
the white face upon it, to listen to the laboured breathing that stood
between them both--and death. He could see no change. He returned to his
chair, and resumed his reading.

At intervals he did the same thing over again--only at last, instead
of reading, he dozed in his chair. Finally, he slept--not heavily,
but fitfully, lightly, a troubled sleep that came only through bodily
exhaustion, and that was full of alarm and vague, haunting dreams.

The night passed. The morning light began to find its way in through the
edges of the drawn window shades. And suddenly Raymond sat upright
in his chair. He had heard a step along the hall. The prayer-book had
fallen to the floor. He picked it up. What was that noise--that low
moaning from the bed? Not dead! The man wasn't dead yet! And--yes--it
was daylight!

The door opened. It was Valerie. How fresh her face was--fresh as the
morning dew! What a contrast to the wan and haggard countenance he knew
he raised to hers!

And she paused in the doorway, and looked at him, and looked toward
the bed, and back again to him, and the sweet face was beautiful with a
woman's tenderness.

“Ah, how good you are, Monsieur le Curé, and how tired you must be,” she
said.




CHAPTER X--KYRIE ELEISON

|ST. MARLEAU was agog. St. Marleau was hysterical. St. Marleau was
on tiptoe. It was in the throes of excitement, and the excitement was
sustained by expectancy. It wagged its head in sapient prognostication
of it did not quite know what; it shook its head in a sort of amazed
wonder that such things should be happening in its own midst; and it
nodded its head with a profound respect, not unmixed with veneration,
for its young curé--the good, young Father Aubert, as St. Marleau,
old and young, had taken to calling him, since it would not have been
natural to have called him anything else.

The good, young Father Aubert! Ah, yes--was he not to be loved and
respected! Had he not, for three nights and two days now, sacrificed
himself, until he had grown pale and wan, to watch like a mother at the
bedside of the dying murderer, who did not die! It was very splendid of
the young curé; for, though Madame Lafleur and her daughter beseeched
him to take rest and to let them watch in his stead, he would not listen
to them, saying that he was stronger than they and better able to stand
it, and that, since it was he who had had the stranger brought to the
_presbytère_, it was he who should see that no one else was put to any
more inconvenience than could be avoided.

Ah, yes,--it was most certainly the good, young Father Aubert! For, on
the short walks he took for the fresh air, the very short walks, always
hurrying back to the murderer's bedside, did he not still find time for
a friendly and cheery word for every one he met? It was a habit, that,
of his, which on the instant twined itself around the heart of St.
Marleau, that where all were strangers to him, and in spite of his own
anxiety and weariness, he should be so kindly interested in all the
little details of each one's life, as though they were indeed a part of
his own. How could one help but love the young curé who stopped one on
the village street, and, man, woman or child, laid his hand in frank and
gentle fashion upon one's shoulder, and asked one's name, and where one
lived, and about one's family, and for the welfare of those who were
dear to one? And did not both Madame Lafleur and her daughter speak
constantly of how devout he was, that he was never without a prayer-book
in his hand? Ah, indeed, it was the good, young Father Aubert!

But this in no whit allayed the hysteria, the excitement and the
expectancy under which St. Marleau laboured. A murder in St. Marleau!
That alone was something that the countryside would talk about for years
to come. And it was not only the murder; it was--what was to happen
next! It was Mother Blondin's son who had been murdered by the stranger,
and Mother Blondin, though not under arrest, was being watched by the
police, who waited for the man in the _presbytère_ to die. It was Mother
Blondin who had struck the murderer, and if the murderer died then she
would be responsible for the man's death. What, then, would they do with
Mother Blondin?

St. Marleau, not being well versed in the law, did not know; it knew
only that the assistant chief of the Tournayville police had installed
himself in the Tavern where he could see that Mother Blondin did not
run away, since the man at the _presbytère_ did not need any police
watching, and that this assistant chief of the Tournayville police was
as dumb as an oyster, and looked only very wise, like one who has great
secrets locked in his bosom, when questions were put to him.

And then, another thing--the funeral of Théophile Blondin. It was only
this morning--the third morning after the murder--that that had been
decided. Mother Blondin had raved and cursed and sworn that she would
not let the body of her son enter the church. But Mother Blondin was
not, perhaps, as much heretic as she wanted, or pretended, to be. Mother
Blondin, perhaps, could not escape the faith of the years when she
was young; and, while she scoffed and blasphemed, in her soul God was
stronger than she, and she was afraid to stand between her dead son and
the rites of Holy Church in which, through her own wickedness, she could
not longer participate. But, however that might be, the people of St.
Marleau, that is those who were good Christians and had respect for
themselves, were concerned little with such as Mother Blondin, or,
for that matter, with her son--but the funeral of a man who had been
murdered right in their midst, and that was now to take place! Ah, that
was quite another matter!

And so St. Marleau gathered in a sort of breathless unanimity that
morning to the tolling of the bell, as the funeral procession of
Théophile Blondin began to wend its way down the hill--and within the
sacred precincts of the church the villagers, as best they might, hushed
their excitement in solemn and decorous silence.

And at the church door, in surplice and stole, the altar boy beside
him, as the cortège approached, stood Raymond Chapelle--the good, young
Father Aubert.

He was very pale; the dark eyes were sunk deep in their sockets from
three sleepless nights, and from the torment of constant suspense, where
each moment in the countless hours had been pregnant with the threat
of discovery, where each second had swung like some horrible pendulum
hesitating between safety--and the gallows. He could not escape this
sacrilege that he was about to commit. There was no escape from it. They
had thought it strange, perhaps, that he had not said mass on those two
mornings that were gone. It was customary; but he knew, too, that it was
not absolutely obligatory--and so, through one excuse and another, he
had evaded it. And even if it had been obligatory, he would still have
had to find some way out, to have taken the law temporarily, as it were,
into his own hands--for he would not have dared to celebrate the mass.
Dared? Because of the sacrilege, the meddling with sacred things? Ah,
no! What was his creed--that he feared neither God nor devil, nor man
nor beast! What was that toast he had drunk that night in Ton-Nugget
Camp--he, and Three-Ace Artie, and Arthur Leroy, and Raymond Chapelle!
No; it was not _that_ he feared--it was this sharp-eyed altar boy, this
lad of twelve, who at the mass would be always at his elbow. But he was
no longer afraid of the boy, for now he was ready. He had realised
that he could not escape performing some of the offices of a priest, no
matter what happened to that cursed fool lying over yonder there in the
_presbytère_ upon the bed, who seemed to get better rather than worse,
and so--he had overheard Madame Lafleur confide it to the doctor--he
had been of a devoutness rarely seen. Through the nights and through the
days, spurred on by a sharper, sterner prod than his father's gold in
the old school days had been, he had poured and studied over the ritual
and the theological books that he had found in the priest's trunk, until
now, committing to memory like a parrot, he was thoroughly master of
anything that might arise--especially this burial of Théophile Blondin
which he had foreseen was not likely to be avoided, in spite of the
attitude of that miserable old hag, the mother.

Raymond's head was slightly bowed, his eyes lowered--but his eyes,
nevertheless, were allowing nothing to escape them. They were extremely
clumsy, and infernally slow out there in bringing the casket into
the church! He would see to it that things moved with more despatch
presently! There was another reason why he had not dared to act as a
priest in the church before--that man over there in the _presbytère_
upon the bed. He had, on that first morning, not dared to leave the
other, and it had been the same yesterday morning. True, to avert
suspicion, he had gone out sometimes, but never far, never out of call
of the _presbytère_--which was a very different matter from being caught
in the midst of a service where his hands would have been tied and he
could not have instantly returned. It was strange, very strange about
the wounded priest, who, instead of dying, appeared to be stronger,
though he lay in a sort of comatose condition--and now the doctor even
held out hopes of the man's recovery! Suppose--suppose the priest should
regain consciousness now, at this moment, while he was in the act of
conducting the funeral, in the other's stead, over the body of the man
for whose murder, in _his_, Raymond's, stead, the other was held
guilty! He was juggling with ghastly dice! But he could not have escaped
this--there was no way to avoid this funeral of the son of that old hag
who had run screaming, “murder--murder--murder,” into the storm that
night.

He raised his head. It was the gambler now, steel-nerved, accepting the
chances against him, to all outward appearances impassive, who stood
there in the garb of priest. He was cool, possessed, sure of himself,
cynical of all things holy, disdainful of all things spiritual,
contemptuous of these villagers around him that he fooled--as he would
have been contemptuous of himself to have hesitated at the plunge,
desperate though it was, that was his one and only chance for liberty
and life.

Ha! At last--eh? They had brought Théophile Blondin to the door!

And then Raymond's voice, rich, full-toned, stilled that queer, subdued,
composite sound of breathings, of the rustle of garments, of slight,
involuntary movements--of St. Marleau crowded in the pews in strained,
tense waiting.

_“'Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine; Domine quis sustinebit?_--If
Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities; Lord, who shall abide it?”

It was curious that the service should begin like that, curious that he
had not before found any meaning or significance in the words. He had
learned them like a parrot. “If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities....”
 He bowed his head to hide the tightening of his lips. Bah, what was
this! Some inner consciousness inanely attempting to suggest that there
was not only significance in the words, but that the significance was
personal, that the very words from his lips, performing the office of
priest, desecrating God's holy place, was iniquity, black, blasphemous
and abhorrent in God's sight--if there were a God!

Ah, that was it--if there were a God! He was reciting now the _De
Profundis_ in a purely mechanical way. “Out of the depths....”

If there were a God--yes, that was it! He had never believed there was,
had he? He did not believe it now--but he would make one concession.
What he was doing was not in intent blasphemous, neither was it to
mock--it was to save his life. He was a man with a halter strangling
around his neck. And if there was a God, who then had brought all
this about? Who then was responsible, and who then should accept the
consequences? Not he! He had not sought from choice to play the part of
priest! He had not sought the life of this dead man in the coffin there
in front of him! He had not sought to--yes, curse it, it was the word to
use--kill the drunken, besotted, worthless fool!

A cold anger came, steadying his nerves. It was too bad that in some
way he could not wreck a vengeance on the corpse for all this--the
miserable, rum-steeped hound who had got him into this hellish fix.

They were bearing the body into the church toward the head of the nave.
He was at the _Subvenite_ now. “'...Kyrie eleison.”

The boyish treble, hushed yet clear, of young Gauthier Beaulieu, the
altar boy, rose from beside him in the responses:

“'Christe eleison”

“Lord, have mercy.... From the gate of hell,”

“Deliver his soul, O Lord.”

Again! That sense of solemnity, that personal implication in the words!
It was coincidence, nothing more. No; it was not even that! He was
simply twisting the meaning, allowing himself to be played with by a
warped imagination. He was not a weak fool, was he, to let this get the
better of him? And, besides, he would hurry through with it, and since
he would say neither office nor mass it would not take long. It must be
hot this summer morning, though he had not noticed it particularly when
he had left the _presbytère_. The church seemed heavy and oppressive.
Strange how the pews were all lined with eyes staring at him!

The tread of feet up the aisle died away. The bier was set at the head
of the nave, and lighted candles placed around it. There fell a silence,
utter and profound.

Why was it now that his lips scarcely moved, that his voice was scarcely
audible; why that sudden foreboding, intangible yet present everywhere,
at his temerity, at his unhallowed, hideous perversion of sanctity in
that he should pray as a priest of God, in the habiliments of one of
God's ministers, in God's church--ay, it was a devil's masquerade, for
he, if never before, stood branded now, sealing that blasphemous toast,
a disciple of hell.

“'_Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine_....' Enter not into
judgment with Thy servant, O Lord....”

And so he denied God, did he? And so he was callous and indifferent, and
scoffed at the possibility of a church, simply because it was a church,
being the abiding place of a higher, holier, omnipotent presence? Why,
then, that hoarseness in his throat--why, then, did he not shout his
parrot words high to the vaulted roof in triumphant defiance? Why that
struggle with his will to finish the prayer?

From the little organ loft in the gallery over the door, floated now the
notes of the _Responsory_, and the voices of the choir rolled solemnly
through the church:

“'_Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna...._' Deliver me, O Lord, from
eternal death....”

Death! Eternal death! What was death? There was a dead man there in the
casket--dead because he and the man had fought together, and the other
had been killed. And he was burying, in a church, as a priest, he, who
was the one upon whom the law would set its claws if it but knew, the
man that he had killed! It came suddenly, with terrific force, blotting
out those wavering candle flames around the coffin, the scene of that
night. The wind was howling; that white-scarred face was cheek to cheek
with him; they lunged and staggered around that dimly lighted room, he
and the man who lay dead there in the coffin. They struggled for the
revolver; that old hag circled about them like a swirling hawk--that
blinding flash--the acrid smell of powder--the room revolving around
and around--and the dead man, who was here in the coffin now, had
lain sprawled out there on the floor. He shivered--and cursed himself
fiercely the next instant--it seemed as though the casket suddenly
opened, and that ugly, venomous, scarred face lifted up and leered at
him.

“'_Dies ilia, dies iræ...,'_” came the voices of the choir. “That day, a
day of wrath....”

His jaws clenched. He pulled himself together. That was Valerie up there
playing the little organ; Valerie with the great, dark eyes, and the
beautiful face; Valerie, who thought it so unselfish of him because he
had had a couch made up in the room in order that he might not leave
the wounded man. The wounded man! Following the order of the service,
Raymond was putting incense into the censer while the _Responsory_ was
being sung, and his fingers gripped hard upon the vessel. Again that
thought to torture and torment him! Had he not enough to do to go
through with this! Who was with the wounded man now? That
officious, nosing fool, who preened himself on the strength of being
assistant-chief of police of some pitiful little town that no one
outside of its immediate vicinity had ever heard of before? Or was it
Madame Lafleur? But what, after all, did it matter who was there--if
the man should happen to regain his senses? Ha, ha! Would it not be a
delectable sight if that police officer should arrest him, strip these
priestly trappings from him just as he left the church! It would be
quite a dramatic scene, would it not--quite too damnably dramatic! He
was swinging with that infernal pendulum between liberty and death. He
was, at that moment, if ever a man was, or had been, the sport of fate.
He had not liked the looks of the wounded priest half an hour ago when
he had left the _presbytère_ for the sacristy--it had seemed as though
the man were beginning to look _healthy._

“'_Kyrie eleison....'_” The _Responsory_ was over. In a purely
mechanical way again he was proceeding with the service. As the ritual
prescribed, he passed round the bier with sprinkler and censer--and
presently he found himself reciting the last prayer of that part of the
service held within the church; and then the bier was being lifted and
borne down the aisle again.

Out into the sunlight, to the smell of the fields, to the breeze from
the river wafting upon his cheek! He drew in a deep breath--and almost
at the same instant passed his hand heavily across his eyes. He had
thought that stifling heat, that overwhelming oppressiveness all in
the atmosphere of the church; but here was the sunlight, and here the
fields, and here the soft breeze blowing from the water--yet that sense
of foreboding, a prescience, a weight upon him that sank deep to the
soul, remained with him still.

Slowly the procession passed around the green in front of the church,
and through the gate of the whitewashed fence into the little burial
ground beyond on the river's bank. They were chanting _In Paradisum_,
but Valerie was no longer with the choir, for now, as they passed
through the gate, he saw her, a slim figure all in white, hurry across
the green toward the _presbytère._

What was this before him! It was not the smell of fields, but the smell
of freshly turned earth--a grave. The grave of Théophile Blondin, the
man whom he had fought with--and killed. And he was a priest of God,
burying Théophile Blondin. What ghastly, hellish travesty! What were
those words returning to his memory, coming to him out of the dim past
when he was still a boy, and still susceptible to the teachings of the
fathers who had sought to guide him into the church--God is not mocked.

“God is not mocked! God is not mocked!”--the words seemed to echo
and reverberate around him, they seemed to be thundered in a voice of
vengeance. “God is not mocked!”--and he was _blessing_ the grave of
Théophile Blondir!

Did these people, gathered, clustered about him, not hear that voice!
Why did they not hear it? It was not the _Benedictus_ that was being
sung that prevented them from hearing it, for he could scarcely hear the
_Benedictus._

Raymond's lips moved. “I am not mocking God,” he whispered. “I do not
believe in God, but I am not mocking. I am asking only for my life. I am
taking only the one chance I have. I did not intend to kill the fool--he
killed himself. I am no murderer. I----” He shivered suddenly again, as
once in the church he had shivered before. His hands outstretched seemed
to be creeping again toward a bare throat that lay exposed upon a bed,
the feel of soft, pulsing flesh seemed upon his finger tips. And then
a diabolical chortle seemed to rattle in his ears. So murder was quite
foreign to him, eh? And he did not believe in God? And he was quite
above and apart from all such nonsense? And therein, of course, lay the
reason why the tumbling of this dead thing into a grave left him so
cool and imperturbable; and why the solemn words of the service had no
meaning; and why it was a matter of supreme unconcern to him, provided
he was not caught at it, that he took God's words upon his lips, and
God's garb upon his shoulders!

White-faced, Raymond lifted his head. The _Benedictus_ was ended,
and now the words came slowly from his lips in a strange, awed, almost
wondering way.

“_'Requiem oternam.... Ego sum resurrectio et vita....'_ I am the
Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in Me, although he be dead,
shall live: and every one who liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never
die.”

His voice faltered a little, steadied by a tremendous effort of will,
and went on again, low-toned, through the responses and short prayer
that closed the service. “'_Kyrie eleison'..._ not into temptation....
'_Requiem oternam_.'... '_Requiescat in pace'..._ through the mercy of
God.... 'Amen.'”

Forgotten for the moment was that grim pendulum that hovered over the
bed in the _presbytère_ yonder, and by the side of the grave Raymond
stood and looked down on the coffin of Théophile Blondin. The people
began to disperse, but he was scarcely conscious of it. It seemed that
he had run the gamut of every human emotion since he had met the
funeral procession at the church door; but here was another now--an
incomprehensible, quiet, chastened, questioning mood. They were very
beautiful words, these, that he was repeating to himself. He did not
believe them, but they were very beautiful, and to one who did believe
they must offer more than all of life could hold.

“'I am the resurrection and the life... he that be-lieveth in Me...
shall never die.'”

There was another gateway in the little whitewashed fence, a smaller one
that gave on the sacristy at the side and toward the rear of the church.
Slowly, head bowed, absorbed, unconscious of the rôle he played so
well, Raymond walked toward the gate, and through it, and, raising his
head, paused. A shrivelled and dishevelled form crouched there against
the palings. It was old Mother Blondin.

And Raymond stared--and suddenly a wave of immeasurable pity, mingling
a miserable sense of distress, swept upon him. In there was forbidden
ground to her; and in there was her son--killed in a fight with him. She
had come around here to the side, unobserved, unless Dupont were lurking
somewhere about, to be as near at the last as she could. An old hag,
wretched, dissolute--but human above all things else, huddling before
the dying embers of mother-love. She did not look up; her forehead was
pressed close against the fence as she peered inside; a withered, dirty
hand clutched fiercely at a paling on each side of her face.

Raymond stepped toward her, and spontaneously laid his hand upon her
shoulder. And strange words were on his lips, but they were sincere
words out of a heart torn and troubled and dismayed, out of a soul that
had recoiled as before some tremendous cataclysm. And his words were the
words he had been repeating over and over to himself.

“'I am the resurrection and the life...' My poor, poor woman, let me
help you. See, you must not mourn that way alone. Come, let me take you
back to your home----”

She rose to her feet, and looked at him, and for an instant the hard,
set, wrinkled face seemed to soften, and into the blear eyes seemed to
spring a mist of tears--then her face contorted into livid fury, and she
struck at his hand, flinging it from her shoulder.

“You go to hell!” she snarled. “You, and all like you, you go to hell!”

She was gone--shuffling around the corner of the church.

And then Raymond laughed a little. It was like a dash of cold water in
the face. He had been a fool--a fool all morning, a fool to let
mere words, mere environment have any influence upon him, a fool
to sentimentality in talking to her like that, mawkish to have used
the words! He would have said what she had said to any one else, if he
had been in her place--only more bitterly, more virulently, if that were
possible.

He shrugged his shoulders, and moved on toward the sacristy to divest
himself of his surplice and stole--and again he paused, this time in the
doorway, and turned around, as a voice cried out his name.

“Father Aubert!”

It was Valérie, running swiftly toward him from the _presbytère_.

And Raymond stood still and waited. Intuitively he knew. Something had
happened in the _presbytère_ at last. He was the gambler again, cool,
imperturbable, steel-nerved, with the actual crisis upon him. It was the
turn of the card, the throw of the dice, that was all. Was it life--or
death? It was Valérie who was to pronounce the sentence. She reached
him, breathless, flushed. He smiled at her.

“Monsieur le Curé--Father Aubert,” she panted, “come quickly! He can
speak! He has regained consciousness!”




CHAPTER XI--“HENRI MENTONE”

|VALERIE'S flushed face was lifted eagerly to his. She had caught
impetuously at the sleeve of his _soutane_, and was urging him forward.
And yet he was walking with deliberate measured tread across the green
toward the _presbytère_. Strange how the blood seemed to be hammering
feverishly at his temples! Every impulse prompted him to run, as a man
running for his life, to reach the _presbytère_, to reach that room, to
shut the door upon himself and that man whose return to consciousness
meant--what? But it was too late to run now. Too late! Already the news
seemed to have spread. Those who had been the last to linger at the
grave of Théophile Blondin were gathering, on their way out from the
little burying ground, around the door of the _presbytère_. It would
appear bizarre, perhaps, that the curé should come tearing across
the green with vestments flying simply because a man had regained
consciousness! Ha, ha! Yes, very bizarre! Why should their curé run like
one demented just because a man had regained consciousness! If the
man were at his last gasp now, were just about to die--that would be
different! He found a bitter mirth in that. Yes, decidedly, they would
understand that! But as it was, they would think their curé had gone
suddenly mad, perhaps, or they would think, perhaps--something else.

The dice were thrown, the card was turned--against him. His luck was
out. It was like walking tamely to where the noose dangled and awaited
his neck to walk toward those gaping people clustered around the door,
to walk into the _presbytère_. But it was his only chance. Yes, there
was a chance--one chance left. If he could hold out until evening, until
darkness!

Until evening, until darkness--with the night before him in which to
attempt his escape! But there were still eight hours or more to
evening. There were only a few more steps to go before he reached the
_presbytère_. The distance was pitifully short. In those few steps he
must plan everything; plan that that accursed noose swaying before his
eyes should----

“_Dies illa, dies iræ_--that day, a day of wrath.” What brought those
words flashing through his mind! He had said them once that morning--but
a little while ago--in church--as a priest--at Théophile Blondin's
funeral. Damn it, they were not meant for him! They did not mean to-day.
They were not premonitory. He was not beaten yet!

In the shed behind the _presbytère_ there was a pair of the old
sacristan's overalls, and an old coat, and an old hat. He had noticed
them yesterday. They would serve his purpose--a man in a pair of
overalls and a dirty, torn coat would not look much like a priest. Yes,
yes; that would do, it was the way--when night came. He would have the
darkness, and he would hide the next day, and the day after, and travel
only by night. It invited pursuit of course, the one thing that next
to capture itself he had struggled and plotted to avoid, but it was the
only chance now, and, if luck turned again, he might succeed in making
his way out of the country--when night came.

But until then! What until then? That was where his danger lay now--in
those hours until darkness.

“Yes!” whispered Raymond fiercely to himself. “Yes--if only you keep
your head!”

What was the matter with him? Had he forgotten! It was what he had
been prepared to face that night when he had brought the priest to the
_presbytère_, should the man then have recovered sufficiently to speak.
It should be still easier now to make any one believe that the man was
wandering in his mind, was not yet lucid or coherent after so long a
lapse from consciousness. And the very story that the man would tell
must sound like the ravings of a still disordered mind! He, Raymond,
would insist that the man be kept very quiet during the day; he,
Raymond, would stay beside the other's bed. Was he not the curé! Would
they not obey him, show deference to his judgment and his wishes--until
night came!

They were close to the _presbytère_ now, close to the little gaping
crowd that surrounded the door; and, as though conscious for the first
time that she was clinging to his arm, Valérie, in sudden embarrassment
at her own eagerness, hurriedly dropped her hand to her side. And,
at the act, Raymond looked at her quickly, in an almost startled way.
Strange! But then his brain was in turmoil! Strange that extraneous
things, things that had nothing to do with the one grim purpose of
saving his neck should even for an instant assert themselves! But then
they--no, she--had done that before. He remembered now... when they were
putting on that bandage.

When that crucifix had tangled up his hands, and she had seemed to stand
before him to save him from himself... those dark eyes, that pure,
sweet face, the tender, womanly sympathy--the antithesis of himself! And
to-night, when night came, when the night he longed for came, when
the night that meant his only chance for life came, he--what was
this!--this sudden pang of yearning that ignored, with a most curious
authority, as though it had the right to ignore, the desperate, almost
hopeless peril that was closing down upon him, that seemed to make the
coming of the night now a thing he would put off, a thing to regret and
to dread, that bade him search for some other way, some other plan that
would not necessitate--

“A fool and a pretty face!”--it was the gibe and sneer and prod of that
inward monitor. “See all these people who are so reverently making way
for you, and eying you with affection and simple humility, see the rest
of them coming back from all directions because the _murderer_ is about
to tell his story--well, see how they will make way for you, and with
what affection and humility they will eye you when you come out of that
house again, if all the wits the devil ever gave you are not about you
now!”

He spoke to her quietly, controlling his voice:

“You have not told me yet what he said, mademoiselle?”

She shook her head.

“He did not say much--only to ask where he was and for a drink of
water.”

He had no time to ask more. They had reached the group before the
_presbytère_ now, and the buzz of conversation, the eager, excited
exchange of questions and answers was hushed, as, with one accord, men
and women made way for their curé. And Raymond, lifting his hand in
a kindly, yet authoritative gesture, cautioning patience and order,
mounted the steps of the _presbytère_.

And then, inside the doorway, Raymond quickened his step. From the
closed door at the end of the short hallway came the low murmur of
voices. It was Madame Lafleur probably who was there with the other now.
How much, how little had the man said--since Valérie had left the room?
Raymond's lips tightened grimly. It was fortunate that Madame Lafleur
had so great a respect for the cloth! He had nothing to fear from
her. He could make her believe anything. He could twist her around his
finger, and--he opened the door softly--and stood, as though turned
suddenly rigid, incapable of movement, upon the threshold--and his hand
upon the doorknob closed tighter and tighter in a vise-like grip. Across
the room stood, not Madame Lafleur, but Monsieur Dupont, the assistant
chief of the Tournayville police, and in Monsieur Dupont's hand was
a notebook, and upon Monsieur Dupont's lips, as he turned and glanced
quickly toward the door, there played an enigmatical smile.

“Ah! It is Monsieur le Curé!” observed Monsieur Dupont smoothly. “Well,
come in, Monsieur le Curé--come in, and shut the door. I promise you,
you will find it interesting. What? Yes, very interesting!”

“Oh, Monsieur Dupont is here!”--the words seemed to come to Raymond as
from some great distance behind him.

He turned. It was Valérie. Of course, it was Valérie! He had forgotten.
She had naturally followed him along the hall to the door. What did this
Dupont mean by what he had said? What had Dupont already learned--that
was so _interesting!_ It would not do to have Valérie here, if--if he
and Dupont----

“Perhaps, Mademoiselle Valérie,” he said gravely, “it would be as
well if you did not come in. Monsieur Dupont appears to be officially
engaged.”

“But, of course!” she agreed readily. “I did not know that any one was
here. I left the man alone when I ran out to find you. I will come back
when Monsieur Dupont has gone.”

And Raymond smiled, and stepped inside the room, and closed the door,
and leaned with his back against it.

“Well, Monsieur le Curé”--Monsieur Dupont tapped with his pencil on the
notebook--“I have it all down here. All! Everything that he has said.”

Raymond had not even glanced toward the bed--his eyes, cool, steady now,
were on the officer, watching the other like a hawk.

“Yes?” he prompted calmly.

“And”--Monsieur Dupont made that infernal clucking noise with his
tongue--“I have--nothing! Did I not tell you it was interesting? Yes,
very interesting! Very!”

Was the man playing with him? How clever was this Dupont? No fool, at
any rate! He had already shown that, in spite of his absurd mannerisms.
Raymond's hand began to toy with the crucifix on his breast, while his
fingers surreptitiously loosened several buttons of his _soutane_.

“Nothing?”--Raymond's eyebrows were raised in mild surprise. “But
Mademoiselle Valérie told me he had regained consciousness.”

“Yes,” said Monsieur Dupont, “I heard her say so to some one as she
left the house. I was keeping an eye on that _vieille sauvage_, Mother
Blondin. But this--ah! Quite a more significant matter! Yes--quite!
You will understand, Monsieur le Curé, that I lost no time in reaching
here?”

And now for the first time Raymond looked swiftly toward the bed. It was
only for the barest fraction of a second that he permitted his eyes to
leave the police officer; but in that glance he had met coal black eyes,
all pupils they seemed, fixed in a sort of intense penetration upon him.
The man was still lying on his back, he had noticed that--but it was the
eyes, disconcerting, full of something he could not define, boring into
him, that dominated all else. He stepped nonchalantly toward Monsieur
Dupont.

“It is astonishing that he has said nothing,” he murmured softly. “Will
you permit me, Monsieur Dupont”--he held out his hand--“to see your
book?”

“The book? H'm! Well, why not?” Monsieur Dupont shrugged his shoulders
as he placed the notebook in Raymond's hand. “It is not customary--but,
why not!”

And then upon Raymond came relief. It surged upon him until he could
have laughed out hysterically, laughed like a fool in this Monsieur
Dupont's face--this Monsieur Dupont who was the assistant chief of the
police force of Tournayville. It was true! Dupont had at least told the
truth. So far Dupont had learned nothing. Raymond's face was impassive
as he scrutinised the page before him. Written with a flourish on the
upper line, presumably to serve as a caption, were the words:

“The Murderer, Henri Mentone,” and beneath: “Evades direct answers.
Hardened type--knows his way about. Pretends ignorance. Stubborn. Wily
rascal--yes, very!”

Raymond handed the notebook back to Monsieur Dupont.

“It is perhaps not so strange after all, Monsieur Dupont,” he remarked
with a thoughtful air. “We must not forget that the poor fellow has but
just recovered consciousness. He is hardly likely to be either lucid or
rational.”

“Bah!” ejaculated Monsieur Dupont grimly. “He is as lucid as I am. But I
am not through with him yet! He is not the first of his kind I have had
upon my hook!” He leaned toward the bed. “Now, then, my little Apache,
you will answer my questions! Do you understand? No more evasions! None
at all! They will do you no good, and----”

Raymond's hand fell upon Monsieur Dupont's shoulder. Though he had not
looked again until now, he was conscious that those eyes from the
bed had never for an instant swerved from his face. Now he met them
steadily. He addressed Monsieur Dupont, but he spoke to the man on the
bed.

“Have you warned him, Monsieur Dupont,” he said soberly, “that anything
he says will be used against him? And have you told him that he is not
obliged to answer? He is weak yet and at a disadvantage. He would be
quite justified in waiting until he was stronger, and entirely competent
to weigh his own words.”

Monsieur Dupont was possessed of an inconsistency all his own.

“_Tonnerre!_” he snapped. “And what is the use of warning him when he
will not answer at all?”

“You appear not quite to have given up hope!” observed Raymond dryly.

“H'm!” Monsieur Dupont scowled. “Very well, then”--he leaned once more
over the bed, and addressed the man--“you understand? It is as Monsieur
le Curé says. I warn you. You are not obliged to answer. Now then--your
name, your age, your birthplace?”

Raymond shifted his position to the foot of the bed.

Damn those eyes! Move where he would, they never left his face. The man
had paid no attention to Monsieur Dupont. Why, in God's name, why did
the man keep on staring and gazing so fixedly at him--and why had the
man refused to answer Dupont's questions--and why had not the man with
his first words poured out his story eagerly!

“Well, well!” prodded Monsieur Dupont. “Did you not hear--eh? Your
name?”

The man's eyes followed Raymond.

“Where am I?” he asked faintly.

It was too querulous, that tone, too genuinely weak and peevish to smack
of trickery--and suddenly upon Raymond there came again that nervous
impulse to laugh out aloud. So that was the secret of it, was it? There
was a sort of sardonic humour then in the situation! The suggestion,
the belief he had planned to convey to shield himself--that the man
was still irrational--was, in fact, the truth! But how long would that
condition last? He must put an end to this--get this cursed Dupont away!

“Where am I?” muttered the man again.

“_Tiens!_” clucked Monsieur Dupont. “You see, Monsieur le Curé! You see?
Yes, you see. He plays the game well--with finesse, eh?” He turned to
the man. “Where are you, eh? Well, you are better off where you are
now than where you will be in a few days! I promise you that! Now,
again--your name?”

The man shook his head.

“Monsieur Dupont,” said Raymond, a little severely. “You will arrive
at nothing like this. The man is not himself. To-morrow he will be
stronger.”

“Bah! Nonsense! Stronger!” jerked out Monsieur Dupont derisively. “Our
fox is quite strong enough! Monsieur le Curé, you are not a police
officer--do not let your pity deceive you. And permit me to continue!”
 He slipped his hand into his pocket, and adroitly flashed a visiting
card suddenly before the man's eyes. “Well, since you cannot recall
your name, this will perhaps be of assistance! You see, Monsieur Henri
Mentone, that you get yourself nowhere by refusing to answer!” Once more
the man shook his head.

“So!” Monsieur Dupont complacently returned the card to his pocket. “Now
we will continue. You see now where you stand. Your age?”

Again the man shook his head.

“He does not know!” remarked Monsieur Dupont caustically. “Very
convenient memory! Yes--very! Well, will you tell us where you came
from?”

For the fourth time the man shook his head--and at that instant Raymond
edged close to Monsieur Dupont's side. What was that in those eyes
now--that something that was creeping into them--that _dawning_ light,
as they searched his face!

“He does not know that, either!” complained Monsieur Dupont
sarcastically. “Magnificent! Yes--very! He knows nothing at all! He----”

With a low cry, the man struggled to his elbow, propping himself up in
bed.

“Yes, I know!”--his voice, high-pitched, rang through the room. “I know
now!” He raised his hand and pointed at Raymond. “_I know you!_”

Raymond's hand was thrust into the breast of his _soutane_, where he had
unbuttoned it beneath the crucifix--and Raymond's fingers closed upon
the stock of an automatic in his upper left-hand vest pocket.

“Poor fellow!” murmured Raymond pityingly. “You see, Monsieur
Dupont”--he moved still a little closer--“you have gone too far. You
have excited him. He is incoherent. He does not know what he is saying.”

Monsieur Dupont was clucking with his tongue, as he eyed the man
speculatively.

“Yes, yes; I know you now!” cried the man again. “Oh, monsieur,
monsieur!”--both hands were suddenly thrust out to Raymond, and there
was a smile on the trembling lips, an eager flush dyeing the pale
cheeks. “It is you, monsieur! I have been very sick, have I not? It--it
was like a dream. I--I was trying to remember--your face. It is your
face that I have seen so often bending over me. Was that not it,
monsieur--monsieur, you who have been so good--was that not it? You
would lift me upon my pillow, and give me something cool to drink. And
was it not you, monsieur, who sat there in that chair for long, long
hours? It seems as though I saw you there always--many, many times.”

It was like a shock, a revulsion so strong that for the moment it
unnerved him. Raymond scarcely heard his own voice.

“Yes,” he said--his forehead was damp, as he brushed his hand across it.

Monsieur Dupont blew out his cheeks.

“_Nom d'un nom!_” he exploded. “Ah, your pardon, Monsieur le Curé!
But it is mild, a very mild oath, is it not--under the circumstances?
Yes--very! I admire cleverness--yes, I do! The man has a head! What
an appeal to the emotions! Poignant! Yes, that's the word--poignant.
Looking for sympathy! Trying to make an ally of you, Monsieur le Curé!”

“Get rid of the fool! Get rid of the fool!” prompted that inward monitor
impatiently.

Raymond, with a significant look, plucked at Monsieur Dupont's sleeve,
and led the other across the room away from the bed.

“Do you think so?” he asked, in a lowered voice.

“Eh?” inquired Monsieur blankly. “Think what?”

“What you just said--that he is trying to make an ally of me.”

“Oh, that--_zut!_” sniffed Monsieur Dupont. “But what else?”

“Then suppose”--Raymond dropped his voice still lower--“then suppose you
leave him with me until tomorrow. And meanwhile--you understand?”

Monsieur Dupont pondered the suggestion.

“Well, very well--why not?” decided Monsieur Dupont. “Perhaps not a bad
idea--perhaps not. And if it does not succeed”--Monsieur Dupont shrugged
his shoulders--“well, we know everything anyhow; and I will make him
pay through the nose for his tricks! But he is under arrest, Monsieur le
Curé, you understand that? There is a cell in the jail at Tournayville
that----”

“Naturally--when he is able to be moved,” agreed Raymond readily. “We
will speak to the doctor about that. In the meantime he probably could
not walk across this room. He is quite safe here. I will be responsible
for him.”

“And I will put a flea in the doctor's ear!” announced Monsieur Dupont,
moving toward the door. “The assizes are next week, and after the
assizes, say, another six weeks and”--Monsieur Dupont's tongue clucked
eloquently several times against the roof of his mouth. “We will not
keep him waiting long!” Monsieur Dupont opened the door, and, standing
on the threshold where he was hidden from the bed, laid his forefinger
along the side of his nose. “You are wrong, Monsieur le Curé”--he had
raised his voice to carry through the room. “But still you may be right!
You are too softhearted; yes, that is it--soft-hearted. Well, he has you
to thank for it. I would not otherwise consider it--it is against my
best judgment. I bid you good-bye, Monsieur le Curé!”

Raymond closed the door--but it was a moment, standing there with his
back to the bed, before he moved. His face was set, the square jaws
clamped, a cynical smile flickering on his lips. It had been close--but
of the two, as between Monsieur Dupont and himself and the gallows,
Monsieur Dupont had been the nearer to death! He saw Monsieur Dupont in
his mind's-eye sprawled on the floor. It would not have been difficult
to have stopped forever any outcry from that weak thing upon the bed.
And then the window; and after that--God knew! And it would have been
God's affair! It was God Who had instituted that primal law that lay
upon every human soul, the law of self-preservation; and it was God's
choosing, not his, that he was here! Who was to quarrel with him if he
stopped at nothing in his fight for life! Well, Dupont was gone now!
That danger was past. He had only to reckon now with Valérie and her
mother--until night came. He raised his hand heavily to his forehead and
pushed back his hair. Valérie! Until night came! Fool! What was Valérie
to him! And yet--he jeered at himself in a sort of grim derision--and
yet, if it were not his one chance for life, he would not go to-night.
He could call himself a fool, if he would; that ubiquitous and caustic
other self, that was the cool, calculating, unemotional personification
of Three-Ace Artie, could call him a fool, if it would--those dark eyes
of Valérie's--no, not that--it was not eyes, nor hair, nor lips, they
were only part of Valérie--it was Valérie, like some rare fragrance,
fresh and pure and sweet in her young womanhood, that----

“Monsieur!”--the man was calling from the bed.

And then Raymond turned, and walked back across the room, and drew a
chair to the bedside, and sat down. And Raymond smiled--but not at the
bandaged, outstretched form before him. A fool! Well, so be it! The
fool would sit here for the rest of the morning, and the rest of the
afternoon, and listen to the babbling wanderings of another fool who
had not had sense enough to die; and he would play this cursed rôle of
saint, and fumble with his crucifix, and mumble his * Latin, and
keep this Mademoiselle Valérie, who meant nothing to him, from the
room--until to-night. And--what was this other fool saying?

“Monsieur--monsieur, who was that man who just went out?”

Raymond answered mechanically:

“It was Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief of the Tournayville
police.”

“What was he doing here?” asked the other slowly, as though trying to
puzzle out the answer to his own question. “Why was he asking me all
those questions?”

Raymond, tight-lipped, looked the man in the eyes.

“We've had enough of this, haven't we?” he challenged evenly. “I thought
at first you were still irrational. You're not--that is now quite
evident. Well--we are alone--what is your object? You had a chance to
tell Dupont your story!”

A pitiful, stunned look crept into the man's face. He stretched out his
hand over the coverlet toward Raymond. “You--you, too, monsieur!” he
said numbly. “What does it mean? What does it mean?”

It startled Raymond. There was trickery here, it could be nothing
else--and yet there was sincerity too genuine to be assumed in the
other's words and acts. Raymond sat back in his chair, and for a long
minute, brows knitted, studied the man. It was possible, of course, that
the other might not have recognised him--they had only been together for
a few moments in the smoking compartment of the train, and, dressed
now as a priest, that might well be the case--but why not the story
then?--why not the simple statement that he was the new curé coming to
the village, that he had been struck down and--bah! What was the man's
game! Well, he would force the issue, that was all! He leaned over the
bed; and, his hand upon the other's, his fingers closed around the
man's wrist until, beneath their tips, they could gauge the throb of the
other's pulse. And his eyes, steel-hard, were on the other.

“I am the curé,” he said, in a low, level tone, “of St. Marleau--while
Father Allard is away. My name is--_François Aubert_.”

“And mine,” said the man, “is”--he shook his head--“mine is”--his face
grew piteously troubled--“it is strange--I do not remember that either.”

There had been no tell-tale nervous flutter of the man's pulse.
Raymond's hand fell away from the other's wrist. What was this curious,
almost uncanny presentiment that was creeping upon him! Was it possible
that the man was telling the _truth!_ Was it possible that--his own
brain was whirling now--he steadied himself, forcing himself to speak.

“Did you not read the card that Dupont showed you?”

“Yes,” said the other. “Henri Mentone--is that my name?”

“Do you not know!”--Raymond's tone was suddenly sharp, incisive.

“No,” the other answered. “No, I cannot remember.” He reached out his
arms imploringly to Raymond again. “Oh, monsieur, what does it mean? I
do not know where I am--I do not know how I came here.”

“You are in the _presbytère_ at St. Marleau,” said Raymond, still
sharply. Was it true; or was the man simply magnificent in duplicity?
No--there could be no reason, no valid reason for the man to play a
part?--no reason why he should have withheld his story from Dupont. It
was not logical. He, Raymond, who alone knew all the story, knew
that. It must be true--but he dared not yet drop his guard. He must
be sure--his life depended on his being sure. He was speaking
again--uncompromisingly: “You were picked up unconscious on the road by
the tavern during the storm three nights ago--you remember the storm, of
course?”

Again that piteously troubled look was on the other's face.

“No, monsieur, I do not remember,” he said tremulously.

“Well, then,” persisted Raymond, “before the storm--you surely remember
that! Where you came from? Where you lived? Your people?”

“Where I came from, my--my people”--the man repeated the words
automatically. He swept his hand across his bandaged head. “It is gone,”
 he whispered miserably. “I--it is gone. There--there is nothing. I do
not remember anything except a girl in this room saying she would run
for the curé, and then that man came in.” A new trouble came into his
eyes. “That man--you said he was a police officer--why was he here?
And--you have not told me yet--why should he ask me questions?”

There was still a card to play. Raymond leaned again over the man.

“All this will not help you,” he said sternly. “Far better that you
should confide in me! The proof against you is overwhelming. You are
already condemned. You murdered Théophile Blondin that night, and stole
Mother Blondin's money. Mother Blondin struck you that blow upon the
head as you ran from the house. You were found on the road; and in your
pockets was Mother Blondin's money--and her son's revolver, with which
you shot him. In a word, you are under arrest for murder.”

“Murder!”--the man, wide-eyed, horror-stricken, was staring at
Raymond--and then he was clawing himself frantically into an
upright position in the bed. “No, no! Not that! It cannot be true!
Not--_murder!_” His voice rose into a piercing cry, and rang, and rang
again through the room. He reached out his arms. “You are a priest,
monsieur--by that holy crucifix, by the dear Christ's love, tell me that
it is not so! Tell me! Murder! It is not true! It cannot be true! No,
no--no! Monsieur--father--do you not hear me crying to you, do you
not--” His voice choked and was still. His face was buried in his hands,
and great sobs shook his shoulders.

And Raymond turned his head away--and Raymond's face was gray and drawn.
There was no longer room for doubt. That blow upon the skull had blotted
out the man's memory, left it--a blank.




CHAPTER XII--HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER

|FATHER ALLARD'S desk had been moved into the front room. Raymond, on
a very thin piece of paper, was tracing the signature inscribed on the
fly-leaf of the prayer-book--François Aubert. Before him lay a number of
letters written that morning by Valérie--parish letters, a letter to the
bishop--awaiting his signature. Valérie, who had been private secretary
to her uncle, was now private secretary to--François Aubert!

The day before yesterday he had signed a letter in this manner,
and Valérie, who was acquainted with the signature from her uncle's
correspondence, had had no suspicions. Raymond placed his tracing over
the bottom of one of the letters, and, bearing down heavily as he wrote,
obtained an impression on the letter itself. The impression served as a
guide, and he signed--François Aubert.

It was simple enough, this expedient in lieu of a piece of carbon
paper that he had no opportunity to buy, and for which, from the notary
perhaps, Valérie's other uncle, who alone in the village might be
expected to have such a thing, he had not dared to make the request; but
it was tedious and laborious--and besides, for the moment, his mind was
not upon his task.

He signed another, and still another, his face deeply lined as he
worked, wrinkles nesting in strained little puckers around the corners
of his eyes--and suddenly, while there were yet two of the letters to
be signed, he sat back in his chair, staring unseeingly before him. From
the rear room came that footstep, slow, irregular, uncertain. It was
Henri Mentone. Dupont's “flea” in the doctor's ear had had its effect.
Henri Mentone was taking his exercise--from the bed to the window, from
the window to the door, from the door to the bed, and over again. In the
three days since the man had recovered consciousness, he had made rapid
strides toward recovering his strength as well, though he still spent
part of the day in bed--this afternoon, for instance, he was to be
allowed out for a little while in the open air.

Raymond's eyes fixed on the open window where the morning sunlight
streamed into the room. Yes, the man was getting on his feet rapidly
enough to suit even Monsieur Dupont. The criminal assizes began at
Tournayville the day after to-morrow. And the day after to-morrow Henri
Mentone was to stand his trial for the murder of Théophile Blondin!

Raymond's fingers tightened upon the penholder until it cracked
warningly, recalling him to himself. He had not gone that night. Gone!
He laughed mockingly. The man had lost his memory! Who would have
thought of that--and what it meant? If the man had died, or even if the
man had talked and so _forced_ him to accept pursuit as his one and only
chance, the issue would have been clear cut. But the man, curse him, had
not died; nor had he told his story--and to all appearances at least,
except for still being naturally a little weak, was as well as any one.
Gone! Gone--that night! Great God, they would _hang_ the fool for this!

The sweat beads crept out on Raymond's forehead. No, no--not that! They
thought the man was shamming now, but they would surely realise before
it was too late that he was not. They would convict him of course, the
evidence was damning, overwhelming, final--but they would not hang a man
who could not remember. No, they wouldn't hang him. But what they would
do was horrible enough--they would sentence the man for life, and keep
him in the infirmary perhaps of some penitentiary. For life--that was
all.

The square jaw was suddenly out-thrust. Well, what of it! He, Raymond,
was safe as it was. It was his life, or the other's. In either case
it would be an innocent man who suffered. As far as actual murder was
concerned, he was no more guilty than this priest who had had nothing
to do with it. Besides, they would hang him, Raymond, and they wouldn't
hang the other. Of course, they didn't believe the man now! Why should
they? They did not know what he, Raymond, knew; they had only the
evidence before them that was conclusive enough to convict a saint from
Heaven! Ha, ha! Why, even the man himself was beginning to believe in
his own guilt! Sometimes the man was as a caged beast in an impotent
fury; and--and sometimes he would cling like a frightened child with his
arms around his, Raymond's, neck.

It was warm here in the room, warm with the bright, glorious sunlight of
the summer morning. Why did he shiver like that? And this--why _this?_
The smell of incense; those organ notes rising and swelling through the
church; the voices of the choir; the bowed heads everywhere! He surged
up from his chair, and, rocking on his feet, his hands clenched upon the
edge of the desk. Before what dread tribunal was this that he was being
called suddenly to account! Yesterday--yesterday had been Sunday--and
yesterday he had celebrated mass. His own voice seemed to sound again
in his ears: “_Introibo ad altare Dei_--I will go in unto the Altar of
God.... _Ab homme iniquo et dolosoerue me_--Deliver me from the unjust
and deceitful man.... _In quorum manibus iniquitates sunt_--In whose
hands are iniquities.... _Hic est enim Calix sanguinis mei novi et
æterni testamenti: mysterium fidei_--For this is the Chalice of My Blood
of the new and eternal testament: the mystery of faith....” No--no, no!
He had not profaned those holy things, those holy vessels. He had not
done it! It was a lie! He had fooled even Gauthier Beaulieu, the altar
boy.

He sank back into his chair like a man exhausted, and drew his hand
across his eyes. It was nothing! He was quite calm again. Those words,
the church, those holy things had nothing to do with Henri Mentone. If
any one should think otherwise, that one was a fool! Had Three-Ace Artie
ever been swayed by “mystery of faith”--or been called a coward! Yes,
that was it--a coward! It was true that he had as much right to life
as that pitiful thing in the back room, but it was he who had put that
other's life in jeopardy! That creed--that creed of his, born of the far
Northland where men were men, fearing neither God nor devil, nor man,
nor beast--it was better than those trembling words which had just been
upon his lips. True, he was safe now, if he let them dispose of this
Henri Mentone--but to desert the other would be a coward's act. Well,
what then--what then! Confess--and with meek, uplifted eyes, like some
saintly martyr, stand upon the gibbet and fasten the noose around his
own neck? _No!_ Well then, what--_what?_ The tormented look was back in
Raymond's eyes. There was a way, a way by which he could give the man
a chance, a way by which they both might have their chance, only the
difficulties so far had seemed insurmountable--a problem that he had not
yet been able to solve--and the time was short. Yes, the way was there,
if only----.

With a swift movement, incredibly swift, alert in an instant, his hand
swept toward the desk. Some one was knocking at the door. His fingers
closed on the thin piece of paper that had served him in tracing the
signature of Francois Aubert, and crushed it into a little ball in the
palm of his hand. The door opened. There were dark eyes there, dark
hair, a slim figure, a sweet, quiet smile, a calm, an untroubled peace,
a pervading radiance. It was unreal. It could not exist. There was only
a ghastly turmoil, agony, dismay and strife everywhere--his soul told
him so! This was Valérie. God, how tired he was, how weary! Once he had
seen those arms supporting that wounded man's head so tenderly--like a
soothing caress. If he might, just for a moment, know that too, it would
bring him--rest.

She came lightly across the room and stood before the desk.

“It is for the letters, Monsieur le Curé,” she smiled. “I am going down
to the post-office.” She picked up the little pile of correspondence;
and, very prettily business-like, began to run through it.

Impulsively Raymond reached out to take the letters from her--and,
instead, his hand slipped inside his _soutane_, and dropped the crushed
ball of paper into one of his pockets. It was too late, of course! She
would already have noticed the omission of the two signatures.

“There are two there that I have not yet signed,” observed Raymond
casually.

“Yes; so I see!” she answered brightly. “I was just going to tell you
how terribly careless you were, Monsieur le Curé! Well, you can sign
them now, while I am putting the others in their envelopes. Here they
are.”

He took the two letters from her hand--and laid them deliberately aside
upon the desk.

“It was not carelessness,” he said laughingly; “except that I should
not have allowed them to get mixed up with the others. There are some
changes that I think I should like to make before they go. They are not
important--to-morrow will do.”

“Of course!” she said. Then, in pretended consternation: “I hope the
mistakes weren't mine!”

“No--not yours”--he spoke abstractedly now. He was watching her as she
folded the letters and sealed the envelopes. How quickly she worked! In
a minute now she would go and leave him alone again to listen to those
footfalls from the other room. He wanted rest for his stumbling brain;
and, yes--he wanted her. He could have reached out and caught her hands,
and drawn that dark head bending over the desk closer to him, and held
her there--a prisoner. He brushed his hands hurriedly over his forehead.
A prisoner! What did he mean by that? Oh, yes, the thought was born of
the idea that he was already a jailor. He had been a jailor for three
days now--of that man there, who was too weak to get away. He had
appointed himself jailor--and Monsieur Dupont had confirmed the
appointment. What had that to do with Valérie? He only wanted her to
stay because--a fool, was he!--because he wanted to torture himself
a little more. Well, it was exquisite torture then, her presence, her
voice, her smile! Love? Well, what if he loved! Days and days their
lives had been spent together now. How long was it? A week--no, it must
be more than a week--it seemed as though it had been as long as he could
remember. Yes, he loved her! He knew that now--scoff, sneer and gibe if
that inner voice would! He loved her! He loved Valérie! Madness? Well,
what of that, too! Did he dispute it! Yes, it was madness--and in more
ways than one! He was fighting for his life in this devil's masquerade,
and he might win; but he could not fight for or win his love. That
was just dangled before his eyes as the final Satanic touch to this
hell-born conspiracy that engulfed him! He was in the garb of a priest!
How those hell demons must shake their very souls out with laughter in
their damnable glee! He could not even touch her; he could say no word,
his tongue was tied; nor look at her--he was in the garb of a priest!
He--what was this! A fire seemed in his veins. Her hand in his! Across
the desk, her hand had crept softly into his!

“Monsieur--Monsieur le Curé--you are ill!” she cried anxiously.

And then Raymond found himself upon his feet, his other hand laid over
hers--and he forced a smile.

“I--no”--Raymond shook his head--“no, Mademoiselle Valérie, I am not
ill.”

“You are worn out, then!” she insisted tremulously. “And it is our
fault. We should have made you let us help you more. You have been up
night after night with that man, and in the daytime there was the parish
work, and you have never had any rest. And yesterday in the church you
looked so tired--and--and----”

The dark eyes were misty; the sweet face was very close to his. If he
might bend a little, just a very little, that glad wealth of hair would
brush his cheek.

“A little tired, perhaps--yes--mademoiselle,” he said, in a low voice.
“But it is nothing!” He released her hand, and, turning abruptly from
the desk, walked to the window.

She had followed him with her eyes, turned to look after him--he sensed
that. There was silence in the room. He did not speak. He did not dare
to speak until--ah!--this should bring him to his senses quickly enough!

He was staring out through the window. A buck-board had turned in from
the road, and was coming across the green toward the _presbytère_.
Dupont and Doctor Arnaud! They were coming for Henri Mentone now--_now!_
He had let the time slip by until it was too late--because he had not
been able to fight his way through the odds against him! And then there
came a wan smile to Raymond's lips. No! His fears were groundless.
Three-Ace Artie would have seen that at once! The buckboard was
single-seated, there was room only for two--and Monsieur Dupont could be
well trusted to look after his own comfort when he took the man away.

He drew back from the window, and faced around--and the thrill that had
come from the touch of her hand was back again, as he caught her gaze
upon him. What was it that was in those eyes, that was in her face?
She had been looking at him like that, he knew, all the time that he
had been standing at the window. They were still misty, those eyes--she
could not hide that, though she lowered them hurriedly now. And that
faint flush tinging her cheeks! Did it mean that she--Fool! He knew what
it meant! It meant that if he cared to seek for any added self-torture
with his madman's imaginings, he could find it readily to hand. She--to
have any thought but that prompted by her woman's sympathy, her tender
anxiety for another's trouble! She--who thought him a priest, and, pure
in her faith as in her soul, would have recoiled in horror from----

He steadied his voice.

“Monsieur Dupont and the doctor have just arrived,” he said.

She looked up, her face serious now.

“They have come for Henri Mentone?”

“No, not yet, I imagine,” he answered; “since they have only a
one-seated buckboard.”

“I will be glad when he has gone!” she exclaimed impulsively.

“Glad?”

“Yes--for your sake,” she said. “He has brought you to the verge of
illness yourself.” She was looking down again, shuffling the sealed
envelopes abstractedly. “And it is not only I who say so--it is all St.
Marleau. St. Marleau loves you for it, for your care of him, Monsieur le
Curé--but also St. Marlbau thinks more of its curé than it does of one
who has taken another's life.”

Raymond did not reply--he was listening now to the footsteps of Monsieur
Dupont and the doctor, as they passed by along the hallway outside. Came
then a sharp, angry voice raised querulously from the rear room--that
was Henri Mentone. Monsieur Dupont's voice snapped in reply; and then
the voices merged into a confused buzz and murmur. He glanced quickly at
Valérie. She, too, was listening. Her head was turned toward the door,
he could not see her face.

He walked slowly across the room to her side by the desk.

“You do not think, mademoiselle,” he asked gravely, “that it is possible
the man is telling the truth, that he really cannot remember anything
that happened that night--and before?”

She shook her head.

“Every one knows he is guilty,” she said thoughtfully. “The evidence
proves it absolutely. Why, then, should one believe him? If there was
even a little doubt of his guilt, no matter how little, it might be
different, and one might wonder then; but as it is--no.”

“And it is not only you who say so”--he smiled, using her own words--“it
is all St. Marleau?”

“Yes, all St. Marleau--and every one else, including Monsieur le Curé,
even if he has sacrificed himself for the man,” she smiled in return.
Her brows puckered suddenly. “Sometimes I am afraid of him,” she said
nervously. “Yesterday I ran from the room. He was in a fury.”

Raymond's face grew grave.

“Ah! You did not tell me that, mademoiselle,” he said soberly.

“And I am sorry I have told you now, if it is going to worry you,” she
said quickly. “You must not say anything to him. The next time I went in
he was so sorry that it was pitiful.”

In a fury--at times! Was it strange! Was it strange if one did not sit
unmoved to watch, fettered, bound, impotent, a horrible doom creeping
inexorably upon one! Was it strange if at times, all recollection
blotted out, conscious only that one was powerless to avert that
creeping terror, one should experience a paroxysm of fury that rocked
one to the very soul--and at times in anguish left one like a helpless
child! He had seen the man like that--many times in the last few days.
And he, too, had seen that same terror creep like a dread thing out
of the night upon himself to hover over him; and he could see it now
lurking there, ever present--but he, Raymond, could fight!

The door of the rear room opened and closed; and Monsieur Dupont's voice
resounded from the hall.

“Where is Monsieur le Curé? Ho, Monsieur le Curé!”

Valérie looked toward him inquiringly.

“Shall I tell them you are here?” she asked.

Raymond nodded mechanically.

“Yes--if you will, please.”

He leaned against the desk, his hands gripping its edge behind his back.
What was it now that this Monsieur Dupont wanted? He was never sure of
Dupont. And this morning his brain was fagged, and he did not want to
cope with this infernal Monsieur Dupont! He watched Valérie walk across
the room, and disappear outside in the hall.

“Monsieur le Curé is here,” he heard her say. “Will you walk in?” And
then, at some remark in the doctor's voice which he did not catch: “No;
he is not busy. I was just going to take his letters to the postoffice.
He heard Monsieur Dupont call.”

And then, as the two men stepped in through the doorway, Raymond spoke
quietly:

“Good morning, Monsieur Dupont! Good morning, Doctor Arnaud!”

“Hah! Monsieur le Curé!” Monsieur Dupont wagged his head vigorously. “He
is in a very pretty temper this morning, our friend in there--eh? Yes,
very pretty! You have noticed it? Yes, you have noticed it. It would
seem that he is beginning to realise at last that his little tricks are
going to do him no good!”

Raymond waved his hand toward chairs.

“You will sit down?” he invited courteously.

“No”--Doctor Arnaud smiled, as he answered for them both. “No, not this
morning, Monsieur le Curé. We are returning at once to Tournayville. I
have an important case there, and Monsieur Dupont has promised to have
me back before noon.”

“Yes,” said Monsieur Dupont, “we stopped only to tell you”--Monsieur
Dupont jerked his hand in the direction of the rear room--“that we will
take him away to-morrow morning. Doctor Arnaud says he will be quite
able to go. We will see what the taste of a day in jail will do for him
before he goes into the dock--what? He is very fortunate! Yes, very!
There are not many who have only one day in jail before they are tried!
Yes! To-morrow morning! You look surprised, Monsieur le Curé, that it
should be so soon. Yes, you look surprised!”

“On the contrary,” observed Raymond impassively, “when I saw you drive
up a few minutes ago, I thought you had come to take him away at once.”

“But, not at all!” Monsieur Dupont indulged in a significant smile.
“No--not at all! I take not even that chance of cheating the court out
of his appearance--I do not wish to house him for months until the next
assizes. I take no chances on a relapse. He has been quite safe here.
Yes--quite! He will be quite safe for another twenty-four hours in your
excellent keeping, Monsieur le Curé--since he is still too weak to run
far enough to have it do him any good!”

“You pay a high compliment to my vigilance, Monsieur Dupont,” said
Raymond, with a faint smile.

“Hah!” cried Monsieur Dupont. “Hah!”--he began to chuckle. “Do you hear
that, Monsieur le Docteur Arnaud? I thought it had escaped him! He has a
sense of humour, our estimable curé! You see, do you not? Yes, you see.
Well, we will go now!” He pushed the doctor from the room. “_Au
revoir_ Monsieur le Curé! It is understood then? To-morrow morning! _Au
revoir_--till to-morrow!”

Monsieur Dupont bowed, and whisked himself out of sight. Raymond went
to the door, closed it, and mechanically began to pace up and down
the room. He heard Monsieur Dupont and the doctor clamber into the
buckboard, and heard the buckboard drive off. There was moisture upon
his forehead again. He swept it away. To-morrow morning! He had until
to-morrow morning in which to act--if he was to act at all. But the way!
He could not see the way. It was full of peril. The risk was too great
to be overcome! He dared not even approach that man in there with any
plan. There was something horribly sardonic in that! If he was to act,
he must act now, at once--there was only the afternoon and the night
left.

“You are safe as it is,” whispered that inner voice insidiously. “The
man's condemnation by the law will dispose of the killing of Théophile
Blondin forever. It will be as a closed book. And then--have you
forgotten?--there is your own plan for getting away after a little
while. It cannot fail, that plan. Besides, they will not sentence the
man to hang, they will be sure to see that his memory is really gone;
whereas they will surely hang you if you are caught--as you will be, if
you are fool enough to attempt the impossible now. What did you ever get
out of being quixotic? Do you remember that little affair in Ton-Nugget
Camp?”

“My God, what shall I do?” Raymond cried out aloud. “If--if only I could
see the way!”

“But you can't!” sneered the voice viciously. “Haven't you tried hard
enough to satisfy even that remarkably tender conscience that you seem
to have picked up somewhere so suddenly! You--who were going to kill the
man with your own hands! Let well enough alone!”

It was silent now in the rear room. Raymond halted in the centre of the
floor and listened. There were no footsteps; no sound of voice--only
silence. He laughed a little harshly. What was the man doing? Planning
his _own_ escape! Again Raymond laughed in bitter mirth. God speed to
the man in any such plans--only the man, as Monsieur Dupont had most
sagaciously suggested, would not get very far alone. But still it would
be humorous, would it not, if the man should succeed alone, where he,
Raymond, had utterly failed so far to work out any plan that would
accomplish the same end! There was the open window to begin with, the
man had been told now probably that he was to be taken away to-morrow
morning, and--why was there such absolute stillness from that other
room? The partitions were very thin, and--Raymond, as mechanically as he
had set to pacing up and down the room, turned to the door, passed out
into the hall, and walked softly along to the door of the rear room.
He listened there again. There was still silence. He opened the door,
stepped across the threshold--and a strange white look crept into his
face, and he stood still.

Upon the floor at the bedside knelt Henri Mentone, and at the opening
of the door the man did not look up. There was no fury now; it was the
child, helpless in despair and grief. His hands were outflung across the
coverlet, his head was buried in his arms--and there was no movement,
save only a convulsive tremor that shook the thin shoulders. And there
was no sound.

And the whiteness deepened in Raymond's face--and, as he looked,
suddenly the scene was blurred before his eyes.

And then Raymond stepped back into the hall, and closed the door again,
and on Raymond's lips was a queer, twisted smile.

“To-morrow morning, I think you said, Monsieur Dupont,” he whispered.
“Well, to-morrow morning, Monsieur Dupont--he will be gone.”




CHAPTER XIII--THE CONFEDERATE

|THERE had been a caller, there had been parish matters, there had
been endless things through endless hours which he had been unable to
avoid--except in mind. He had attended to them subconsciously, as it
were; his mind had never for an instant left Henri Mentone. And it was
beginning to take form now, a plan whereby he might effect the other's
escape.

Sitting at his desk, he looked at his watch as he heard Valérie and
her mother go upstairs. It was a quarter past three. Later on in the
afternoon, in another hour or thereabouts Madame Lafleur would take
Henri Mentone for a few steps here and there about the green, or sit
with him for a little fresh air on the porch of the _presbytère_.
Raymond smiled ironically. As jailor he had delegated the task to
Madame Lafleur--since, as he had told both Valérie and her mother at the
noonday meal, he was going out to make pastoral visits that afternoon.
Meanwhile--he had just looked into Henri Mentone's room--the man was
lying on his bed asleep. If he worked quickly now--while Valérie and her
mother were upstairs, and the man was lying on his bed!

He picked up a pen, and drew a piece of paper toward him. Everything
hinged on his being able to procure a confederate. He, the curé of St.
Marleau, must procure a confederate by some means, and naturally without
the confederate knowing that Monsieur le Curé was doing so--and, almost
as essential, a confederate who had no love for Monsieur le Curé! It was
not a very simple matter! That was the problem with which he had racked
his brains for the last three days. Not that the minor details were
lacking in difficulties either; he, as the curé, must not appear even
remotely in the plan; he, as the curé, dared not even suggest escape to
Henri Mentone--but he could overcome all that if only he could secure a
confederate. That was the point upon which everything depended.

His pen poised in his hand, he stared across the room. Yes, he saw it
now--a gambler's chance. But the time was short now, short enough to
make him welcome any chance. He would go to Mother Blondin's. He
might find a man there such as he sought, one of those who already had
offended the law by frequenting the dissolute old hag's illicit still.
He could ask, of course, who these men were without exciting any
suspicion, and if luck failed him that afternoon he would do so, and it
would be like a shot still left in his locker; but if, in his rôle of
curé, he could actually trap one of them drinking there, and incense
the man, even fight with him, it would make success almost certain. Yes,
yes--he could see it all now--clearly--afterwards, when it grew dark, he
would go to the man in a far different rôle from that of a curé, and
the man would be at his disposal. Yes, if he could trap one of them
there--but before anything else Henri Mentone must be prepared for the
attempt.

Raymond began to write slowly, in a tentative sort of way, upon the
paper before him. Henri Mentone, remembering nothing of the events of
that night, must be left in no doubt as to the genuineness and good
faith of the note, or of the vital necessity of acting upon its
instructions. At the expiration of a few minutes, Raymond read over
what he had written. He scored out a word here and there; and then, on
another sheet of paper, in a scrawling, illiterate hand, he wrote out
a slangy, ungrammatical version of the original draft. He read it again
now:

“The memory game won't go, Henri. They've got you cold, but they don't
know there was two of us in it at the old woman's that night, so keep up
your nerve, for I ain't for laying down on a pal. I got it fixed for a
getaway for you to-night. Keep the back window open, and be ready at any
time after dark--see? Leave-the rest to me. If that mealy-mouthed priest
gets in the road, so much the worse for him. I'll take care of him so he
won't be any trouble to any one except a doctor, and mabbe not much to a
doctor--get me? I'd have been back sooner, only I had to beat it for you
know where to get the necessary coin. Here's some to keep you going in
case we have to separate in a hurry to-night.----Pierre.”

Raymond nodded to himself. Henri Mentone might not relish the suggestion
of any violence offered to the “mealy-mouthed priest,” for he had come
to look upon Father François Aubert as his only friend, and, except in
his fits of fury, to cling dependently upon him; but then there would
be no violence offered to Father François Aubert, and the suggestion
supplied a final touch of authenticity to the note, since Henri Mentone
would realise that escape was impossible unless in some way the curé
could be got out of the road.

Raymond destroyed the original draft, and took out his pocketbook. He
smiled curiously, as he examined its contents. It was the gold of the
Yukon, the gold of Ton-Nugget Camp, that he had changed into banknotes
of large denominations. He selected two fifty-dollar bills. It was not
enough to carry the man far, or to take care of the man until he was on
his feet, nor were fifty-dollar bills the most convenient denomination
for a man under the present circumstances; but that was not their
purpose--they would act as a guarantee of one “Pierre” and “Pierre's”
 plan, and to-night he would give the man more without stint, and
supplement it with some small bills from his roll of “petty cash.” He
folded the money in the note, found a small piece of string in one of
the drawers of the desk, stood up, took his hat, tiptoed softly across
the room, out into the hall, and from the hall to the front porch.

Here, he stood quietly for a moment, looking about him; and then,
satisfied that he was unobserved, that neither Valérie nor her mother
had noticed his exit, he walked quickly around to the back of the
house--and paused again, this time beneath the open window of Henri
Mentone's room. Here, too, but even more sharply now, he looked about
him--then stooped ana picked up a small stone. He tied the note around
this, and, crouched low by the window, called softly: “Henri! Henri!”

He heard a rustle, the creak of the bed, as though the man, startled and
suddenly roused, were jerking himself up into an upright position.

“It is Pierre!” Raymond called again. “_Courage, mon vieux!_ Have no
fear! All is arranged for tonight. But do not come to the window--we
must be careful. Here--_voici!_”--he tossed the note in over the sill.
“Until dark--tu comprends, Henri? I will be back then. Be ready!”

He heard the man cry out in a low voice, and the creak of the bed again,
and the man's step on the floor--and, stooping low, Raymond darted
around the corner of the house.

A moment later he was standing again in the hallway of the _presbytère_.

“Oh, Madame Lafleur!” he called up the stairs. “It is only to tell you
that I am going out now.”

“Yes, Monsieur le Curé--yes. Very well, Monsieur le Curé,” she answered.

Raymond closed the front door behind him, and, walking sedately across
the green and past the church, gained the road. It was Mother Blondin's
now, but he would not go by the station road--further along the village
street, where the houses thinned out and were scattered more apart,
he could climb up the little hill without being seen, and by walking
through the woods would come out on the path whose existence had once
already done him such excellent service. And the path, as an approach
to Mother Blondin's this afternoon, offered certain very important
strategical advantages.

But now for the moment he was in the heart of the village, and from
the doorways and garden patches of the little squat, curved-roof,
whitewashed houses of rough-squared logs that flanked the road on either
side, voices called out to him cheerily as he walked along. He answered
them--all of them. He was even conscious, in spite of the worry of his
mind, of a curious and not altogether unwelcome wonder. They were simple
folk, these people, big-hearted and kindly, free and open-handed with
the little they had, and they appeared to have grown fond of him in the
few days he had been in St. Marleau, to look up to him, to trust him,
to have faith in him, and to accept him as a friend, offering a frank
friendship in return.

His hands were clasped behind his back as he walked along, and suddenly
his fingers laced tightly over one another. The pleasurable wonder of
it was gone. He was playing well this rôle of saint! He was a
gambler--Three-Ace Artie of Ton-Nugget Camp; a gambler--too unclean even
for the Yukon. But he was no hypocrite! He would have liked to have torn
these saintly trappings from his body, wrenched off his _soutane_
and hurled it in the faces of these people, and bade them keep their
friendship and their trust--tell them that he asked for nothing that
they gave because they believed him other than he was. He was no
hypocrite--he was a man fighting desperately for that for which every
one had a right to fight, for which instinct bade even an insect
fight--his life! He did not despise this proffered friendship, the smile
of eye and lip, the ring of genuine sincerity in the voices that called
to him--but they were not his, they were not meant for Three-Ace Artie,
they were not meant for Raymond Chapelle. Somehow--it was a grotesque
thought--he envied himself in the rôle of curé for these things. But
they were not his. It was strange even that he, in whose life there had
been naught but riot and ruin, should still be able to simulate so well
the better things, to carry through, not the rôle of priest, that was
a matter of ritual, a matter of keeping his head and his nerve, but the
far kindlier and intimate rôle of _father_ to the parish! Yes, it was
very strange, and----

“_Bon jour_, Monsieur le Curé!”

Raymond halted. It was Madame Bouchard, the carpenter's wife. With a
sort of long-handled wooden paddle, she was removing huge loaves of
bread from the queer-looking outdoor oven which, though built of a
mixture of stone and brick, resembled very much, through being rounded
over at the top, an exaggerated beehive. A few yards further in from the
edge of the road Bouchard himself was at work upon a boat in front of
his shop. Above the shop was the living quarters of the family, and
here, on a narrow veranda, peering over, a half dozen scantily clad and
very small children clung to the railings.

Raymond sniffed the air luxuriously.

“_Tiens_, Madame Bouchard!” he cried. “Your husband is to be envied! The
smell of the bread is enough to make one hungry!”

The carpenter laid down his tools, and looked up, laughing.

“_Salut_, Monsieur le Curé!” he called.

“If Monsieur le Curé would like one”--Madame Bouchard's cheeks had grown
a little rosy--“I--I will send one to the _presbytère_ for him.”

Raymond had eaten of St. Marleau bread before. The taste was sour, and
it required little short of a deftly wielded axe to make any impression
upon the crust.

“You are too good, too generous, Madame Bouchard,” he said, shaking his
forefinger at her chidingly. “And yet”--he smiled broadly--“if there is
enough to spare, there is nothing I know of that would delight me more.”

“Of course, she can spare it!” declared the carpenter heartily, coming
forward. “Stanislaus will carry you two presently. And, _tiens_,
Monsieur le Curé, you like to row a boat--eh?”

Raymond, on the point of shaking his head, checked himself. A boat!
One of these days--soon, if this devil's trap would only open a
little--there was his own escape to be managed. He had planned that
carefully... a boating accident... the boat recovered... the curé's body
swept out somewhere in those twenty-five miles of river breadth that
stretched away before him now, and from there--who could doubt it!--to
the sea.

“Yes,” he said; “I am very fond of it, but as yet I have not found
time.”

“Good!” exclaimed the carpenter. “Well, in two or three days it will
be finished, the best boat in St. Marleau--and Monsieur le Curé will be
welcome to it as much as he likes. It is a nice row to the islands
out there--three miles--to gather the sea-gull eggs--and the islands
themselves are very pretty. It is a great place for a picnic, Monsieur
le Curé.”

“Excellent!” said Raymond enthusiastically. “That is exactly what
I shall do.” He clapped the carpenter playfully upon the shoulder.
“So--eh, Monsieur Bouchard,--you will lose no time in finishing the
boat!” He turned to Madame Bouchard. “_Au revoir_, madame--and very many
thanks to you. I shall think of you at supper to-night, I promise you!”
 He waved his hand to the children on the veranda, and once more started
along the road.

Madame Bouchard's voice, speaking to her husband, reached him. The words
were not intended for his ears, and he did not catch them all. It was
something about--“the good, young Father Aubert.”

A wan smile crept to Raymond's lips. For the moment at least, he was in
a softened, chastened mood. “The good, young Father Aubert”--well, let
it be so! They would never know, these people of St. Marleau. Somehow,
he was relieved at that. He did not want them to know. Somehow, he, too,
wanted for himself just what they would have--a memory--the memory of a
good, young Father Aubert.

At a bend in the road, where the road edged in against the slope of the
hill, hiding him from view, Raymond clambered up the short ascent. In a
clump of small cedars at the top, he paused and looked back. The great
sweep of river, widening into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with no breath
of air to stir its surface, shimmered like a mirror under the afternoon
sun. A big liner, outward bound, and perhaps ten miles from shore,
seemed as though it were painted there. To the right, close in, was the
little group of islands, with bare, rounded, rocky peaks, to which
the carpenter had referred. About him, from distant fields, came the
occasional voice of a man calling to his horses, the faint whir of a
reaper, and a sort of pervading, drowsy murmur of insect life. Below
him, nestled along the winding road, were the little whitewashed houses,
quiet, secure, tranquil, they seemed to lie there; and high above them
all, as though to typify the scene, to set its seal upon it, from the
steeple of the church there gleamed in the sunlight a golden cross, the
symbol of peace--such as he wore upon his breast!

With a quick intake of his breath, a snarl smothered in a low, confused
cry, as he glanced involuntarily downward at his crucifix, he gathered
up the skirts of his _soutane_, and, as though to vent his emotion in
physical exertion, began to force his way savagely through the bushes
and undergrowth.

He had other things to do than waste time in toying with visionary
sentiment! There was one detail in that scene of _peace_ he had not
seen--that man in the rear room of the _presbytère_ who was going to
trial for the murder of Théophile Blondin, because he was decked out in
the clothes of one Raymond Chapelle, alias Henri Mentone. It would be
well perhaps for Raymond Chapelle to remember that, and to remember
nothing else for the remainder of the afternoon!

He went on through the woods, heading as nearly as he could judge in a
direction that would bring him out at the rear of the tavern. And now
he laughed shortly to himself. Peace! There would be a peace that would
linger long in somebody's memory at Mother Blondin's this afternoon, if
only luck were with him! He was on a priestly mission--to console, bring
comfort to the old hag for the loss of her son--and, quite incidentally,
to precipitate a fight with any of the loungers who might be burying
their noses in Mother Blondin's home-made _whiskey-blanc!_ He laughed
out again. St. Marleau would talk of that, too, and applaud the
righteousness of the good, young Father Au^ bert--but he would attain
the object he sought. He, the good, young Father Aubert, the man with a
rope around his neck, whose hands were against everyman's, had too many
friends in St. Marleau--he needed an _enemy_ now! It was the one thing
that would make the night's work sure.

He reached the edge of the wood to find himself even nearer the tavern
than he had expected--and to find, too, that he would not have to lie
long in wait for a visitor to Mother Blondin's. There was one there
already. So far then, he could have asked for no better luck. He caught
the sound of voices--the old hag's, high-pitched and querulous; a man's,
rough and domineering. Looking cautiously through the fringe of trees
that still sheltered him, Raymond discovered that he was separated from
Mother Blondin's back door by a matter of but a few yards of clearing.
The door was open, and a man, heavy-built, in a red-checkered shirt,
a wide-brimmed hat of coarse straw, was forcing his way past the
shrivelled old woman. As the man turned his head sideways, Raymond
caught a glimpse of the other's face. It was not a pleasant face. The
eyes were black, narrow and shifty under a low brow; and a three days'
growth of black stubble on his jaws added to his exceedingly dirty and
unkempt appearance.

Mother Blondin's voice rose furiously.

“You will pay first!” she screamed. “I know you too well, Jacques
Bourget! Do you understand? The money! You will pay me first!”

“Or otherwise you will tell the police, eh?” the man guffawed
contemptuously. He pushed his way inside the house, and pushed a table
that stood in the centre of the room roughly back against the wall. “You
shut your mouth!” he jeered at her--and, stooping down, lifted up a trap
door in the floor. “Now trot along quick for some glasses, so you can
keep count of all we both drink!”

“You are a thief, a robber, a _crapule_, a--” she burst into a stream
of blasphemous invective. Her wrinkled face grew livid with ungovernable
rage. She shook a bony fist at him. “I will show you what you will get
for this! You think I am alone--eh? You think I am an old woman that you
can rob as you like--eh? You think my whisky is for your guzzling throat
without pay--eh? Well, I will show you, you----”

The man made a threatening movement toward her, and she retreated back
out of Raymond's sight--evidently into an inner room, for her voice,
as virago-like as ever, was muffled now.

“Bring me a glass, and waste no time about it!” the man called after
her. “And if you do not hold your tongue, something worse will happen to
you than the loss of a drop out of your bottle!”

The man turned, and descended to the cellar through the trapdoor.

“Yes,” said Raymond softly to himself. “Yes, I think Monsieur Jacques
Bourget is the man I came to find.”

He stepped out from the trees, walked noiselessly across to the house,
and, reaching the doorway, remained standing quietly upon the threshold.
He could hear the man moving about in the cellar below; from the inner
room came Mother Blondin's incessant mutterings, mingled with a savage
rattling of crockery. Raymond smiled ominously--and then Raymond's face
grew stern with well-simulated clerical disapproval.

The man's head, back turned, showed above the level of the floor. Into
the doorway from the inner room came Mother Blondin--and halted there,
her withered old jaw sagging downward in dumfounded surprise until it
displayed her almost toothless gums. The man gained his feet, turned
around--and, with a startled oath, dropped the bottle he was carrying.
It crashed to the floor, broke, and the contents began to trickle back
over the edge of the trapdoor.

“_Sacristi!_” shouted the man, his face flaring up into an angry red.
He thrust his head forward truculently from his shoulders, and glared at
Raymond. “_Sacré nom de Dieu_, it is the saintly priest!” he sneered.

“My son,” said Raymond gravely, “do not blaspheme! And have respect for
the Church!”

“Bah!” snarled the man. “Do you think I care for you--or your church!”
 He looked suddenly at Mother Blondin. “Hah!”--he jumped across the room
toward her. “So that is what you meant by not being alone--eh? I did not
understand! You would trick me, would you! You would sell me out for the
price of a drink--and--ha, ha--to a priest! Well”--he had her now by the
shoulders--“I will take a turn at showing you what I will do! Eh--why
did you not warn me he was here?” He caught her head, and banged it
brutally against the wall. “Eh--why did----”

Raymond, too, was across the room. It was strange! Most strange! He had
intended to seek an occasion to quarrel. The occasion was made for
him. He had no longer any desire to quarrel--he was possessed of an
overwhelming desire to get his fingers around the throat of this cur who
banged that straggling, dishevelled gray hair against the wall. He was
not quite sure that it was himself who spoke. No, of course, it was not!
It was Monsieur le Curé--the good, young Father Aubert. He was between
them now, only Mother Blondin had fallen to the floor.

“My son,” he said placidly, “since you will not respect the Church for
one reason, I will teach you to respect it for another.” He pointed to
old Mother Blcndin, who, more terrified than hurt perhaps, was getting
to her knees, moaning and wringing her hands. “You have heard, though I
fear you may have forgotten it, of the Mosaic law. An eye for an eye, my
son. I intend to do to you exactly what you have done to this woman.”

The man, drawn back, eyed him first in angry bewilderment, and then with
profound contempt.

“You'd better get out of here!” he said roughly.

“Presently--when I have thrown you out”--Raymond was calmly tucking up
the skirts of his _soutane_. “And”--the flat of his hand landed with a
stinging blow across the other's cheek--“you see that I do not take even
you off your guard.”

The man reeled back--and then, with a bull-like roar of rage, head down,
rushed at Raymond.

It was not Monsieur le Curé now--it was Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur
Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie, cold, contained, quick and lithe as a
panther, and with a panther's strength. A crash--a lightning right
whipped to the point of Bourget's jaw--and Bourget's head jolted back
quivering on his shoulders like a tuning fork. And like a flash, before
the other could recover, a left and right smashed full again into
Bourget's face.

With a scream, Mother Blondin crawled and scuttled into the doorway
of the inner room. The man, bellowing with mad dismay, his hands
outstretched, his fingers crooked to tear at Raymond's flesh if they
could but reach it, rushed again.

And now Raymond, wary of the other's strength and bulk, gave ground; and
now he side-stepped and swung, battering his blows into Bourget's face;
and now he ran craftily from the other. Chairs and table crashed to the
floor; their heels crunched in the splinters of the broken bottle. The
man's face began to bleed profusely from both nose and a cut lip. They
were not tactics that Bourget understood. He clawed, he kept his head
down, he rushed in blind clumsiness--and always Raymond was just beyond
his reach.

Again and again they circled the room, Bourget, big, lumbering, awkward,
futilely expending his strength, screaming oaths with gasping breath.
And again and again, springing aside as the man charged blindly by,
Raymond with a grim fury rained in his blows. It was something like that
other night--here in Mother Blon-din's. She was shrieking again now from
the doorway:

“Kill him! The _misérable!_ Hah, Jacques Bourget, are you a
jack-in-the-box only to bob your head backward every time you are hit!
I did not bring the priest here! _Sacré nom_, you cannot blame me! I had
nothing to do with it! _Sacré nom--sacré nom--sacré nom--kill him!_”

Kill who? Who did she mean--the man or himself? Raymond did not know.
She was just a blurred object of rage and tumbled hair dancing in a
frenzy up and down there in the doorway. He ran again. Bourget, like a
stunned fool, was covering his face with his arms as he dashed forward.
Ah, yes, Bourget was trying to crush him back into the corner there,
and--no!--the maniacal rush had faltered, the man was swaying on his
feet. And then Raymond, crouched to elude the man, sprang instead at the
other's throat, his hands closed like a vise, and with the impact of his
body both lurched back against the wall by the rear doorway.

“My son,” panted Raymond, “you remember--an eye for an eye”--he smashed
the man's head back against the wall--and then, gathering all his
strength, flung the other from him out through the open door.

The fight was out of the man. For a moment he lay sprawled on the grass.
Then he raised himself up, and got upon his knees. His face was bruised
and blood-stained almost beyond recognition. He shook both fists at
Raymond.

“By God, I'll get you for this!”--the man's voice was guttural with
unbridled passion. “I'll get you, you censer-swinging devil! I'll twist
your neck with the chain of your own crucifix! Damn you to the pit!
You're not through with me!”

“Go!” said Raymond sternly. “Go--and be glad that I have treated you no
worse!”

He shut the door in the man's face; and, turning abruptly, walked across
the floor to where Mother Blondin, quiet for the moment, gaped at him
from the threshold of the other room.

“He will not trouble you any more, Madame Blondin, I imagine,” he said
quietly. “See, it is over!” He smiled at her reassuringly--he needed to
know now only where the man lived. “I should be sorry to think he was
one of my parishioners. Where does he come from?”

“He is a farmer, and he lives in the house on the point a mile and
a quarter up the road”--the answer had come automatically; she was
listening, without looking at Raymond, to the threats and oaths that
Jacques Bourget, as he evidently moved away for his voice kept growing
fainter, still bawled from without. And then hate and sullen viciousness
was in her face again. Her hair had tumbled to her shoulders and
straggled over her forehead. She jabbed at it with both hands, sweeping
it from her eyes, and leered at him fiercely. “You dirty spy!” she
croaked hoarsely. “I know you--I know all of you priests! You are all
alike! Sneaks! Sneaks! Meddlers and sneaks! But you'll get to hell some
day--like the rest of us! Ha, ha--to hell! You can't fool the devil!
I know you. That's what you sneaked up here for--to spy on me, to find
something against me that the police weren't sharp enough to find, so
that you could get rid of me, get me out of St. Marleau! I know! They've
been trying that for a long time!”

“To turn you over to the police,” said Raymond gently, “would never save
you from yourself. I came to talk to you a little about your son--to see
if in any way I could help you, or be of comfort to you.”

She stared at him for an instant, wondering and perplexed; and then the
snarl was on her lips again.

“You lie! No priest comes here for that! I am an _excommuniée_.”

“You are a woman in sorrow,” Raymond said simply.

She did not answer him--only drew back into the other room.

Raymond followed her. It was the room where he had fought that
night--with Théophile Blondin. His eyes swept it with a hurried glance.
There was the _armoire_ from which Théophile Blondin had snatched the
revolver--and there was the spot on the floor where the dead man had
fallen. And here was the old hag with the streaming hair, as it had
streamed that night, who had run shrieking into the storm that he had
murdered her son. And the whole scene began to live itself over again in
his mind in minute detail. It seemed to possess an unhealthy fascination
that bade him linger, and at the same time to fill him with an impulse
to rush away from it. And the impulse was the stronger; and, besides, it
would be evening soon, and there was that man in the _presbytère_,
and there was much to do, and he had his confederate now--one Jacques
Bourget.

“I shall not stay now”--he smiled, as he turned to Mother Blondin, and
held out his hand. “You are upset over what has happened. Another time.
But you will remember, will you not, that I would like to help you in
any way I can?”

She reached out her hand mechanically to take his that was extended to
her, and suddenly, muttering, jerked it back--and Raymond, appearing not
to notice, smiled again, and, crossing the room, went out through the
front door.

He went slowly across the little patch of yard, and on along the road in
the direction of the village, and now his lips thinned in a grim smile.
Yes, St. Marleau would hear of this, his chivalrous protection of Mother
Blondin--and place another halo on his head! The devil's sense of humour
was of a brand all its own!

The more he twisted and squirmed and wriggled to get out of the trap,
desperate to the extent that he would hesitate at nothing, the more
he became--the good, young Father Aubert! Even that dissolute old
hag, whose hatred for the church and all pertaining to it was the most
dominant passion in her life, was not far from the point where she would
tolerate a priest--if the priest were the good, young Father Aubert!

He reached the point where the road began to descend the hill, and,
pausing, looked back. Yes--even Mother Blondin, the _excommuniée!_ She
was standing in the doorway, dirty, unkempt, disreputable, and, shading
her eyes with her hand, was gazing after him. Yes, even she--whose son
had been killed in a fight with him.

And Raymond, fumbling suddenly with his hat, lifted it to Mother
Blondin, and went on down the hill.




CHAPTER XIV--THE HOUSE ON THE POINT

|IT was late, a good half hour after the usual supper time, when Raymond
returned to the _presbytère_. He had done a very strange thing. He had
gone into the church, and sat there in the silence and the quiet of
the sacristy--and twilight had come unnoticed. It was the quiet he had
sought, respite for a mind that had suddenly seemed nerve-racked to the
breaking point as he had come down the hill from Mother Blondin's. It
had been dim, and still, and cool, and restful in there--in the church.
There was still Valerie, still the priest who had not died, still his
own peril and danger, and still the hazard of the night before him; all
that had not been altered; all that still remained--but in a measure,
strangely, somehow, he was calmed. He was full of apologies now to
Madame Lafleur, as he sat down to supper.

“But it is nothing!” she said, placing a lamp upon the table. She sat
down herself; and added simply, as though, indeed, no reason could be
more valid: “I saw you go into the church, Monsieur le Curé.”

“Yes,” said Raymond, his eyes now on Valerie's empty seat. “And where is
Mademoiselle Valerie? Taking our _pauvre_ Mentone his supper?”

“Oh, no!” she answered quickly. “I took him his supper myself a little
while ago--though I do not know whether he will eat it or not. Valerie
went over to her uncle's about halfpast five. She said something about
going for a drive.”

Raymond cut his slice of cold pork without comment. He was conscious of
a dismal sense of disappointment, a depression, a falling of his spirits
again. The room seemed cold and dead without Valérie there, without
her voice, without her smile. And then there came a sense of pique, of
irritation, unreasonable no doubt, but there for all that. Why had she
not included him in the drive? Fool! Had he forgotten? He could not have
gone if she had--he had other things to do than drive that evening!

“Yes,” said Madame Lafleur, significantly reverting to her former
remark, as she handed him his tea, “yes, I do not know if the poor
fellow will eat anything or not.”

Raymond glanced at her quickly. What was the matter? Had anything been
discovered! And then his eyes were on his plate again. Madame Lafleur's
face, whatever her words might be intended to convey, was genuinely
sympathetic, nothing more.

“Not eat?” he repeated mildly. “And why not, Madame Lafleur?”

“I am sure I do not know,” she replied, a little anxiously. “I have
never seen him so excited. I thought it was because he was to be taken
away to-morrow morning. And so, when we went out this afternoon,
I tried to say something to him about his going away that would cheer
him up. And would you believe it, Monsieur le Curé, he just stared at
me, and then, as though I had said something droll, he--fancy, Monsieur
le Curé, from a man who was going to be tried for his life--he laughed
until I thought he would never stop. And after that he would say nothing
at all; and since he has come in he has not been for an instant still.
Do you not hear him, Monsieur le Curé?”

Raymond heard very distinctly. His ears had caught the sounds from the
moment he had entered the _presbytère_. Up and down, up and down, from
that back room came the stumbling footfalls; then silence for a moment,
as though from exhaustion the man had sunk down into a chair; and then
the pacing to and fro again. Raymond's lips tightened in understanding,
as he bent his head over his plate. Like himself, the man in there was
waiting--for darkness!

“He is over-excited,” he said gravely. “And being still so weak, the
news that he is to go to-morrow, I am afraid, has been too much for him.
I have no doubt he was verging on hysteria when he laughed at you like
that, Madame Lafleur.”

“I--I hope we shall not have any trouble with him,” said Madame Lafleur
nervously. “I mean that I hope he won't be taken sick again. He did not
look at the tray at all when I took it in; he kept his eyes on me all
the time, as though he were trying to read something in my face.”

“Poor fellow!” murmured Raymond.

Madame Lafleur nodded her gray head in sympathetic assent.

“Ah, yes, Monsieur le Curé--the poor fellow!” she sighed. “It is a
terrible thing that he has done; but it is also terrible to think of
what he will have to face. Do you think it wrong, Monsieur le Curé, to
wish almost that he might escape?”

Escape! Curse it--what was the matter with Madame Lafleur to-night? Or
was it something the matter with himself?

“Not wrong, perhaps,” he said, smiling at her, “if you do not connive at
it.”

“Oh, but, Monsieur le Curé!” she exclaimed reprovingly. “What a thing
to say! But I would never do that! Still, it is all very sad, and I am
heartily glad that I am not to be a witness at the trial like you and
Valérie. And they say that Madame Blondin, and Monsieur Labbée, the
station agent, and a lot of the villagers are to go too.”

“Yes, I believe so,” Raymond nodded.

Madame Lafleur, in quaint consternation, suddenly changed the subject.

“Oh, but I forgot to tell you!” she cried. “The bread! Madame Bouchard
sent you two loaves all fresh and hot. Do you like it?”

The bread! He had been conscious neither that the bread was sour, nor
that the crust was unmanageable. He became suddenly aware that the
morsel in his mouth was not at all like the baking of Madame Lafleur.

“You are all too good to me here in St. Marleau,” he protested.

He checked her reply with a chiding forefinger, and a shake of his
head--and presently, the meal at an end, pushed back his chair, and
strolled to the window. He stood there for a moment looking out. It was
dark now--dark enough for his purpose.

“It is a beautiful night, Madame Lafleur,” he said enthusiastically. “I
am almost tempted to go out again for a little walk.”

“But, yes, Monsieur le Curé--why not!” Madame Lafleur was quite anxious
that he should go. Madame Lafleur was possessed of that enviable
disposition that was instantly responsive to the interests and pleasures
of others.

“Yes--why not!” smiled Raymond, patting her arm as he passed by her on
his way to the door. “Well, I believe I will.”

But outside in the hall he hesitated. Should he go first to the man in
the rear room? He had intended to do so before he went out--to probe the
other, as it were, to satisfy himself, perhaps more by the man's acts
and looks than by words, that Henri Mentone had entered into the plans
for the night. But he was satisfied of that now. Madame Lafleur's
conversation had left no doubt but that the man's unusual restlessness
and excitement were due to his being on the _qui vive_ of expectancy.
No, there was no use, therefore, in going to the man now, it would only
be a waste of valuable time.

This decision taken, Raymond walked to the front door and down the steps
of the porch. Here he turned, and, choosing the opposite side of
the house from the kitchen and dining room, where he might have been
observed by Madame Lafleur, yet still moving deliberately as though he
were but sauntering idly toward the beach, made his way around to the
rear of the _presbytère_. It was quite dark. There were stars, but no
moon. Behind here, between the back of the house and the shed, there
was no possibility of his being seen. The only light came from Henri
Mentone's room, and the shades there were drawn.

He opened the shed door silently, stepped inside, and closed the door
behind him. He struck a match, held it above his head--and almost
instantly extinguished it, as he located the sacristan's overalls, and
the old coat and hat.

And now Raymond worked quickly. He stripped off his _soutane_, drew on
the overalls, turning the bottoms well up over his own trousers, slipped
on the coat, tucked the hat into one of the coat pockets, and put on his
_soutane_ again. It was very simple--the _soutane_ hid everything. He
smiled grimly, as he, stepped outside again--the Monsieur le Curé who
came out, was the Monsieur le Curé who had gone in.

Raymond chose the beach. The village street meant that he would be
delayed by being forced to stop and talk with any one he might meet, to
say nothing of the possibility of having the ruinous, if well meaning,
companionship of some one foisted upon him--while, even if seen, there
would be nothing strange in the fact that the curé should be taking an
evening walk along the shore.

He started off at a brisk pace along the stretch of sand just behind
the _presbytère_. It was a mile and a quarter to the point--to Jacques
Bourget's. At the end of the sandy stretch Raymond went more slowly--the
shore line as a promenade left much to be desired--there was a seemingly
interminable ledge of slate rock over which he had need to pick his way
carefully. He negotiated this, and was rewarded with another short sandy
strip--but only to encounter the slate rocks again with their ubiquitous
little pools of water in the hollows, which he must avoid warily.

Sometimes he slipped; once he fell. The grim smile was back on his lips.
There seemed to be something ironical even in these minor difficulties
that stood between him and the effecting of the other's escape! There
seemed to be a world of irony in the fact that he who sought escape
himself should plan another's rather than his own! It was the devil's
toils, that was all, the devil's damnable ingenuity, and hell's
incomparable sense of humour! He had either to desert the man; or stand
in the man's place himself, and dangle from the gallows for his
pains; or get the man away. Well, he had no desire to dangle from the
gallows--or to desert the man! He had chosen the third and only course
left open to him. If he got the man away, if the man succeeded in making
his escape, it would not only save the man, but he, Raymond, would have
nothing thereafter to fear--the Curé of St. Marleau in due course would
meet with his deplorable and fatal accident! True, the man would always
live in the shadow of pursuit, a thing that he, Raymond, had been
willing to accept for himself only as a last resort, but there was no
help for that in the other's case now. He would give the man more money,
plenty of it. The man should be across the border and in the States
early to-morrow, then New York, and a steamer for South America. Yes, it
should unquestionably succeed. He had worked out all those details while
he was still racking his brain for a “Jacques Bourget,” and he would
give the man minute instructions at the last moment when he gave him
more money--that hundred dollars was only an evidence of good faith and
of the loyalty of one “Pierre.” The only disturbing factor in the
plan was the man's physical condition. The man was still virtually an
invalid--otherwise the police would have been neither justified in
so doing, nor for a moment have been willing to leave him in the
_presbytère_, as they had. Monsieur Dupont was no fool, and it was
perfectly true that the man had not the slightest chance in the world
of getting away--alone. But, aided as he, Raymond, proposed to aid the
other, the man surely would be able to stand the strain of travelling,
for a man could do much where his life was at stake. Yes, after all,
why worry on that score! It was only the night and part of the next day.
Then the man could rest quietly at a certain address in New York, while
waiting for his steamer. Yes, unquestionably, the man, with his life in
the balance, would be able to manage that.

Raymond was still picking his way over the ledges, still slipping and
stumbling, and now, recovering from a fall that had brought him to his
knees, he gave his undivided attention to his immediate task. It seemed
a very long mile and a quarter, but at the expiration of perhaps another
twenty minutes he was at the end of it, and halted to take note of his
surroundings. He could just distinguish the village road edging away
on his left; while ahead of him, but a little to his right, out on the
wooded point, he caught the glimmer of a light through the trees. That
would be Jacques Bourget's house.

He now looked cautiously about him. There was no other house in sight.
His eyes swept the road up and down as far as he could see--there was no
one, no sign of life. He listened--there was nothing, save the distant
lapping of the water far out, for the tide was low on the mud flats.

A large rock close at hand suggested a landmark that could not be
mistaken. He stepped toward it, took off his _soutane_, and laid the
garment down beside the rock; he removed his clerical collar and his
clerical hat, and placed them on top of the _soutane_, taking care,
however, to cover the white collar with the hat--then, turning down
the trouser legs of the overalls, and turning up the collar of the
threadbare coat, he took the battered slouch hat from his pocket and
pulled it far down over his eyes.

“Behold,” said Raymond cynically, “behold Pierre--what is his other
name? Well, what does it matter? Pierre--Desforges. Desforges will do as
well as any--behold Pierre Desforges!”

He left the beach, went up the little rise of ground that brought
him amongst the trees, and made his way through the latter toward the
lighted window of the house. Arrived here, he once more looked about
him.

The house was isolated, far back from the road; and, in the darkness
and the shadows cast by the trees, would have been scarcely discernible,
save that it was whitewashed, and but for the yellow glow diffused
from the window. He approached the door softly, and listened. A woman's
voice, and then a man's, snarling viciously, reached him. “... _le sacré
maudit curé!_”

Raymond laughed low. Jacques Bourget and his wife appeared to have
an engrossing topic of conversation, if they had been at it since
afternoon! Also Jacques Bourget appeared to be of an unforgiving nature!

There was no veranda, not even a step, the door was on a level with the
ground; and, from the little Raymond could see of the house now that
he was close beside it, it appeared to be as down-at-the-heels and as
shiftless as its proprietor. He leaned forward to avail himself of
the light from the window, and, taking out a roll of bills, of smaller
denominations than those which he carried in his pocketbook, he counted
out five ten-dollar notes.

Jacques Bourget from within was still in the midst of a blasphemous
tirade. Raymond rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles. Bourget's
voice ceased instantly, and there was silence for a moment. Raymond
rapped again--and then, as a chair leg squeaked upon the floor, and
there came the sound of a heavy tread approaching the door, he drew
quickly back into the shadows at one side.

The door was flung open, and Bourget's face, battered and cut, an eye
black and swollen, his lip puffed out to twice its normal size, peered
out into the darkness.

“Who's there?” he called out gruffly.

“S-sh! Don't talk so loud!” Raymond cautioned in a guarded voice. “Are
you Jacques Bourget?”

The man, with a start, turned his face in the direction of Raymond's
voice. Mechanically he dropped his own voice.

“Mabbe I am, and mabbe I'm not,” he growled suspiciously. “What do you
want?”

“I want to talk to you if you are Jacques Bourget,” Raymond answered.
“And if you are Jacques Bourget I can put you in the way of turning a
few dollars tonight, to say nothing of another little matter that will
be to your liking.”

The man hesitated, then drew back a little in the doorway.

“Well, come in,” he invited. “There's no one but the old woman here.”

“The old woman is one old woman too many,” Raymond said roughly. “I'm
not on exhibition. You come out here, and shut the door. You've nothing
to be afraid of--the only thing I have to do with the police is to keep
away from them, and that takes me all my time.”

“I ain't worrying about the police,” said Bourget shrewdly.

“Maybe not,” returned Raymond. “I didn't say you were. I said I was.
I've got a hundred dollars here that----”

A woman appeared suddenly in the doorway behind Bourget.

“What is it? Who is it, Jacques?” she shrilled out inquisitively.

Bourget, for answer, swore at her, pushed her back, and, slamming the
door behind him, stepped outside.

“Well, what is it? And who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Desforges--Pierre Desforges,” said Raymond, his voice still
significantly low. “That doesn't mean anything to you--and it doesn't
matter. What I want you to do is to drive a man to the second station
from here to-night--St. Eustace is the name, isn't it?--and you get a
hundred dollars for the trip.”

“What do you mean?” Bourget's voice mingled incredulity and avarice. “A
hundred dollars for that, eh? Are you trying to make a fool of me?”

Raymond held the bills up before the man's face. “Feel the money, if you
can't see it!” he suggested, with a short laugh. “That's what talks.”

“_Bon Dieu!_” ejaculated Bourget. “Yes, it is so! Well, who am I to
drive? You? You are running away! Yes, Î understand! They are after
you--eh? I am to drive you, eh?”

“No,” said Raymond. He drew the man close to him in the darkness, and
placed his lips to Bourget's ear. “_Henri Mentone_.”

Bourget, startled, sprang back.

“_What! Who!_” he cried out loudly.

“I told you not to talk so loud!” snapped Raymond. “You heard what I
said.”

Bourget twisted his head furtively about.

“No, '_cré nom--no!_” he said huskily. “It is too much risk! If one were
caught at that--eh? _Bien non, merci!_”

“There's no chance of your being caught”--Raymond's voice was smooth
again. “It is only nine miles to St. Eustace--you will be back and in
bed long before daylight. Who is to know anything about it?”

“Yes, and you!”--Bourget was still twisting his head about furtively.
“What do I know about you? What have you to do with this?”

“I will tell you,” said Raymond, and into the velvet softness of his
voice there crept an ominous undertone; “and at the same time I will
tell you that you will be very wise to keep your mouth shut. You
understand? If I trust you, it is to make you trust me. Henri Mentone is
my pal. I was there the night Théophile Blondin was killed. But I made
my escape. I do not desert a pal, only I had no money. Well, I have the
money now, and I am back. And I am just in time--eh? They say he is well
enough to be taken away in the morning.”

“_Mon Dieu_, you were there at the killing!” muttered Bourget hoarsely.
“No--I do not like it! No--it is too much risk!” His voice grew suddenly
sharp with undisguised suspicion. “And why did you come to me, eh? Why
did you come to me? Who sent you here?”

“I came because Mentone must be driven to St. Eustace--because he is not
strong enough to walk,” said Raymond coolly. “And no one sent me here.
I heard of your fight this afternoon. The curé is telling around the
village that if he could not change the aspect of your heart, there was
no doubt as to the change in the aspect of your face.”

“_Sacré nom!_” gritted Bourget furiously. “He said that! I will show
him! I am not through with him yet! But what has he to do with this that
you come here? Eh? I do not understand.”

“Simply,” said Raymond meaningly, “that Monsieur le Curé is the one with
whom we shall have to deal in getting Mentone away.”

“Hah!” exclaimed Bourget fiercely. “Yes--I am listening now! Well?”

“He sits a great deal of the time in the room with Mentone,” explained
Raymond, with a callous laugh. “Very well. Mentone has been warned. If
this fool of a curé knows no better than to sit there all night tonight,
I will find some reason for calling him outside, and in the darkness
where he will recognise no one we shall know what to do with him, and
when we are through we will tie him and gag him and throw him into the
shed where he will not be found until morning. On the other hand, if we
are able to get Mentone away without the curé knowing it, you will
still not be without your revenge. He is responsible for Mentone, and if
Mentone gets away through the curé's negligence, the curé will get into
trouble with the police.”

“I like the first plan better,” decided Bourget, with an ugly sneer. “He
talks of my face, does he! _Nom de Dieu,_ he will not be able to talk of
his own! And a hundred dollars--eh? You said a hundred dollars? Well,
if there is no more risk than that in the rest of the plan, _sacré nom_,
you can count on Jacques Bourget”. . .

“There is no risk at all,” said Raymond. “And as to which plan--we shall
see. We shall have to be guided by the circumstances, eh? And for the
rest--listen! I will return by the beach, and watch the _presbytère_.
You give me time to get back, then harness your horse and drive down
there--drive past the _presbytère_. I will be listening, and will hear
you. Then after you have gone a little way beyond, turn around and come
back, and I will know that it is you. If you drive in behind the church
to where the people tie their horses at mass on Sundays, you can wait
there without being seen by any one passing by on the road. I will come
and let you know how things are going. We may have to wait a while after
that until everything is quiet, but in that way we will be ready to act
the minute it is safe to do so.”

“All that is simple enough,” Bourget grunted in agreement. “And then?”

“And then,” said Raymond, “we will get Mentone out through the window of
his room. There is a train that passes St. Eustace at ten minutes after
midnight--and that is all. The St. Eustace station, I understand, is
like the one here--far from the village, and with no houses about. He
can hide near the station until traintime; and, without having shown
yourself, you can drive back home and go to bed. It is your wife only
that you have to think of--she will say nothing, eh?”

“_Baptême!_” snorted Bourget contemptuously. “She has learned before now
when to keep her tongue where it belongs! And you? You are coming, too?”

“Do you think I am a fool, Bourget?” inquired Raymond shortly.
“When they find Mentone is gone, they will know he must have had an
accomplice, for he could not get far alone. They will be looking for two
of us travelling together. I will go the other way. That makes it safe
for Mentone--and safe for me. I can walk to Tournayville easily before
daylight; and in that way we shall both give the police the slip.”

“_Diable!_” grunted Bourget admiringly. “You have a head!”

“It is good enough to take care of us all in a little job like
to-night's,” returned Raymond, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Well,
do you understand everything? For if you do, there's no use wasting any
time.”

“Yes--I have it all!” Bourget's voice grew vicious again. “That _sacré
maudit curé!_ Yes, I understand.”

Raymond thrust the banknotes he had been holding into Bourget's hand.

“Here are fifty dollars to bind the bargain,” he said crisply. “You get
the other fifty at the church. If you don't get them, all you've got to
do is drive off and leave Mentone in the lurch. That's fair, isn't it?”

Bourget shuffled back to the edge of the lighted window, counted the
money, and shoved it into his pocket.

“_Bon Dieu!_” Bourget's puffed lip twisted into a satisfied grin. “I do
not mind telling you, my Pierre Desforges, that it is long since I have
seen so much.”

“Well, the other fifty is just as good,” said Raymond in grim
pleasantry. He stepped back and away from the house. “At the church
then, Bourget--in, say, three-quarters of an hour.”

“I will be there,” Bourget answered. “Have no fear--I will be there!”

“All right!” Raymond called back--and a moment later gained the beach
again.

At the rock, he once more put on his _soutane_; and, running now where
the sandy stretches gave him opportunity, scrambling as rapidly as
he could over the ledges of slate rock, he headed back for the
_presbytère_.

It was as good as done! There was a freeness to his spirits now--a
weight and an oppression lifted from him. Henri Mentone would stand in
no prisoner's dock the day after to-morrow to answer for the murder of
Théophile Blondin! And it was very simple--now that Bourget's aid had
been enlisted. He smiled ironically as he went along. It would not even
be necessary to pommel Monsieur le Curé into a state of insensibility!
Madame Lafleur retired very early--by nine o'clock at the latest--as did
Valérie. As soon as he heard Bourget drive up to the church, he would
go to the man to allay any impatience, and as evidence that the plan was
working well. He would return then to the _presbytère_--it was a matter
only of slipping on and off his _soutane_ to appear as Father Aubert to
Madame Lafleur and Valérie, and as Pierre Desforges to Jacques Bourget.
And the moment Madame Lafleur and Valérie were in bed, he would
extinguish the light in the front room as proof that Monsieur le Curé,
too, had retired, run around to the back of the house, get Henri
Mentone out of the window, and hand him over to Bourget, explaining that
everything had worked even more smoothly than he had hoped for, that all
were in bed, and that there was no chance of the escape being discovered
until morning. Bourget, it was true, was very likely to be disappointed
in the measure of the revenge wrecked upon the curé, but Bourget's
feelings in the matter, since Bourget then would have no choice but to
drive Henri Mentone to St. Eustace, were of little account.

And as far as Henri Mentone was concerned, it was very simple too. The
man would have ample time and opportunity to get well out of reach. He,
Raymond, would take care that the man's disappearance was not discovered
any earlier than need be in the morning! It would then be a perfectly
natural supposition--a supposition which he, Raymond, would father--that
the man, in his condition, could not be far away, but had probably only
gone restlessly and aimlessly from the house; and at first no one would
even think of such a thing as escape. They would look for him around
the _presbytère_, and close at hand on the beach. It would be impossible
that, weak as he was, the man had gone far! The search would perhaps
be extended to the village by the time Monsieur Dupont arrived for his
vanished prisoner. Then they would extend the search still further, to
the adjacent fields and woods, and it would certainly be noontime before
the alternative that the man, aided by an accomplice, had got away
became the only tenable conclusion. But even then Monsieur Dupont would
either have to drive three miles to the station to reach the telegraph,
or return to Tournayville--and by that time Henri Mentone would long
since have been in the United States.

And after that--Raymond smiled ironically again---well after that, it
would be Monsieur Dupont's move!




CHAPTER XV--HOW HENRI MENTONE RODE WITH JACQUES BOURGET

|IT was eight o'clock--the clock was striking in the kitchen--as Raymond
entered the _presbytère_ again. He stepped briskly to the door of the
front room, opened it, and paused--no, before going in there to wait,
it would be well first to let Madame Lafleur know that he was back,
to establish the fact that it was _after_ his return that the man had
escaped, that his evening walk could in no way be connected with what
would set all St. Marleau by the ears in the morning. And so he passed
on to the dining room, which Madame Lafleur used as a sitting room as
well. She was sewing beside the table lamp.

“Always busy, Madame Lafleur!” he called out cheerily, from the
threshold. “Well, and has Mademoiselle Valérie returned?”

“Ah, it is you, Monsieur le Curé!” she exclaimed, dropping her work on
her knees. “And did you enjoy your walk? No, Valérie has not come back
here yet, though I am sure she must have got back to her uncle's by now.
Did you want her for anything, Monsieur le Curé--to write letters? I can
go over and tell her.”

“But, no--not at all!” said Raymond hastily. He indicated the rear room
with an inclination of his head. “And our _pauvre_ there?”

Madame Lafleur's sweet, motherly face grew instantly troubled.

“You can hear him tossing on the bed yourself, Monsieur le Curé. I have
just been in to see him. He has one of his bad moods. He said he wanted
nothing except to be left alone. But I think he will soon be quiet. Poor
man, he is so weak he will be altogether exhausted--it is only his mind
that keeps him restless.”

Raymond nodded.

“It is a very sad affair,” he said slowly, “a very sad affair!” He
lifted a finger and shook it playfully at Madame Lafleur. “But we must
think of you too--eh? Do not work too late, Madame Lafleur!”

She answered him seriously.

“Only to finish this, Monsieur le Curé. See, it is an altar cloth--for
next Sunday.” She held it up. “It is you who work too hard and too
late.”

It was a cross on a satin background. He stared at it. It had been
hidden on her lap before. He had not been thinking of--a cross. For the
moment, assured of Henri Mentone's escape, he had been more light of
heart than at any time since he had come to St. Mar-leau; and, for the
moment, he had forgotten that he was a meddler with holy things, that
he was--a priest of God! It seemed as though this were being flaunted
suddenly now as a jeering reminder before his eyes; and with it he
seemed as suddenly to see the chancel, the altar of the church where the
cloth was to play its part--and himself kneeling there--and, curse
the vividness of it! he heard his own lips at their sacrilegious work:
“_Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas: et circumdabo altare tuum,
Domine_.... I will wash my hands among the innocent: and I will compass
Thine altar, O Lord.” And so he stared at this cross she held before
him, fighting to bring a pleased and approving smile to the lips that
fought in turn for their right to snarl a defiant mockery.

“Ah, you like it, Monsieur le Curé!” cried Madame Lafleur happily. “I am
so glad.”

And Raymond smiled for answer, and went from the room.

And in the front room he lighted the lamp upon his desk, and stood
there looking down at the two letters that still awaited the signature
of--Francois Aubert. “I will wash my hands among the innocent”--he
raised his hands, and they were clenched into hard and knotted fists.
Words! Words! They were only words. And what did their damnable
insinuations matter to him! Others might listen devoutly and believe, as
he mouthed them in his surplice and stole--but for himself they were
no more than the mimicry of sounds issuing from a parrot's beak! It was
absurd then that they should affect him at all. He would better laugh
and jeer at them, and all this holy entourage with which he cloaked
himself, for these things were being made to serve his own ends, were
being turned to his own account, and--it was Three-Ace Artie now, and
he laughed hoarsely under his breath--for once they were proving of some
real and tangible value! Madame Lafleur, and her cross, and her altar
cloth! He laughed again. Well, while she was busy with her churchly
task, that she no doubt fondly believed would hurry her exit through the
purgatory to come, he would busy himself a little in getting as speedily
as possible out of the purgatory of the present. These letters now.
While he was waiting, and there was an opportunity, he would sign them.
It would be easier to say that he had decided not to make any changes
in them after all, than to have new ones written and then have to
find another opportunity for signing the latter. He reached for
the prayer-book to make a tracing of the signature that was on the
fly-leaf--and suddenly drew back his hand, and stood motionless,
listening.

From the road came the rumble of wheels. The sound grew louder.
The vehicle passed by the _presbytère_, going in the direction of
Tournayville. The sound died away. Still Raymond listened--even more
intently than before. Jacques Bourget did not own the only horse and
wagon in St. Marleau, but Bourget was to turn around a little way down
the road, and return to the church. A minute, two passed, another;
and then Raymond caught the sound of a wheel-tire rasping and grinding
against the body of a wagon, as though the latter were being turned in a
narrow space--then presently the rattle of wheels again, coming back now
toward the church. And now by the church he heard the wagon turn in from
the road.

Raymond relaxed from his strained attitude of attention. Jacques
Bourget, it was quite evident, intended to earn the balance of his
money! Well, for a word then between Pierre Desforges and Jacques
Bourget--pending the time that Madame Lafleur and her altar cloth should
go to bed. The letters could wait.

He moved stealthily and very slowly across the room. Madame Lafleur must
not hear him leaving the house. He would be gone only a minute--just to
warn Bourget to keep very quiet, and to satisfy the man that everything
was going well. He could strip off his _soutane_ and leave it under the
porch.

Cautiously he opened the door, an inch at a time that it might not
creak, and stepped out into the hall on tiptoe--and listened. Madame
Lafleur's rocking chair squeaked back and forth reassuringly. She had
perhaps had enough of her altar cloth for a while! How could one do fine
needle work--and rock! And why that fanciful detail to flash across
his mind! And--his face was suddenly set, his lips tight-drawn
together--_what was this!_ These footsteps that had made no sound in
crossing the green, but were quick and heavy upon the porch outside! He
drew back upon the threshold of his room. And then the front door
was thrust open. And in the doorway was Dupont, Monsieur Dupont, the
assistant chief of the Tournayville police, and behind Dupont was
another man, and behind the man was--yes--it was Valerie.

“_Tiens! 'Cré nom d'un chien!_” clucked Monsieur Dupont. “Ha, Monsieur
le Curé, you heard us--eh? But you did not hear us until we were at the
door--and a man posted at the back of the house by that window there,
eh? No, you did not hear us. Well, we have nipped the little scheme in
the bud, eh?”

Dupont _knew!_ Raymond's hand tightened on the door jamb--and, as once
before, his other hand crept in under his crucifix, and under the breast
of his _soutane_ to his revolver.

“I do not understand”--he spoke deliberately, gravely. “You speak of a
scheme, Monsieur Dupont? I do not understand.”

“Ah, you do not understand!”--Monsieur Duponts face screwed up into a
cryptic smile. “No, of course, you do not understand! Well, you will in
a moment! But first we will attend to Monsieur Henri Mentone! Now
then, Marchand”--he addressed his companion, and pointed to the rear
room--“that room in there, and handcuff him to you. You had better stay
where you are, Monsieur le Curé. Come along, Marchand!”

Dupont and his companion ran into Henri Mentone's room. Raymond heard
Madame Lafleur cry out in sudden consternation. It was echoed by a cry
in Henri Mentone's voice. But he was looking at Valérie, who had stepped
into the hall. She was very pale. What had she to do with this? What did
it mean? Had she discovered that he--no, Dupont would not have rushed
away in that case, but then--His lips moved: “You--Valérie!” How very
pale she was--and how those dark eyes, deep with something he could not
fathom, sought his face, only to be quickly veiled by their long lashes.

“Do not look like that, Monsieur le Curé--as though I had done wrong.”
 she said in a low, hurried tone. “I am sorry for the man too; but the
police were to have taken him away to-morrow morning in any case. And if
I went for Monsieur Dupont to-night, it was----”

“You went for Monsieur Dupont?”--he repeated her words dazedly, as
though he had not heard aright. “It was you who brought Monsieur Dupont
here just now--from Tournayville! But--but, I do not understand at all!”

“Valérie! Valérie!”--it was Madame Lafleur, pale and excited, who had
rushed to her daughter's side. “Valérie, speak quickly! What are they
doing? What does all this mean?”

Valérie's arm stole around her mother's shoulder.

“I--I was just telling Father Aubert, mother,” she said, a little
tremulously. “You--you must not be nervous. See, it was like this.
You had just taken the man for a little walk about the green this
afternoon--you remember? When I came out of the house a few minutes
later to join you, I saw what I thought looked like some money sticking
out from one end of a folded-up piece of paper that was lying on the
grass just at the bottom of the porch steps. I was sure, of course, that
it was only a trick my imagination was playing on me, but I stooped down
and picked it up. It was money, a great deal of money, and there was
writing on the paper. I read it, and then I was afraid. It was from some
friend of that man's in there, and was a plan for him to make his escape
to-night.”

“Escape!”--Madame Lafleur drew closer to her daughter, as she glanced
apprehensively toward the rear room.

Dupont's voice floated menacingly out into the hall--came a gruff
oath from his companion--the sound of a chair over-turned--and Henri
Mentone's cry, pitched high.

In a curiously futile way Raymond's hand dropped from the breast of
his _soutane_ to his side. Valérie and her mother seemed to be swirling
around in circles in the hall before him. He forced himself to speak
naturally:

“And then?”

Valérie's eyes were on her mother.

“I did not want to alarm you, mother,” she went on rapidly; “and so I
told you I was going for a drive. I ran to uncle's house. He was out
somewhere. I could go as well as any one, and if Henri Mentone had a
friend lurking somewhere in the village there would be nothing to arouse
suspicion in a girl driving alone; and, besides, I did not know who this
friend might be, and I did not know who to trust. I told old Adèle that
I wanted to go for a drive, and she helped me to harness the horse.”

And now, as Raymond listened, those devils, that had chuckled and
screeched as the lumpy earth had thudded down on the lid of Théophile
Blondin's coffin, were at their hell-carols again. It was not just luck,
just the unfortunate turn of a card that the man had dropped the
money and the note. It was more than that. It seemed to hold a grim,
significant premonition--for the future. Those devils did well to
chuckle! Struggle as he would, they had woven their net too cunningly
for his escape. It was those devils who had torn his coat that night in
the storm, as he had tried to force his way through the woods. It was
_his_ coat that Henri Mentone was wearing. He remembered now that the
lining of the pocket on the inside had been ripped across. It was those
devils who had seen to that--for this--knowing what was to come. A
finger seemed to wag with hideous jocularity before his eyes--the finger
of fate. He looked at Valerie. It was nothing for her to have driven to
Tournayville, she had probably done it a hundred times before, but it
seemed a little strange that Henri Mentone's possible escape should have
been, apparently, so intimate and personal a matter to her.

“You were afraid, you said, Mademoiselle Valerie,” he said slowly.
“Afraid--that he would escape?”

She shook her head--and the colour mounted suddenly in her face.

“Of what then?” he asked.

“Of what was in the note,” she said, in a low voice. “I knew I had time,
for nothing was to be done until the _presbytère_ was quiet for the
night; but the plan then was to--to put you out of the way, and----”

His voice was suddenly hoarse.

“And you were afraid--for me? It was for me that you have done this?”

She did not answer. The colour was still in her cheeks--her eyes were
lowered.

“The blessed saints!” cried Madame Lafleur, crossing herself. “The
devils! They would do harm to Father Aubert! Well, I am sorry for that
man no longer! He----”

They were coming along the hall--Henri Mentone handcuffed to Monsieur
Dupont's companion, and Monsieur Dupont himself in the rear.

“Monsieur le Curé!” Henri Mentone called out wildly. “Monsieur le Curé,
do not----”

“Enough! Hold your tongue!” snapped Monsieur Dupont, giving the man a
push past Raymond toward the front door. “Do you appeal to Monsieur le
Curé because he has been good to you--or because you intended to knock
Monsieur le Curé on the head to-night! Bah! Hurry him along, Marchand!”
 Monsieur Dupont paused before Valérie and her mother. “You will do me a
favour, mesdames? A very great favour--yes? You will retire instantly to
bed--instantly. I have my reasons. Yes, that is right--go at once.”
 He turned to Raymond. “And you, Monsieur le Curé, you will wait for me
here, eh? Yes, you will wait. I will be back on the instant.”

The hall was empty. In a subconscious sort of way Raymond stepped back
into his room, and, reaching the desk, stood leaning heavily against it.
His brain would tolerate no single coherent thought. Valérie had done
this for fear of harm to him, Valérie had... there was Jacques Bourget
who if he attempted now to... it was no wonder that Henri Mentone had
been restless all evening, knowing that he had lost the note, and not
daring to question... the day after to-morrow there was to be a trial at
the criminal assizes... Valérie had not met his eyes, but there had been
the crimson colour in her face, and she had done this to save _him_...
were they still laughing, those hell-devils... were they now engaged in
making Valérie love him, and making her torture her soul because she
was so pure that no thought could strike her more cruelly than that
love should come to her for a priest? Ah, his brain was logical now! His
hands clenched, and unclenched, and clenched again. Impotent fury was
upon him. If it were true! Damn them to the everlasting place from
whence they came! But it was not true! It was but another trick of
theirs to make him writhe the more--to make _him_ believe she cared!

A footstep! He looked up. Monsieur Dupont was back.

“_Tiens!_” cried Monsieur Dupont. “Well, you have had an escape,
Monsieur le Curé! An escape! Yes, you have! But I do not take all the
credit. No, I do not. She is a fine girl, that Valérie Lafleur. If she
were a man she would have a career--with the police. I would see to it!
But you do not know yet what it is all about, Monsieur le Curé, eh?”

“There was a note and money that Mademoiselle Valérie said she
found”--Raymond's voice was steady, composed.

“_Zut!_” Monsieur Dupont laid his forefinger along the side of his nose
impressively. “That is the least of it! There is an accomplice--two of
them in it! You would not have thought that, eh, Monsieur le Curé? No,
you would not. Very well, then--listen! I have this Mentone safe, and
now I, Dupont, will give this accomplice a little surprise. There will
be the two of them at the trial for the murder of Théophile Blondin! The
grand jury is still sitting. You understand, Monsieur le Curé? Yes, you
understand. You are listening?”...

“I am listening,” said Raymond gravely--and instinctively glanced toward
the window. It might still have been Jacques Bourget who had turned
down there on the road; or, if not, then the man would be along at any
minute. In either case, he must find some way to warn Bourget. “I am
listening, Monsieur Dupont,” he said again. “You propose to lay a trap
for this accomplice?”

“It is already laid,” announced Monsieur Dupont complacently. “They
will discover with whom they are dealing! I returned at once with
Mademoiselle Valérie. I brought two men with me; but you will observe,
Monsieur le Curé, that I did not bring two teams--nothing to arouse
suspicion--nothing to indicate that I was about to remove our friend
Mentone to-night. It would be a very simple matter to secure a team here
when I was ready for it. You see, Monsieur le Curé? Yes, you see. Very
well! My plans worked without a hitch. Just as we approached the church,
we met a man named Jacques Bourget driving alone in a buckboard. Nothing
could be better. It was excellent. I stopped him. I requisitioned him
and his horse and his wagon in the name of the law. I made him turn
around, and told him to follow us back here after a few minutes. You
see, Monsieur le Curé? Yes, you see. Monsieur Jacques Bourget is now on
his way to Tournayville with one of my officers and the prisoner.”

Raymond's fingers were playing nonchalantly with the chain of his
crucifix. Raymond's face was unmoved. It was really funny, was it not!
No wonder those denizens of hell were shrieking with abandoned glee in
his ears. This time they had a right to be amused. It was really very
funny--that Jacques Bourget should be driving Henri Mentone away from
St. Marleau! Well, and now--what?

“You are to be congratulated, Monsieur Dupont,” he murmured. “But the
accomplice--the other one, who is still at large?”

“Ah, the other one!” said Monsieur Dupont, and laid his hand
confidentially on Raymond's arm. “The other--heh, _mon Dieu_, Monsieur
le Curé, but you wear heavy clothes for the summertime!”

It was the bulk of the sacristan's old coat! There was a smile in
Raymond's eyes, a curious smile, as he searched the other's face. One
could never be sure of Monsieur Dupont.

“A coat always under my _soutane_ in the evenings”--Raymond's voice was
tranquil, and he did not withdraw his arm.

“A coat--yes--of course!” Monsieur Dupont nodded his head. “Why not!
Well then, the other--listen. All has been done very quietly. No alarm
raised. None at all! I have sent Madame Lafleur and her daughter to
bed. The plan was that the accomplice should come to the back window for
Mentone. But they would not make the attempt until late--until all in
the village was quiet. That is evident, is it not? Yes, it is evident.
Very good! You sleep here in this room, Monsieur le Curé? Yes? Well, you
too will put out your light and retire at once. I will go into Mentone's
room, and wait there in the dark for our other friend to come to the
window. I will be Henri Mentone. You see? Yes, you see. It is simple, is
it not? Yes, it is simple. Before morning I will have the man in a
cell alongside of Henri Mentone. Do you see any objections to the plan,
Monsieur le Curé?”

“Only that it might prove very dangerous--for you,” said Raymond
soberly. “If the man, who is certain to be a desperate character,
attacked you before you----”

“Dangerous! Bah!” exclaimed Monsieur Dupont. “That is part of my
business. I do not consider that! I have my other officer outside there
now by the shed. As soon as the man we are after approaches the window,
the officer will leap upon him and overpower him. And now, Monsieur le
Curé, to bed--eh? And the light out!”

“At once!” agreed Raymond. “And I wish you every success, Monsieur
Dupont! If you need help you have only to call; or, if you like, I will
go in there and stay with you.”

“No, no--not at all!” Monsieur Dupont moved toward the door. “It is not
necessary. Nothing can go wrong. We may have to wait well through the
night, and there is no reason why you should remain up too. _Tiens!_
Fancy! Imagine! Did I not tell you that Mentone was a hardened rascal?
Two of them! Well, we will see if the second one can remember any better
than the first? The light, Monsieur le Curé--do not forget! He will not
come while there is a sound or a light about the house!” Monsieur Dupont
waved his hand, and the door closed on Monsieur Dupont.

Raymond, still leaning against the desk, heard the other walk along the
hall, and enter the rear room--and then all was quiet. He leaned over
and blew out the lamp. Nothing must be allowed to frustrate Monsieur
Dupont's plans!

And then, in the darkness, for a long time Raymond stood there. And
thinking of Monsieur Dupont's dangerous vigil in the other room, he
laughed; and thinking of Valérie, he knew a bitter joy; and thinking
of Henri Mentone, his hands knotted at his sides, and his face grew
strained and drawn. And after that long time was past, he fumbled with
his hands outstretched before him like a blind man feeling his way, and
flung himself down upon the couch.




CHAPTER XVI--FOR THE MURDER OF THÉOPHILE BLONDIN

|THEY sat on two benches by themselves, the witnesses in the trial
of Henri Mentone for the murder of Théophile Blondin. On one side of
Raymond was Valérie, on the other was Mother Blondin; and there was
Labbée, the station agent, and Monsieur Dupont, and Doctor Arnaud. And
on the other bench were several of the villagers, and two men Raymond
did not know, and another man, a crown surveyor, who had just testified
to the difference in time and distance from the station to Madame
Blondin's as between the road and the path--thus establishing for the
prosecution the fact that by following the path there had been ample
opportunity for the crime to have been committed by one who had left the
station after the curé had already started toward the village and yet
still be discovered by the curé on the road near the tavern. The counsel
appointed by the court for the defence had allowed the testimony to go
unchallenged. It was obvious. It did not require a crown surveyor to
announce the fact--even an urchin from St. Marleau was already aware
of it. The villagers too had testified. They had testified that Madame
Blondin had come running into the village screaming out that her son had
been murdered; and that they had gone back with her to her house and had
found the dead body of her son lying on the floor.

It was stiflingly hot in the courtroom; and the courtroom was crowded to
its last available inch of space.

There were many there from Tournayville--but there was all of St.
Marleau. It was St. Marleau's own and particular affair. Since early
morning, since very early morning, Raymond had seen and heard the
vehicles of all descriptions rattling past the _presbytère_, the
occupants dressed in their Sunday clothes. It was a _jour de fête_.
St. Marleau did not every day have a murder of its own! The fields were
deserted; only the very old and the children had not come. They were not
all in the room, for there was not place for them all--those who had
not been on hand at the opening of the doors had been obliged to content
themselves with gathering outside to derive what satisfaction they could
from their proximity to the fateful events that were transpiring within;
and they had at least seen the prisoner led handcuffed from the jail
that adjoined the courthouse, and had been rewarded to the extent of
being able to view with intense and bated interest people they had
known all their lives, such as Valérie, and Mother Blondin, and the more
privileged of their fellows who had been chosen as witnesses, as these
latter disappeared inside the building!

Raymond's eyes roved around the courtroom, and rested upon the judge
upon the bench. His first glance at the judge, taken at the moment the
other had entered the room, had brought a certain, quick relief. Far
from severity, the white-haired man sitting there in his black gown had
a kindly, genial face. He found his first impressions even strengthened
now. His eyes passed on to the crown prosecutor; and here, too, he
found cause for reassurance. The man was middle-aged, shrewd-faced,
and somewhat domineering. He was crisp, incisive, and had been even
unnecessarily blunt and curt in his speech and manner so far--he was
not one who would enlist the sympathy of a jury. On the other
hand--Raymond's eyes shifted again, to hold on the clean-cut, smiling
face of the prisoner's counsel--Lemoyne, that was the lawyer's name he
had been told, was young, pleasant-voiced, magnetic. Raymond experienced
a sort of grim admiration, as he looked at this man. No man in the
courtroom knew better than Lemoyne the hopelessness of his case, and yet
he sat there confident, smiling, undisturbed.

Raymond's eyes sought the floor. It was a foregone conclusion that the
verdict would be guilty. There was not a loophole for defence. But they
would not hang the man. He clung to that. Lemoyne could at least fight
for the man's life. They would not hang a man who could not remember.
They had beaten him, Raymond, the night before last; and at first he had
been like a man stunned with the knowledge that his all was on the table
and that the cards in his hand were worthless--and then had come a sort
of philosophical calm, the gambler's optimism--the hand was still to be
played. They would sentence the man for life, and--well, there was time
enough in a lifetime for another chance. Somehow--in some way--he
did not know now--but in some way he would see that there was another
chance. He would not desert the man.

Again he raised his eyes, but this time as though against his will, as
though they were impelled and drawn in spite of himself across the room.
That was Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie,
alias Henri Mentone, sitting there in the prisoner's box; at least, that
gaunt, thin-faced, haggard man there was dressed in Raymond Chapelle's
clothes--and _he_, François Aubert, the priest, the curé, in his
_soutane_, with his crucifix around his neck, sat here amongst the
witnesses at the trial of Raymond Chapelle, who had killed Théophile
Blondin in the fight that night. One would almost think the man _knew!_
How the man's eyes burned into him, how they tormented and plagued him!
They were sad, those eyes, pitiful--they were helpless--they seemed to
seek him out as the only _friend_ amongst all these bobbing heads, and
these staring, gaping faces.

“Marcien Labbée!”--the clerk's voice snapped through the courtroom.
“Marcien Labbée!” The clerk was a very fussy and important short
little man, who puffed his cheeks in and out, and clawed at his white
side-whiskers. “Marcien Labbée!”

The station agent rose from the bench, entered the witness box, and was
sworn.

With a few crisp questions, the crown prosecutor established the time of
the train's arrival, and the fact that the curé and another man had got
off at the station. The witness explained that the curé had started to
walk toward the village before the other man appeared on the platform.

“And this other man”--the crown prosecutor whirled sharply around, and
pointed toward Henri Mentone--“do you recognise him as the prisoner at
the bar?”

Labbée shook his head.

“It was very dark,” he said. “I could not swear to it.”

“His general appearance then? His clothes? They correspond with what you
remember of the man?”

“Yes,” Labbée answered. “There is no doubt of that.”

“And as I understand it, you told the man that Monsieur le Curé had
just started a moment before, and that if he went at once he would have
company on the walk to the village?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that he was not looking for that kind of company.”

There was a sudden, curious, restrained movement through the courtroom;
and, here and there, a villager, with pursed lips, nodded his head. It
was quite evident to those from St. Marleau at least that such as Henri
Mentone would not care for the company of their curé.

“You gave the man directions as to the short cut to the village?”

“Yes.”

“You may tell the court and the gentlemen of the jury what was said
then.”

Labbée, who had at first appeared a little nervous, now pulled down his
vest, and looked around him with an air of importance.

“I told him that the path came out at the tavern. When I said 'tavern,'
he was at once very interested. I thought then it was because he was
glad to know there was a place to stay--it was such a terrible night,
you understand? So I told him it was only a name we gave it, and that it
was no place for one to go. I told him it was kept by an old woman, who
was an _excommuniée_, and who made whisky on the sly, and that her son
was----”

“_Misérable!_”--it was Mother Blondin, in a furious scream. Her eyes,
under her matted gray hair, glared fiercely at Labbée.

“Silence!” roared the clerk of the court, leaping to his feet.

Raymond's hand closed over the clenched, bony fist that Mother Blondin
had raised, and gently lowered it to her lap.

“He will do you no harm, Madame Blondin,” he whispered reassuringly.
“And see, you must be careful, or you will get into serious trouble.”

Her hand trembled with passion in his, but she did not draw it away. It
was strange that she did not! It was strange that he felt pity for her
when so much was at stake, when pity was such a trivial and inconsequent
thing! This was a murder trial, a trial for the killing of this woman's
son. It was strange that he should be holding the _mother's_ hand,
and--it was Raymond who drew his hand away. He clasped it over his other
one until the knuckles grew white.

“And then?” prompted the crown prosecutor.

“And then, I do not remember how it came about,” Labbée continued, “he
spoke of Madame Blondin having money--enough to buy out any one around
there. I said it was true that it was the gossip that she had made a
lot, and that she had a well-filled stocking hidden away somewhere.”

“_Crapule!_”--Mother Blondin's voice, if scarcely audible this time, had
lost none of its fury.

The clerk contented himself with a menacing gesture toward his
own side-whiskers. The crown prosecutor paid no attention to the
interruption.

“Did the man give any reason for coming to St. Marleau?”

“None.”

“Did you ask him how long he intended to remain?”

“Yes; he said he didn't know.”

“He had a travelling bag with him?”

“Yes.”

“This one?”--the crown prosecutor held up Raymond's travelling bag from
the table beside him.

“I cannot say,” Labbée replied. “It was too dark on the platform.”

“Quite so! But it was of a size sufficient, in your opinion, to cause
the man inconvenience in carrying it in such a storm, so you offered to
have it sent over with Monsieur le Curé's trunk in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he could carry it all right.”

“He started off then with the bag along the road toward St. Marleau?”

“Yes.”

The crown prosecutor glanced inquiringly toward the prisoner's counsel.
The latter shook his head.

“You may step down, Monsieur Labbée,” directed the crown prosecutor.
“Call Madame Blondin!” There was a stir in the courtroom now. Heads
craned forward as the old woman shuffled across the floor to the witness
box--Mother Blondin was quite capable of anything--even of throwing to
the ground the Holy Book upon which the clerk would swear her! Mother
Blondin, however, did nothing of the sort. She gripped at the edge of
the witness box, mumbling at the clerk, and all the while straining her
eyes through her steel-bowed spectacles at the prisoner across the
room. And then her lips began to work curiously, her face to grow
contorted--and suddenly the courtroom was in an uproar. She was shaking
both scranny fists at Henri Mentone, and screaming at the top of her
voice.

“That is the man! That is the man!”--her voice became ungovernable,
insensate, it rose shrilly, it broke, it rose piercingly again. “That is
the man! The law! The law! I demand the law on him! He killed my son! He
did it! I tell you, he did it! He----”

Chairs and benches were scraping on the floor. Little cries of nervous
terror came from the women; involuntarily men stood up the better to
look at both Mother Blondin and the accused. It was a sensation! It was
something to talk about in St. Marleau over the stoves in the coming
winter. It was something of which nothing was to be missed.

“Order! Silence! Order!” bawled the clerk.

Valérie had caught Raymond's sleeve. He did not look at her. He was
looking at Henri Mentone--at the look of dumb horror on the man's
face--and then at a quite different figure in the prisoner's dock, whose
head was bent down until it could scarcely be seen, and whose face was
covered by his hands. He tried to force a grim complacence into his
soul. It was absolutely certain that _he_ had nothing to fear from the
trial. Nothing! The other Henri Mentone, the other priest, was answering
for the killing of that night, and--who was this speaking? The crown
prosecutor? He had not thought the man could be so suave and gentle.

“Try and calm yourself, Madame Blondin. You have a perfect right to
demand the punishment of the law upon the murderer of your son, and that
is what we are here for now, and that is why I want you to tell us just
as quietly as possible what happened that night.”

She stared truculently.

“Everybody knows what happened!” she snarled at him. “He killed my son!”

“How did he kill your son?” inquired the crown prosecutor, with a
sudden, crafty note of scepticism in his voice. “How do you know he
did?”

“I saw him! I tell you, I saw him! I heard my son shout '_voleur_' and
cry for help”--Mother Blon-din's words would not come fast enough now.
“I was in the back room. When I opened the door he was fighting my son.
He tried to steal my money. Some of it was on the floor. My son cried
for help again. I ran and got a stick of wood. My son tried to get his
revolver from the _armoire_. This man got it away from him. I struck the
man on the head with the wood, then he shot my son, and I ran out for
help.”

“And you positively identify the prisoner as the man who shot your son?”

“Yes, yes! Have I not told you so often enough!”

“And this”--the crown prosecutor handed her a revolver--“do you identify
this?”

“Yes; it was my son's.”

“You kept your money in a hiding place, Madame Blondin, I understand--in
a hollow between two of the logs in the wall of the room? Is that so?”

“Yes; it is so!”--Mother Blondin's voice grew shrill again. “But I will
find a better place for it, if I ever get it back again! The police are
as great thieves as that man! They took it from him, and now they keep
it from me!”

“It is here, Madame Blondin,” said the lawyer soothingly, opening a
large envelope. “It will be returned to you after the trial. How much
was there?”

“I know very well how much!” she shrilled out suspiciously. “You cannot
cheat me! I know! There were all my savings, years of savings--there was
more than five hundred dollars.”

A little gasp went around the courtroom. Five hundred dollars! It was a
fortune! Gossip then had not lied--it had been outdone!

“Now this hiding place, Madame Blondin--you had never told any one about
it? Not even your son?”

“No.”

“It would seem then that this man must have known about it in some way.
Had you been near it a short time previous to the fight?”

“I told you I had, didn't I? I told Monsieur Dupont all that once.”
 Mother Blondin was growing unmanageable again. “I went there to put some
money in not five minutes before I heard my son call for help.”

“Your son then was not in the room when you went to put this money
away?”

“No; of course, he wasn't! I have told that to Monsieur Dupont, too. I
heard him coming downstairs just as I left the room.”

“That is all, Madame Blondin, thank you, unless----” The crown
prosecutor turned again toward the counsel for the defence.

Lemoyne rose, and, standing by his chair without approaching the witness
box, took a small penknife from his pocket, and held it up.

“Madame Blondin,” he said gently, “will you tell me what I am holding in
my hand?”

Mother Blondin squinted, set her glasses further on her nose, and shook
her head.

“I do not know,” she said.

“You do not see very well, Madame Blondin?”--sympathetically.

“What is it you have got there--eh? What is it?” she demanded sharply.

Lemoyne glanced at the jury--and smiled. He restored the penknife to his
pocket.

“It is a penknife, Madame Blondin--one of my own. An object that any one
would recognise--unless one did not see very well. Are you quite sure,
Madame Blondin--quite sure on second thoughts--that you see well enough
to identify the prisoner so positively as the man who was fighting with
your son?”

The jury, with quick meaning glances at one another, with a new
interest, leaned forward in their seats. There was a tense moment--a
sort of bated silence in the courtroom. And then, as Mother Blondin
answered, some one tittered audibly, the spell was broken, the point
made by the defence swept away, turned even into a weapon against
itself.

“If you will give me a stick of wood and come closer, close enough so
that I can hit you over the head with it,” said Mother Blondin, and
cackled viciously, “you will see how well I can see!”

Madame Blondin stepped down.

And then there came upon Raymond a thrill, a weakness, a quick
tightening of his muscles. The clerk had called his name. He walked
mechanically to the witness stand. It was coming now. He must be on his
guard. But he had thought out everything very carefully, and--no, almost
before he knew it, he was back in his seat again. He had been asked only
if he had followed the road all the way from the station, to describe
how he had found the man, and to identify the prisoner as that man. He
was to be recalled. Le-moyne had not asked him a single question.

“Mademoiselle Valérie Lafleur!” called the clerk.

“Oh, Monsieur le Curé!” she whispered tremulously. “I--I do not want to
go. It--it is such a terrible thing to _have_ to say anything that would
help to send a man to death--I---”

“Mademoiselle Valérie Lafleur!” snapped the clerk. “Will the witness
have the goodness to----”

Raymond did not hear her testimony; he knew only that she, too,
identified the man as the one she had seen lying unconscious in
the road, and that the note she had found was read and placed in
evidence--in his ears, like a dull, constant dirge, were those words of
hers with which she had left him--“it is such a terrible thing to have
to say anything that would help to send a man to death.” Who was it that
was sending the man to death? Not he! He had tried to save the man.
It wasn't death, anyway. The man's guilt would appear obvious, of
course--Lemoyne, the lawyer, could not alter that; but he had still
faith in Lemoyne. Lemoyne would make his defence on the man's condition.
Lemoyne would come to that.

“My son!” croaked old Mother Blondin fiercely, at his side. “My son!
What I know, I know! But the law--the law on the man who killed my
son!”

“Pull yourself together, you fool!” rasped that inner voice. “Do
you want everybody in the courtroom staring at you. Listen to the
incomparable Dupont telling how clever he was!”

Yes, Dupont was on the stand now. Dupont was testifying to finding the
revolver and money in the prisoner's pockets. He verified the amount.
Dupont had his case at his fingers' tips, and he sketched it, with an
amazing conciseness for Monsieur Dupont, from the moment he had been
notified of the crime up to the time of the attempted escape. He was
convinced that, in spite of all precautions, the prisoner's accomplice
had taken alarm--since he, Dupont, had sat the night in the room waiting
for the unknown's appearance, and neither he nor his deputy, who had
remained until daylight hiding in the shed where he could watch the
prisoner's window, had seen or heard anything. On cross-examination he
admitted that pressure had been brought to bear upon the prisoner in
an effort to trip the man up in his story, but that the prisoner had
unswervingly held to the statement that he could remember nothing.

The voices droned through the courtroom. It was Doctor Arnaud now
identifying the man. They were always identifying the man! Why did not
he, the saintly curé of St. Marleau--no, it was Three-Ace Artie--why did
not he, Three-Ace Artie, laugh outright in all their faces! It was not
hard to identify the man. He had seen to that very thoroughly, more
thoroughly than even he had imagined that night in the storm when all
the devils of hell were loosed to shriek around him, and he had changed
clothes with a _dead_ man. A dead man--yes, that was the way it should
have been! Did he not remember how limply the man's neck and head wagged
on the shoulders, and how the body kept falling all over in grotesque
attitudes instead of helping him to get its clothes off! Only the dead
man had come to life! That was the man over there inside that box
with the little wood-turned decorations all around the railing--no, he
wouldn't look--but that man there who was the colour of soiled chalk,
and whose eyes, with the hurt of a dumb beast in them, kept turning
constantly in this direction, over here, here where the witnesses sat.

“Doctor Arnaud”--it was the counsel for the defence speaking, and
suddenly Raymond was listening with strained attention--“you have
attended the prisoner from the night he was found unconscious in the
road until the present time?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“You have heard me in cross-examination ask Mademoiselle Lafleur and
Monsieur Dupont if at any time during this period the prisoner, by
act, manner or word, swerved from his statement that he could remember
nothing, either of the events of that night, or of prior events in his
life. You have heard both of these witness testify that he had not done
so. I will ask you now if you are in a position to corroborate their
testimony?”

“I am,” replied Doctor Arnaud. “He has said nothing else to my
knowledge.”

“Then, doctor, in your professional capacity, will you kindly tell the
court and the gentlemen of the jury whether or not loss of memory could
result from a blow upon the head.”

“It could--certainly,” stated Doctor Arnaud. “There is no doubt of that,
but it depends on the----”

“Just a moment, doctor, if you please; we will come to that”--Lemoyne,
as Raymond knew well that Le-moyne himself was fully aware, was treading
on thin and perilous ice, but on Lemoyne's lips, as he interrupted, was
an engaging smile. “This loss of memory now. Will you please help us to
understand just what it means? Take a hypothetical case. Could a man,
for example, read and write, do arithmetic, say, appear normal in all
other ways, and still have lost the memory of his name, his parents, his
friends, his home, his previous state?”

“Yes,” said Doctor Arnaud. “That is quite true. He might lose the memory
of all those things, and still retain everything he has acquired by
education.”

“That is a medical fact?”

“Yes, certainly, it is a medical fact.”

“And is it not also a medical fact, doctor, that this condition has been
known to have been caused by a blow--I will not say so slight, for that
would be misleading--but by a blow that did not even cause a wound, and
I mean by wound a gash, a cut, or the tearing of the flesh?”

“Yes; that, too, is so.”

Lemoyne paused. He looked at Henri Mentone, and suddenly it seemed as
though a world of sympathy and pity were in his face. He turned and
looked at the jury--at each one of the twelve men, but almost as though
he did not see them. There was a mist in his eyes. It was silent again
in the courtroom. His voice was low and grave as he spoke again.

“Doctor Arnaud, are you prepared to state professionally under oath
that it is impossible that the blow received by the prisoner at the bar
should have caused him to lose his memory?”

“No.” Doctor Arnaud shook his head. “No; I would not say that.”

Lemoyne's voice was still grave.

“You admit then, Doctor Arnaud, that it is possible?”

Doctor Arnaud hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “It is possible, of course.”

“That is all, doctor”--Lemoyne sat down.

“One moment!”--the crown prosecutor, crisp, curt, incisive, was on his
feet. “Loss of memory is not insanity, doctor?”

“No.”

“Is the prisoner in your professional judgment insane?”

“No,” declared Doctor Arnaud emphatically. “Most certainly not!”

With a nod, the crown prosecutor dismissed the witness.

A buzz, whisperings, ran around the room. Raymond's eyes were fixed
sombrely on the floor. Relief had come with Lemoyne's climax, but now in
Doctor Arnaud's reply to the crown prosecutor he sensed catastrophe.
A sentence for life was the best that could be hoped for, but
suppose--suppose Lemoyne should fail to secure even that! No, no--they
would not hang the man! Even Doctor Arnaud had been forced to admit that
he might have lost his memory. That would be strong enough for any jury,
and--they were calling his name again, and he was rising, and walking
a second time to the witness stand. Surely all these people _knew_. Was
not his face set, and white, and drawn! See that ray of sunlight
coming in through that far window, and how it did not deviate, but came
straight toward him, and lay upon the crucifix on his breast, to draw
all eyes upon it, upon that Figure on the Cross, the Man Betrayed.
God, he had not meant this! He had thought the priest already dead that
night. It was a dead man he had meant should answer for the killing of
that ugly, scarred-faced, drunken blackguard, Théophile Blondin. That
couldn't do a dead man any harm! It was a dead man, a dead man, a dead
man--not this living, breathing one who----

“Monsieur le Curé,” said the crown prosecutor, “you were present in the
prisoner's room with Monsieur Dupont and Doctor Arnaud, when Monsieur
Dupont made a search of the accused's clothing?”

“Yes,” Raymond answered.

“Do you identify this revolver as the one taken from the prisoner's
pocket?”

What was it Valérie had said--that it was such a terrible thing to have
to say anything that would help to send a man to death? But the man was
not going to death. It was to be a life sentence--and afterwards, after
the trial, there would be time to think, and plot, and plan.

“It is the same one,” said Raymond in a low voice.

“You also saw Monsieur Dupont take a large number of loose bills from
the prisoner's pocket?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know their amount?”

“No. Monsieur Dupont did not count them at the time.”

“There were a great many, however, crumpled in the pocket, as though
they had been hastily thrust there?”

“Yes.”

Why did that man in the prisoner's dock look at him like that--not
in accusation--it was worse than that--it was in a sorrowful sort of
wonder, and a numbed despair. Those devils were laughing in his ears--he
was telling the _truth!_

“That is all, I think, Monsieur le Curé,” said the crown prosecutor
abruptly.

All! There came a bitter and abysmal irony. Puppets! All were puppets
upon a set stage--from the judge on the bench to that dismayed thing
yonder who wrung his hands before the imposing majesty of the law! All!
That was all, was it--the few words he had said? Who then was the author
of every word that had been uttered in the room, who then had pulled the
strings that jerked these automatons about in their every movement! Ah,
here was Lemoyne this time, the prisoner's counsel. This time there was
to be a cross-examination. Yes, certainly, he would like to help Lemoyne,
but Lemoyne must not try to trap him. Lemoyne, too, was a puppet, and
therefore Lemoyne could not be expected to know how very true it was
that “Henri Mentone” was on trial for his life, and that “Henri Mentone”
 would fight for that life with any weapon he could grasp, and that
Lemoyne would do the prisoner an ill turn to put “Henri Mentone” on the
defensive! Well--he brushed his hand across his forehead, and fixed his
eyes steadily on Lemoyne--he was ready for the man.

“Monsieur le Curé”--Lemoyne had come very close to the witness stand,
and Lemoyne's voice was soberly modulated--“Monsieur le Curé, I have
only one question to ask you. You have been with this unfortunate man
since the night you found him on the road, you have nursed him night and
day as a mother would a child, you have not been long in St. Marleau,
but in that time, so I am told, and I can very readily see why, you
have come to be called the good, young Father Aubert by all your parish.
Monsieur le Curé, you have been constantly with this man, for days and
nights you have scarcely left his side, and so I come to the question
that, it seems to me, you, of all others, are best qualified to answer.”
 Lemoyne paused. He had placed his two hands on the edge of the witness
box, and was looking earnestly into Raymond's face. “Monsieur le Curé,
do you believe that when the prisoner says that he remembers nothing of
the events of that night, that he has no recollection of the crime
of which he is accused--do you believe, Monsieur le Curé, that he is
telling the truth?”

There had been silence in the courtroom before--it was a silence now
that seemed to palpitate and throb, a _living_ silence. Instinctively
the crown prosecutor had made as though to rise from his chair; and
then, as if indifferent, had changed his mind. No one else in the
room had moved. Raymond glanced around him. They were waiting--for
his answer. The word of the good, young Father Aubert would go far.
Lemoyne's eyes were pleading mutely--for the one ground of defence, the
one chance for his client's life. But Lemoyne did not need to plead--for
that! They must not hang the man! They were waiting--for his answer.
Still the silence held. And then Raymond raised his right hand solemnly.

“As God is my judge,” he said, “I firmly believe that the man is telling
the truth.”

Benches creaked, there was the rustle of garments, a sort of unanimous
and involuntary long-drawn sigh; and it seemed to Raymond that, as all
eyes turned on the prisoner, they held a kindlier and more tolerant
light. And then, as he walked back to the other witnesses and took his
seat, he heard the crown prosecutor speak--as though disposing of the
matter in blunt disdain:

“The prosecution rests.”

Valérie laid her hand over his.

“I am so glad--so glad you said that,” she whispered.

Monsieur Dupont leaned forward, and clucked his tongue very softly.

“Hah, Monsieur le Curé!” He wagged his head indulgently. “Well, I
suppose you could not help it--eh? No, you could not. I have told you
before that you are too soft-hearted.”

There were two witnesses for the defence--Doctor Arnaud's two
fellow-practitioners in Tournayville. Their testimony was virtually
that of Doctor Arnaud in cross-examination. To each of them the crown
prosecutor put the same question--and only one. Was the prisoner insane?
Each answered in the negative.

And then, a moment later, Lemoyne, rising to sum up for the defence,
walked soberly forward to the jury-box, and halted before the twelve
men.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” he began quietly, “you have heard the
professional testimony of three doctors, one of them a witness for the
prosecution, who all agree that the wound received by the prisoner might
result in loss of memory. You have heard the testimony of that good man,
the curé of St. Marleau, who gave his days and nights to the care and
nursing of the one whose life, gentlemen, now lies in your hands; you
have heard him declare in the most solemn and impressive manner that he
believed the prisoner had no remembrance, no recollection of the night
on which the crime was committed. Who should be better able to form
an opinion as to whether, as the prosecution pretends, the prisoner is
playing a part, or as to whether he is telling the truth, than the one
who has been with him from that day to this, and been with him in the
most intimate way, more than any one else? And I ask you, too, to weigh
well and remember the character of the man, whom his people call the
good, young Father Aubert, who has so emphatically testified to this
effect. His words were not lightly spoken, and they were pure in
motive. You have heard other witnesses--all witnesses for the defence,
gentlemen--assert that they have seen nothing, heard nothing, that would
indicate that the prisoner was playing a part. Gentlemen, every scrap
of evidence that has been introduced but goes to substantiate the
prisoner's story. Is it possible, do you believe for an instant, that a
man could with his first conscious breath assume such a part, and, sick
and wounded and physically weak, play it through without a slip, or
sign, or word, or act that would so much as hint at duplicity? But that
is not all. Gentlemen, I will ask you to come with me in thought to a
scene that occurred this morning an hour before this trial began, and I
would that the gift of words were mine to make you see that scene as I
saw it.” He turned and swept out his hand toward the prisoner. “That man
was in his cell, on his knees beside his cot. He did not look up as I
entered, and I did not disturb him. We were alone together there. After
a few minutes he raised his head. There was agony in his face such as
I have never seen before on a human countenance. I spoke to him then.
I told him that professional confidence was sacred, I warned him of the
peril in which he stood, I pleaded with him to help me save his life, to
tell me all, everything, not to tie my hands. Gentlemen of the jury, do
you know his answer? It was a simple one--and spoken as simply. 'When
you came in I was asking God to give me back my memory before it was too
late.' That is what he said, gentlemen.”

There were tears in Lemoyne's eyes--there were tears in other eyes
throughout the courtroom. There was a cry in Raymond's heart that went
out to Le-moyne. He had not failed! He had not failed! Le-moyne had not
failed!

“Gentlemen, he did not know.” Lemoyne's voice rose now in impassioned
pleading--and he spoke on with that eloquence that is born only of
conviction and in the soul. It was the picture of the man's helplessness
he drew; the horror of an innocent man entangled in seemingly
incontrovertible evidence, and doomed to a frightful death. He played
upon the emotions with a master touch--and as the minutes passed sobs
echoed back from every quarter of the room--and in the jury box men
brushed their hands across their eyes. And at the end he was very quiet
again, and his words were very low.

“Gentlemen of the jury, I believe in my soul that this man is innocent.
I ask you to believe that he is innocent. I ask you to believe that if
he could tell of the events of that night he would stand before you a
martyr to a cruel chain of circumstance. And I ask you to remember the
terrible responsibility that rests upon you of passing judgment upon a
man, helpless, impotent, and alone, and who, deprived of all means of
self-defence, has only you to look to--for his life.”

There was buoyancy in Raymond's heart. Lemoyne had not failed! He had
been magnificent--triumphant! Even the judge was fumbling awkwardly with
the papers on his desk. What did it matter now what the crown prosecutor
might say? No one doubted perhaps that the man was guilty, but the spell
that Lemoyne had cast would remain, and there would be mercy. A chill
came, a chill like death--if it were not so, what would he have to face!

“Gentlemen of the jury”--the crown prosecutor was speaking now--“I
should do less than justice to my learned friend if I did not admit that
I was affected by his words; but I should also do less than justice to
the laws of this land, to you, and to myself if I did not tell you that
emotion has no place in the consideration of this case, and that fact
alone must be the basis of your verdict. I shall not keep you long. I
have only a few words to say. The court will instruct you that if the
prisoner is sane he is accountable to the law for his crime. We are
concerned, not with his loss of memory, though my learned friend has
made much of that, but with his sanity. The court will also instruct
you on that point. I shall not, therefore, discuss the question of the
prisoner's mental condition, except to recall to your minds that the
medical testimony has been unanimous in declaring that the accused
is not insane; and except to say that, in so far as loss of memory is
concerned, it is plainly evident that he was in full possession of
all his faculties at the time the murder was committed, and that I am
personally inclined to share the opinion of his accomplice in crime--a
man, gentlemen, whom we may safely presume is even a better judge of the
prisoner's character than is the curé of St. Marleau--who, from the note
you have heard read, has certainly no doubt that the prisoner is not
only quite capable of attempting such a deception, but is actually
engaged in practising it at the present moment.

“I pass on to the facts' brought out by the evidence. On the night
of the crime, a man answering the general description of the prisoner
arrived at the St. Marleau station. It was a night when one, and
especially a stranger, would naturally be glad of company on the
three-mile walk to the village. The man refused the company of the curé.
Why? He, as it later appears, had very good reasons of his own! It was
such a night that it would be all one would care to do to battle against
the wind without being hampered by a travelling bag. He refused the
station agent's offer to keep the bag until morning and send it over
with the curé's trunk. Why? It is quite evident, in view of what
followed, that he did not expect to be there the next morning! He
drew from the station agent, corroborating presumably the information
previously obtained either by himself or this unknown accomplice, the
statement that Madame Blondin was believed to have a large sum of money
hidden away somewhere in her house. That was the man, gentlemen, who
answers the general description of the prisoner. Within approximately
half an hour later Madame Blondin's house is robbed, and, in an effort
to protect his mother's property, Théophile Blondin is shot and killed.
The question perhaps arises as to how the author of this crime knew the
exact hiding place where the money was kept. But it is not material, in
as much as we know that he was in a position to be in possession of that
knowledge. He might have been peering in through the window when Madame
Blondin, as she testified, was at the hiding place a few minutes before
he broke into her house--or his accomplice, still unapprehended, may, as
I have previously intimated, already have discovered it.

“And now we pass entirely out of the realm of conjecture. You have
heard the testimony of the murdered man's mother, who both saw and
participated in the struggle. The man who murdered Théophile Blondin,
who was actually seen to commit the act, is identified as the prisoner
at the bar. He was struck over the head by Madame Blondin with a stick
of wood, which inflicted a serious wound. We can picture him running
from the house, after Madame Blondin rushed out toward the village to
give the alarm. He did not, however, get very far--he was himself too
badly hurt. He was found lying unconscious on the road a short distance
away. Again the identification is complete--and in his pocket is found
the motive for the crime, Madame Blondin's savings--and in his pocket
is found the weapon, Théophile Blondin's revolver, with which the murder
was committed. Gentlemen, I shall not take up your time, or the time of
this court needlessly. No logical human being could doubt the prisoner's
guilt for an instant. I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, to return a
verdict in accordance with the evidence.”

Raymond did not look up, as the crown prosecutor sat down. “No logical
human being could doubt the prisoner's guilt for an instant.” That was
true, wasn't it? No human being--save only _one_. Well, he had expected
that--it was even a tribute to his own quick wit. Puppets! Yes,
puppets--they were all puppets--all but himself. But if there was guilt,
there was also mercy. They would show mercy to a man who could not
remember. How many times had he said that to himself! Well, he had been
right, hadn't he? He had more reason to believe it now than he had
had to believe it before. Lemoyne had, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
convinced every one in the courtroom that the man could not remember.

“Order! Attention! Silence!” rapped out the clerk pompously.

The judge had turned in his seat to face the jury.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” he said impassively, “it is my province to
instruct you in the law as it applies to this case, and as it applies
to the interpretation of the evidence before you. There must be no
confusion in your minds as to the question of the prisoner's mental
condition. The law does not hold accountable, nor does it bring to trial
any person who is insane. The law, however, does not recognise loss of
memory as insanity. There has been no testimony to indicate that the
prisoner is insane, or even that he was not in an entirely normal
condition of mind at the time the crime was committed; there has been
the testimony of three physicians that he is not insane. You have
therefore but one thing to consider. If, from the evidence, you believe
that the prisoner killed Théophile Blondin, it is your duty to bring in
a verdict of guilty; on the other hand, the prisoner is entitled to the
benefit of any reasonable doubt as to his guilt that may exist in your
minds. You may retire, gentlemen, for your deliberations.”

There was a hurried, whispered consultation amongst the twelve men in
the jury box. It brought Raymond no surprise that the jury did not leave
the room. It brought him no surprise that the figure with the thin, pale
face, who was dressed in Raymond Chapelle's clothes, should be ordered
to stand and face those twelve men, and hear the word “guilty” fall from
the foreman's lips. He had known it, every one had known it--it was the
judge now, that white-haired, kindly-faced man, upon whom he riveted his
attention. A sentence for life... yes, that was terrible enough... but
there was a way... there would be some way in the days to come... he had
fastened this crime upon a dead man to save his own life... not on this
living one whose eyes now he could not meet across the room, though
he could feel them upon him, feel them staring, staring at his naked
soul... he would find some way... there would be time, there was all
of time in a sentence for life... he would not desert the man, he
would-----

“Henri Mentone”--the judge was speaking again--“you have been found
guilty by a jury of your peers of the murder of one Théophile Blondin.
Have you anything to say why the sentence of this court should not be
passed upon you?”

There was no answer. What was the man doing? Was he crying? Trembling?
Was there that old nameless horror in the face? Were his lips quivering
as a child's lips quiver when it is broken-hearted? Raymond dared
not look; dared not look anywhere now save at the white-haired,
kindly-faced--yes, he was kindly-faced--judge. And then suddenly he
found himself swaying weakly, and his shoulder bumped into old Mother
Blondin. Not that--great God--not that! That kindly-faced man was
putting a _black hat_ on his head, and standing up. Everybody was
standing up. He, too, was standing up, only he was not steady on his
feet. Was Valérie's hand on his arm in nervous terror, or to support
him! Some one was speaking. The words were throbbing through his brain.
Yes, throbbing--throbbing and clanging like hammer blows--that was why
he could not hear them all.

“... the sentence of this court... place of confinement... thence to the
place of execution... hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God
have mercy on your soul.”

And then Raymond looked; and through the solemn silence, and through the
doom that hung upon the room, there came a cry. It was Henri Mentone.
The man's hands were stretched out, the tears were streaming down
his cheeks. And was this mockery--or a joke of hell! Then why did not
everybody howl and scream with mirth! The man was calling upon himself
to save himself! No, no--he, Raymond, was going mad to call it mockery
or mirth. It was ghastly, horrible, pitiful beyond human understanding,
it tore at the heart and the soul--the man was doing what that Figure
upon the Cross had once been bade to do--his own name was upon his own
lips, he was calling upon himself to save himself. And the voice in
agony rang through the crowded room, and people sobbed.

“Father--Father Francois Aubert, help me, do not leave me! I do not
know--I do not understand. Father--_Father François Aubert_, help me--I
do not understand!”

And Raymond, groping out behind him, flung his arm across the back of
the bench, and, sinking down, his head fell forward, and his face was
hidden.

“_Tiens_,” said Mother Blondin sullenly, as though forced to admit it
against her will, “he has a good heart, even if he is a priest.”




CHAPTER XVII--THE COMMON CUP

|IT seemed as though it were an immeasurable span of time since that
voice had rung through the courtroom. He could hear it yet--he was
hearing it always. “Father--Father François Aubert--help me--I do not
know--I do not understand.” And sometimes it was pitiful beyond that
of any human cry before; and sometimes it was dominant in its ghastly
irony. And yet that was only yesterday, and it was only the afternoon of
the next day now.

There were wild roses, and wild raspberries growing here along the side
of the road, and the smoke wreathed upward from the chimneys of the
whitewashed cottages, and the water lapped upon the shore--these things
were unchanged, undisturbed, unaffected, untouched. It seemed curiously
improper that it should be so--that the sense of values was somehow
lost.

He had come from the courtroom with his brain in a state of numbed
shock, as it were, like a wound that has taken the nerve centres by
surprise and had not yet begun to throb. It was instinct, the instinct
to fight on, the instinct of self-preservation that had bade him grope
his way to Lemoyne, the counsel for the defence. “I have friends who
have money,” he had said. “Appeal the case--spare no effort--I will see
that the expenses are met.” And after that he had driven back to St.
Marleau, and after that again he had lived through a succession of
blurred hours, obeying mechanically a sense of routine--he had talked to
the villagers, he had eaten supper with Valérie and her mother, he
had gone to bed and lain awake, he had said mass in the church that
morning--mass!

Was it the heat of the day! His brow was feverish. He took off his hat,
and turned to let the breeze from the river fan his face and head. It
was only this afternoon, a little while ago, that he had emerged from
that numbed stupor, and now the hurt and the smarting of the wound had
come. His brain was clear now--_terribly_ clear. Better that the stupor,
which was a kindly thing, had remained! He had said mass that morning.
“_Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas_--I will wash my hands among the
innocent.” In the sight of holy God, he had said that; at God's holy
altar as he had spoken, symbolising his words, he had washed his fingers
in water. It had not seemed to matter so much then, he had even mocked
cynically at those same words the night that Madame Lafleur had shown
him the altar cloth--but that other voice, those other words had
not been pounding at his ears then, as now. And now they were joined
together, his voice and that other voice, his words and those other
words: “I will wash my hands among the innocent--hanged by the neck
until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

He stood by the roadside hatless. Through the open doorway of a
cottage a few yards away he could see old grandmother Frenier, who was
exceedingly poor, and deaf, and far up in the eighties, contentedly at
work with her spinning-wheel; on the shore, where the tide was half
out and the sand of the beach had merged into oozy mud, two bare-footed
children overturned the rocks of such size as were not beyond their
strength, laughing gleefully as they captured the sea-worms, whose
nippers could pinch with no little degree of ferocity, and with which,
later, no doubt, they intended to fish for tommy-cods; also there was
sunlight, and sparkling water, and some one driving along the road
toward him in a buckboard; and he could hear Bouchard in the carpenter
shop alternately hammering and whistling--the whistling was out of tune,
it was true, but what it lacked in melody it made up in spirit. This was
reality, this was actuality, happiness and peace, and contentment, and
serenity; and he, standing here on the road, was an integral part of the
scene--no painter would leave out the village curé standing hatless
on the road--the village curé would, indeed, stand out as the central
figure, like a benediction upon all the rest. Why then should he not in
truth, as in semblance, enter into this scene of tranquillity? Where did
they come from, those words that were so foreign to all about him, where
had they found birth, and why were they seared into his brain so that
he could not banish them? Surely they were but an hallucination--he had
only to look around him to find evidence of that. Surely they had no
basis in fact, those words--“hanged by the neck until you are dead, and
may God have mercy on your soul.”

They seemed to fade slowly away, old grandmother Frenier and her
spinning-wheel, and the children puddling in the mud, and the buckboard
coming along the road; and he no longer heard the whistling from the
carpenter shop--it seemed to fade out like a picture on a cinema
screen, while another crept there, at first intangible and undefined,
to supplant the first. It was sombre and dark, and a narrow space, and
a shadowy human form. Then there came a ray of light--sunlight, only
the gladness and the brightness were not in the sunlight because it had
first to pass through an opening where there were iron bars. But the ray
of light, nevertheless, grew stronger, and the picture took form. There
were bare walls, and bare floors, and a narrow cot--and it was a cell.
And the shadowy form became more distinct--it was a man, whose back
was turned, who stood at the end of the cell, and whose hands were each
clutched around one of the iron bars, and who seemed to be striving to
thrust his head out into the sunlight, for his head, too, was pressed
close against the iron bars. And there was something horribly familiar
in the figure. And then the head turned slowly, and the sunlight, that
was robbed of its warmth and its freedom, slanted upon a pale cheek, and
ashen lips, and eyes that were torture-burned; and the face was the face
of the man who was--to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, and upon
whose soul that voice had implored the mercy of God.

Raymond stared at his hat which was lying in the road. How had it got
there? He did not remember that he had dropped it. He had been holding
it in his hand. This buckboard that was approaching would run over it.
He stooped and picked it up, and mechanically began to brush away the
dust. That figure in the buckboard seemed to be familiar, too. Yes, of
course, it was Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief of the Tournayville
police--the man who always answered his own questions, and clucked with
his tongue as though he were some animal learning to talk. But Monsieur
Dupont mattered little now. It was not old grandmother Frenier and her
spinning-wheel that was reality--it was Father François Aubert in the
condemned cell of the Tournayville jail, waiting to be hanged by the
neck until he was dead for the murder of Théophile Blondin.

Raymond put on his hat with forced calmness. He must settle this with
himself; he could not afford to lose his poise--either mentally or
physically. He laid no claim to the heroic or to the quixotic--he did
not want to die in the stead of that man, or in the stead of any other
man. Neither was he a coward--no man had ever called Raymond Chapelle,
or Arthur Leroy, or Three-Ace Artie a coward. He was a gambler--and
there was still a chance. There was the appeal. He was gambling now for
both their lives. He would lay down no hand, he would fight as he had
always fought--to the end--while a chance remained. There was still
a chance--the appeal. It was long odds, he knew that--but it was a
chance--and he was a gambler. He could only wait now for the turn of the
final card. He would not tolerate consideration beyond that point--not
if with all his might he could force his brain to leave that
“afterwards” alone. It was weeks yet to the date set for the execution
of Henri Mentone for the murder of Théophile Blondin, and it would
be weeks yet before the appeal was acted upon. He could only wait
now--here--here in St. Marleau, as the good young Father Aubert. He
could not run away, or disappear, like a pitiful coward, until
that appeal had had its answer. Afterwards--no, there was no
“afterwards”--not _now!_ Now, it was the ubiquitous Monsieur Dupont, the
short little man with the sharp features, and the roving black eyes that
glanced everywhere at once, who was calling to him, and clambering out
of the buckboard.

“You are surprised to see me, eh, Monsieur le Curé?” clucked Monsieur
Dupont. “Yes, you are surprised. Very well! But what would you say, eh,
if I told you that I had come to arrest Monsieur le Curé of St. Marleau?
Eh--what would you say to that?”

Arrest! Curious, the cold, calculating alertness that swept upon him at
that word! What had happened?

Was the game up--now? Curious, how he measured appraisingly--and almost
contemptuously--the physique of this man before him. And then, under his
breath, he snarled an oath at the other. Curse Monsieur Dupont and his
perverted sense of humour! It was not the first time Monsieur Dupont had
startled him. Monsieur Dupont was grinning broadly--like an ape!

“I imagine,” said Raymond placidly, “that what I would say, Monsieur
Dupont, would be to inquire as to the nature of the charge against
Monsieur le Curé of St. Marleau.”

“And I,” said Monsieur Dupont, “would at once reply--assault.
Assault--bodily harm and injury--assault upon the person of one Jacques
Bourget.”

“Oh!” said Raymond--and smiled. “Yes, I believe there have been rumours
of it in the village, Monsieur Dupont. Several have spoken to me about
it, and I even understand that the Curé of St. Marleau pleads guilty.”

And then Monsieur Dupont puckered up his face, and burst into a guffaw.

“_'Cré nom_--ah, pardon--but it is excusable, one bad little word,
eh? Yes, it is excusable. But imagine--fancy! The good, young Father
Aubert--and Jacques Bourget! I would have liked to have seen it. Yes,
I would! Monsieur le Curé, you do not look it, but you are magnificent.
Monsieur le Curé, I lift my hat to you. _Bon Dieu_--ah, pardon
again--but you were not gentle with Jacques Bourget, whom one would
think could eat you alive! And you told me nothing about it--you are
modest, eh? Yes, you are modest.”

“I have had no opportunity to be modest.” Raymond laughed, “since, so
I understand, Bourget encountered some of the villagers on his way home
that afternoon, and gave me a reputation that, to say the least of it,
left me with little to be modest about.”

“I believe you,” chuckled Monsieur Dupont. “I believe you, Monsieur
le Curé, since I, too, got the story from Jacques Bourget himself.
He desired to swear out a warrant for your arrest. You have not seen
Bourget for several days, eh, Monsieur le Curé? No, you have not seen
him. But I know very well how to handle such as he! He will swear out
no warrant. On the contrary, he would very gladly feed out of anybody's
hand just now--even yours, Monsieur le Curé. I have the brave Jacques
Bourget in jail at the present moment.”

“In jail?” Raymond's puzzled frown was genuine. “But----”

“Wait a minute, Monsieur le Curé”--Monsieur Dupont's smile was suddenly
gone. He tapped Raymond impressively on the shoulder. “There is more in
this than appears on the surface, Monsieur le Curé. You see? Yes,
you see. Well then, listen! He talked no longer of a warrant when I
threatened him with arrest for getting whisky at Mother Blondin's. I had
him frightened. And that brings us to Mother Blondin, which is one
of the reasons I am here this afternoon--but we will return to Mother
Blondin's case in a moment. You remember, eh, that I caught Bourget
driving on the road the night Mentone tried to escape, and that I made
him drive the prisoner to Tournayville? Yes, you remember. Very good!
This morning his wife comes to Tournayville to say that he has not been
seen since that night. We make a search. He is not hard to find. He has
been drunk ever since--we find him in a room over one of the saloons
just beginning to get sober again. Also, we find that since that night
Bourget, who never has any money, has spent a great deal of money. Where
did Bourget get that money? You begin to see, eh, Monsieur le Curé? Yes,
you begin to see.” Monsieur Dupont laid his forefinger sagaciously along
the side of his nose. “Very good! I begin to question. I am instantly
suspicious. Bourget is very sullen and morose. He talks only of a
warrant against you. I seize upon that story again to threaten him with,
if he does not tell where he got the money. I put him in jail, where
I shall keep him for two or three days to teach him a lesson before
letting him go. It is another Bourget, a very lamblike Bourget, Monsieur
le Curé, before I am through; though I have to promise him immunity for
turning king's evidence. Do you see what is coming, Monsieur le Curé?
No, you do not. Most certainly you do not! Very well then, listen! I am
on the track of Mentone's accomplice. Bourget was in the plot. It was
Bourget who was to drive Mentone away that night--to the St. Eustace
station--after they had throttled you. Now, Monsieur le Curé”--Monsieur
Dupont's eyes were afire; Monsieur Dupont assumed an attitude; Monsieur
Dupont's arms wrapped themselves in a fold upon his breast--“now,
Monsieur le Curé, what do you say to that?”

“It is amazing!”--Raymond's hands, palms outward, were lifted in a
gesture eminently clerical. “Amazing! I can hardly credit it. Bourget
then knows who this accomplice is?”

“No--_tonnerre_--that is the bad luck of it!” scowled Monsieur Dupont.
“But there is also good luck in it. I am on the scent. I am on the
trail. I shall succeed, shall I not? Yes, certainly, I shall succeed.
Very well then, listen! It was dark that night. The man went to
Bourget's house and called Bourget outside. Bourget could not see what
the fellow looked like. He gave Bourget fifty dollars, and promised
still another fifty as soon as Bourget had Mentone in the wagon. And it
was on your account, Monsieur le Curé, that he went to Bourget.”

Raymond was incredulous.

“On mine?” he gasped.

“Yes, certainly--on yours. It was to offer Bourget a chance to revenge
himself on you. You see, eh? Yes, you see. He said he had heard of
what you had done to Bourget. Very well! We have only to analyse that a
little, and instantly we have a clue. You see where that brings us, eh,
Monsieur le Curé?” Raymond shook his head.

“No, I must confess, I don't,” he said.

“Hah! No? _Tiens!_” ejaculated Monsieur Dupont almost pityingly. “It
is easy to be seen, Monsieur le Curé, that you would make a very poor
police officer, and an equally poor criminal--the law would have its
fingers on you while you were wondering what to do. It is so, is it not?
Yes, it is so. You are much better as a priest. As a priest--I pay
you the compliment, Monsieur le Curé--you are incomparable. Very good!
Listen, then! I will explain. The fellow said he had heard of your fight
with Bourget. Splendid! Excellent! He must then have heard of it from
_some one_. Therefore he has been seen in the neighbourhood by some one
besides Bourget. Who is that 'some one' who has talked with a stranger,
and who can very likely tell us what that stranger looks like, where
Bourget cannot? I do not say that it is certain, but that it is likely.
It may not have been so dark when he talked to this 'some one'--eh? In
any case it is enough to go on. Now, you see, Monsieur le Curé, why I am
here--I shall begin to question everybody; and for your part, Monsieur
le Curé, you can do a great deal in letting the parish know what we are
after.”

Raymond looked at Monsieur Dupont with admiration. Monsieur Dupont had
set himself another “vigil”!

“Without doubt, Monsieur Dupont!” he assured the other heartily.
“Certainly, I will do my utmost to help you. I will have a notice posted
on the church door.”

“Good!” cried Monsieur Dupont, with a gratified smile. “And now another
matter--and one that will afford you satisfaction, Monsieur le Curé.
In a day or so, I will see that Mother Blondin is the source of no more
trouble in St. Marleau--or anywhere else.”

“Mother Blondin?” repeated Raymond--and now he was suddenly conscious
that he was in some way genuinely disturbed.

“Yes,” said Monsieur Dupont. “Twice in the past we have searched her
place. We knew she sold whisky. But she was too sharp for us--and those
who bought knew how to keep their mouths shut. But with Bourget as a
witness, it is different, eh? You see? Yes, you see. She is a fester,
a sore. We will clean up the place; we will put her in jail. The air
around here will be the sweeter for it, and----”

“No,” said Raymond soberly. “No, Monsieur Dupont”--his hands reached
out and clasped on Monsieur Dupont's shoulders. He knew now what was
disturbing him. It was that surge of pity for the proscribed old woman,
that sense of miserable distress that he had experienced more than once
before. The scene of that morning, when she had clung to the palings of
the fence outside the graveyard while they shovelled the earth upon the
coffin of her son, rose vividly before him. And it was he again who was
bringing more trouble upon her now through his dealings with Jacques
Bourget. Yes, it was pity--and more. It was a swiftly matured, but none
the less determined, resolve to protect her. “No, Monsieur Dupont, I beg
of you”--he shook his head gravely--“no, Monsieur Dupont, you will not
do that.”

“Heh! No? And why not?” demanded Monsieur Dupont in jerky astonishment.
“I thought you would ask for nothing better. She is already an
_excommuniée_, and-----”

“And she has suffered enough,” said Raymond earnestly. “It would seem
that sorrow and misery had been the only life she had ever known. She is
too old a woman now to have her home taken from her, and herself sent
to jail. She is none too well, as it is. It would kill her. A little
sympathy, a little kindness, Monsieur Dupont--it will succeed far
better.”

“Bah!” sniffed Monsieur Dupont. “A little sympathy, a little kindness!
And will that stop the whisky selling that the law demands shall be
stopped, Monsieur le Curé?”

“I will guarantee that,” said Raymond calmly.

“You!” Monsieur Dupont clucked vigorously with his tongue. “You will
stop that! And besides other things, do you perform miracles, Monsieur
le Curé? How will you do that?”

“You must leave it to me”--Raymond's hands tightened in friendly fashion
on Monsieur Dupont's shoulders--“I will guarantee it. If that is a
miracle, I will attempt it. If I do not succeed I will tell you so, and
then you will do as you see fit. You will agree, will you not, Monsieur
Dupont?--and I shall be deeply grateful to you.”

Monsieur Dupont shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“I have to tell you again that you are too soft-hearted, Monsieur le
Curé. Yes, there is no other name for it--soft-hearted. And you will be
made a fool of. I warn you! Well--very well! Try it, if you like. I
give you a week. If at the end of a week--well, you understand? Yes, you
understand.”

“I understand,” said Raymond; and, with a final dap on Monsieur Dupont's
shoulders, he dropped his hands. “And I am of the impression that
Monsieur le Curé is not the only one who is--soft-hearted.”

“Bah! Nothing of the sort! Nothing of the sort!” snorted Monsieur Dupont
in a sort of pleased repudiation, as he climbed back into the buckboard.
“It is only to open your eyes.” He picked up the reins. “I shall spend
the rest of the day around here on that other business. Do not forget
about the notice, Monsieur le Curé.”

“It shall be posted on the church door this afternoon,” Raymond
promised.

He stood for a moment looking after Monsieur Dupont, as the other drove
off; and then, turning abruptly, he walked rapidly along in the opposite
direction, and, reaching the station road that led past old Mother
Blondin's door, began to climb the hill. Yes, decidedly he would post
a notice on the church door for Monsieur Dupont! If in any way he could
aid Monsieur Dupont to lay hands on this accomplice of Henri Mentone,
he--the derision that had crept to his lips faded away, and into the
dark eyes came a sudden weariness. There was humour doubtless in the
picture of Monsieur Dupont buttonholing every one he met, as he flitted
indefatigably all over the country in pursuit for his mare's nest; but,
somehow, he, Raymond, was not in the mood for laughter--for even a grim
laughter.

There was a man waiting to be hanged; and, besides the man waiting to be
hanged, there was--Valérie.

There was Valérie who, come what would, some day, near or distant,
whether he escaped or not, must inevitably know him finally for the man
he was. Not that it would change her life, it was only those devils of
hell who tried to insinuate that she cared; but to him it was a thought
pregnant with an agony so great that he could _pray_--he who had thought
never to bow the knee in sincerity to God--yes, that he could pray,
without mimicry, without that hideous profanation upon his lips, that
he might not stand despised, a contemptuous thing, a sacrilegious
profligate, in the eyes of the woman whom he loved.

He clenched his hands. He was not logical. If he cared so much as that
why--no, here was specious argument! He _was_ logical. His love for
Valerie, great as it might be, great as it was, in the final analysis
was hopeless. If he escaped, he could never return to the village, he
could never return to her--to be recognised as the good, young Father
Aubert; if he did not escape, if he--no, that was the “afterwards,”
 he would not consent to think of that--only if he did not escape there
would be more than the hopelessness of this love to concern him, there
would be death. Yes, he was logical. The love he knew for Valérie was
but to mock him, to tantalise him with a vista of what, under other
circumstances, he might have claimed by right of his manhood's
franchise--if he had not, years ago, from a boy almost, bartered away
that franchise to the devil. Well, was he to whimper now, and turn, like
a craven thing, from the bitter dregs that, while the cup was still full
and the dregs yet afar off, he had held in bald contempt and incredulous
raillery! The dregs were here now. They were not bitter on his
lips, they were bitter in his soul; they were bitter almost beyond
endurance--but was he to whimper! Yes, he was logical.

All else might be hopeless; but it was not hopeless that he might save
his life. He had a right to fight for that, and he would fight for it as
any man would fight--to the last.

He had climbed the hill now, and was approaching old Mother Blondin's
door. Logical! Yes, he was logical--but life was not all logic. In the
abstract logic was doubtless a panacea that was all-embracing; in the
presence of the actual it shrank back a futile thing from the dull
gnawing of the heart and the misery of the soul. Perhaps that was why
he was standing here at Mother Blondin's door now. God knew, she was
miserable enough; God knew, that the dregs too were now at her lips!
They were not unlike--old Mother Blon-din and himself. Theirs was a
common cup.

He knocked upon the door--and, as he knocked, he caught sight of the
old woman's shrivelled face peering at him none too pleasantly from the
window. And then her step, sullen and reluctant, crossed the floor,
and she held the door open grudgingly a little way; and the space thus
opened she blocked completely with her body.

“What do you want?” she demanded sourly.

“I would like to come in, Madame Blondin,” Raymond answered pleasantly.
“I would like to have a little talk with you.”

“Well, you can't come in!” she snarled defiantly. “I don't want to talk
to you, and I don't want you coming here! It is true I may have been
fool enough to say you had a good heart, but I want nothing to do with
you. You are perhaps not as bad as some of them; but you are all full of
tricks with your smirking mouths! No priest would come here if he were
not up to something. I am an _excommuniée_--eh? Well, I am satisfied!”
 Her voice was beginning to rise shrilly. “I don't know what you want,
and I don't want to know; but you can't wheedle around me just because
Jacques Bourget knocked me down, and you----”

“It is on account of Jacques Bourget that I want to speak to you,”
 Raymond interposed soothingly. “Bourget has been locked up in jail.”

She stared at him, blinking viciously behind her glasses.

“Ah! I thought so! That is like the whole tribe of you! You had him
arrested!”

“No,” said Raymond. “I did not have him arrested. You remember the note
that was read out at the trial, Madame Blcndin--about the attempted
escape of Henri Mentone?”

“Well?”--Madame Blondin's animosity at the sight of a _soutane_ was
forgotten for the moment in a newly aroused interest. “Well--what of it?
I remember! What of it?”

“It seems,” said Raymond, “that Monsieur Dupont has discovered that
Bourget was to help in the escape.”

Madame Blondin cackled suddenly in unholy mirth. “And so they arrested
him, eh? Well, I am glad! Do you hear? I am glad! I hope they wring his
neck for him! He would help the murderer of my son to escape, would he?
I hope they hang him with the other!”

“They will not hang him,” Raymond replied. “He has given all the
information in his possession to the police, and he is to go free. But
it was because of that afternoon here that he was persuaded to help in
the escape. He expected to revenge himself on me: and that story, too,
Madame Blondin, is now known to the police. Bourget has confessed to
buying whisky here, and is ready to testify as a witness against you.”

“_Le maudit!_” Mother Blondin's voice rose in a virulent scream. “I will
tear his eyes out! Do you hear? I will show Jacques Bourget what he will
get for telling on me! He has robbed me! He never pays! Well, he will
pay for this! He will pay for this! I will find some one who will cut
his tongue out! They are not all like Jacques Bourget, they are----”

“You do not quite understand, Madame Blondin,” Raymond interrupted
gravely. “It is not with Jacques Bourget that you are concerned now,
it is with the police. Monsieur Dupont came to the village this
afternoon--indeed, he is here now. He said he had evidence enough at
last to close up this place and put you in jail, and that he was going
to do so. You are in a very serious situation, Madame Blondin”--he made
as though to step forward--“will you not let me come in, as a friend,
and talk it over with you, and see what we can do?”

Mother Blondin's hand was like a claw in its bony thinness, as it
gripped hard over the edge of the door.

“No, you will not come in!” she shouted. “You, or your Monsieur Dupont,
or the police--you will not come in! Eh--they will take my home from
me--all I've got--they will put me in jail”--she was twisting her head
about in a sort of pitiful inventory of her surroundings. “They have
been trying to run me out of St. Marleau for a long time--all the _good_
people, the saintly people--you, and your hypocrites. They cross to the
other side of the road to get out of old Mother Blondin's way! And so
at last, between you, you have beaten an old woman, who has no one to
protect her since you have killed her son! It is a victory--eh! Go
tell them to ring the church bells--go tell them--go tell them! And on
Sunday, eh, you will have something to preach about! It will make a fine
sermon!”

And somehow there came a lump into Raymond's throat. There was something
fine in this wretched, tattered, unkempt figure before him--something of
the indomitable, of the unconquerable in her spirit, misapplied though
it was. Her voice fought bravely to hold its defiant, infuriated ring,
to show no sign of the misery that had stolen into the dim old eyes,
and was quivering on the wrinkled lips, but the voice had broken--once
almost in a sob.

“No, no, Madame Blondin”--he reached out his hand impulsively to lay it
over the one that was clutched upon the door--“you must not----”

She snatched her hand away--and suddenly thrust her head through the
partially open doorway into his face.

“It is not Bourget, it is not Jacques Bourget!” she cried fiercely. “It
is you! If you had not come that afternoon when you had no business to
come, this would not have happened. It is you, who----”

“That is true,” said Raymond quietly. “And that is why I am here now.
I have had a talk with Monsieur Dupont, and he will give you another
chance.”

She still held her face close to his.

“I do not believe you!” she flung out furiously. “I do not believe you!
It is some trick you are trying to play! I know Monsieur Dupont! I know
him! He would give no one a chance if he could help it! I have been too
much for him for a long time, and if he had evidence against me now he
would give me not a minute to sell any more of--of what he thinks I sell
here!”

“That also is true,” said Raymond, as quietly as before. “He could not
very well permit you to go on breaking the law if he could prevent it.
But in exchange for his promise, I have given him a pledge that you will
not sell any more whisky.”

She straightened up--and stared at him, half in amazement, half in
crafty suspicion.

“Ah, then, so it is you, and not Monsieur Dupont, who is going to stop
it--eh?” she exclaimed, with a shrill laugh. “And how do you intend to
do it--eh? How do you intend to do it? Tell me that!”

“I think it will be very simple,” said Raymond--and his dark eyes, full
of a kindly sympathy, looked into hers. “To save your home, and you,
I have pledged myself to Monsieur Dupont that this will stop, and
so--well, Madame Blondin, and so I have come to put you upon your honour
to make good my pledge.” She craned her head forward again to peer into
his face. She looked at him for a long minute without a word. Her
lips alternately tightened and were tremulous. The fingers of her
hand plucked at the door's edge. And then she threw back her head in a
quavering, jeering laugh.

“Ha, ha! Old Mother Blondin upon her honour--think of that! You, a
smooth-tongued priest--and me, an _excommuniée!_ Ha, ha! Think of that!
And what did Monsieur Dupont say, eh--what did Monsieur Dupont say?”

“He said what I know is not true,” said Raymond simply. “He said you
would make a fool of me.”

“Ah, he said that!”--she jerked her head forward again sharply. “Well,
Monsieur Dupont is wrong, and you are right. I would not do that,
because I could not--since you have already made one of yourself! Ha,
ha! Old Mother Blondin upon her _honour!_ Ha, ha! It is a long while
since I have heard that--and from a priest--ha, ha! How could any one
make a fool of a fool!” Her voice was high-pitched again, fighting for
its defiance; but, somehow, where she strove to infuse venom, there
seemed only a pathetic wistfulness instead. “And so you would trust old
Mother Blondin--eh? Well”--she slammed the door suddenly in his face,
and her voice came muffled through the panels--“well, you are a fool!”

The bolt within rasped into place--and Raymond, turned away, and began
to descend the hill.

Mother Blondin for the moment was in the grip of a sullen pride that
bade her rise in arms against this fresh outlook on life; but Mother
Blondin would close and bolt yet another door, unless he was very
much mistaken--the rear door, and in the faces of her erstwhile and
unhallowed clientele!

Yes, he had pity for the old woman who had no kin now, and who had no
friends. Pity! He owed her more than that! So then--there came a sudden
thought--so then, why not? He would not long be curé of St. Marleau, but
while he was--well, he was the curé of St. Marleau! He could not remove
the ban of excommunication, that was beyond the authority of a mere
curé, it would require at least Monsignor the Bishop to do that; but
he could remove the ban--of ostracism! Yes, decidedly, the good, young
Father Aubert could do that! He was vaguely conscious that there were
degrees of excommunication, and he seemed to remember that Valérie had
said it was but a minor one that had been laid upon Mother Blondin, and
that the villagers of their own accord had drawn more and more aloof. It
would, therefore, not be very difficult.

He quickened his step, and, reaching the bottom of the hill, made his
way at once toward the carpenter shop. He could see Madame Bouchard
hoeing in the little garden patch between the road and the front of the
shop. It was Madame Bouchard that he now desired to see.

“_Tiens! Bon jour_, Madame Bouchard!” he called out to her, as he
approached. “I am come a penitent! I did not deserve your bread! I am
sure that you are vexed with me! But I have not seen you since to thank
you.”

She came forward to where Raymond now leaned upon the fence.

“Oh, Monsieur le Curé!” she exclaimed laughingly. “How can you say such
things! Fancy! The idea! Vexed with you! It is only if you really liked
it?”

“H'm!” drawled Raymond teasingly, pretending to deliberate. “When do you
bake again, Madame Bouchard?”

She laughed outright now.

“To-morrow, Monsieur le Curé--and I shall see that you are not
forgotten.”

“It is a long way off--to-morrow,” said Raymond mournfully; and then,
with a quick smile: “But only one loaf this time, Madame Bouchard,
instead of two.”

“Nonsense!” she returned. “It is a great pleasure. And what are two
little loaves!”

“A great deal,” said Raymond, suddenly serious. “A very great deal,
Madame Bouchard; and especially so if you send one of the two loaves to
some one else that I know of.”

“Some one else?”

“Yes,” said Raymond. “To Mother Blondin.”

“To--Mother Blondin!”--Madame Bouchard stared in utter amazement.
“But--but, Monsieur le Curé, you are not in earnest! She--she is an
_excommuniée_, and we--we do not----”

“I think it would make her very glad,” said Raymond softly. “And Mother
Blondin I think has----”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that Mother Blondin was not
likely now to sell any more whisky at the tavern, but he checked
himself. It was Mother Blondin who must be left to tell of that herself.
If he spread such a tale, she would be more likely than not to rebel at
a situation which she would probably conceive was being thrust forcibly
down her throat; and, in pure spite at what she might also conceive to
be a self-preening and boastful spirit on his part for his superiority
over her, sell all the more, no matter what the consequences to herself.
And so he changed what he was about to say. “And Mother Blondin I think
has known but little gladness in her life.”

“But--but, Monsieur le Curé,” she gasped, “what would the neighbours
say?”

“I hope,” said Raymond, “that they would say they too would send her
loaves--of kindness.”

Madame Bouchard leaned heavily upon her hoe.

“It is many years, Monsieur le Curé, since almost I was a little girl,
that any one has willingly had anything to do with the old woman on the
hill.”

“Yes,” said Raymond gently. “And will you think of that, Madame
Bouchard, when you bake to-morrow--the many years--and the few that are
left--for the old woman on the hill.”

The tears had sprung to Madame Bouchard's eyes. He left her standing
there, leaning on the hoe.

He went on along the road toward the _presbytère_. It had been a strange
afternoon--an illogical one, an imaginary one almost. It seemed to have
been a jumble of complexities, and incongruities, and unrealities--there
was the man who was to be hanged by the neck until he was dead; and
Monsieur Dupont who, through a very natural deduction and not because he
was a fool, for Monsieur Dupont was very far from a fool, was now vainly
engaged like a dog circling around in a wild effort to catch his own
tail; and there was Mother Blondin who had another window to gaze from;
and Madame Bouchard who had still another. Yes, it had been a strange
afternoon--only now that voice in the courtroom was beginning to ring
in his ears again. “Father--Father François Aubert--help me--I do not
understand.” And the gnawing was at his soul again, and again his hat
was lifted from his head to cool his fevered brow.

And as he reached the church there came to him the sound of organ notes,
and instead of crossing to the _presbytère_ he stepped softly inside to
listen--it would be Valérie--Valérie, and Gauthier Beaulieu, the altar
boy, probably, who often pumped the organ for her when she was at
practice. But as he stepped inside the music ceased, and instead he
heard them talking in the gallery, and in the stillness of the church
their voices came to him distinctly.

“Valérie”--yes, that was the boy's voice--“Valérie, why do they call him
the good, young Father Aubert?”

“Such a question!” Valérie laughed. “Why do you call him that yourself?”

“I don't--any more,” asserted the boy. “Not after what I saw at mass
this morning.”

Raymond drew his breath in sharply. What was this! What was this that
Gauthier Beaulieu, the altar boy, had seen at mass! He had fooled the
boy--the boy could not have seen anything! He drew back, opening the
door cautiously. They were coming down the stairs now--but he must
hear--hear what it was that Gauthier Beaulieu had seen.

“Why, what do you mean, Gauthier?” Valérie asked.

“I mean what I say,” insisted the boy doggedly. “It is not right to call
him that! When he was kneeling there this morning, and I guess it was
the bright light because the stained window was open, for I never saw it
before, I saw his hair all specked with white around his temples. And
a man with white in his hair isn't young, is he! And I saw it,
Valérie--honest, I did!”

“Your eyes should have been closed,” said Valérie. “And----”

Raymond was crossing the green to the _presbytère_.




CHAPTER XVIII--THE CALL IN THE NIGHT

|IT was very dark here in the front room, and somehow the darkness
seemed tangible to the touch, like something oppressive, like the folds
of a pall that was spread over him, and which he could not thrust aside.
And it was still, and very quiet--save for the voices, and save that it
seemed he could hear that faltering, irregular step from the rear room,
where there was no longer any step to hear.

Surely it would be daylight soon--the merciful daylight. The darkness
and the night were meant only for sleep, and it was an eternity since he
had slept--no, not an eternity, only a week--it was only a week since he
had slept. No, that was not true either--there had been hours, not many
of them, but there had been hours when his eyes had been closed and he
had not been conscious of his surroundings, but those hours had been
even more horrible than when he had tossed on his bed awake. They had
brought neither rest nor oblivion--they were full of dreams that were
hideous--and the dreams would not leave him when he was awake--and the
sleep when it came was a curse because the dreams remained to cast
an added blight upon his wakefulness--and he had come even to fight
against sleep and to resist it because the dreams remained.

Dreams! There was always the dream of the Walled Place which--no! Not
that--_now!_ Not that! Yes! The dream of the Walled Place. See--it went
like this: He was in a sort of cavernous gloom in which he could not see
very distinctly, but he was obsessed with the knowledge that there were
hidden things from which he must escape. So he would run frantically
around and around, following four square walls which were so high that
the tops merged into the gloom; and the walls, as he touched them with
his hands, seeking an opening, were wet with a slime that grew upon
them. Then, looming out of the centre of this place, he would suddenly
see what it was that he was running away from. There was a form, a human
form, with something black over its head, that swayed to and fro, and
was suspended from a bar that reached across from one wall to another;
and on the top of this bar there roosted a myriad winged creatures like
gigantic bats, only their eyes blazed, and they had enormous claws--and
suddenly these vampires would rise with a terrifying crackling of their
wings, and shrill, abominable screams, and swirl and circle over him,
drawing nearer and nearer until his blood ran cold--and then, shrieking
like a maniac, he would run again around and around the walls, beating
at the slime until his hands bled. And the screaming things with
outstretched talons followed him, and he stumbled and fell, and fell
again, and shrieked out in his terror of these inhuman vultures that had
roosted above the swaying thing with the black-covered head--and just as
they were settling upon him there was an opening in the wall where there
had been no opening before, and with his last strength he struggled
toward it--and the way was blocked. The opening had become a gate that
was all studded with iron spikes which if he rushed upon it would impale
him, and which Valerie was closing--and as she closed it her head was
averted, and one hand was thrown across her eyes, its palm toward him,
as though she would not look upon his face.

Raymond's hands were wet with perspiration. They slipped from the arms
of his chair, and hung downward at his sides. What time was it? It had
been midnight when he had risen fully dressed from his bed in the rear
room--that he occupied now that they had taken the man away to jail--and
had come in here to sit at the desk. Since then the clock had struck
many times, the half hours, and the hours. Ah--listen! It was striking
again. One--two--three! Three o'clock! It was still a long way off,
the daylight--the merciful daylight. The voices did not plague him so
constantly in the warmth of the sunshine. Three o'clock! It would be
five o'clock before the dawn came.

They had changed, those voices, in the last week--at least there was
a new voice that had come, and an old one that did not recur so
insistently. “Father--Father François Aubert--help me--I do not
understand”--yes, that was still dinning forever in his ears; but,
instead of that voice which said some one was to be hanged by the neck
until dead, the new voice had quite a different thing to say. It was the
voice of the “afterwards.” Hark! There it was now: “What fine and subtle
shade of distinction is there between being hanged and imprisoned for
life; what difference does it make, what difference could it make, what
difference will it make--why do you temporise?”

He had fought with all his strength against that “afterwards”--and it
was stronger than he. He could not evade the issue that was flung at
him, and flung again and again until his brain writhed in agony with it.
He was a gambler, but he was not a blind gambler. He did not want the
man to lose his life, or his freedom for all of life--he did not want
to lose his own life. While the appeal was pending _something_ might
happen, a thousand things might happen, there was always, always a
chance. He would not throw away that chance--only a fool who had lost
his nerve would do that. But he was not blind. The chance was one where
the odds against him staggered him--there was so little chance that,
fight as he would to escape it, logic and plain common sense had forced
upon him the “afterwards.” And these days while the appeal was pending
were like remorseless steps that led on and on to end only upon the
brink of a yawning chasm, whose depth and whose blackness were as the
depth and blackness of hell, and over which he sprang suddenly erect,
his head flung back, the strong jaws clamped like a vise. Who had
brought this torture upon him? He could not sleep! He knew no repose!
God, or devil, or power infernal--who was it? Neither sleep nor repose
might be his, but he was unbroken yet, and he could still fight! He
asked only that--that the author of this torment stand before him--and
fight! Why should he, unless the one meagre hope that something might
happen in the meantime be fulfilled, why should he stand faced with the
choice of swinging like a felon from the gallows, or of allowing that
other innocent man to go to his doom? Yes, why should he submit to this
torture, when that scarred-faced blackguard had brought his death upon
himself--why should he submit to it, when it was so easy to escape it
all! Once, that night in Ton-Nugget Camp, he had flung down the gauntlet
in the face of God, and in the face of hell, and in the face of man, and
in the face of beast. Was he a weakling and a fool now who had not sense
enough to seize his opportunity to be quit of this, and to go his way,
and live again the full, red-blooded, reckless life that he had lived
since he was a boy, and that now, a young man still, beckoned to
him with allurements as yet untasted! To-morrow--no, to-day when the
daylight came--he had only to borrow Bouchard's boat, and the boat
upturned would be found, and St. Mar-leau would mourn the loss of the
good, young Father Aubert whose body had been swept out to sea, and
the law would take its course on the man in the condemned cell, and
Three-Ace Artie would be as free and untrammelled as the air--yes, and
a coward, and a crawling thing, and--the paroxysm of fury passed. He
sagged against the desk. This was the “afterwards”--but why should it
come now! Between now and then there was a chance that something might
intervene. He had only been trying to delude himself when he had said
that in a life sentence there was all of time to plan and plot--he knew
that. And he knew, too, that he was no more content that the man should
be imprisoned for life than that the man should hang--that one was the
equal of the other. He knew that this “all of time” was ended when
the appeal was decided. He knew all that--that voice would not let him
juggle with myths any more. But that moment had not come yet--there were
still weeks before it would come--and in those weeks there lay a hope,
a chance, a gambling chance that something might happen. And even in the
appeal there lay a hope too, not that the sentence might be commuted to
life imprisonment, that changed nothing now, but that they might perhaps
after all consider the man's condition sufficient reason for not holding
him to account for murder, and might therefore, instead, place him under
medical treatment somewhere until, if ever, he recovered. He, Raymond,
had not struck the man, he had not in even a remote particular been
responsible for the man's wound, or the ensuing condition, and if the
man were turned over to medical supervision the man automatically ceased
to have any claim upon him.

But that was not likely to happen--it was only one of those thousand
things that _might_ happen--nothing was likely to happen except that the
man would be hanged. And when that time came, if the appeal were lost
and every one of those thousand chances swept away, and the only thing
that could save the man's life would be to--God, would he never stop
this! Would his mind never, even through utter exhaustion, cease
its groping in this horrible turmoil! On, on, on! His brain was
remorselessly driven on! It was like--like a slave that, already
lacerated and bleeding, was lashed on again to renewed effort by some
monstrous, brutal and inhuman master!

Yes, when that time came, and if that chance were gone, and supposing he
gave himself up to stand in the other's place, could he in any way evade
the rope, wriggle away from that dangling noose? Was there a loophole in
the evidence anywhere? If only in some way he could prove that the act
had been committed in self-defence! He had feared to risk such a plea
that night, because he had feared that his own past would condemn him
out of hand; and, moreover, however that might have been, the man lying
in the road, whom he had thought dead, had seemed to offer the means of
washing his hands for good and all of the whole matter. Self-defence!
Ha, ha! Listen to those devils laugh! It was his own hand that had tied
the knot in the noose so that it would never slip--it was he who had so
cunningly supplied all the attendant details that irrevocably placed the
stamp of robbery and murder upon the doings of that night. Here there
was no delusion; here, where delusion was sought again, there was no
delusion--if he gave himself up he would hang--hang by the neck until he
was dead--and, since he had desecrated God's holy places, he would
hang without the mercy of God upon his soul. Well, what odds did that
make--whether there was mercy of God upon his soul-or not! Was there
anything in common between--no, that was not what he had to think about
now--it was quite another matter.

Suppose, when he was forced to fling down his hand finally, that instead
of giving himself up, or instead of making it appear that the good,
young Father Aubert was dead--suppose that he simply made an escape
from St. Marleau such as he had planned for Henri Mentone that night?
He could at least secure a few hours' start, and then, from somewhere,
before it was too late, send back, say, a written confession. He could
always do that. Surely that would save the man. They would hunt for him,
Raymond, as they would hunt for a wild beast that had run amuck, and
they would hunt for him for the rest of his life, and in the end they
might even catch him--but that was the chance he would have to accept.
Yes, here was another way--only why did not this way bring rest, and
repose, and satisfaction, and sleep? And why ask the question? He
knew--he knew why! It was--Valérie. It was not a big way, it was not
a man's way--and in Valerie's eyes at the last, not absolving him,
not even that she might endure the better, for it could not intimately
affect her, there was left to him only the one redeeming act, the one
thing that would lift him above contempt and loathing, and that was that
she should know him--for a _man_.

Life, the mere act of breathing, of knowing a concrete existence, was
not everything; it did not embrace everything, it was not even a state
that was not voluntarily to be surrendered to greater things, to----

“A fool and a woman's face, and blatant sophistry, and mock
heroics!”--that inner monitor, with its gibe and sneer, was back again.
Its voice, too, must make itself heard!

He raised his hands and pressed them tight against his throbbing
temples. This was hell's debating society, and he must listen to the
arguments and decide upon their merits and pronounce upon them, for he
was the presiding officer and the decision remained with him! How they
gabbled, and shrieked, and whispered, and jeered, and interrupted each
other, and would not keep order--those voices! Though now for the moment
that inner voice kept drowning all the others out.

“You had your chance! If you hadn't turned squeamish that night when
all you needed to do was to hold a pillow over the man's face for a few
minutes, you wouldn't have had any of this now! How much good will it do
you what _she_ thinks--when they get through burying you in lime under
the jail walls!”

It was dark, very dark here in the room. That was the window over there
in that direction, but there was not even any grayness showing, no sign
yet of daylight--no sign yet of daylight. Why would they not let him
alone, these voices, until the time came when he _must_ act? That was
all he asked. In the interval something might--his hands dropped to his
sides, and he half slipped, half fell into his chair, and his head went
forward over the desk. Was all that to begin over again--and commence
with the dream of the Walled Place! No, no; he would not let it--_he
would not let it!_

He would think about something else; force himself to
think--rationally--about something else. Well then, the man in the
condemned cell, whom he had not dared refuse to visit, and whom he had
gone twice that week to see? No---not that, either! The man was always
sitting on that cursed cot with his hands clasped dejectedly between his
knees, and the iron bars robbed the sunlight of warmth, and it was cold,
and the man's eyes haunted him. No--not that, either! He had to go and
see the man again to-morrow--and that was enough--and that was enough!

Well then, Mother Blondin? Yes, that was better! He could even laugh
ironically at that--at old Mother Blondin. Old Mother Blondin was
falling under the spell of the example set by the good, young Father
Aubert! Some of the old habitués, he had heard, were beginning to
grumble because it was becoming difficult to obtain whisky at the
tavern. The Madame Bouchards were crowding the habitues out; and the old
woman on the hill, even if with occasional sullen and stubborn
relapses, was slowly yielding to the advances of St. Marleau that he had
inaugurated through the carpenter's v/ife. Ah--he had thought to laugh
at this, had he! Laugh! He might well keep his head buried miserably in
his arms here upon the desk! Laugh! It brought instead only a profound
and bitter loneliness. He was alone, utterly alone, isolated and cut off
in a world where there was the sound of no human voice, the touch of no
human hand, alone--amidst people whose smiles greeted him on every hand,
amidst people who admired and loved him, and listened reverently to the
words of God that fell from his lips. But they loved, and admired,
and gave their friendship, not to the man he was, but to the man they
thought he was--to the good, young Father Aubert. That was what was
actuating even Mother Blondin! And the life that he had led as the good,
young Father Aubert was being held up to him now as in a mental mirror
that lay bare to his gaze his naked soul. They loved him, these people;
they had faith in him--and a pure, unswerving faith in the religion, and
in the God as whose holy priest he masqueraded!

Raymond's lips twisted in pain. The love of these people struck to the
heart, and the pang hurt. It would have been a glad thing to have won
this love--for himself. And he was requiting what they gave in their
ignorance by defiling what meant most in life to them--the holy things
they worshipped. It was strange--strange how of late he had sought, in
a sort of pitiful atonement for the wrong he had done them, to put
sincerity into the words that, before, he had only mumbled at the church
altar! Yes, he had earned their love and their respect, and he was the
good, young Father Aubert, and the life he had led amongst them was a
blasphemous lie--but it had not been the motives of a hypocrite that had
actuated him. It had not been that the devil desired to pose as a saint.
He stood acquitted before even God of that. He had sought only, fought
only, asked only--for his life.

A sham, a pretence, a lie--it was abhorrent, damnable--it was not
even Three-Ace Artie's way--and he was chained to it in every word and
thought and act. There--that thing that loomed up through the darkness
there a few inches from him--that was one of the lies. That was a
typewriter he had rented in Tour-nayville and had brought back when
returning from his last visit to the jail. Personal letters had begun to
arrive for Father François Aubert. He might duplicate a signature,
but he could not imitate pages of the man's writings. And he could not
dictate a letter to-the man's _mother_--and meet Valérie's eyes.

Valérie! Out in that world where he was set apart, out in that world
of inhuman isolation, this was the loneliness that was greatest of all.
Valérie! Valérie! It seemed as though he were held in some machiavellian
bondage, free to move and act, free in all things save one--he could not
pass the border of his prison-land. But he, Raymond Chapelle, could look
out over the border of his prison-land, and watch this woman, whose
face was pure and beautiful, as she walked about, and talked, and was
constantly in the company of a young priest, who was the good, young
Father Aubert, the Curé of St. Marleau. And because he had watched her
hungrily for many days, and knew the smile that came so gladly to the
sweet lips, and because he had looked into the clear, steadfast eyes,
and listened to her voice, and because she was just Valérie, he had
come to the knowledge of a great love--and a great, torturing, envious
jealousy of this man, cloaked in priestly garb, who was forever at her
side.

His lips moved, but no sound came from them. Valérie! Valérie! Why had
she not come into his life before! Before--when? Before that night at
Mother Blondin's? Was he not man enough to look the truth in the face!
That night was only a culminating incident of a life that went back many
years to the days when--when there had been no Valérie either! But it
was too late to think of that now--now that Valérie had come, come as
a final, terrible punishment, holding up before him, through bitter
contrast, the hollow worthlessness of the stakes that, when the choice
had been freely his, he had chosen to play for!

Valérie! Valérie! His soul was calling out to her. A life with Valérie!
What would it not have meant? The dear love that she might have given
him--the priceless love that he might have won! Gone! Gone forever! No,
it was not gone, for it had never been. He thanked God for that. Yes,
there must be a God who had brought this about, for while he flouted
this God in the dress of this God's priest, this God utilised that very
act to save Valérie, who trusted this God, from the misery and sorrow
and hopelessness that must have come to her with love. She could not
love a priest; there could be no thought of such a thing for Valérie.
This God had set that barrier there--to protect her. Yes, he thanked
God for that; he thanked God he had not brought this hurt upon her--and
those minions of hell, who tried to tantalise, and with their insidious
deviltry tried to make him think otherwise, were powerless here. But
that did not appease the yearning; that did not answer the cry of his
heart and soul.

Valérie! Valérie! Valérie! He was calling to her with all his strength
from the border of that prison-land. Valérie! Valérie! Would his voice
not reach her! Would she not turn her head and smile! Valérie! Valérie!
He wanted her now in his hour of agony, in this hour of terrible
loneliness, in this hour when his brain rocked and reeled on the verge
of madness.

How still it was--and how dark! There were no voices now--only the voice
of his soul calling, calling, calling for Valérie--calling for what
he could never have--calling for the touch of her hand to guide
him--calling for her smile to help him on his way. Yes, Valérie--he was
calling Valérie--he was calling to her from the depths of his being. Out
into the night, out into the everywhere, he was flinging his piteous,
soundless cry, and God, if God would, might listen, and know that His
revenge was taken; and hell might listen, and shriek its mirth--they
would not silence him.

Valérie! Valérie! No, there was no answer. There would never be an
answer--but he would always call. Through the years to come, if there
were those years to reckon with, he would call as he was calling now.
Valérie! Valérie! Valérie! She would not hear--she would not answer--she
would not know. But he would call--because he loved her.

A sob shook his bowed shoulders. A hand in agony gathered and crushed a
fold of flesh from the forehead that lay upon it. Valérie! Valérie! He
did not cry out. He made no sound. It was still, still as the living
death in that prison-land--and then--and then he was swaying to his
feet, and clutching with both hands at the desk, for support. Valérie!
The door was open, and a soft light filled the room. Valérie! Valérie
was standing there on the threshold, holding a lamp in her hand. It was
phantasm! A vision! It was not real! It was not Valérie! His mind was
a broken thing at last! It was not Valérie--but that was Valérie's
voice--that was Valérie's voice.

The lamp shook a little unsteadily in her hand.

“Did you call?” she asked.

He did not answer--only looked at her, as though in truth she were a
vision that had come to him. She was in dressing-gown; and her hair,
loosely knotted, framed her face in dark, waving tresses; and her eyes
were wide, startled and perplexed, as they fixed upon him.

“I--I thought I heard you call,” she faltered.

All the gladness, all the joy in life, all that the world could hold
seemed for an instant his. All else was forgotten--all else but that
singing in his heart--all else but that fierce, elemental, triumphant,
mighty joy lifting him high to a pinnacle that reared itself supreme,
commanding and immortal, far beyond the reach of that sea of torment
which had engulfed him. Valérie had heard him call--and she had
answered--and she was here. Valérie was here--she had come to him.
Valérie had heard him call--and she was here. And then beneath his feet
that pinnacle, so supreme, commanding and immortal, seemed to dissolve
away, and that sea of torment closed over him again, and all those
voices that plagued him, mocking, jeering, screaming, shrieking, were
like a horrible requiem ringing in his ears. She had heard him call--and
he had made no sound--only his soul had spoken.. And she had answered.
And she was here--here now--standing there on the threshold. _Why?_
He dared not answer. It was a blessed thing, a wonderful, glorious
thing---and it was a terrible thing, a thing of misery and despair. What
was he doing now--_answering_ that “why”! No, no--it was not true--it
could not be true. He had thanked God that it could not be so. It was
not that--_that_ was not the reason she had heard him call--that was
not the reason she was here. It was not! It was not! It was only those
insidious----

He heard himself speaking; he was conscious that his voice by some
miracle was low, grave, contained. “No, Mademoiselle Valérie, I did not
call.”

The colour was slowly leaving her cheeks, and into her eyes came
creeping confusion and dismay.

“It--it is strange,” she said nervously. “I was asleep, and I thought
I heard you call for--for help, and I got up and lighted the lamp,
and----”

Was that his laugh--quiet, gentle, reassuring? Was he so much in
command of himself as that? Was it the gambler, or the priest, or--great
God!--the lover now? She was here--she had come to him.

“It was a dream, Mademoiselle Valérie,” he was saying. “A very terrible
dream, I am afraid, if I was the subject of it; but, see, it is nothing
to cause you distress, and to-morrow you will laugh over it.”

She did not reply at once. She was very pale now; and her lips, though
tightly closed, were quivering. Nor did she look at him. Her eyes were
on the floor. Her hand mechanically drew and held the dressing-gown
closer about her throat.

He had not moved from the side of the desk, nor she from the threshold
of the door--and now she looked up suddenly, and held the lamp in her
hand a little higher, and her eyes searched his face.

“It must be very late--very, very late,” she said steadily. “And you
have not gone to bed. There is something the matter. What is it? Will
you tell me?”

“But, yes!” he said--and smiled. “But, yes--I will tell you. It is very
simple. I think perhaps I was overtired. In any case, I was restless
and could not sleep, and so I came in here, and--well, since I must
confess--I imagine I finally fell asleep in my chair.”

“Is that all?” she asked--and there was a curious insistence in her
voice. “You look as though you were ill. Are you telling me all?”

“Everything!” he said. “And I am not ill, Mademoiselle Valérie”--he
laughed again--“you would hear me complain fast enough if I were! I am
not a model patient.”

She shook her head, as though she would not enter into the lightness of
his reply; and again her eyes sought the floor. And, as he watched her,
the colour now came and went from her cheeks, and there was trouble in
her face, and hesitancy, and irresolution.

“What is it, Mademoiselle Valérie?”--his forced lightness was gone now.
She was frightened, and nervous, and ill at ease--that she should be
standing here like this at this hour of night, of course. Yes, that was
it. Naturally that would be so. He lifted his hand and drew it heavily
across his forehead. She was frightened. If he might only take her in
his arms, and draw her head to his shoulder, and hold her there, and
soothe her! It seemed that all his being cried to him to do that. “Well,
why don't you?”--that inner voice was flashing the suggestion quick upon
him--“well, why don't you? You could do it as a priest, in the rôle of
priest, you know--like a father to one of his flock. Go ahead, here's
your chance--be the priest, be the priest! Don't you want to hold her in
your arms--be the priest, be the priest!”

She had not answered his question. He found himself answering it for
her.

“What is it, Mademoiselle Valérie? You must not let a dream affect you,
you know. It is gone now. And you can see that----”

“It is strange”--she spoke almost to herself. “I--I was so sure that I
heard you call.”

Why was he not moving toward her? Why was he clinging in a sort of
tenacious frenzy to the desk? Why was he not obeying the promptings
of that inner voice? It would be quite a natural thing to do what that
voice prompted--and Valérie, Valérie who would never be his, would for a
moment, snatched out of all eternity, be in his arms.

“But you must not let such a thing as a dream affect you”--he seemed to
be speaking without volition of his own, and he seemed stupidly able to
say but the same thing over again. “And, see, it is over, and you are
awake now to find that no one is really in trouble after all.”

And then she raised her head--and suddenly, but as though she were
afraid even of her own act, as though she still fought against some
decision she had forced upon herself, she walked slowly forward into the
room, and set the lamp down upon the desk.

“Yes, there is some one in trouble”--the words came steadily, but
scarcely above a whisper; and her hand was tense about the white throat
now, where before it had mechanically clutched at the dressing-gown. “I
am in trouble--Father Aubert.”

“You--Valérie!” He was conscious, even in his startled exclamation, of a
strange and disturbing prescience. Father Aubert--he could not remember
when she had called him that before--_Father_ Aubert. It was very rarely
that she called him that, it was almost always Monsieur le Curé. And
he--her name--he had called her Valérie--not Mademoiselle Valérie--but
Valérie, as once before, when she had stood out there in the hall the
night they had taken that man away, her name had sprung spontaneously to
his lips.

“Yes,” she said, and bowed her head. “I am in trouble, father; for I
have sinned.”

“Sinned--Valérie”--the words were stumbling on his lips. How fast that
white throat throbbed! Valérie, pure and innocent, meant perhaps to
confess to--_Father_ Aubert. Well, she should not, and she would not!
Not that! She should not have to remember in the “afterwards” that she
had bared her soul at the shrine of profanity. Back again into his voice
he forced a cheery, playful reassurance. “It cannot be a very grievous
sin that Mademoiselle Valérie has been guilty of! Of that, I am sure!
And to-morrow----”

“No, no!” she cried out. “You do not know! See, be indulgent with me
now, father--I am in trouble--in very deep and terrible trouble. I--I
cannot even confess and ask you for absolution--but you can help me--do
not try to put me off--I--I may not have the courage again. See, I--I am
not very brave, and I am not very strong, and the tears are not far off.
Help me to do what I want to do.”

“Valérie!” he scarcely breathed her name. Help her to do what she wanted
to do! There was another prescience upon him now; but one that he could
not understand, save that it seemed to be pointing toward the threshold
of a moment that he was to remember all his life.

“Sit down there in your chair, father, please”--her voice was very low
again. “Sit there, and let me kneel before you.”

He stepped back as from a blow.

“No, Valérie, you shall not kneel to me”--he did not know what he was
saying now. Kneel! Valérie kneel to him! “You shall not kneel to me,
I----”

“_Yes!_” The word came feverishly. The composure that she had been
fighting to retain was slipping from her. “Yes--I must! I must!” She
was close upon him, forcing him back toward the chair. Her eyes, dry
and wide before, were swimming with sudden tears. “Oh, don't you
understand! Oh, don't you understand! I am not kneeling to you as a man,
I am kneeling to you as--as a--a _priest_--a priest of God--for--for I
have sinned.”

She was on her knees--and, with a mental cry of anguish, Raymond slipped
down into the chair. Yes, he understood--now--at last! He
understood what, pray God, she should never realise he understood!
She--Valérie--cared. And she was trying now--God, the cruelty of
it!--and she was trying now to save herself, to protect herself, by
forcing upon herself an actual physical acceptance of him as a priest.
No! It was not so! It could not be so! He did _not_ understand!

He would not have it so! He would not! It was only hell's trickery
again--only that--and----

“Lay your hands on my head, father.” She caught his hands and lifted
them, and laid them upon her bowed head--and as his hands touched her
she seemed to tremble for an instant, and her hands tightened upon his.
“Hold them there for a little while, father,” she murmured--and took her
own hands away, and clasped them before her hidden face.

Raymond's countenance was ashen as he bent forward. What had that
voice prompted him to do? Be the priest? Well, he was being the priest
now--and he knew torment in the depths of a sacrilege at last before
which his soul shrank back appalled. The soft hair was silken to the
touch of his hands, and yet it burned and seared him as with brands of
fire. It was Valérie's hair. It was Valérie's head that was bowed
before him. It was Valérie, the one to whom his soul had called, who was
kneeling to him--as a priest of God--to save herself!

“Say the _Pater Noster_ with me, father,” she whispered.

He bent his head still lower--lower now that she might not by any chance
glimpse his face. Like death it must look. He pressed his hands in
assent upon her head--but it was Valérie's voice alone that faltered
through the room.

“.... _Sanctificetur nomen tuum_--hallowed be Thy name... _fiat voluntas
tua_--Thy will be done.... _et dimitte nobis débita nostra_--and forgive
us our trespasses... _et ne nos inducas in tentationem_--and lead us not
into temptation... _sed libera nos a malo_--but deliver us from evil...
Amen.”

The lamp burned upon the desk; it lighted up the room--but before
Raymond's eyes was only a blur, and nothing was distinct. And there was
silence--silence for a long time.

And then Valérie spoke again.

“I am stronger now,” she said. “I--I think God showed me the way. You
have been very good to me to-night--not to question me--just to let me
have my way. And now bless me, father, and I will go.”

Bless Valérie--ask God's blessing on Valérie--would that be profanation?
God's blessing on Valérie! Ay, he could ask that! Profligate, sinner,
sham and mocker, he could ask that in reverence and sincerity--God's
blessing upon Valérie--because he loved her.

“God keep you, Valérie,” he said, and fought the tremor from his voice.
“God keep you, Valérie--and bless you--and guard you through all your
life.”

She rose from her knees, and turning quickly because her cheeks were
wet, picked up the lamp, and walked to the door. At the threshold she
paused, but did not look back.

“Good-night, father,” she said simply.

“Good-night, Valérie,” he answered.

It was dark again in the room. He had risen from his chair as Valérie
had risen from her knees--and now his hand felt out for the chair again,
and he sank down, and, as when she had come to him, his head was buried
again in his arms upon the desk.

Valérie cared! Valérie loved him! Valérie, too, had been through her
hour of torment. “Not as a man--as a priest, a priest of God.” No, he
would not believe that, he would not let himself believe that. It could
not be so! She was troubled, in distress--about something else. What
time was it now? Not daylight yet--the merciful daylight--no sign of
daylight yet? If it were true--what then? If she cared--what then?

If Valérie loved him--what then? What was he to do in the “afterwards”?
It would not be himself alone who was to bear the burden then. It was
not true, of course; he would not believe it, he would not let himself
believe it. But if it were true how would Valérie endure the hanging
by the neck until he was dead of the man she loved, or the knowledge of
what he was, or the death by accident--of the man she loved!

He did not stir now. He made no sound, no movement--and his head lay
in his outflung arms. And time passed, and through the window crept the
gray of dawn--and presently it was daylight--the merciful daylight--and
the night was gone. But he was scarcely conscious of it now. It grew
lighter still, and filled the room--that merciful daylight. And his
brain, sick and stumbling and weary, reeled on and on, and there was the
dream of the Walled Place again, and Valérie was closing the gate that
was studded with iron spikes--and there was no way out.

And then very slowly, like a man rousing from a stupor, his head came up
from the desk, and he listened. From across the green came the sound of
the church bells ringing for early mass. And as he listened the bells
seemed to catch up the tempo of some refrain. What was it? Yes, he knew
now. It was the opening of the mass--the words he would have to go in
there presently and say. Were they mocking him, those bells! Was this
what the daylight, the merciful daylight had brought--only a crowning,
pitiless, merciless jeer! His face, strained and haggard, lifted
suddenly a little higher. Was it only mockery, or could it be--see,
they seemed to peal more softly now--could it be that they held another
meaning--like voices calling in compassion to him because he was lost?
No--his mind was dazed--it could not mean that--for him. But listen!
They were repeating it over and over again. It was the call to mass, for
it was daylight, and the beginning of a new day. Listen!

“_Introibo ad altare Dei_--I will go in unto the Altar of God.”




CHAPTER XIX--THE TWO SINNERS

|INTROIBO ad altare Dei--I will go in unto the Altar of God.” It had
been days, another week of them, since the morning when he had raised
his head to that call for early mass,' and his brain, stumbling and
confused, had set those words in a refrain to the tempo of the pealing
bells.

It was midnight now--another night--the dreaded night. They were not all
like that other night, not all so pitiless--that would have been beyond
physical endurance. But they were bad, all the nights were bad. They
seemed cunningly just to skirt the border edge of strain that could be
endured, and cunningly just to evade the breaking point.

It was midnight. On the table beside the bed stood the lighted lamp; and
beside the lamp, topped by a prayer-book, was a little pile of
François Aubert's books; and the bed was turned neatly down, disclosing
invitingly the cool, fresh sheets. These were Madame Lafleur's kindly
and well-meant offices. Madame La-fleur knew that he did not sleep very
well. Each evening she came in here and set the lamp on the table, and
arranged the books, and turned down the bed.

This was the same rocking-chair he sat in now that he had sat in night
after night, and watched a man with bandaged head lying on that same
bed--watched and waited for the man to die. The man was not there
any more--there were just the cool, fresh sheets. The man was in
Tournayville. He had seen the man again that afternoon--and now it was
the man who was waiting to die.

“I will go in unto the Altar of God.” With a curious hesitancy he
reached out and took the prayer-book from the table, and abstractedly
began to finger its pages. What did those words mean? They had been with
him incessantly, insistently, since that morning when he had groped
for their meaning as between the bitterest of mockeries and a sublime
sincerity. They did not mock him now, they held no sting of irony. It
was very strange. They had not mocked him all that week. He had been
glad, eager, somehow, to repeat them to himself. Did they mean--peace?

Peace! If he could have peace--even for to-night. If he could lie down
between those cool, fresh sheets--and sleep! He was physically weary. He
had made himself weary each night in the hope that weariness might bring
a dreamless rest. He had thrown himself feverishly into the rôle of the
Curé of St. Marleau; he had walked miles and driven miles; there was
not a cottage in the parish upon whose door he had not knocked, and with
whose occupants he had not shared-the personal joys and sorrows of
the moment; and he had sat with the sick--with old Mother Blondin that
morning, for instance, who seemed quite ill and feeble, and who in the
last few days had taken to her bed. Yes, it was strange! He had done
all this, too, with a certain sincerity that was not alone due to an
effort to find forgetfulness during the day and weariness that would
bring repose at night. He had found neither the forgetfulness nor the
repose; but he had found a sort of wistful joy in the kindly acts of the
good, young Father Aubert!

He had found neither the forgetfulness nor the repose. He could not
forget the “afterwards”--the day that must irrevocably come--unless
something, some turn of fate, some unforeseen thing intervened.
_Something!_ It was a pitiful thing to cling to--a pitiful thing even
for a gambler's chance! But he clung to it now more desperately, more
tenaciously than ever before. It was not only his life now, it was not
only the life of the condemned man in that cell--it was Valérie. He
might blindfold his mental vision; he might crush back, and trample
down, and smother the thought, and refuse to admit it--but in his soul
he believed she cared. And if she cared, and if that “something” did not
happen, and he was forced, in whatever way he finally must choose, to
play the last card--there was Valérie. If she cared--there was Valérie
to suffer too! If he hanged instead of that man--there was Valérie! If
he confessed from a safe distance after flight--there was Valérie
to endure the shame! If the good, young Father Aubert died by
“accident”--there was the condemned man in the death cell to pay the
penalty--and Valérie to know the grief! Choice! What choice was there?
Who called this ghastly impasse a choice! He could only wait--wait and
cling to that hope, which in itself, because it was so paltry a thing to
lean on, but added to the horror and suspense of the hours and days that
stretched between now and the “afterwards.”

“Something” might happen--yes, something might happen--but nothing had
happened yet--nothing yet--and his brain, day and night, would not stop
mangling and tearing itself to pieces--and would not let him rest--and
there was no peace--none--not even for a few short hours.

His fingers were still mechanically turning the pages of the
prayer-book. “I will go in unto the Altar of God.” Why did those words
keep on running insistently through his mind? Did they suggest--peace?

Well, if they did, why wasn't there something practical about them,
something tangible, something he could lay material hands upon, and
sense, and feel? The Altar, of God! Was there in very reality a God?
He had chosen once to deny it contemptuously; and he had chosen once
to despise religion as cant and chicanery cleverly practised upon the
gullible and the weak-minded to the profit of those who pretended to
interpret it! But there were beautiful words here in this book; and
religion, if this were religion, must therefore be beautiful too--if
one could believe. He remembered those words at the burial of Théophile
Blondin--years, an eternity ago that was--“I am the resurrection and
the life... he that believeth in Me... shall never die.” He had repeated
them over and over to himself that morning--he had spoken them aloud, in
what had seemed then an unaccountable sincerity, to old Mother Blondin
as she had clung to the palings of the cemetery fence that morning. Yes,
they were beautiful words--if one could believe.

And here were others! What were these words here? He was staring at an
open page before him, staring and staring at it. What were these other
words here? It was not that he had never seen them before--but why
was the book open at this place now--at these last few words of the
_Benedictus? “Per viscera misericordiæ Dei nostri... illuminare his qui
in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent: ad dirigendos pedes nostros in
viam pacis_--Through the tender mercy of our God... to enlighten those
who sit in darkness and in the shade of death: to direct our feet into
the way of peace.”

Were they but words--mere words--these? They were addressed to
him--definitely to him, were they not? He sat in darkness, in an agony
of darkness, lost, unable to find his way, and he sat--in the shade of
death! Was there a God, a God who had tender mercy, a God--to direct his
feet into the way of peace?

The book slipped from his fingers, and dropped to the floor--and, his
lips compressed, he stood up from the chair. If there was a God who
had mercy, mercy of any kind--it was mercy he asked now. Where was this
mercy? Where was this way of peace? Where was--a strange, bewildered,
incredulous wonder was creeping into his face. Was that it--the Altar
of God? Was that where there was peace--in unto the Altar of God? He
had asked for a practical application of the words. Is that what they
meant--that he should actually go--in unto the Altar of God--in there in
the church--now?

It seemed to stagger him for a moment. Numbly he stooped and picked up
the prayer-book, and closed it, and laid it back on the table--and stood
irresolute. Something, he was conscious, was impelling him to go there.
Well, why not? If there was a God, if there was a God who had tender
mercy, if it was that God whose words were suggesting a way of
peace--why not put that God to the test! Once, on the afternoon just
before he had attempted that man's escape, he had yielded to a previous
impulse, and had gone into the church. It had been quiet, still
and restful, he remembered; and he remembered that he had come away
strangely calmed. But since then a cataclysm had swept over him; then
he had been in a state of mind that, compared with now, was one even
of peace--but even so, it was quiet, still and restful there, he
remembered.

He was crossing the room slowly, hesitantly, toward the door. Well, why
not? If there was a God, and this impulse emanated from God--why not put
it to the test? If it was all a hollow fraud, a myth, a superstition
to which he was weak enough to yield, he would at least be no worse
off than to sit here in that chair, or to lie upon the bed and toss the
hours away until morning came!

Well, he would go! He stepped softly out into the hall, closed his door
behind him, groped his way in the darkness to the front door of the
_presbytère_, opened it--and stood still for an instant, listening.
Neither Valérie nor her mother, asleep upstairs, had been disturbed he
was sure. If they had--well, they would assign no ulterior motive to his
going out--it was only that Monsieur le Curé, poor man, did not sleep
well!

He closed the door quietly, and went down the steps--and at the bottom
paused again. He became suddenly conscious that there was a great quiet
and a great serenity in the night--and a great beauty. There were stars,
a myriad stars in a perfect sky; and the moonlight bathed the church
green in a radiance that made of it a velvet carpet, marvellously
wrought in shadows of many hues. There, along the road, a whitewashed
cottage stood out distinctly, and still further along another, and yet
another--like little fortresses whose tranquillity was impregnable. And
the moonlight, and the lullaby of the lapping water on the shore, and
the night sounds that were the chirping of the little grass-things,
were like some benediction breathed softly upon the earth.

“To direct our feet into the way of peace”--Raymond murmured the words
with a sudden overpowering sense of yearning and wistfulness sweeping
upon him. And then, as suddenly, he was tense, alert, straining his eyes
toward the front of the church. Was that a shadow there that moved, cast
perhaps by the swaying branch of some tree? It was a very curious branch
if that were so! The shadow seemed to have appeared suddenly from around
the corner of the church and to be creeping toward the door. It was
too far across the green to see distinctly, even with the moonlight as
bright as it was, but it seemed as though he could see the church door
open and close again--and now the shadow had disappeared.

Mechanically Raymond rubbed his eyes. It was strange, so very strange
that it must surely be only a trick of the imagination. The moonlight
was always deceptive and lent itself easily to hallucinations, and at
that distance he certainly could not be sure. And besides, at this hour,
after midnight, why should any one go stealing into the church? And yet
he could have sworn he had seen the door open! And stare as he would
now, the shadow that had crept along the low platform above the church
steps was no longer visible.

He hesitated a moment. It was even an added incentive for him to go into
the church, but suppose some one was there, and he should be seen? He
smiled a little wanly--and stepped forward across the green. Well, what
of it! Was he not the Curé of St. Mar-leau? It would be only another
halo for the head of the good, young Father Aubert! It would require but
a word of explanation from him, he could even tell the truth--and they
would call him the _devout_, good, young Father Aubert! Only, instead of
entering by one of the main doors, he would go in through the sacristy.
He was not even likely to be seen himself in that way; and, if there was
any one there, he should be able to discover who it was, and what he or
she was doing there.

He passed on along the side of the church, his footsteps soundless on
the sward, reached the door of the sacristy, opened it silently, and
stepped inside. It was intensely dark here. Treading on tiptoe, he
traversed the little room, and finally, after a moment's groping, his
fingers closed on the knob of the door that opened on the interior of
the church.

A sound broke the stillness. Yes, there was some one out there! Raymond
cautiously pulled the door ajar. Came that sound again. It was very
loud--and yet it was only the creak of a footstep that seemed to come
from somewhere amongst the aisles. It echoed back from the high vaulted
roof with a great noise. It seemed to give pause, to terrify with
its own alarm whoever was out there, for now as he listened there was
silence again.

Still cautiously and still a little wider, Raymond opened the door, and
now he could see out into the body of the church--and for a moment, as
though gazing upon some mystic scene, he stood there wrapt, immovable.
Above the tops of the high, stained windows, it was as though a vast
canopy of impenetrable blackness were spread from end to end of the
edifice; and slanting from the edge of this canopy in a series of
parallel rays the moonlight, coloured into curious solemn tints,
filtered across from one wall to the other. And the aisles were like
little dark alleyways leading away as into some immensity beyond. And
here, looming up, a statue, the figure of some white-robed saint,
drew, as it were, a holy light about it, and seemed to take on life
and breathe into the stillness a sense of calm and pure and unchanging
presence. And the black canopy and the little dark alleyways seemed
to whisper of hidden things that kept ward over this abode of God. And
there was no sound--and there was awe and solemnity in this silence. And
on the altar, very near him, the Altar of God that he had come to seek,
the single altar light burned like a tiny scintillating jewel in its
setting of moon rays. And there, shadowy against the wall, just outside
the chancel rail, was the great cross. There seemed something that spoke
of the immutable in that. The first little wooden church above whose
doors it had been reared was gone, and there was a church of stone now
with a golden, metal cross upon its spire, but this great cross of wood
was still here. It was a very precious relic to St. Marleau, and so it
hung there on the wall of the new church between the two windows nearest
the altar.

And then his eyes, travelling down the length of the cross, fixed upon
its base--and the spell that had held him was gone. It was blacker
there, very much blacker! There was a patch of blackness there that
seemed to move and waver slightly--and it was neither shadow, nor
yet the support built out to hold the base of the cross. Some one was
crouching there. Well, what should he do? Remain in hiding here, or go
out there as the Curé of St. Marleau and see who it was? Something
urged him to go; caution bade him remain where he was. He knew a sudden
resentment. He had put God to the test--and, instead of peace, he had
found a prowler in the church!

Ah--what was that! That low, broken sound--like a sob! Yes, it came
again--and the echoes whispered it back from everywhere. It was a woman.
A woman was sobbing there at the foot of the cross. Who was it? Came
a thought that stabbed with pain. Not Valérie! It could not be
Valérie--kneeling there under a load that was beyond her strength! It
could not be Valérie in anguish and grief greater than she could bear
because--because she loved a man whom she believed to be a priest of
God! No--not Valérie! But if it were!

He drew back a little. If it were Valérie she should not know that he
had seen. At least he could save her that. He would wait until whoever
it was had left the church, and if it were Valérie she would go back to
the _presbytère_, and in that way he would know.

And now--what were those words now? She was praying out there as
she sobbed. And slowly an amazed and incredulous wonder spread over
Raymond's face. No, it was not Valérie! That was not Valérie's voice!
Those mumbling, hesitant, uncertain words, as though the memory
were pitifully at fault, were not Valérie's. It was not Valérie! He
recognised the voice now. It was the old woman on the hill--old Mother
Blondin!

And Raymond stared for a moment helplessly out through the crack of the
sacristy door which he held ajar, out into those curiously tinted moon
rays, and past the altar with its tiny light, to where that dark shadow
lay against the wall. Old Mother Blondin! Old Mother Blondin, the
heretic, was out there--_praying in the church!_ Why? What had brought
her there? Old Mother Blondin who was supposed to be ill in her bed--he
had seen her there that morning! She had been sick for the last
few days, and worse if anything that morning--and now--now she was
here--praying in the church.

What had brought her here? What motive had brought this about, that,
with its strength of purpose, must have supplied physical strength as
well, for she must almost literally have had to crawl down the hill
in her feeble state? Had she too come seeking for--peace! Was it
coincidence that they two, who had reached the lees and dregs of that
common cup, should be here together, at this strange hour, at the Altar
of God! Was it only coincidence--nothing more? Was he ready to believe,
would he admit so much, that it was _more_ than--coincidence?

A sense of solemnity and of awe that mingled with a sense of profound
compassion for old Mother Blon-din sobbing there in her misery took
possession of him, and he seemed moved now as by an impulse beyond and
outside himself--to go to her--to comfort and soothe her, if he could.
And slowly he opened the sacristy door, and stepped out into the
chancel, and into the moonlight that fell softly across the altar's
edge--and he called her name.

There was a cry, wild, unrestrained--a cry of terror that seemed to
swirl about the church, and from the black canopy above that hid the
vaulted roof was hurled back in a thousand echoes. But with the cry,
as the dark form from against the wall sprang erect, Raymond caught a
sharp, ominous cracking sound--and, as he looked, high up on the wall,
the arms of the huge cross seemed to waver and begin to tilt forward.

With a bound, as he saw her danger, Raymond cleared the chancel rail,
and the next instant had caught at the base of the cross and steadied
it. In her terror as she had jumped to her feet, she had knocked against
it and forced it almost off the sort of shelf, or ledge, that had been
built out from the wall to support it; and at the same time, he could
see now, one or more of the wall fastenings at the top had given away.
It was very heavy and unmanageable, but he finally succeeded in getting
it far enough back into position to make it temporarily secure.

He turned then to face Mother Blondin. She seemed oblivious, unconscious
of her escape, though her face in the moonlight held a ghastly colour.
She was staring at him with eyes that burned feverishly in their deep
sockets. She was not crying now, but there were still tears, undried,
that clung to her withered cheeks. One bony hand reached out and
clutched at the back of a pew, for she was swaying on her feet; but the
other was clenched and knotted--and suddenly she raised it and shook it
in his face.

“Yes, it is I! I--Mother Blondin!” she choked. “Mother Blondin--the old
hag--the _excommuniée!_ You saw me come in--eh? And you have come to put
me out--to put old Mother Blondin, the _excommuniée_, out--eh? I have no
right here--here--eh? Well, who said I had any right! Put me out--put me
out--put me-----” The clenched hand opened, clawed queerly at her face,
as though to clear away something that had gathered before her eyes and
would not let her see--and she reeled heavily backward.

Raymond's arm went around her shoulders.

“You are ill, Madame Blondin--ill and weak,” he said soothingly.
“See”--he half lifted, half supported her into the pew--“sit down here
for a moment and rest. I am afraid I frightened you. I am very sorry.
Perhaps it would have been better if I had left you by yourself; but
I heard you sobbing out here, and I thought that I might perhaps help
you--and so I came--and so--you are better now, are you not?---and so,
you see, it was not to drive you out of the church.”

She looked at him in a sort of angry unbelief.

“Ah!” she exclaimed fiercely. “Why do you tell me that, eh? Why do you
tell me that? I have no right here--and you are a priest. That is your
business--to drive me out.”

“No,” said Raymond gravely; “it is not my business. And I think you
would go very far, Madame Blondin, before you would find a priest who
would drive you from his church under the circumstances in which I have
found you here to-night.”

“Well then, I will go myself!” she said defiantly--and made as though to
rise.

“No, not yet”--Raymond pressed her quietly back into the seat. “You must
rest for a little while. Why, this morning, you know, you were seriously
ill in bed. Surely you were not alone in the house to-night, that there
was no one to prevent you getting up--I asked Madame Bouchard to----”

“Madame Bouchard came to spend the night, but I did not want her, and I
sent her home,” she interrupted brusquely.

“You should not have done that, Madame Blondin,” Raymond remonstrated
kindly. “But even then, you are very weak, and I do not see how you
managed to get here.”

Her face set hard with the old stubborn indomitableness that he knew so
well.

“I walked!” she said shortly.

Her hands were twisting together in her lap. There was dust covering her
skirt thickly.

“And fell,” he said.

She did not answer.

“Will you tell me why you came?” he asked.

“Because I was a fool”--her lips were working, her hands kept twisting
over each other in her lap.

“I heard you praying,” said Raymond gently. “What brought you here
to-night, Madame Blondin?”

She shook her head now, and turned her face away.

The moonlight fell on the sparse, gray hair, and the thin, drooping
shoulders, and the unkempt, shabby clothing. It seemed to enfold her in
an infinite sympathy all its own. And suddenly Raymond found that his
eyes were wet. It did not seem so startling and incongruous a thing that
she should be here at midnight in the church--at the Altar of God. And
yet--and yet why had she come? Something within himself demanded in a
strange wistfulness the answer to that question, as though in the answer
she would answer for them both, for the two who had no _right_ here in
this sacred place unless--unless, if there were a God, that God in His
own way had meant to--direct their feet into the way of peace.

“Madame Blondin”--his voice was very low, trembling with
earnestness--“Madame Blondin, do you believe in God?”

Her hands stopped their nervous movements, and clasped hard one upon the
other.

“No!” she cried out sharply. “No--I----” And then her voice faltered,
and she burst suddenly into tears. “I--I don't know.”

His arm was still about her shoulders, and now his hand tightened a
little upon her. She was crying softly. He was silent now--staring
before him at that tiny flame burning in the moon rays on the altar.
Well, suppose she did! Suppose even Mother Blondin believed, though
she would fight on until she was beaten to her knees before she would
unconditionally admit it, did that mean anything to him? Mother Blondin
had not stood before that altar there with a crucifix upon her breast,
and----

She was speaking again--brushing the tears away with the back of her
hand.

“Once I did--once I believed,” she said. “That was when I was a girl,
and--and for a little while afterward. I used to come to the church
then, and I used to believe. And then after Pierre died I married
Blondin, and after that very soon I came no more. It is forty
years--forty years--it was the old church then. The ban came before
this one was built--I was never in here before--it is only the old cross
there, the cross that was on the old church, that I know. Forty years is
a long time--a long time--I am seventy-two now--seventy-two.”

She was crying again softly.

“Yes,” said Raymond, and his own voice choked, “and to-night--after
forty years?”

“I wanted to come”--she seemed almost to be whispering to herself--“I
wanted to come. Blondin said there was no God, but I remembered that
when I was a girl--forty years ago--there was a God here. I--I wanted
to come and see--and--and I--I don't know--I--I couldn't remember
the prayers very well, and so maybe if God is still here He did not
understand. Pierre always said there was a God, and he used to come
here with me to mass; but Blondin said the priests were all liars, and
I began to drink with Blondin, and he said they were all liars when he
died, and no one except the ones that came to buy the _whiskey-blanc_
would have anything to do with us, and--and I believed him.”

“And Pierre?” Raymond asked softly. “Who was Pierre?”

“Pierre?” She turned her head and looked at him--and somehow, perhaps
it was the tint of the moon rays, somehow the old, hard face was
transfigured, and seemed to glow with untold sweetness, and a smile
of tenderness mingled with the tears. “Pierre? Ah, he was a good boy,
Pierre. Yes, I have been happy! Who shall say I have not been happy?
There were three years of it--three years of it--and then Pierre died. I
was eighteen, eighteen on the day that Pierre and I were married. And it
was a great day in the village--all the village was _en fête_. You would
not believe that! But it is true. It is a long time between eighteen and
seventy-two, and I was not like I am now, and Pierre was loved by every
one. It is hard to believe, eh? And there are not many now who remember.
But there is old Grandmother Frenier. She will tell you that I am
telling you the truth about Pierre Letellier.”

“_Letellier!_”--it came in a low, involuntary cry from Raymond.
Letellier! Where had he heard that name before? What strange stirring of
the memory was this that the name had brought? Letellier! Was it--could
it be----?

“What is it, monsieur?”--she had caught at his sleeve. “Ah, you had
perhaps heard that the Letelliers all moved away from here--and you did
not know that I was once a Letellier? They sold everything and went away
because of me a few years after I married Blondin.”

“Yes,” said Raymond mechanically. “But tell me more about yourself
and Pierre--and--and those happy years. You had children--a--a son,
perhaps?”

“Yes--yes, monsieur!” There was a glad eagerness in her voice--and
then a broken sob--and the old eyes brimmed anew with tears. “There was
little Jean. He was born just a few months after his father died. He--he
was just like Pierre. He was four years old when I married Blondin,
and--and when he was ten he ran away.”

The altar light, that tiny light there seemed curiously transparent.
He could see through it, not to the body of the altar behind it, but
through it to a vast distance that did not measure miles, and he could
see the interior of a shack whose window pane was thickly frosted and in
whose doorway stood a man, and the man was Murdock Shaw who had come
to bring Canuck John's dying message--and he could hear Murdock Shaw's
words: “'Tell Three-Ace Artie--give good-bye message--my mother and----'
And then he died.”

“I do not know where he went”--old Mother Blon-din's faltering voice,
too, seemed a vast distance away--“I--I have never heard of him since
then. He is dead, perhaps; but, if he is alive, I hope--I hope that he
will never know. Yes--there were three years of happiness, monsieur--and
then it was finished. Monsieur, I--I will go now.”

Raymond's head on his crossed arms was bowed on the back of the pew
before him. Letellier! It was the forgotten name come back to him. This
was Canuck John's mother--and this was Théophile Blondin's mother--and
he had come to St. Marleau to deliver to her a message of death--and
he had delivered it in the killing of her other son! Was this the peace
that he had come here to seek to-night? Was this the hand of God that
had led him here? What did it mean? Was it God who had brought Mother
Blondin here to-night? Would it bring her comfort--to believe in God
again? Was he here for _that?_ Here, that a word from him, whom she
thought a priest, might turn the scales and bring her to her God of the
many years ago? Was this God's way--to use him, who masqueraded as God's
priest, and through whom this woman's son had been killed--was this
God's way to save old Mother Blondin?

She touched his arm timidly.

“Are you praying for me, monsieur?” she whispered tremulously. “It--it
is too late for that--that was forty years ago. And--and I will go now.”

He raised his head and looked at the old, withered, tear-stained face.
The question of his own belief did not enter here. If she went now
without a word from him, without a priestly word, she went forever. They
were beautiful words--and, if one believed, they brought comfort. And
she was near, very near to that old belief again. And they were near,
very near to his own lips too, those words.

“It is not too late,” he said brokenly. “Listen! Do you remember
the _Benedictus?_ Give me your hand, and we will kneel, and say it
together.”

She drew back, and shook her head, and tried to speak--but no words
came, only her lips quivered.

He held out his hand to her--held it silently there for a long time--and
then, hesitantly, she laid her hand in his.

And kneeling there in the pew, old Mother Blondin and Raymond Chapelle,
Raymond began the solemn words of the _Benedictus_. Low his voice was,
and the tears crept to his eyes as the thin hand clutched and clasped
spasmodically at his own. And as he came to the end, the tears held back
no longer and rolled hot upon his cheeks.

“... Through the tender mercy of our God... to enlighten those who sit
in darkness, and in the shade of death: to direct our feet into the way
of peace”--his voice died away.

She was sobbing bitterly. He helped her to her feet as she sought to
rise, and, holding tightly to her arm for she swayed unsteadily, he led
her down the aisle. And they came to the church door, and out upon the
green. And here she paused, as though she expected him to leave her.

“I will walk up the hill with you, Mother Blondin,” he said. “I do not
think you are strong enough to go alone.”

She did not answer.

They started on along the road. She walked very slowly, very feebly, and
leaned heavily upon him. And neither spoke. And they turned up the hill.
And halfway up the hill he lifted her in his arms and carried her, for
her strength was gone. And somehow he knew that when she had left her
bed that night to stumble down this hill to the moonlit church she had
left it for the last time--save one.

She was speaking again--almost inaudibly. He bent his head to catch the
words.

“It is forty years,” said old Mother Blondin. “Forty years--it is a long
time--forty years.”




CHAPTER XX--AN UNCOVERED SOUL

|IT hung there precariously. All through the mass that morning Raymond's
eyes had kept straying to the great cross on the wall that old Mother
Blondin had disturbed the night before. No one else, it was true, had
appeared to notice it; but, having no reason to do so, no one else, very
probably, had given it any particular attention--nevertheless, a single
strand of cord on one end of the horizontal beam was all that now
prevented the cross from pitching outward from the wall and crashing
down into the body of the church.

The door of the sacristy leading into the chancel was open, and, in the
sacristy now, Raymond's eyes fixed uneasily again on the huge, squared
timbers of the cross. The support at the base held the weight of course,
but the balance and adjustment was gone, and the slightest jar would be
all that was necessary to snap that remaining cord above. Massive and
unwieldy, the cross itself must be at least seven feet in height; and,
though this was of course imagination, it seemed to waver there now
ominously, as if to impress upon him the fact that in the cause of its
insecurity he was not without a personal responsibility.

He had removed his surplice and stole; Gauthier Beaulieu, the altar boy,
had gone; and there was only old Narcisse Pélude, the aged sacristan,
who was still puttering about the room. And the church was empty now,
save that he could still hear Valérie moving around up there in the
little organ loft.

Raymond passed his hand wearily across his eyes. He was very tired.
Valérie was lingering intentionally--and he knew why. He had not
returned to the _presbytère_, his bed had not been slept in. Valérie and
her mother could not have helped but discover that, and they would be
anxious, and worried, and perhaps a little frightened--and that was why
Valérie was lingering now, waiting for him. He had not dared to leave
old Mother Blondin alone through the night. She had been very ill.
And he had not gone to any one near at hand, to Madame Bouchard, for
instance, to get her to take his place, for that would have entailed
explanations which, not on his own account, but for old Mother Blondin's
sake, he had not cared to make; and so, when the bell for mass had rung
that morning, he had still been at the bedside of the old woman on the
hill. And he had left her only then because she was sleeping quietly,
and the immediate crisis seemed safely past.

Raymond's eyes, from the cross, rested speculatively for a moment on the
bent figure of the aged sacristan. He could make those explanations to
Valérie, he could go out there now and in a sort of timely corroboration
of the story repair the damage done to the cross, and she would
understand; but he could not publicly make those explanations. If it was
to be known in the village that old Mother Blondin had come here to the
church, it was for old Mother Blondin herself, and for no one else, to
tell it. It was the same attitude he had adopted toward her once before.
True, Mother Blondin had changed very greatly since then; but a tactless
word from any one, a sneer, the suggestion of triumph over her, and
the old sullen defiance might well rise supreme again--and old Mother
Blondin, he knew now, had not very long to live. Valérie and her mother
would very readily, and very sympathetically understand. He could tell
Valérie, indeed he was forced to do so in order to explain his own
absence from the _presbytère_; but to others, to the village, to old
Narcisse Pélude here, since the broken fastenings of the cross must be
replaced, old Mother Blondin's name need not be mentioned.

“Narcisse, how long has that great cross hung there on the wall?” he
inquired abruptly.

“Ah--the great cross! Yes--Monsieur le Curé!” The old man laid down a
vestment that he had been carefully folding, and wagged his head. “It is
very old--very old, that cross. You will see how old it is when I tell
you it was made by the grandfather of the present Bouchard, whose pew
is right underneath it. Grandfather Bouchard was one of the first in St.
Mar-leau, and you must know, Monsieur le Curé, that St. Marleau was then
a very small place. It was the Grandfather Bouchard who built most of
the old wooden church, and there was a little cupola for the bell, and
above the cupola was that cross. Yes, Monsieur le Curé, there have been
changes in St. Marleau, and----”

“But how long has it hung there on the wall, Narcisse?” Raymond
interrupted with a tolerant smile--Narcisse had been known at times to
verge on garrulity!

“But I am telling you, Monsieur le Curé,” said the old sacristan
earnestly. “We began to build this fine stone church, and when it was
finished the little old wooden church was torn down, and we brought the
cross here, and it has been here ever since, and that is thirty-two--no,
thirty-three years ago, Monsieur le Curé--it will be thirty-three years
this coming November.”

“And in those thirty-three years,” observed Raymond, “I imagine that the
cross has remained untouched?”

“But, yes, Monsieur le Curé! Untouched--yes, of course! It was
consecrated by Monsignor the Bishop himself--not the present bishop,
Monsieur le Curé will understand, but the old bishop who is since dead,
and----”

“Quite so,” said Raymond. “Well, come here, nearer to the door,
Narcisse. Now, look at the cross very carefully, and see if you can
discover why I asked you if it had remained untouched all those years?”

The old man strained his eyes across the chancel to the opposite
wall--and shook his head.

“No, Monsieur le Curé, I see nothing--only the cross there as usual.”

“Look higher up,” prompted Raymond. “Do you not see that all but one of
the fastenings are broken, and that it is about to fall?”

“Fall? About to fall?” The old man rubbed his eyes, and stared, and
rubbed his eyes again. “Yes--yes--it is true! I see now! The cords have
rotted away. It is no wonder--in all that time. I--I should have thought
of that long, long ago.” He turned a white face to Raymond. “It--it is
the mercy of God that it did not happen, Monsieur le Curé, with anybody
there! It would have killed Bouchard, and madame, and the children! It
would have crushed them to death! Monsieur le Curé, I am a _misérable!_
I am an old man, and I forget, but that is not an excuse. Yes, Monsieur
le Curé, I am a _misérable!_”

Raymond laid his hand on the old sacristan's shoulder.

“We will see that it does not fall on the excellent Bouchard, or on
madame, or on the children,” he smiled. “Therefore, bring a ladder and
some stout cord, Narcisse, and we will fix it at once.”

The old man stared again at the cross for a moment, then started
hurriedly toward the sacristy door that gave on the side of the church.

“Yes, Monsieur le Curé--yes--at once,” he agreed anxiously. “There is a
ladder beside the shed that is long enough. I will get it immediately.
I am an old man, and I forget, but I am none the less a _misérable_.
If Monsieur le Curé had not happened to notice it, and it had fallen on
Bouchard! Monsieur le Curé is very good not to blame me, but I am none
the less----”

The old man, shaking his head, and still talking, had disappeared
through the doorway.

Old Narcisse Pélude--the self-styled _misérable!_ The old man had taken
it quite to heart! Raymond shrugged his shoulders whimsically. Well, so
much the better! It was for old Mother Blondin to tell her own story--if
she chose! He wondered, with a curious and seemingly unaccountable
wistfulness, if she ever would! It had been a night that had left him
strangely moved, strangely bewildered, unable even yet to focus his
mind clearly and logically upon it. He could tell Valérie of old Mother
Blondin, of how the old woman on the hill had come here seeking peace;
he could not tell her that he, too, had come in the hope that he might
find what old Mother Blondin had sought--at the Altar of God!

Valérie! Yes, he was strangely moved this morning. And now a yearning
and an agony surged upon him. Valérie! Between Valérie's coming to him
that night in the stillness of the hours just before the dawn, and his
coming here to the church last night, there lay an analogy of souls
near-spent, clutching at what they might to save themselves. Peace, and
the seeking of a way, he had come for; and peace, and the seeking of a
way, she had come for then. It seemed as though he could see that scene
again--that room in the _presbytère_, and the lamp upon the desk, and
that slim, girlish form upon her knees before him; and it seemed as
though he could feel the touch again of that soft, dark, silken hair, as
she laid his hands upon her bowed head; and it seemed as though he could
hear her voice again, as it faltered through the _Pater Noster_:
“Hallowed be Thy name... and lead us not into temptation... but deliver
us from evil.” Had he, in any measure, found what he had sought last
night? He did not know. He had knelt and prayed with old Mother Blondin.
The _Benedictus_, as he had repeated it, had seemed real. He had known a
profound solemnity, and the sense of that solemnity had remained with
him, was with him now--and yet he blasphemed that solemnity, and the
Altar of God, and this holy place in standing here at this very moment
decked out in his stolen _soutane_ and the crucifix that hung from his
neck! Illogical? Why did he do it then? His eyes were on the floor.
Illogical? It was to save his life--it was because he was fighting to
save his life. It was not to repudiate the sincerity with which he had
repeated the words of the _Benedictus_ to old Mother Blondin--it was to
save his life. Whatever he had found here, whether a deeper meaning in
these holy symbolisms, he had not found the way--no other way but to
blaspheme on with his _soutane_ cloaked around him. And she--Valérie?
Had she found what she had sought that night? He did not know. Refuse to
acknowledge it, attempt to argue himself into disbelief, if he would, he
knew that when she had knelt there that night in the front room of the
_presbytère_ she cared. And since then? Had she, in any measure, found
what she had sought? Had she crushed back the love, triumphed over it
until it remained only a memory in her life? He did not know. She had
given no sign. They had never spoken of that night again. Only--only it
seemed as though of late there had come a shadow into the fresh, young
face, and a shadow into the dark, steadfast eyes, a shadow that had not
been there on the night when he had first come to St. Marleau, and she
and he had bent together over the wounded man upon the bed.

Subconsciously he had been listening for her step; and now, as he heard
her descending the stairs from the organ loft, he stepped out from the
sacristy into the chancel, and down into the nave of the church. He
could see her now, and she had seen him. She had halted at the foot of
the stairs under the gallery at the back of the church. Valérie! How
sweet and beautiful she looked this morning! There was just a tinge of
rising colour in her cheeks, a little smile, half tremulous, half gay
on the parted lips, a dainty gesture of severity and playfulness in the
shake of her head, as he approached.

“Oh, Father Aubert,” she exclaimed, “you do not know how relieved we
were, mother and I, when we saw you enter the church this morning for
mass! We--we were really very anxious about you; and we did not know
what to think when mother called you as usual half an hour before the
mass, and found that you were not there, and that you had not slept in
your bed.”

“Yes, I know,” said Raymond gravely; “and that is what I have come to
speak to you about now. I was afraid you would be anxious, but I knew
you would understand--though you would perhaps wonder a little--when I
told you what kept me away last night. Let us walk down the side aisle
there to the chancel, Mademoiselle Valérie, and I will explain.”

A bewildered little pucker gathered on her forehead.

“The side aisle, Father Aubert?” she repeated in a puzzled way.

“Yes; come,” he said. “You will see.”

He led her down the aisle, and, halting before the cross, pointed
upward.

“Why, the fastenings, all but one, are broken!” she cried out instantly.
“It is a miracle that it has not fallen! What does it mean?”

“It is the story of last night, Mademoiselle Valerie,” he answered with
a sober smile. “Sit down in the pew there, and I will tell you. I have
sent Narcisse for a ladder, and we will repair the damage presently, but
there will be time before he gets back. He believes that the fastenings
have grown old and rotten, which is true; and that they parted simply
from age, which is not quite so much the fact. I have allowed him to
form his own conclusions; I have even encouraged him to believe in
them.”

She was sitting in the pew now. The bewildered little pucker had grown
deeper. She kept glancing back and forth from Raymond, standing before
her in the aisle, to the broken fastenings of the cross high up on the
wall.

“But that is what any one would naturally think,” she said slowly. “I
thought so myself. I--I do not quite understand, Father Aubert.”

“I think you know,” said Raymond quietly, “that some nights I do not
sleep very well, Mademoiselle Valerie. Last night was one of those. When
midnight came I was still wakeful, and I had not gone to bed. I was very
restless; I knew I could not sleep, and so I decided to go out for a
little while.”

“Yes,” she said impulsively; “I know. I heard you.”

“You heard me?” He looked at her in quick surprise. “But I thought I had
been very careful indeed to make no noise. I--I did not think that I had
wakened------”

A flush came suddenly to her cheeks, and she turned her head aside.

“I--I was not asleep,” she said hurriedly. “Go on, Father Aubert, I did
not mean to interrupt you.”

Raymond did not speak for a moment. He was not looking at her now--he
dared not trust his eyes to drink deeper of that flush that had come
with the simple statement that she too had been awake. Valérie! Valérie!
It was the silent voice of his soul calling her. And suddenly he seemed
to be looking out from his prison land upon the present scene--upon
Valérie and the good, young Father Aubert together, looking upon them
both, as he had looked upon them together many times. And suddenly he
hated that figure in priestly dress with a deadly hate--because Valérie
had tossed upon her bed awake, and had not slept; and because, as though
gifted with prophetic vision, he could see the shadow in Valérie's
fresh, pure face change and deepen into misery immeasurable, and the
young life, barely on its threshold, be robbed of youth with its joy and
gladness, and with sorrow grow prematurely old.

“You went out, Father Aubert,” she prompted. “And then?”

The old sacristan would be back with the ladder very shortly, at almost
any minute now--and he had to tell Valérie about old Mother Blondin
and the cross before Narcisse returned. He looked up. He found himself
speaking at first mechanically, and then low and earnestly, swayed
strangely by his own words. And so, standing there in the aisle of the
church, he told Valerie the story of the night, of the broken cross, of
the broken life so near its end. And there was amazement, and wonder,
and surprise in Valerie's face as she listened, and then a tender
sympathy--and at the end, the dark eyes, as they lifted to his, were
filled with tears.

“It is very wonderful,” she said almost to herself. “Old Mother
Blondin--it could be only God who brought her here.”

Raymond did not answer. The old sacristan had entered the church, and
was bringing the ladder down the aisle. It was the sacristan who spoke,
catching sight of Valérie, as Raymond, taking one end of the ladder,
raised it against the wall beside the cross.

“_Tiens!_” The old man lifted the coil of thin rope which he held, and
with the back of his hand mopped away a bead of perspiration from his
forehead. “You have seen then what has happened, mademoiselle! Father
Aubert has made light of it; but what will Monsieur le Curé, your uncle,
say when he hears of it! Yes, it is true--I am a _misérable_--I do not
deserve to be sacristan any longer! It was consecrated by Monsignor the
Bishop, that cross, when the church was consecrated, and----”

Raymond took the cord quietly from the old man's hand, and began to
mount the ladder. He went up slowly--not that the ladder was insecure,
but that his mind and thoughts were far removed from the mere mechanical
task which he had set himself to perform. Valérie's words had set that
turmoil at work in his soul again. She had not hesitated to say that
it was God who had brought old Mother Blondin here. And he too believed
that now. Peace he had not found, nor the way, but he believed that now.
Therefore he must believe now that there was a God--yes, the night had
brought him that. And if there was a God, was it God who had led him,
as old Mother Blondin had been led, to fall upon his knees in that pew
below there where Valérie now sat, and _pray?_ Had he prayed for old
Mother Blondin's sake _alone?_ Was God partial then? Old Mother Blondin,
he knew, even if her surrender were not yet complete, had found the way.
He had not. He had found no way--to save that man who was to be hanged
by the neck until he was dead--to save Valérie from shame and misery if
she cared, if she still cared--to save himself! Old Mother Blondin
alone had found the way. Was it because she was the lesser sinner of the
two--because he had blasphemed God beyond all recall--because he still
dared to blaspheme God--because he had stood again that morning at the
altar and had officiated as God's holy priest--because he stood here now
in God's house, an impostor, an intruder and a defiler! No way! And
yet _through him_ old Mother Blondin had found her God again! Was it
irony--God's irony--God's answer, irrefutable, to his former denial of
God's existence!

No way! Ten feet below him Valérie and the old sacristan talked and
watched; the weather-beaten timbers of the great cross were within reach
of his hands; there, inside the chancel rail, was the altar--all these
things were real, were physically real. It did not seem as though it
could be so. It seemed as though, instead, he were taking part in
some horrible, and horribly vivid dream-life. Only there would be no
awakening! There was no way--he would twist this cord about the iron
hooks on the cross and the iron hook on the wall, and descend, and go
through another day, and be the good, young Father Aubert, and toss
through another night, and wait, clinging to the miserable hope, spurned
even by his gambler's instinct, that “something” might happen--wait for
the deciding of that appeal, and picture the doomed man in the death
cell, and dream his dreams, and watch Valérie from his prison land, and
know through the hours and minutes torment and merciless unrest. Yes,
he believed there was a God. He believed that God had brought them both
here, old Mother Blondin to cling to the foot of the cross, and himself
to find her there--but to him there had come no peace--no way. His
blasphemy, his desecration of God's altar and God's church had been
made to serve God's ends--old Mother Blondin had found the way. But that
purpose was accomplished now. How much longer, then, would God suffer
this to continue? Not long! To-morrow, the next day, the day after,
would come the answer to the appeal--and then he must choose. Choose!
Choose what? What was there to choose where--his hands gripped hard on
the rung of the ladder. Enough! Enough of this! It was terrible enough
in the nights! There was no end to it! It would go on and on--the same
ghoulish cycle over and over again. He would not let it master him now,
for there would be no end to it! He was here to fix the cross. To fix
God's cross, the consecrated cross--it was a fitting task for one who
walked always with that symbol suspended from his neck! It was curious
how that symbol had tangled up his hands the night his fingers had crept
toward that white throat on the bed! Even the garb of priest that he
wore God turned to account, and--no! He lifted his hand and swept it
fiercely across his eyes. Enough! That was enough! It was only beginning
somewhere else in the cycle that inevitably led around into all the rest
again.

He fought his mind back to his immediate surroundings. He was above the
horizontal arm of the cross now, and he could see and appreciate how
narrowly a catastrophe had been averted the night before. It was, as
Valérie had said, a miracle that the cross had not fallen, for the
single strand of cord that still held it was frayed to a threadlike
thinness.

He glanced above him, decided to make the vertical beam, or centre, of
the cross secure first by passing the cord around the upper hook in the
wall that was still just a little beyond his reach, stepped quickly up
to the next rung of the ladder--and lurched suddenly, pitching heavily
to one side. It was his _soutane_, the garb of priest, the garb of God's
holy priest--his foot had caught in the skirt of his _soutane_. He flung
out his hands against the wall to save himself. It was too late! The
ladder swayed against the cross--the threadlike fastening snapped--and
the massive arms of the cross lunged outward toward him, pushing the
ladder back. A cry, hoarse, involuntary, burst from his lips--it was
echoed by another, a cry from Valérie, a cry that rang in terror through
the church. Two faces, white with horror, looking up at him from below,
flashed before his eyes--and he was plunging backward, downward with the
ladder--and hurtling through the air behind it, the mighty cross, with
arms outspread as though in vengeance and to defy escape, pursued and
rushed upon him, and---- There was a terrific crash, the rip and rend
and tear of splintering wood--and blackness.

There came at first a dull sense of pain; then the pain began to
increase in intensity. There were insistent murmurings; there were
voices. He was coming back to consciousness; but he seemed to be coming
very slowly, for he could not move or make any sign. His side commenced
to cause him agony. His head ached and throbbed as though it were being
pounded under quick and never-ending hammer blows; and yet it seemed to
be strangely and softly cushioned. The murmurings continued. He began to
distinguish words--and then suddenly his brain was cleared, cleared as
by some terrific mental shock that struck to the soul, uplifting it in a
flood of glory, engulfing it in a fathomless and abysmal misery. It was
Valerie--it was Valerie's voice--Valerie whispering in a frightened,
terrified, almost demented way--whispering that she _loved_ him,
imploring him to speak.

“... Oh, will no one come! Can Narcisse find no one! I--I cannot bring
him back to consciousness! Speak to me! Speak to me! You must--you
shall! It is I who have sinned in loving you. It is I who have sinned
and made God angry, and brought this upon you. But God will not let you
die--because--because--it was my sin--and--and you would never know.
I--I promised God that you would never know. And you--you shall not die!
You shall not! You shall not! Speak to me--oh, speak to me!”

Speak to her! Speak to Valerie! Not even to whisper her name--when the
blood in a fiery tide whipped through his veins; when impulse born of
every fibre of his being prompted him to lift his arms to her face, so
close to his that he could feel her breath upon his cheek, and draw it
closer, closer, until it lay against his own, and to hold it there, and
find her lips, and feel them cling to his! There was a physical agony
from his hurts upon him that racked him from head to foot--but there was
an agony deeper still that was in his soul. His head was pillowed on her
knee, but even to open his eyes and look up into that pure face he loved
was denied him, even to whisper a word that would allay her fears
and comfort her was denied him. From Valérie's own lips had come the
bitterest and dearest words that he would ever hear. He could temporise
no longer now. He could juggle no more with his false and inconsistent
arguments. Valérie cared, Valérie loved him--as he had known she cared,
as he had known she loved him. A moan was on his lips, forced there by
a sudden twinge of pain that seemed unendurable. He choked it back. She
must not know that he had heard--he must simulate unconsciousness. He
could not save her from much now, from the “afterwards” that was so
close upon him--but he could save her from this. She should not know!
God's cross in God's church... his blasphemy, his sacrilege had been
answered... the very garb of priest had repaid him for its profanation
and struck him down... and Valérie... Valérie was here... holding him...
and Valérie loved him... but Valérie must not know... it was between
Valérie and her God... she must not know that he had heard.

Her hands were caressing his face, smoothing back his hair, bathing his
forehead with the water which had been her first thought perhaps before
she had sent Narcisse for help. Valérie's hands! Like fire, they were,
upon him, torturing him with a torture beyond the bodily torment he was
suffering; and like the tenderest, gladdest joy he had ever known, they
were. A priest of God--and Valérie! No, it went deeper far than that;
it was a life of which this was but the inevitable and bitter
culmination--and Valérie. But for that, in a surge of triumphant
ecstasy, victor of a prize beyond all price, his arms might have swept
out in the full tide of his manhood's strength around her, claiming her
surrender--a surrender that would have been his right--a surrender that
would have been written deep in love and trust and faith and glory in
those dark, tear-dimmed eyes.

And now her hands closed softly, and remained still, and held his face
between them--and she was gazing down at him. He could see her, he had
no need to open his eyes for that--he could see the sweet, quivering
lips; the love, the terror, the yearning, the fear mingling in the
white, beautiful face. And then suddenly, with a choked sob, she bent
forward and kissed him, and laid her face against his cheek.

“He will not speak to me!”--her voice was breaking. “Then listen, my
lover--my lover, who cannot hear--my lover, who will never know. Is it
wrong to kiss you, is it making my sin the greater to tell you--you who
will not hear. There is only God to know. And out of all my life it is
for just this once--for just this once. Afterwards, if you live, I will
ask God to forgive--for it is only for this once--this once out of all
my life. And--and--if you die--then--then I will ask God to be merciful
and--and take me too. You did not know I loved you so, and I had never
thought to tell you. And if you live you will never know, because you
are God's priest, and my sin is very terrible, but--but I--I shall know
that you are somewhere, a big and brave and loyal man, and glad in your
life, and--and loved, as all love you here in St. Marleau. All through
my life I will love you--all through my life--and--and I will remember
that for just this once, for this moment out of all the years, I gave
myself to you.”

She drew him closer. An agony that was maddening shot through his side
as she moved him. If he might only clench his teeth deep in his lips
that he might not scream out! But he could not do that for Valeric would
see--and Valérie must not know. Tighter and tighter she held him in
her strong, young arms--and now, like the bursting wide of flood-gates,
there was passion in her voice.

“I love you! I love you! I love you! And I am afraid--and I am afraid!
For I am only a woman, and it is a woman's love. Would you turn from me
if you knew? No, no--I--I do not know what I am saying--only that
you are here with my arms around you--and that--that your face is so
pale--and that--and that you will not speak to me.”

She was crying. She bent lower until, as a mother clasps a child, his
head lay upon her breast and shoulder, and her own head was buried on
his breast. And again with the movement came excruciating pain, and now
a weakness, a giddy swirling of his senses. It passed. He opened his
eyes for an instant, for she could not see him now. He was lying just
inside the chancel rail, and almost at the altar's foot. The sunlight
streamed through the windows of the church, but they were in shadow,
Valérie and he, in a curious shadow--it seemed to fall in a straight
line across them both, and yet be spread out in two wide arms that
completely covered them. And at first he could not understand, and then
he saw that the great cross lay forward with its foot against the wall
and the arms upon the shattered chancel rail--and the shadow was the
shadow of the cross. What did it mean? Was it there premonitory of a
wrath still unappeased, that was still to know fulfilment; or was it
there in pity--on Valérie--into whose life he had brought a sorrow that
would never know its healing? He closed his eyes again--the giddiness
had come once more.

“I--I promised God that he would never know”--she was speaking scarcely
above her breath, and the passion was gone out from her voice now, and
there was only pleading and entreaty. “Mary, dear and holy Mother, have
pity, and listen, and forgive--and bring him back to life. It came, and
it was stronger than I--the love. But I will keep my promise to
God--always--always. Forgive my sin, if it is not too great for
forgiveness, and help me to endure--and--and----” her voice broke in a
sob, and was still.

Her lips touched his brow gently; her hands smoothed back his hair.
Dizziness and torturing pain were sweeping over him in swiftly
alternating flashes. There were beads of agony standing out, he knew,
upon his forehead--but they were mingled and were lost in the tears that
suddenly fell hot upon him. Valerie! Valerie! God give him strength
that he might not writhe, that he might not moan. No, he need not fear
that--the pain was not so great now--it seemed to be passing gradually,
very gradually, even soothingly, away--there were other voices--they
seemed a long way off--there seemed to be footsteps and the closing of a
door--and the footsteps came nearer and nearer--but as they came nearer
they grew fainter and fainter--and blackness fell again.




CHAPTER XXI--THE CONDEMNED CELL

|THE reins lay idly in Raymond's hand. The horse, left to its own
initiative, ambled lazily to the crest of a little rise that commanded
a view of the town of Tournayville beyond. Raymond's eyes, lifting from
the dash-board, ignoring the general perspective, fixed and held on
a single detail, to the right, and perhaps a mile away--a high,
rectangular, gray stone wall, that inclosed a gray, rectangular stone
building.

His eyes reverted to the dash-board. It was nearly two weeks now since
he had seen that cold and narrow space with its iron bars, and the
figure that huddled on the cot clasping its hands dejectedly between its
knees--nearly two weeks. It was ten days since he had been struck down
in the church--and in another ten days, over yonder, inside that gray
stone wall, a man was to be hung by the neck until he was dead. Ten days
forward--ten days backward--ten days.

Ten days! In the ten days just past he had sought, in a deeper, more
terrible anguish of mind than even in those days when he had thought the
bitterest dregs were already at his lips, for the answer to these ten
days to come--for now there was Valerie, Valérie's love, no longer a
probability against which he might argue fiercely, desperately with
himself, but an actual, real, existent, living thing, glorious and
wonderful--and terrible as a hand of death stretching out a pointing
finger to the “afterwards.” And there was God.

Yes--God! He was still the curé of St. Marleau, still the good, young
Father Aubert; but since that morning when he had been struck down at
the foot of God's altar he had not entered the church--and he had been
no more a priest, profaning that holy place. It was not fear, a craven,
superstitious fear that the hand which had struck him once would deal
him physical injury again; it was not that--it was--what? He did not
know. His mind was chaos there--chaos where it groped for a definite,
tangible expression of his attitude toward God. There was a God. It was
God who had drawn old Mother Blondin to the church that night, and had
made him the instrument of her recovered faith--and the instrument of
his own punishment when, in her fright which he had caused, she had
loosened the great cross upon the wall. It was not coincidence, it was
not superstition--deep in his consciousness lay the memory of that night
when, with the old woman's hand in his, he had knelt and prayed; and
deep in his consciousness was the sure knowledge that when he had prayed
he had prayed in the presence of God. But he could get no further--it
was as though he looked on God from afar off. Here turmoil took command.
There was Valérie; the man who was to die; himself; the inflexible,
immutable approach, the closing in upon him of that day of final
reckoning. And God had shown him no way. He seemed to recognise an
avenging God, not one to love. He could not say that he had the impulse
to revere as the simple people of St. Marleau had, as Valérie had--and
yet since that morning when they had carried him unconscious to the
_presbytère_ he had not again entered the church, he had not again stood
before God's altar in his blasphemous, stolen garb of priest!

Raymond's thumb nail made abstracted little markings on the leather rein
in his hand. Yes, that was true; profanation seemed to have acquired
a new, and personal, and intimate meaning--and he had not gone.
Circumstances had aided him. The solicitude of Madame Lafleur had made
it easy for him to linger in bed, and subsequently to remain confined
to his room long after his broken ribs, and the severe contusions he
had received in his fall, had healed sufficiently to let him get about
again. And he had allowed Madame Lafleur to “persuade” him! It had not
been difficult as far as the early morning mass was concerned, for,
with the curé sick in bed, the mass, it would be expected, would be
temporarily dispensed with; but a Sunday had intervened. But even that
he had solved. If some one from somewhere must say mass that day, it
must be some one who would not by any chance have ever known or met the
real Father François Aubert. There was Father Décan, the prison chaplain
of Tour-nayville. He had never met Father Décan, even when visiting the
jail, but since Father Décan had not recognised the prisoner, Father
Décan obviously would have no suspicions of one Raymond Chapelle--and so
he had sent a request to Father Décan to celebrate mass on the preceding
Sunday, and Father Décan had complied.

The thumb nail bit a little deeper into the leather. Yesterday was
the first day he had been out. This morning he had again deliberately
dispensed with the mass, but to-day was Saturday--and to-morrow would be
Sunday--and to-morrow St. Marleau would gather to hear the good, young
Father Aubert preach again! Was God playing with him! Did God not see
that he had twisted, and turned, and struggled, and planned that he
might not blaspheme and profane God's altar again! Did God not see that
he revolted at the thought! And yet God had shown him no other way. What
else could he do? What else was there to do? He was still with his
life at stake, with the life of another at stake--and there was
Valérie--Valérie--Valérie!

A sharp cry of pain came involuntarily to his lips, and found
utterance--and startled the horse into a reluctant jogging for a few
paces. Valérie! He had scarcely seen her in all those ten days. It was
Madame Lafleur who had taken care of him. Valérie had not purposely
avoided him--it was not that--only she had gone to live practically all
the time at old Mother Blondin's. The old woman was dying. For three
days now she had not roused from unconsciousness. This morning she had
been very low. By the time he returned she might be dead.

Dead! These were the closing hours of his own life in St. Marleau, the
end here, too, was very near--and the closing hours, with sinister,
ominous significance, seemed to be all encompassed about and permeated
with death. It was not only old Mother Blon-din. There was the man in
the death cell, whom he was on his way to see now, this afternoon, who
was waiting for death--for death on a dangling rope--for death that was
not many days off. Yesterday Father Décan had driven out to say that the
prisoner was in a pitiful state of mental collapse, imploring, begging,
entreating that Father Aubert should come to him--and so this afternoon
Father Aubert, the good, young Father Aubert, was on his way--to the
cell of death.

Raymond's lips moved silently. This was the very threshold of the
“afterwards”--the threshold of that day--the day of wrath.

“_Dies ilia, dies ira, calamitatis et miserio, dies magna et am ara
valde_--That day, a day of wrath, of wasting, and of misery, a great
day, and exceeding bitter.”

Unbidden had come the words. Set his face was, and white. If all else
were false, if God were but the transition from the fairy tales of
childhood to the fairy tale of maturity, if religion were but a shell, a
beautiful shell that was empty, a storehouse of wonderful architectural
beauty that held no treasure within--at least those words were true--a
day of wrath, and exceeding bitter. And that day was upon him; and there
was no way to go, no turn to take, only the dark, mocking pathways of
the maze that possessed no opening, only the dank, slimy walls of that
Walled Place against which he beat and bruised his fists in impotent
despair. There was the man who was to be hanged--and himself--and
Valerie--and he knew now that Valérie loved him.

The horse ambled on through the outskirts of the town. Occasionally
Raymond mechanically turned out for a passing team, and acknowledged
mechanically the respectful salutation. In his mind a new thought was
germinating and taking form. He had said that God-had shown him no way.
Was he so sure of that? If God had led him to the church that night,
and had brought through him an eleventh hour reversion of faith to old
Mother Blondin, and had forced the acceptance of divine existence upon
himself, was he so sure that in the breaking of the fastenings of the
cross, that it might fall and strike him down, there lay only a crowning
punishment, only a thousandfold greater anguish, only bitter, helpless
despair, in that it had been the means whereby, from Valérie's own lips,
he had come to the knowledge of Valérie's love? Was he so sure of that?
Was he so sure that in the very coming to him of the knowledge of her
love he was not being shown the way he was to take!

The buckboard turned from the road it had been following, and took the
one leading to the jail. Subconsciously Raymond guided the horse
now, and subconsciously he was alive to his surroundings and to the
passers-by--but his mind worked on and on with the thought that now
obsessed him.

Suppose that his choice of saving one of the two lay between this man
in the condemned cell and Valerie--which would he choose? He laughed
sharply aloud in ironical derision. Which would he choose! It was
pitiful, it was absurd--the question! Pitiful? Absurd? Well, but was it
not precisely the choice he was called upon to make--to choose between
Valérie and the man in the condemned cell? Was that not what the
knowledge of her love meant? She loved him; from her own lips, as she
had poured out her soul, thinking there was none but God to hear, he had
learned the full measure of her love--a love that would never die, deep,
and pure, and sinless--a love that was but the stronger for the sorrow
it had to bear--a cherished, hallowed love around which her very life
had entwined itself until life and love were one for always.

The gray stone walls of the jail, cold, dreary, forbidding, loomed up a
little way ahead. The reins were loose upon the dashboard, but clenched
in a mighty grip in Raymond's hand. He could save the man in there from
death--but he could save Valérie from what would be worse than death to
her. He could save her from the shame, the agony, the degradation that
would kill that pure soul of hers, that would imbitter, wreck and ruin
that young life, if he, the object of her love, should dangle as a felon
from the gallows almost before her eyes, or flee, leaving to that love,
a felon's heritage. Yes, he could save Valérie from that; and if he
could save Valérie from that, what did the man in the condemned
cell count for in the balance? The man meant nothing to
him--nothing--nothing! It was Valérie! There was the “accident”--so
easy, so sure--the “death” of the good, young Father Aubert--the
upturned boat--the body supposedly washed out to sea. Long ago, in the
first days of his life in St. Marleau, he had worked out the details,
and the plan could not fail. There would be her grief, of course; he
could not stand between her and her grief for the loss of the one she
loved--but it would be a grief without bitterness, a memory without
shame.

Did the man in the condemned cell count for anything against that! It
would save Valerie, and--his face set suddenly in rigid lines, and his
lips drew tight together--and it would save _himself!_ It was the one
alternative to either giving himself up to stand in the other's place,
or of becoming a fugitive, branding himself as such, and saving
the condemned man by a confession sent, say, to the Bishop, who,
he remembered, knew the real François Aubert personally, and could
therefore at once identify the man. Yes, it was the one alternative--and
that alternative would save--himself! Wait! Was he sure that it was only
Valérie of whom he was thinking? Was he sure that he was sincere? Was he
sure there were no coward promptings--to save himself?

For a moment the tense and drawn expression in his face held as he
groped in mind and soul for the answer; and then his lips parted in a
bitter smile. It was not much to boast of! Three-Ace Artie a coward?
Ask of the men of that far Northland whose lives ran hand in hand with
death, ask of the men of the Yukon, ask of the men who knew! Gambler,
roué, whatever else they might have called him, no man had ever called
him coward! If his actual death, rather than his supposititious death,
could save Valérie the better, in his soul he knew that he would not
have hesitated. Why then should he hesitate about this man! If it lay
between Valérie and this man, why should he hesitate! If he would give
his own life to save Valérie from suffering and shame, why should he
consider this man's life--this man who meant nothing to him--nothing!

Well, had he decided? He was at the jail now. Was he satisfied that this
was the way? Yes! Yes--_yes!_ He told himself with fierce insistence
that it was--an insistence that by brute force beat down an opposition
that somehow seemed miserably seeking to intrude itself. Yes--it was the
way! There was only the appeal, that one chance to wait for, and
once that was refused he would borrow Bouchard's boat--Bouchard's new
boat--and to-morrow, or the next day, or the next, whenever it might
be, instead of looking for him at mass in church, St. Marleau would look
along the shore in search of the body of the good, young Father Aubert.

He tied his horse, and knocked upon the jail gate, and presently the
gate was opened.

The attendant touched his cap.

“_Salut_, Monsieur le Curé!” he said respectfully, as he stepped aside
for Raymond to enter. “Monsieur le Curé had a very narrow escape. The
blessed saints be praised! It is good to see him. He is quite well
again?”

“Quite,” said Raymond pleasantly.

The man closed the gate, and led the way across a narrow courtyard
to the jail building. The jail was pretentious neither in size nor in
staff--the man who had opened the gate acted as one of the turnkeys as
well.

“It is to see the prisoner Mentone that Monsieur le Curé has come, of
course?” suggested the attendant.

“Yes,” Raymond answered.

The turnkey nodded.

“_Pauvre diable!_ He will be glad! He has been calling for you all the
time. It did no good to tell him you were sick, and Father Décan could
do nothing with him. He has been very bad--not hard to manage, you
understand, Monsieur le Curé--but he does not sleep except when he is
exhausted, because he says there is only a little while left and he will
live that much longer if he keeps awake. _Tiens!_ I have never had a
murderer here to be hanged before, and I do not like it. I dream of the
man myself!”

Raymond made no reply. They had entered the jail now, and the turnkey
was leading the way along a cell-flanked corridor.

“Yes, I dream of him every night, and the job ahead of us--and so does
Jacques, the other turnkey.” The man nodded his head again; then, over
his shoulder: “He has a visitor with him now, Monsieur le Curé, but that
will not matter--it is Monsieur l'Avocat, Monsieur Lemoyne, you know.”

Lemoyne! Lemoyne--here! Why? Raymond reached out impulsively, and,
catching the turnkey's arm, brought the man to a sudden halt.

“Monsieur Lemoyne, you say!” he exclaimed sharply. “What is Monsieur
Lemoyne doing here?”

“But--but, I do not know, Monsieur le Curé,” the turnkey, taken by
surprise, stammered. “He comes often, he is often here, it is the
privilege of the prisoner's lawyer. I--I thought that perhaps Monsieur
le Curé would care to see him too. But perhaps Monsieur le Curé would
prefer to wait until he has gone?”

“No”--Raymond's hand fell away from the other's arm. “No--I will see
him. I was afraid for the moment that he might have brought--bad news.
That was all.”

“Ah, yes, I understand, Monsieur le Curé”--the turnkey nodded once more.
“But I do not know. Monsieur Lemoyne said nothing when he came in.”

Afraid! Afraid that Lemoyne had brought the answer to that appeal! Well,
what if Lemoyne had! Had he, Raymond, not known always what the answer
would be, and had he not just decided what he would do when that answer
was received--had he not decided that between the man and Valérie there
could be no hesitation, no more faltering, or tormenting----

The cell door swung open.

“Enter, Monsieur le Curé!”

The turnkey's voice seemed far away. Mechanically Raymond stepped
forward. The door clanged raucously behind him. There came a cry, a
choked cry, a strangling cry, that mingled a pitiful joy with terror
and despair--and a figure with outstretched arms, a figure with gaunt,
white, haggard face was stumbling toward him; and now the figure had
flung itself upon its knees, and was clutching at him convulsively with
its arms.

“Father--Father François Aubert--father, have pity upon me--father, tell
them to have pity upon me!”

And yet he scarcely saw this figure, scarcely heard the voice, though
his hands were laid upon the bowed head that was buried in the skirt
of his _soutane_. He was looking at that other figure, at Lemoyne, the
young lawyer, who stood at the far end of the cell near the iron-barred
window. There were tears in Lemoyne's eyes; and Lemoyne held a document
in his hand.

“Thank God that you have come, Monsieur le Curé!” Lemoyne said huskily.

“You have”--Raymond steadied his voice--“bad news?”

Lemoyne silently extended the document.

There were a great many words, a great many sentences written on the
paper. If he read them all, Raymond was not conscious of it; he was
conscious only that, in summary, he had grasped their meaning--_the man
must die_.

The man's head was still buried in Raymond's _soutane_, his hands still
clasped tightly at Raymond's knees. Raymond did not speak--the question
was in his eyes as they met Lemoyne's.

Lemoyne shook his head hopelessly, and, taking the document back from
Raymond, returned it slowly to his pocket.

“I will leave you alone with him, Monsieur le Curé--it will be better,”
 he said in a low voice. He stepped across the cell, and for a moment
laid his hand on the shoulder of the kneeling man. “Courage, Henri--I
will come back to-morrow,” he whispered, and passed on to the door.

“Wait!”--Raymond stepped to Lemoyne's side, as the lawyer rattled upon
the door for the turnkey. “There--there is nothing more that can be
done?” His throat was dry, even his undertone rasped and grated in his
own ears. “Nothing?”

“Nothing!” Lemoyne's wet eyes lifted to meet Raymond's, and again he
shook his head. “I shall ask, as a matter of course, that the sentence
be commuted to life imprisonment--but it will not be granted. It--it
would be cruelty even to suggest it to him, Monsieur le Curé.” And then,
as the door opened, he wrung Raymond's hand, and went hurriedly from the
cell.

Slowly Raymond turned away from the door. There was hollow laughter in
his soul. A mocking voice was in his ears--that inner voice.

“Well, _that_ is decided! Now put your own decision into effect, and
have done with this! Have done with it--do you hear! Have done with
it--have done with it--once for all!”

His eyes swept the narrow cell, its white walls, the bare, cold floor,
the cot with its rumpled blanket, the iron bars on the window that
sullenly permitted an oblong shaft of sunlight to fall obliquely on the
floor--and upon the figure that, still upon its knees, held out its arms
imploringly to him, that cried again to him piteously.

“Father--Father Aubert--help me--tell them to have pity upon me--save
me, father--Father François Aubert--save me!”

And Raymond, though he fought to shift his eyes again to those iron
bars, to the sunlight's shaft, to anywhere, could not take them from
that figure. The man was distraught, stricken, beside himself; weakness,
illness, the weeks of confinement, the mental anguish, crowned in this
moment as he saw his last hope swept away, had done their work. The
tears raced down the pallid cheeks; the eyes were like--like they had
been in the courtroom that day--like dumb beast's in agony.

“Soothe him, quiet him,” snarled that voice savagely, “and do it as
quickly as you can--and get out of here! Tell him about that God that
you think you've come to believe is not a myth, if you like--tell him
anything that will let you get away--and remember Valérie. Do you think
this scene here in this cell, and that thing grovelling on the floor is
the sum of human misery? Then picture Valérie nursing shame and horror
and degradation in her soul! What is this man to you! Remember Valérie!”

Yes--Valérie! That was true! Only--if only he could avoid the man's
eyes! Well, why did not he, Raymond, speak, why did he not act, why did
he not do something--instead of standing here impotently over the other,
and simply hold the man's hands--yes, that was what he was doing--that
was what felt so hot, so feverishly hot--those hands that laced their
fingers so frantically around his.

“My son,”--the words were coming by sheer force of will--“do not give
way like this. Try and calm yourself. See”--he stooped, and, raising the
other by the shoulders, drew him to the cot--“sit here, and----”

“You will not go, father--you will not go?”--the man was passing his
hands up and down Raymond's arms, patting them, caressing them, as
though to assure and reassure himself that Raymond was there. “They told
me that you were hurt, and--and I was afraid, for there is no one else,
father--no one else--only--only you--and you are here now--you are here
now--and--and you will stay with me, father?”

“Yes,” said Raymond numbly.

“Yes, you are here”--it was as though the man were whispering to
himself, and a smile had lighted up the wan face. “See, I am not afraid
any more, for you have come. Monsieur Lemoyne said that I must die, that
there was no hope any more, that--that I would have to be hanged, but
you will not let them, father, you will not let them--for you have come
now--you have come--Father François Aubert, my friend, you have come.”

Raymond's hand, resting on the cot behind the other's back, picked
up and clenched a fold of blanket. There was something horrible,
abominable, hellish in the man's trustful smile, in the man's faith,
that was the faith of a child in the parent's omnipotence, in this man
crying upon his own name as a magic talisman that would open to him
the gates of life! What answer was there to make? He could not sit here
dumb--and yet he could not speak. There were things a _priest_ should
say--a priest who was here to comfort a man condemned to death, a man
who was to be hanged by the neck until he was dead. He should talk to
the other of God, of the tender mercy of God, of the life that was to
come where there was no more death. But talk to the man like that--when
he, Raymond, was sending the other to his doom; when the other, not he,
should be sitting here in this _soutane_; when he had already robbed the
man of his identity, and even at this moment purposed robbing him of his
life! Act Father François Aubert to Father François Aubert here in this
prison cell under the shadow of that dangling rope, tell him of God, of
God's tender mercy, supplicate to God for that mercy, _pray_ with his
lips for that mercy while he stabbed the man to death! He shivered, and
it seemed as though his fingers would tear and rend through the blanket
in the fierceness of their clutch--it was the one logical, natural thing
that a priest should say, that he, in his priestly dress, should say!
_No!_ He neither would nor could! It was hideous! No human soul could
touch depths as black as that--and the man was clinging to him--clinging
to him--and---

“_Remember Valérie!_”--it came like a curling lash, that inner voice,
curt, brutal, contemptuous. “Are you going to weaken again? Remember
what it cost you once--and remember that it is for Valérie's sake this
time!”

The strong jaws set together. Yes--Valérie! Yes--he would remember. He
would not falter now--he would go through with it, and have done with
it. Between this man's life and a lifelong misery for Valerie there
could be no hesitation.

“Henri Mentone, my son,” he said gravely, “I adjure you to be brave. I
have come, it is true, and I will come often, but----”

The words that Raymond's brain was stumbling, groping for, the
“something,” the “anything” to say, found no expression. The man
suddenly appeared to be paying no attention; his head was turned in a
tense, listening attitude; there was horror in the white face; and now
the other's hands closed like steel bands around Raymond's wrists.

“Listen!” whispered the man wildly. “Listen! Oh, my God--listen!”

Startled, Raymond turned his head about, looking quickly around the
cell. There was nothing--there was no sound.

“Don't you hear it!”--the other's voice was guttural and choked now, and
he shook fiercely at Raymond's wrists. “I thought it had gone away when
you came, but there it is again. I--I thought you had told them to stop!
Don't you hear it--don't you hear it! Don't you hear them _hammering!_
Listen! Listen! There it is!”

Raymond felt the blood ebb swiftly from his face.

“No--try and compose yourself. There is nothing--nothing, my son--it is
only---------”

“I tell you, yes!” cried the man frantically. “I hear it! I hear it! You
say, no; and I tell you, yes! I have heard it night and day. It comes
from there--see!”--he swept one hand toward the barred window, and
suddenly, leaping to his feet, dragged at Raymond with almost superhuman
strength, forcing Raymond up from the cot and across the cell. “Come,
and I will show you! It is out there! They are hammering out there now!”

The man's face was ghastly, the frenzy with which he pulled was
ghastly--and now at the window he thrust out his arm through the bars,
far out up to the armpit, far out with horrible eagerness, and pointed.

“There! There! You cannot see, but it is just around the corner of the
building--between the building and the wall. You cannot see, but it is
just around the corner there that they are building it! Listen to them!
Listen to them--hammering--hammering--hammering!”

Sweat was on Raymond's forehead.

“Come away!” he said hoarsely. “In the name of God, come away!”

“Ah, you hear it now!”--the condemned man drew in his arm, until his
fingers clawed and picked at the bars. “They will not stop,
and it is because I cannot remember--because I cannot
remember--here--here--here”--he swung clear of the window--and suddenly
raising his clenched fists began to beat with almost maniacal fury at
his temples. “If I could remember, they would stop--they would----”

“Henri! My son!” Raymond cried out sharply--and caught at the other's
hands. A crimson drop had oozed from the man's bruised skin, and now was
trickling down the colourless, working face. “You do not know what you
are doing! Listen to me! Listen! Let me go!”--the man wrenched and
fought furiously to break Raymond's hold. “They will not stop out
there--they are hammering--don't you hear them hammering--and it is
because I--I----” The snarl, the fury in the voice was suddenly a sob.
The man was like a child again, helpless, stricken, chidden; and as
Raymond's hands unlocked, the man reached out his arms and put them
around Raymond's neck, and hid his face upon Raymond's shoulder.
“Forgive me, father--forgive me!” he pleaded brokenly. “Forgive me--it
is sometimes more than I can bear.”

Raymond's arms mechanically tightened around the shaking shoulders; and
mechanically he drew the other slowly back to the cot. Something was
gnawing at his soul until his soul grew sick and faint. Hell shrieked
its abominable approval in his ears, as he sat down upon the cot still
holding the other--and shrieked the louder, until the cell seemed to
ring and ring again with its unholy mirth, as the man pressed his lips
to the crucifix on Raymond's breast.

“Father, I do not want to die”--the man spoke brokenly again. “They
say I killed a man. How could I have killed a man, father? See”--he
straightened back, and held out both his hands before Raymond's
eyes--“see, father, surely these hands have never harmed any one. I
cannot remember--I do not remember anything they say I did. Surely if I
could remember, I could make them know that I am innocent. But I
cannot remember. Father, must I die because I cannot remember? Must I,
father”--the man's face was gray with anguish. “I have prayed to God
to make me remember, father, and--and He does not answer--He does not
answer--and I hear only that hammering--and sometimes in the night there
is something that tightens and tightens around my throat, and--and it
is horrible. Father--Father François Aubert--tell them to have pity upon
me--you believe that I am innocent, don't you--you believe, father--yes,
yes!”--he clutched at Raymond's shoulders--“yes, yes, y°u believe--look
into my eyes, look into my face--look, father--look----”

Look! Look into that face, look into those eyes! He could not look.

“My son, be still!”--the words were wrung in sudden agony from Raymond's
lips.

He drew the other's head to his shoulder again, and held the other
there--that he might not look--that the eyes and the face might be
hidden from him. And the form in his arms shook with convulsive sobs,
and clung to him, and called him by its own name, and called him
friend--this stricken man who was to die--for whom he, Raymond,
was building “it” out there under the shadow of the jail
wall--and--and--God, he too could hear that _hammering_
and--“Fool, remember Valérie!”

The sweat beads multiplied upon Raymond's forehead. His face was
bloodless; his grip so tight upon the other that the man cried out, yet
in turn but clung the closer. Yes, that voice was right--right--right!
It was only that for the moment he was unnerved. It was this man's life
for Valérie--this man's life for Valérie. It would only be a few days
more, and then it would be over in a second, before even the man knew
it--but with Valérie it would be for all of life, and there would be
years and years--yes, yes, it was only that he had been unnerved for the
instant--it was this man's life for Valérie--if he would give his own
life, why shouldn't he give this man's--why shouldn't----

His brain, his mind, his thoughts seemed suddenly to be inert, to be
held in some strangely numbed, yet fascinated suspension. He was staring
at the shaft of sunlight that fought for its right against those
iron bars to enter this place of death. He stared and stared at
it--something--a face--seemed to be emerging slowly out of the sunlight,
to be taking form just beyond, just outside those iron bars, to become
framed in the gray, pitiless stone of the window slit, to be pressed
against those iron bars, to be looking in.

And suddenly he pushed the man violently and without heed from him,
until the man fell forward on the cot, and Raymond, lurching upward
himself, stood rocking upon his feet. It was clear, distinct now,
that face looking in through those iron bars. It was Valerie's
face--Valerie's--Valerie's face. It was beautiful as he had never seen
it beautiful before. The sweet lips were parted in a smile of infinite
tenderness and pity, and the dark eyes looked out through a mist of
compassion, not upon him, but upon the figure behind him on the prison
cot. He reached out his arms. His lips moved silently--Valérie! And then
she seemed to turn her head and look at him, and her eyes swam deeper
in their tears, and there was a wondrous light of love in her face, and
with the love a condemnation that was one of sorrow and of bitter pain.
She seemed to speak; he seemed to hear her voice: “That life is not
yours to give. I have sinned, my lover, in loving you. Is my sin to be
beyond all forgiveness because out of my love has been born the guilt of
murder?”

The voice was gone. The face had faded out of that shaft of
sunlight--only the iron bars were there now. Raymond's outstretched arms
fell to his side--and then he turned, and dropped upon his knees beside
the cot, and hid his face in his hands.

Murder! Yes, it was murder--murder that desecrated, that vilified, that
made a wanton thing of that pure love, that brave and sinless love,
that Valerie had given him. And he would have linked the vilest and the
blackest crime, hideous the more in the Judas betrayal with which he
would have accomplished it, with Valerie--with Valerie's love! His
hands, locked about his face, trembled. He was weak and nerveless in a
Titanic revulsion of soul and mind and body. And horror was upon him, a
horror of himself--and yet, too, a strange and numbed relief. It was not
he, it was not he as he knew himself, who had meant to do this thing--it
was not Raymond Chapelle who had thought and argued that this was the
way. See! His soul recoiled, blasted, shrivelled now from before it! It
was because his brain had been tormented, not to the verge of madness,
but had been flung across that border-line for a space into the
gibbering realms beyond where reason tottered and was lost.

He was conscious that the man was sitting upright on the edge of the
cot, conscious that the man's hands were plucking pitifully at the
sleeve of his _soutane_, conscious that the man was pleading again
hysterically: “Father, you will tell them that you know I am innocent.
They will believe you, father--they will believe you. They say I did
it, father, but I cannot remember, or--or, perhaps, I could make them
believe me, too. You will not let me die, father--because--because I
cannot remember. You will save me, father”--the man's voice was rising,
passing beyond control--“Father François Aubert, for the pity of
Christ's love, tell me that you will not let me die--tell me----”

And then Raymond raised his head. His face was strangely composed.

“Hush, my son”--he scarcely recognised his own voice--it was quiet, low,
gentle, like one soothing a child. “Hush, my son, you will not die.”

“Father! Father Aubert!”--the man was lurching forward toward him; the
white, hollow face was close to his; the burning deep-sunk eyes with
a terrible hunger in them looked into his. “I will not die! I will not
die! You said that, father? You said that?”

“Hush!” Raymond's lips were dry, he moistened them with his tongue.
“Calm yourself now, my son--you need no longer have any fear.”

A sob broke from the man's lips. His hands covered his face; he began to
rock slowly back and forth upon the cot. He crooned to himself:

“I will not die--I am to live--I will not die--I am to live....”

And then suddenly, in a paroxysm of returning fear, he was on his feet,
dragging Raymond up from his knees, and, catching at Raymond's crucifix,
lifted it wildly to Raymond's lips.

“Swear it, father!” he cried. “Swear it on the cross! Swear by God's
holy Son that I will not die! Swear it on the blessed cross!”

“I swear it,” Raymond answered in a steady voice.

There was no sound, no cry now--only a transfigured face, glad with a
mighty joy. And then the man's hands went upward queerly, seeking his
temples--and the swaying form lay in Raymond's arms.

The man stirred after a moment, and opened his eyes.

“Are you there, father--my friend?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Raymond said.

The man's hold tightened, and he sighed like one over-weary who had
found repose.

And sitting there upon the edge of the cot, Raymond held the other
in his arms--and the sunlight's shaft through the barred window grew
shorter--and shadows crept into the narrow cell. At times there came
low sobs; at times the man's hand was raised to feel and touch Raymond's
face, at times to touch the crucifix on Raymond's breast. And then at
last the other moved no more, and the breathing became deep and regular,
and a peaceful smile came and lingered on the lips.

And Raymond laid the other gently back upon the cot, and, crossing to
the cell door, knocked softly upon it for the turnkey. And as the door
was opened, he laid his finger across his lips.

“He is asleep,” he said. “Do not disturb him.”

“Asleep!”--the turnkey in amazement thrust his head inside the cell; and
then he looked in wonder at Raymond. “Asleep--but Monsieur Lemoyne told
me of the news when he went out. Asleep--after that! The man who never
sleeps!”

But Raymond only shook his head, and did not answer, and walked on down
the corridor, and out into the courtyard. It was dusk now. He seemed to
be moving purely by intuition. It was not the way--the man was to live.
His mind was obsessed with that. It was not the way. There were two ways
left--two out of the three.

The turnkey, who had followed in respectful silence, spoke again as he
opened the jail gates.

“_Au revoir_, Monsieur le Cure”--he lifted his cap. “Monsieur le Curé
will return to-morrow?”

To-morrow! Raymond's hands fumbled with the halter, as he untied the
horse. To-morrow! There were two ways left, and the time was short.
To-morrow--what would to-morrow bring!

“Perhaps,” he said, unconscious that his reply had been long
delayed--and found that he was speaking to closed gates, and that the
turnkey was gone.

And then Raymond smiled as he seated himself in the buckboard and drove
away--the smile a curious twitching of the lips. The turnkey was a
tactful man who would not intrude upon Monsieur le Curé's so easily
understood sorrow for the condemned man!

He drove on through the town, and turned into the St. Marleau road that
wound its way for miles along the river's shore. And as he had driven
slowly on his way to the jail, so he drove slowly on his return to the
village, the horse left almost to guide itself and to set its own pace.

The dusk deepened, and the road grew dark--it seemed fitting that the
road should grow dark. There were two ways left. The jaws of the trap
were narrowing--one of the three ways was gone. There were two left.
Either he must stand in that other's place, and hang in that other's
place; or run for it with what start he could, throw them off his trail
if he could, and write from somewhere a letter that would exonerate
the other and disclose the priest's identity---a letter to the Bishop
unquestionably, if the letter was to be written at all, for the Bishop,
not only because he knew the man personally and could at once establish
his identity, but because, in the very nature of the case, with the life
of one of his own curés at stake, the Bishop, above all other men,
would have both the incentive and the power to act. Two ways! One was a
ghastly, ignominious death, to hang by the neck until he was dead--the
other was to be a fugitive from the law, to become a hunted, baited
beast, fighting every moment with his wits for the right to breathe.
There were two ways! One was death--one held a chance for life. And the
time was short.

It was the horse that turned of its own accord in past the church, and
across the green to the _presbytère_.

He left the horse standing there--Narcisse would come and get it
presently--and went up the steps, and entered the house. The door of the
front room was open, a light burned upon his desk. Along the hall, from
the dining room, Madame Lafleur came hurrying forward smilingly.

“Supper is ready, Monsieur le Curé,” she called out cheerily. “Poor
man, you must be tired--it was a long drive to take so soon after your
illness, and before you were really strong again.”

“I am late,” said Raymond; “that is the main thing, Madame Lafleur. I
put you always, it seems, to a great deal of trouble.”

“Tut!” she expostulated, shaking her head at him as she smiled. “It
is scarcely seven o'clock. Trouble! The idea! We did not wait for you,
Monsieur le Curé, because Valérie had to hurry back to Madame Blondin.
Madame Blondin is very, very low, Monsieur le Curé. Doctor Arnaud, when
he left this afternoon, said that--but I will tell you while you are
eating your supper. Only first--yes--wait--it is there on your desk.
Monsieur Labbée sent it over from the station this afternoon--a
telegram, Monsieur le Curé.”

A telegram! He glanced swiftly at her face. It told him nothing. Why
should it!

“Thank you,” he said, and stepping into the front room, walked over to
the desk, picked up the yellow-envelope, tore it open calmly, and read
the message.

His back was toward the door. He laid the slip of paper down upon the
desk, and with that curious trick of his stretched out his hand in front
of him, and held it there, and stared at it. It was steady--without
tremor. It was well that it was so. He would need his nerve now. He had
been quite right--the time was short. There remained--_one hour_. In
an hour from now, on the evening train, Monsignor the Bishop, who was
personally acquainted with Father François Aubert, would arrive in St.
Marleau.




CHAPTER XXII--HOW RAYMOND BADE FAREWELL TO ST. MARLEAU

|AN hour! There lay an hour between himself--and death. Primal,
elemental, savage in its intensity, tigerish in its coming, there surged
upon him the demand for life--to live--to fight for self-preservation.
And yet how clear his brain was, and how swiftly it worked! Life! There
lay an hour between himself--and death. The horse was still outside.
The overalls, the old coat, the old hat belonging to the sacristan were
still at his disposal in the shed. He would ostentatiously set out to
drive to the station to meet the Bishop, hide the horse and buckboard in
the woods just before he got there, change his clothes, run on the rest
of the way, remain concealed on the far side of the tracks until the
train arrived--and, as Monsignor the Bishop descended from one side of
the train to the platform, he, Raymond, would board it from the other.
There would then, of course, be no one to meet the Bishop. The Bishop
would wait patiently no doubt for a while; then Labbée perhaps would
manage to procure a vehicle of some sort, or the Bishop might even walk.
Eventually, of course, it would appear that Father Aubert had set out
for the station and had not since been seen--but it would be a good many
hours before the truth began to dawn on any one. There would be alarm
only at first for the _safety_ of the good, young Father Aubert--and
meanwhile he would have reached Halifax, say One could not ask for a
better start than that!

Life! With the crisis upon him, his mind held on no other thing.
Life--the human impulse to live and not to die! No other thing--but
life! It was an hour before the train was due--he could drive to the
station easily in half an hour. There was no hurry--but there was Madame
Lafleur who, he was conscious, was watching him from the doorway--Madame
Lafleur, and Madame Lafleur's supper. He would have need of food, there
was no telling when he would have another chance to eat; and there was
Madame Lafleur, too, to enlist as an unwitting accomplice.

“Monsieur le Curé”--it was Madame Lafleur speaking a little timidly
from the doorway--“it--it is not bad news that Monsieur le Curé has
received?”

“Bad news!” Raymond picked up the telegram, and, turning from the desk,
walked toward her. “Bad news!” he smiled. “But on the contrary, my dear
Madame Lafleur! I was thinking only of just what was the best thing to
do, since it is now quite late, and I did not receive the telegram this
afternoon, as I otherwise should had I not been away. Listen! Monsignor
the Bishop, who is on his way”--Raymond glanced deliberately at the
message--“yes, he says to Halifax--who then is on his way to Halifax,
will stop off here this evening.”

Madame Lafleur was instantly in a flutter of excitement.

“Oh, Monsieur le Curé!”--her comely cheeks grew rosy, and her eyes shone
with pleasure. “Oh, Monsieur le Curé--Monsignor the Bishop! He will
spend the night here?” she demanded eagerly.

Raymond patted her shoulder playfully, as he led her toward the dining
room.

“Yes, he will spend the night here, Madame Lafleur”--it was strange that
he could laugh teasingly, naturally. “But first, a little supper for
a mere curé, eh, Madame Lafleur--since Monsignor the Bishop will
undoubtedly have dined on the train.”

“Oh, Monsieur le Curé!” She shook her head at him.

“And then,” laughed Raymond, as he seated himself at the table, “since
the horse is already outside, I will drive over to the station and meet
him.”

He ate rapidly, and, strangely enough, with an appetite. Madame Lafleur
bustled about him, quite unable to keep still in her excitement. She
talked, and he answered her. He did not know what she said; his replies
were perfunctory. There was an excuse to be made for going to the shed
instead of getting directly into the buckboard and driving off. Madame
Lafleur would undoubtedly and most naturally watch him off from the
front door. But--yes, of course--that was simple--absurdly simple! Well
then, another thing--it would mean at least a good hour to him if the
village was not on tiptoe with expectancy awaiting the Bishop's arrival,
and thus be ready to start out to discover what had happened to the
good, young Father Aubert on the instant that the alarm was given; or,
worse still, that any one, learning of the Bishop's expected arrival,
should enthusiastically drive over to the station as a sort of
self-appointed delegation of welcome, just a few minutes behind himself.
In that case anything might happen. No, it would not do at all! Every
minute of delay and confusion on the part of St. Marleau, and Labbée,
and Madame Lafleur no less than the others, was priceless to him now. He
remembered his own experience. It would take Labbée a long time to find
a horse and wagon; and Madame Lafleur, on her part, would think nothing
of a prolonged delay in his return--if he left her with the suggestion,
that the train might be late! Well, there was no reason why he should
not accomplish all this. So far, it was quite evident, since Madame
Lafleur had had no inkling of what the telegram contained, that no one
knew anything about it; and that Labbée, whom he was quite prepared
to credit with being loose-tongued enough to have otherwise spread the
news, had not associated the Bishop's official signature--with
Monsignor the Bishop! It was natural enough. The telegram was signed
simply--“Montigny”--not the Bishop of Montigny.

He had eaten enough--he pushed back his chair and stood up.

“I think perhaps, Madame Lafleur,” he said reflectively, “that it would
be as well not to say anything to any one until Monsignor arrives.”
 He handed her the telegram. “It would appear that his visit is not an
official one, and he may prefer to rest and spend a quiet evening. We
can allow him to decide that for himself.”

Madame Lafleur adjusted her spectacles, and read the message.

“But, yes, Monsieur le Curé,” she agreed heartily. “Monsignor will tell
us what he desires; and if he wishes to see any one in the village
this evening, it will not be too late when you return. But, Monsieur le
Curé”--she glanced at the clock--“hadn't you better hurry?”

“Yes,” said Raymond quickly; “that's so! I had!”

Madame Lafleur accompanied him to the front door, carrying a lamp. At
the foot of the steps Raymond paused, and looked back at her. It had
grown black now, and there was no moon.

“I'll run around to the shed and get a lantern,” he called up to
her--and, without waiting for a reply, hurried around the corner of the
house.

He laughed a little harshly, his lips were tightly set, as he reached
the shed door, opened it, and closed it behind him. He struck a match,
found and lighted a lantern, procured a small piece of string, tucked
the sacristan's overalls, and the old coat and hat swiftly under his
_soutane_--and a moment later was back beside the buckboard again.

He tied the lantern in front of the dash-board, and climbed into the
seat. Madame Lafleur was still standing in the doorway. He hesitated an
instant, as he picked up the reins. The sweet, motherly old face smiled
at him. A pang came and found lodgment in his heart. It was like that,
standing there in the lamp-lit doorway of the _presbytère_, that he
had seen her for the first time--as he saw her now for the last. He
had grown to love the silver-haired little old lady with her heart of
gold--and so he looked--and a mist came before his eyes, for this was
his good-bye.

“You will be back in an hour?” she called out. “You forget, Madame
Lafleur”--he forced himself to laugh in the old playful, teasing
way--“that the train is sometimes more than an hour late itself!”

“Yes, that is true!” she said. “_Au revoir_, then, Monsieur le Curé!”

He answered quietly.

“Good-night, Madame Lafleur!”

He drove out across the green, and past the church, and, a short
distance down the road, where he could no longer be seen from the
windows of the _presbytère_, he leaned forward and extinguished the
lantern. He smiled curiously to himself. It was the only act that
appeared at all in consonance with escape! He was a fugitive now, a
fugitive for life--and a fugitive running for his life. It seemed as
though he should be standing up in the buckboard, and lashing at the
horse until the animal was flecked with foam, and the buckboard rocked
and swayed with a mad speed along the road. Instead--he had turned off
and was on the station road now--the horse was labouring slowly up the
steep hill. It seemed as though there should be haste, furious haste,
a wild abandon in his flight--that there should be no time to mark, or
see, or note, as he was noting now, the twinkling lights of the quiet
village nestling below him there along the river's shore. It seemed that
his blood should be whipping madly through his veins--instead he was
contained, composed, playing his last hand with the old-time gambler's
nerve that precluded a false lead, that calculated deliberately,
methodically, and with deadly coolness, the value of every card. And
yet, beneath this nerve-imposed veneer, he was conscious of a thousand
emotions that battered and seethed and raged at their barriers, and
sought to fling themselves upon him and have him for their prey.

He laughed coldly out into the night. It was not the fool who tore like
a madman, boisterously, blindly, into the open that would escape! He
had ample time. He had seen to that, even if he had appeared to accept
Madame Lafleur's injunction to hurry. He need reach the station but
a minute or so ahead of the train. Meanwhile, the minor details--were
there any that he had overlooked? What about the _soutane_ and the
clerical hat, for instance, after he had exchanged them for the
sacristan's things? Should he hide them where he left the horse and
buckboard in the woods? He shook his head after a moment. No; they
would probably find the horse before morning, and they might find the
_soutane_. There must be no trace of Father Aubert--the longer they
searched the better. And then, more important still, when finally the
alarm was spread, the description that would be sent out would be that
of a man dressed as a priest. No; he would take them with him, wrap them
up in a bundle around a stone, and somewhere miles away, say, throw them
from the car into the water as the train crossed a bridge. So much for
that! Was there anything else, anything that he----

A lighted window glowed yellow in the darkness from a little distance
away. He had come to the top of the rise. It was old Mother Blondin's
cottage. He had meant to urge the horse into a trot once the level was
gained--but instead the horse was forgotten, and the animal plodded
slowly forward at the same pace at which it had ascended the hill.

Raymond's eyes were fixed upon the light. Old Mother Blondin's
cottage--and in that room, beyond that light, old Mother Blondin, the
old woman on the hill, the _excommuniée_, lay dying. And there was a
shadow on the window shade--the shadow of one sitting in a chair--a
woman's shadow--Valerie!

He stopped the horse, and, sitting there in the buck-board opposite the
cottage, he raised his hand slowly and took his hat from his head.

“Go on--fool!”--with a snarl, vicious as the cut of a whip-lash, came
that inner voice. “You may have time--but you have none to throw away!”

“Be still!” answered Raymond's soul. “This is my hour. Be still!”

Valerie! That shadow on the window he knew was Valerie--and within was
that other shadow, the shadow of death. This was his good-bye to old
Mother Blondin, who had drunk of the common cup with him, and knelt with
him in the moonlit church, her hand in his, outcasts, sealing a most
strange bond--and this was his good-bye to Valérie. Valérie--a shadow
there on the window shade. That was all--a shadow--all that she could
ever be, nothing more tangible in his life through the years to come, if
there were years, than a shadow that did not smile, that did not speak
to him, that did not touch his hand, or lift brave eyes to look
into his. A shadow--that was all--a shadow. It was brutal, cruel,
remorseless, yet immeasurably true in its significance, this
good-bye--this good-bye to Valérie--a shadow.

The shadow moved, and was gone; from miles away, borne for a great
distance on the clear night air, came faintly the whistle of a
train--and Raymond, springing suddenly erect, his teeth clenched
together, snatched at the whip and laid it across the horse's back.

The wagon lurched forward, and he staggered with the plunge and
jerk--and his whip fell again. And he laughed now--no longer calm--and
lashed the horse. It was not time that he was racing, there was ample
time, the train was still far away; it was his thoughts--to outrun them,
to distance them, to leave them behind him, to know no other thing than
that impulse for life that alone until now so far this night had swayed
him.

And he laughed--and horse and wagon tore frantically along the road, and
the woods were about him now, and it was black, black as the mouth of
Satan's pit and the roadway to it were black. He was flung back into his
seat--and he laughed at that. Life--and he had doddled along the road,
preening himself on his magnificent apathy! Life--and the battle and
the fight for it was the blood afire, reckless of fear and of odds, the
laugh of defiance, the joy of combat, the clenched fist shaken in the
face of hell itself! Life--in the mad rush for it was appeal! On! The
wagon reeled like a drunken thing, and the wheels twisted in the ruts; a
patch of starlight seeping through the branches overhead made a patch
of gloom in the inky blackness underneath, and in this patch of gloom
wavering tree trunks, like uncouth monsters as they flitted by, snatched
at the wheel-hubs to wreck and overturn the wagon, but he was too quick
for them, too quick--they always missed. On! Away from memory, away from
those good-byes, away from every thought save that of life--life, and
the right to live--life, and the fight to hurl that gibbet with its
dangling rope a smashed and battered and splintered thing against the
jail wall where they would strangle him to death and bury him in their
cursed lime!

On! Why did not the beast go faster! Were those white spots that danced
before his eyes a lather of foam on the animal's flanks? On--along the
road to life! Faster! Faster! It was not fast enough--for thoughts were
swift, and they were racing behind him now in their pursuit, and coming
closer, and they would overtake him unless he could go faster--faster!
Faster, or they would be upon him, and--_a big and brave and loyal man_.

A low cry, a cry of sudden, overmastering hurt, was drowned in the
furious pound of the horse's hoofs, in the rattle and the creaking
of the wagon, and in the screech and grinding of the wagon's jolt and
swing. And, unconscious that he held the reins, unconscious that he
tightened them, his hands, clenched, went upward to his face. There was
no black road, no plunging horse, no mad, insensate rush, ungoverned and
unguided, no wagon rocking demoniacally through the night--there was
a woman who knelt in the aisle of a church, and in her arms she held a
man, and across the shattered chancel rail there lay a mighty cross, and
the shadow of the cross fell upon them both, and the woman's eyes were
filled with tears, and she spoke: “A big and brave and loyal man.”

Tighter against his face he pressed his clenched hands, unconscious that
the horse responded to the check and gradually slowed its pace. Valérie!
The woman was Valerie--and he was the man! God, the hurt of it--the hurt
of those words ringing now in his ears! She had given him her all--her
love, her faith, her trust. And in return, he----

The reins dropped from his hands, and his head bowed forward. Life!
Yes, there was life this way for him--and for Valerie the bitterest of
legacies. He would bequeath to her the belief that she had given her
love not only to a felon but to a _coward._ A coward! And no man, he
had boasted, had ever called him a coward. Pitiful boast! Life for
himself--for Valerie the fuller measure of misery! Yes, he loved
Valérie--he loved her with a traitor's and a coward's love!

His lips were drawn together until they were bloodless. In retrospect
his life passed swiftly, unbidden before him--and strewn on every hand
was wreckage. And here was the final, crowning act of all--the coward's
act--the coward afraid at the end to face the ruin he had, disdainful,
callous, contemptuous then of consequence, so consistently wrought since
boyhood! If he got away and wrote a letter it would save the man's life,
it was true; but it was also true that he ran because he was cornered
and at the end of his resources, and because what he might write would,
in any case, be instantly discovered if he did not run--and to plead
his own innocence in that letter, in the face of glaring proof to the
contrary, in the face of the evidence he had so carefully budded against
another, smacked only of the grovelling whine of the condemned wretch
afraid. None would believe him. None! It was paltry, the police were
inured to that; all criminals were eager to protest their innocence,
and pule out their tale of extenuating circumstances. None would believe
him. Valérie would not believe.

Folds of his cheeks were gripped and crushed in his hands until
the finger nails bit into the flesh. He _was_ innocent. He had not
_murdered_ that scarred-faced drunken hound--only Valérie would neither
believe nor know; and in Valérie's eyes he would stand a loathsome
thing, and in her soul would be a horror, and a misery, and a shame that
was measured only by the greatness and the depth of the love she had
given him, for in that greatness and that depth lay, too, the greatness
and the depth of that love's dishonour and that love's abasement. But
if--but if----

For a moment he did not stir or move, his eyes seeing nothing, fixed
before him--and then steadily his head came up and poised far back on
the broad, square shoulders, and the tight lips parted in a strange and
sudden smile. If he drove to the station and met Monsignor the Bishop,
and drove Monsignor the Bishop back to St. Marleau--then she would
believe. No one else could or would believe him, the proof was
irrefutable against him, they would convict him, and the sentence would
be death; but she in her splendid love would believe him, and know that
she had loved--a man. There had been three ways, but one had gone that
afternoon; and then there had been two ways, but there was only one now,
the man's way, for the other was the coward's way. And, taking this, he
could lift his head and stand before them all, for in Valérie's face
and in Valérie's eyes there would not be---what was worse than death. To
save Valérie from what he could--not from sorrow, not from grief, that
he could not do--but that she might know that her love had been given
where it was held a sacred, a priceless and a hallowed thing, and was
not outraged and was not degraded because it had been given to him! To
save Valerie from what he could--to save himself in his own eyes from
the self-abasing knowledge that through a craven fear he had bartered
away his manhood and his self-respect, that through fear he ran, and
that through fear he hid, and that through fear, though he was innocent,
he dared not stand--a man!

He stopped the horse, and stepped down to the ground; and, searching
for a match, found one, and lighted the lantern where it hung upon the
dash-board. He was calm now, not with that calmness desperately imposed
by will and nerve, but with a calmness that was like to--peace. And,
standing there, the lantern light fell upon him, and gleamed upon the
crucifix upon his breast. And he lifted the crucifix, and, wondering,
held it in his hand, and looked at it. It was here in these woods and on
this road that he had first hung it about his neck in insolent and bald
denial of the Figure that it bore. It was very strange! He had meant it
then to save his life; and now--he let it slip gently from his fingers,
and climbed back into the buckboard--and now it seemed, as though
strengthening him in the way he saw at last, in the way he was to take,
as though indeed it were the way itself, came radiating from it, like a
benediction, a calm and holy--peace.

And there was no more any turmoil.

And he picked up the reins and drove on along the road.




CHAPTER XXIII--MONSIGNOR THE BISHOP

|THE train had come and gone, as Raymond reached the station platform.
He had meant it so. He had meant to avoid the lights from the car
windows that would have illuminated the otherwise dark platform; to
avoid, if possible, a disclosure in Labbée's, the station agent's,
presence. Afterwards, Labbée would know, as all would know--but not now.
It was not easy to tell; the words perhaps would not come readily even
when alone with Monsignor the Bishop, as they drove back together to the
village.

There were but two figures on the platform--Labbée, who held a satchel
in his hand; and a tall, slight form in clerical attire.

“Ah, Father Aubert--_salut!_” Labbée called out. “You are late; but we
saw your light coming just as the train pulled out, and so----”

“Well, well, François, my son!”--it was a rich, mellow voice that broke
in on the station agent.

Raymond stood up and lifted his hat--lifted it so that it but shaded his
face the more.

“Monsignor!” he said, in a low voice. “This is a great honour.”

“Honour!” the Bishop responded heartily. “Why should I not come, I--but
do I sit on this side?”--he had stepped down into the buckboard, as he
grasped Raymond's hand.

“Yes, Monsignor”--Raymond's wide-brimmed clerical hat was far over his
eyes. The lantern on the front of the dash-board left them in shadow;
Labbée's lantern for the moment was behind them, as the station agent
stowed the Bishop's valise under the seat. He took up the reins, and
with an almost abrupt “goodnight” to the station agent, started the
horse forward along the road.

“Good-night!” Labbée shouted after them. “Goodnight, Monsignor!”

“Good-night!” the Bishop called back--and turned to Raymond. “Yes, as I
was saying,” he resumed, “why should I not come? I was passing through
St. Marleau in any case. I have heard splendid things of my young
friend, the curé, here. I wanted to see for myself, and to tell him how
pleased and gratified I was.”

“You are very good, Monsignor,” Raymond answered, his voice still low
and hurried.

“Excellent!” pursued the Bishop. “Most excellent! I do not know when
I have been so pleased over anything. The parish perhaps”--he laughed
pleasantly--“would not object if Father Allard prolonged his holiday a
little--eh--François, my son?”

Raymond shook his head.

“Hardly that, Monsignor”--he dared indulge in little more than
monosyllables--it was even strange the Bishop had not already noticed
that his voice was not the voice of Father François Aubert. And yet what
did it matter? In a moment, in five minutes, in half an hour, the Bishop
would know all--he would have told the Bishop all. Why should he strive
now to keep up a deception that he was voluntarily to acknowledge almost
the next instant? It was not argument in his mind, not argument again
that brought indecision and chaotic hesitancy, it was not that--the way
was clear, there was only one way, the way that he would take--? and
yet, perhaps because it was so very human, because perhaps he sought
for still more strength, because perhaps it was so almost literally the
final, closing act of his life, he waited and clung to that moment more,
and to that five minutes more.

“Well, well,” said the Bishop happily, “we will perhaps have to look
around and see if we cannot find for you a parish of your own, my son.
And who knows--eh--perhaps we have already found it?”

How queerly the lantern jerked its rays up and down the horse's legs,
and cast its shadows along the road! He heard himself speaking again.

“You are very good, Monsignor”--they were the same words with which he
had replied before--he uttered them mechanically.

He felt the Bishop's hand close gently, yet firmly, upon his shoulder.

“François, my son”--the voice had suddenly become grave--“what is the
matter? You act strangely. Your voice does not somehow seem natural--it
is very hoarse. You have a cold perhaps, or perhaps you are ill?”

“No, Monsignor--I am not ill.”

“Then--but, you alarm me, my son!” exclaimed the Bishop anxiously.
“Something has happened?”

“Yes, Monsignor--something has happened.”

How curiously his mind seemed to be working! He was conscious that the
Bishop's hand remained in kindly pressure on his shoulder as though
inviting his confidence, conscious that the man beside him maintained a
sympathetic, tactful silence, waiting for him to speak; but his thoughts
for the moment now were not upon the immediate present, but upon the
immediate afterwards when his story had been told.

The buckboard rattled on along the road; it entered the wooded
stretch--and still went on. When he had told this man beside him all,
they would drive into the village. Then presently they would set out for
Tournayville, and Monsieur Dupont, and the jail. But before that--there
was Valérie. He turned his head still further away--even in
the blackness his face must show its ashen whiteness. There was
Valérie--Valérie who would believe--but Valérie who was to suffer, and
to know agony and sorrow--and he, who loved her, must look into her face
and see the smile die out of it, and the quiver come to her lips, and
see her eyes fill, while with his own hands he dealt her the blow,
which, soften it as he would, must still strike her down. It was the
only way--the way of peace. It seemed most strange that peace should lie
in that black hour ahead for Valérie and for himself--that peace should
lie in death--and yet within him, quiet, undismayed, calm and untroubled
in its own immortal truth, was the knowledge that it was so.

Raymond lifted his head suddenly--through the-trees there showed the
glimmer of a light--as it had showed that other night when he had walked
here in the storm. Had they come thus far--in silence! Involuntarily he
stopped the horse. It was the light from old Mother Blondin's cottage,
and here was the spot where he had stumbled that night over the priest
whom he had thought dead, as the other lay sprawled across the road.
It was strange again--most strange! He had not deliberately chosen this
spot to tell----

“François, my son--what is it?”--the Bishop's voice was full of deep
concern.

For a moment Raymond did not move, and he did not speak. Then he laid
down the reins, and, leaning forward, untied the lantern from the
dash-board--and, taking off his hat, held up the lantern between them
until the light fell full upon his face.

There was a quick and startled cry from the Bishop, and then for an
instant--silence. And Raymond looked into the other's face, even as the
other looked into his. It was a face full of dignity and strength and
quiet, an aged, kindly face, crowned with hair that was silver-white;
but the blue eyes that spoke of tranquillity were widened now in
amazement, surprise and consternation.

And then the Bishop spoke.

“Something has happened to François,” he said, in a hesitant, troubled
way, “and you have come from Tournayville to take his place perhaps, or
perhaps to--to be with him. Is it as serious as that--and you were loath
to break the news, my son? And yet--and yet I do not understand. The
station agent said nothing to indicate that anything was wrong, though
perhaps he might not have heard; and he called you Father Aubert,
though, too, that possibly well might be, for it was dark, and I myself
did not see your face. My son, I fear that I am right. Tell me, then!
You are a priest from Tournayville, or from a neighbouring parish?”

“I am not a priest,” said Raymond steadily.

The Bishop drew back sharply, as though he had been struck a blow.

“Not a priest--and in those clothes!”

“No, Monsignor.”

The fine old face grew set and stern.

“And Francois Aubert, then--_where is Father Francois Aubert?_”

“Monsignor”--Raymond's lips were white--“he is in the condemned cell at
Tournayville--under sentence of death--he is----”

“Condemned--to death! François Aubert--condemned to death!”--the Bishop
was grasping with one hand at the back of the seat. And then slowly,
still grasping at the seat, he pulled himself up and stood erect, and
raised his other hand over Raymond in solemnity and adjuration. “In the
name of God, what does this mean? Who are you?”

“I am Raymond Chapelle,” Raymond answered--and abruptly lowered the
lantern, and a twisted smile of pain gathered on his lips. “You have
heard the name, Monsignor--all French Canada has heard it.” The Bishop's
hand dropped heavily to his side.

“Yes, I have heard it,” he said sternly. “I have heard that it was a
proud name dishonoured, a princely fortune dissolutely wasted. And you
are Raymond Chapelle, you say! I have heard this much, that you had
disappeared, but after that----”

Raymond put his head down into his hands, and drew his hands tightly
across his face.

“This is the end of the story,” he said. “Listen, Monsignor”--he raised
his head again. “You have heard, too, of the murder of Théophile Blondin
that was committed here a little while ago. It is for that murder that
François Aubert was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged.”
 He paused an instant, his lips tight. “Monsignor, it is I who killed
Théophile Blondin. It is I who, since that night, have lived here as the
curé--as Father François Aubert.”

How ghastly white the aged face was! As ghastly as his own must be! The
other's hands were gripping viselike at his shoulders.

“Are you mad!” the Bishop whispered hoarsely. “Do you know what you are
saying!”

“I know”--there was a sort of unnatural calm and finality in Raymond's
tones now. “I was on the train the night that Father Aubert came to St.
Marleau. I had a message for the mother of a man who was killed in the
Yukon, Monsignor. The mother lived here. There was a wild storm that
night. There was no wagon to be had, and we both walked from the
station. But I did not walk with the priest. You, who have heard
of Raymond Chapelle, know why--I despised a priest--I knew no God.
Monsignor”--he turned and pointed suddenly--“you see that light through
the trees? It is the light I saw that night, as I stumbled over the body
of a man lying here in the road. The man was Father Aubert. The limb of
a tree had fallen and struck him on the head. I thought him dead. I went
over to that house for help.”

He paused again. The Bishop's hands, withdrawn,* were clasped now upon a
golden crucifix--it was like his own crucifix, only it was larger, much
larger than his own. But the Bishop's white face was still close to his;
and the blue eyes seemed to have grown darker, and were upon him in a
fixed, tense way, as though to read his soul.

“And then?”--he saw the Bishop's lips move, he did not hear the Bishop
speak.

At times the horse moved restively; at times there came the chirping of
insects from the woods; at times a breeze stirred and whispered through
the leaves. Raymond, staring at the yellow flicker of the lantern, set
now upon the floor of the buckboard at their feet, spoke on, in his
voice that same unnatural calm. It seemed almost as though he himself
were listening to some stranger speak. It was the story of that night he
told, the story of the days and nights that followed, the story of old
Mother Blondin, the story of the cross, the story of the afternoon in
the condemned cell, the story of his ride for liberty of an hour ago,
the story of his sacrilege and his redemption--the story of all, without
reservation, save the story of Valérie's love, for that was between
Valérie and her God.

And when he had done, a silence fell between them and endured for a
great while.

And then Raymond looked up at last to face the condemnation he thought
to see in the other's eyes--and found instead that the silver hair was
bare of covering, and that the tears were flowing unchecked down the
other's cheeks.

“God's ways are beyond all understanding”--the Bishop seemed to be
speaking to himself. He brushed the tears now from his cheeks, as he
looked at Raymond. “It is true there is not any proof, and without proof
that it was in self-defence, then----”

“It is the end,” said Raymond simply--and, standing up, took the
sacristan's old coat from under his _soutane_. “We will drive to the
village, Monsignor; and then, if you will, to the jail in Tournayville.”
 Slowly he unbuttoned his _soutane_ from top to bottom, and took it off,
and laid it over the back of the seat; and, standing there erect,
his face white, his eyes half closed, like a soldier in unconditional
surrender, he unclasped the crucifix from around his neck, and held it
out to the Bishop--and bowed his head.

He felt the Bishop's hands close over his, and over the crucifix, and
gently press it back.

“Cling to it, my son”--the Bishop's voice was broken. “It is yours,
for you have found it--and, with it, pardon, and the faith that is more
precious than life, than the life you are offering to surrender now. It
seems as though it were God's mysterious way, the hand of God--the hand
of God that would not let you lose your soul. And now, my son, kneel
down, for I would pray for a brave man.”

A quiet pressure upon his shoulders brought Raymond to his knees. His
eyes, were wet; he covered his face with his hands.

“Father, have mercy upon us”--the Bishop's voice was tremulous and low.
“Lord, have mercy upon us. Look down in pity upon this man whom Thou
hast brought unto Thyself, and who now in expiation of his past offences
offers his life that another may not die. Father, grant us Thy divine
mercy. Father, show us the way, if there be a way, and if it be Thy
will, that he may not drink of this final cup; and if that may not be,
then in Thy love continue unto him the strength Thou gavest him to bring
him thus far upon his road.”

And silence fell again between them. And there was a strange gladness in
Raymond's heart that this man, where he had thought no man would, should
have believed. It altered no fact, the cold and brutal evidence, clear
cut before a jury would not be a scene such as this, for the evidence in
the light of logic and before the law would say he _lied_; it held out
no hope, he knew that well--but it brought peace again. And so he rose
from his knees, and feeling out blindly for the old sacristan's coat,
put it on, and spoke to the horse, and the buckboard moved forward.

And a little way along, just around the turn of the road, they came out
of the woods in front of old Mother Blondin's cottage. And standing by
the roadside in the darkness was a figure. And a voice called out:

“Is that you, Father Aubert? I went to the _presbytère_ for you, and
mother said you had gone to meet Monsignor. I have been waiting here to
catch you on the way back.”

It was Valérie.




CHAPTER XXIV--THE OLD WOMAN ON THE HILL

|SHE came forward toward the buckboard, and into the lantern light--and
stopped suddenly, looking from Raymond to the Bishop in a bewildered and
startled way.

“Why--why, Father Aubert,” she stammered, “I--I hardly knew you in that
coat. I--Monsignor”--she bent her knee reverently--“I”--her eyes were
searching their faces--“I---”

Raymond's eyes fixed ahead of him, and he was silent. Valérie! Ay, it
was the end! He had thought to see her before they should take him to
Tournayville--but he had thought to see her alone. And even then he had
not known what he should say to her--what words to speak--or whether
she should know from him his love. He was conscious that the Bishop was
fumbling with his crucifix, as though loath to take the initiative upon
himself.

It was Valérie who spoke--hurriedly, as though in a nervous effort to
bridge the awkward silence.

“Mother Blondin became conscious a little while ago. She asked for
Father Aubert, and--and begged for the Sacrament. I ran down to the
_presbytère_, and when mother told me that Monsignor was coming I---I
brought back the bag that my uncle, Father Allard, takes with him to--to
the dying. Oh, Monsignor, I thought that perhaps--perhaps--she is an
_excommuniée_, Monsignor--but she is a penitent. And when I got back she
was unconscious again, and then I came down here to wait by the side of
the road so that I would not miss you, for Madame Bouchard is there, and
she was to call me if--if there was any change. And so--and so--you will
go to her, Monsignor, will you not--and Father Aubert--and--and----” Her
lips quivered suddenly, for Raymond's white face was lifted now, and his
eyes met hers. “Oh, what is the matter?” she cried out in fear. “Why
do you look like that, Father Aubert--and why do you wear that coat,
and----”

“My daughter”--the Bishop's grave voice interrupted her. He rose from
his seat, and, moving past Raymond, stepped to the ground. “My daughter,
Father Aubert is---”

“No!”--Raymond, too, had stepped to the ground. “No, Monsignor”--his
voice caught, then was steadied as he fought fiercely for
self-control--“I will tell her, Monsignor.”

How clearly her face was defined in the lantern light, how pure it was,
and, in its purity, how far removed from the story that he had to tell!
And how beautiful it was, even in its startled fear and wonder--the
sweet lips parted; the dark eyes wide, disturbed and troubled, as they
held upon his face.

“Father Aubert!”--it was a quick cry, but low, and one of apprehension.

“Mademoiselle Valérie”--the words came slowly; it seemed as though his
soul faltered now, and had not strength to say this thing--“I am not
Father Aubert.”

She did not move. She repeated the words with long pauses between,
as though she groped dazedly in her mind for their meaning and
significance.

“You--are--not--Father--Aubert?”

The Bishop, hands clasped behind his back, his head bowed, had withdrawn
a few paces out of the lantern light toward the rear of the buckboard.
Raymond's hands closed and gripped upon the wheel-tire against which
he stood--closed tighter and tighter until it seemed the tendons in his
hand must snap.

“Father Aubert is the man you know as Henri Mentone”--his eyes were upon
her hungrily, pleading, searching for some sign, a smile, a gesture
of sympathy that would help him to go on--and her hands were clasped
suddenly, wildly to her bosom. “When you came upon me in the road that
night I had just changed clothes with him. I--I was trying to escape.”

She closed her eyes. Her face became a deathly white, and she swayed a
little on her feet.

“You--you are not a--a priest?”

He shook his head.

“It was the only way I saw to save my life. He had been struck by the
falling limb of a tree. I thought that he was dead.”

“To save your life?”--she spoke with a curious, listless apathy, her
eyes still closed.

“It was I,” he said, “not Father Aubert, who fought with Théophile
Blondin that night.”

Her eyes were open wide now--wide upon him with terror.

“It was you--_you_ who killed Théophile Blondin?”--her voice was dead,
scarce above a whisper.

“I caught him in the act of robbing his mother--I had gone to the house
for help after finding Father Aubert”--Raymond's voice grew passionate
now in its pleading. He must make her believe! He must make her believe!
It was the one thing left to him--and to her. “It was in self-defence.
He sprang at me, and we fought. And afterwards, when he snatched up the
revolver from the _armoire_, it went off in his own hand as I struggled
to take it from him. But I could not prove it. Every circumstance
pointed to premeditated theft on my part--and murder. And--and my life
before that was--was a ruined life that would but--but make conviction
certain if I were found there. My only chance lay in getting away. But
there was no time--nowhere to go. And so--and so I ran back to where
Father Aubert lay, and put on his clothes, meaning to gain a few hours'
time that way, and in the noise of the storm I did not hear you coming
until it was too late to run.”

How mercilessly hard her hands seemed to press at her bosom!

“I--I do not understand”--it was as though she spoke to herself. “There
was another--a man who, with Jacques Bourget, tried to have Henri--Henri
Mentone escape.”

“It was I,” said Raymond. “I took Narcisse Pélude's old clothes from the
shed.”

She cried out a little--like a sharp and sudden moan, it was, as from
unendurable pain.

“And then--and then you lived here as--as a priest.”

“Yes,” he answered.

“And--and to-night?”--her eyes were closed again.

“To-night,” said Raymond, and turned away his head, “to-night I am going
to--to Tournayville.”

“To your death”--it was again as though she were speaking to herself.

“There is no other way,” he said. “I thought there was another way.
I meant at first to escape to-night when I learned that Monsignor was
coming. I took this coat, Narcisse Pélude's old clothes from the shed
again, the clothes I wore the night I went to Jacques Bourget, and
I meant to escape on the train. But”--he hesitated now, groping
desperately for words--he could not tell her of that ride along the
road; he had no right to tell her of his love, he saw that now, he had
no right to tell her that, to make it the harder, the more cruel for
her; he had no right to trespass on his knowledge of her love for him,
to let her glean from any words of his a hint of that; he had the right
only, for her sake and for his own, that, in her eyes and in her soul,
the stain of murder and of theft should not rest upon him--“but”--the
words seemed weak, inadequate--“but I could not go. Instead, I gave
myself up to Monsignor. Mademoiselle”--how bitterly full of irony was
that word--mademoiselle--mademoiselle to Valérie--like a gulf
between them--mademoiselle to Valérie, who was dearest in life to
him--“Mademoiselle Valérie”--he was pleading again, his soul in
his voice--“it was in self-defence that night. It was that way that
Théophile Blondin was killed. I could not prove it then, and--and the
evidence is even blacker against me now through the things that I have
done in an effort to escape. But--but it was in that way that Théophile
Blondin was killed. The law will not believe. I know that. But
you--you--” his voice broke. The love, the yearning for her was rushing
him onward beyond self-control, and near, very near to his lips,
struggling and battling for expression, were the words he was praying
God now for the strength not to speak.

She did not answer him. She only moved away. Her white face was set
rigidly, and the dark eyes that had been full upon him were but a blur
now, for she was moving slowly backward, away from him, toward where
the Bishop stood. And she passed out of the lantern light and into the
shadows. And in the shadows her hand was raised from her bosom and was
held before her face--and it seemed as though she held it, as she had
held it in the dream of that Walled Place; that she held it, as she had
held it to shut out the sight of his face from her, as she had closed
upon him that door with its studded spikes. And like a stricken man he
stood there, gripping at the buckboard's wheel. She did not believe him.
Valérie did not believe him! There was agony to come, black depths of
torment yawning just before him when the numbness from the blow had
passed--but now he was stunned. She did not believe him! That man there,
whom he had thought would turn with bitter words upon him, had believed
him--but Valérie--Valérie--Valérie did not believe him! Ay, it was the
end! The agony and the torment were coming now. It was the dream come
true. The studded gate clanged shut, and the horror, without hope,
without smile, without human word, of that Walled Place with its slimy
walls was his, and, over the shrieking of those winged and hideous
things, that swaying carrion seemed to scream the louder: “_Dies ilia,
dies iro_--that day, a day of wrath, of wasting, and of misery, a great
day, and exceeding bitter.”

He did not move. Through that blur and through the shadows he watched
her, watched her as she reached the Bishop, and sank down upon the
ground, and clasped her hands around the Bishop's knees. And then he
heard her speak--and it seemed to Raymond that, as though stilled by a
mighty uplift that swept upon him, the beating of his heart had ceased.

“Monsignor!” she cried out piteously. “Monsignor! Monsignor! It is true
that they will not believe him! I was at the trial, Monsignor, I know
the evidence, and I know that they will not believe him. He is going
to--to his--death--to save that man. Oh, Monsignor--Monsignor, is there
no other way?”

Slowly, mechanically, as slowly as she had retreated from him, Raymond
moved toward the kneeling figure. The Bishop was speaking now--he had
laid his hands upon her head.

“My daughter,” he said gently, “what other way would you have him take?
It is a brave man's way, and for that I honour him; but it is more, it
is the way of one who has come out of the darkness into the light,
and for that my heart is full of thankfulness to God. It is the way of
atonement, not for any wrong he has done the church, for he could do the
church no wrong, for the church is pure and holy and beyond the reach of
any human hand or act to soil, for it is God's church--but atonement to
God for those sins of sacrilege and unbelief that lay between himself
and God alone. And so, my daughter, if in those sins he has been brought
to see and understand, and in his heart has sought and found God's
pardon and forgiveness, he could do no other thing than that which he
has done to-night.” The Bishop's voice had faltered; he brushed his hand
across his cheek as though to wipe away a tear. “It is God's way, my
daughter. There could be no other way.”

She rose to her feet, her face covered by her hands.

“No other way”--the words were lifeless on her lips, save that they were
broken with a sob. And then, suddenly, she drew herself erect, and there
was a pride and a glory in the poise of her head, and her voice rang
clear and there was no tremor in it, and in it was only the pride and
only the glory that was in the head held high, and in the fair, white,
uplifted face. “Listen, Monsignor! I thought he was a priest, and
I promised God that he should never know--but to-night all that is
changed. Monsignor, does it matter that he has no thought of me! He is
going to his death, Monsignor, and he shall not face this alone because
I was ashamed and dared not speak. I love him, Monsignor--I love him,
and I believe him, and---”

“_Valérie!_” Raymond's hands reached out to her. Weak he was. It seemed
as though in his knees there was no strength. “Valérie!” he cried, and
stumbled toward her.

And she put out her hand and held him back for an instant as her eyes
searched his face--and then into hers there came a wondrous light.

“I did not know,” she whispered. “I did not know you cared.”

His arms were still outstretched, and now she came into them, and for
a moment she lifted her face to his, and, for a moment that was glad
beyond all gladness, he drank with his lips from her lips and from the
trembling eyelids. And then the tears came, and she was sobbing on his
breast, and with her arms tight about his neck she clung to him--and
closer still his own arms enwrapped her--and he forgot--and he
forgot--_that it was only for a moment_.

And so he held her there, his face buried in the dark, soft masses
of her hair--and he forgot. And then out of this forgetfulness, this
transport of blinding joy, there came a voice, low and shaken with
emotion--the Bishop's voice.

“There is some one calling from the house.”

Raymond lifted up his head. A woman's figure was framed in the now open
and lighted doorway of the cottage. It was Madame Bouchard; and now he
heard Madame Bouchard as she called again.

“Valerie! Father Aubert! Come! Come quickly! Madame Blondin is conscious
again, but she is very weak.”

He drew his breath in sharply as one in bitter pain, and then gently he
took Valerie's arms from about him, and his shoulders squared. He had
had his moment. This was reality now. He heard Valérie cry out, and saw
her run toward the cottage.

“Monsignor,” he said hoarsely, and, moving back, lifted the _soutane_
from the buckboard's seat, “Monsignor, she must not know--and she
has asked for me. It is for her sake, Monsignor--that she be not
disillusioned in her death, and lose the faith that she has found
again. Monsignor, it is for the last time, not to perform any office,
Monsignor, for you will do that, but that she may not die in the belief
that God, through me, has only mocked her at the end.”

“I understand, my son,” the Bishop answered simply. “Put it on--and
come.”

And so Raymond put on the _soutane_ again, and they hurried toward the
cottage. And at the doorway Madame Bouchard courtesied in reverence to
the Bishop, and Raymond heard her say something about the horse, and
that she would remain within call; and then they passed on into Mother
Blondin's room.

It was a bare room, poor and meagre in its furnishings--a single rag mat
upon the floor; a single chair, and upon the chair the black bag that
Valerie had brought from the _presbytère_; and beside the rough wooden
bed, made perhaps by the Grandfather Bouchard in the old carpenter shop
by the river bank, was a small table, and upon the table a lamp, and
some cups with pewter spoons laid across their tops.

Extraneous things, these details seemed to Raymond to have intruded
themselves upon him as by some strange and vivid assertiveness of their
own, for he was not conscious that he had looked about him--that he had
looked anywhere but at that white and pitifully sunken face that was
straining upward from the pillows, and at Valérie who knelt at the
bedside and supported old Mother Blondin in her arms.

“Quick!” Valerie cried anxiously. “Give her a teaspoonful from that
first cup on the table. She has been trying to say something, and--and
I do not understand. Oh, be quick! It is something about that man in the
prison.”

The old woman's head bobbed jerkily, as though she fought for strength
to hold it up; the eyes, half closed, were dulled; and she struggled,
gasping, for her breath.

“Yes--the prison--the man”--the words were almost inarticulate. Raymond,
beside her now, was holding the spoonful of stimulant to her lips.
She swallowed it eagerly. “I--I lied--I lied--at the trial. Hold
me--tighter. Do not let me--go. Not yet--not--not until----” Her body
seemed to straighten, then wrench backward, and her eyes closed, and her
voice died away.

Raymond felt the Bishop's hand close tensely on his shoulder.

“What is this she says, my son?”

Raymond shook his head.

“I do not know,” he said huskily.

The eyes opened again, clearer now--and recognition came into them as
they met Raymond's. And there came a smile, and she reached out her hand
to him.

“You, father--I--I was afraid you would not come in time. I--I am
stronger now. Give Valerie the cup, and kneel, father--don't you
remember--like that night in the church--and hold my hand--and--and do
not let it go because--because then I--I should be afraid that God--that
God would not forgive.”

He took her hand between both his own, and knelt beside the bed.

“I will not let it go,” he said--and tried to keep the choking from his
throat. “What is it that you want to say--Mother Blondin?”

Her fingers twined over his, and clung tighter and tighter.

“That man, father--he--he must not hang. I--I cannot go to God with that
on my soul. I lied at the trial--I lied. I hated God then. I wanted only
revenge because my son was dead. I said I recognised him again,
but--but that is not true, for the light was low, and--and I do not see
well--but--but that--that does not matter, father--it is not that--for
it must have been that man. But it was not that man who--who tried to
rob me--it--it was my own son. That man is innocent--innocent--I tell
you--I----” She raised herself wildly up in bed. “Why do you look at
me like that, Father Aubert--with that white face--is it too late--too
late--and--and--will God not forgive?”

“It is not too late. Go on, Mother Blondin”--it was his lips that formed
the words; it was not his voice, it could not be--that quiet voice
speaking so softly.

Her face grew calmer. The fear was gone.

“It is not too late--it is not too late--and--and God will forgive,” she
whispered. “Listen then, father--listen, and pray for me. I--I was sure
Théophile had been robbing me. I watched behind the door that night.
I saw him go to take the money. And--and then that man came in, and
Théophile rushed at him with a stick of wood. The man had--had done
nothing. It was in self-defence he fought. And then I--I helped
Théophile. It was Théophile who took the revolver to kill him,
and--and--it went off in Théophile's hand, and----” she sighed heavily,
and sank back on the pillow.

The room seemed to sway before Raymond--and

Valérie's face, across the bed, seemed to move slowly before him with
a pendulum-like movement, and her face was very white, and in it was
wonder, and a great dawning hope, and awe. And he put his head down upon
the coverlet, but his hands still held old Mother Blondin's hand between
them.

And then she spoke again, with greater difficulty now; and somehow her
other hand had found Raymond's head, and her fingers played tremblingly
through his hair.

“You will tell them, father--and--and this other father here will tell
them--and--and Valérie will bear witness--and--and the man will live.
And you will tell him, father, how God came again and made me tell the
truth because you were good, and--and because you made be believe again
in--in you--and God--and-----”

A broken cry came from Raymond. The scalding tears were in his eyes.

“Hush, my son!”--it was the Bishop's grave and gentle voice. “God has
done a wondrous thing tonight.”

There was silence in the little room.

And then suddenly Raymond lifted his head--and the room was no more,
and in its place was the moonlit church of that other night, and he saw
again the old withered face transfigured into one of tender sweetness
and ineffable love.

“Pierre, monsieur?”--her mind was wandering now--they were the words she
had spoken as she had sat beside him in the pew. “Ah, he was a good boy,
Pierre--have you not heard of Pierre Letellier? And there was little
Jean--little Jean--he went away, monsieur, and I--I do not know
where--where he is--I do not know-----”

Raymond's voice was breaking, as he leaned forward toward her.

“He is with God, Mother Blondin. Jean--Jean has sent you a message. His
last thoughts were of you--his mother.”

The old eyes flamed with a dying fire.

“Jean--my son! My little Jean--his--his mother.” A smile lighted up
her face, and hovered on her lips; and her hand, clinging to Raymond's,
tightened.

“Father--I----” And then her fingers slipped from their hold, and fell
away.

The Bishop's arm was around Raymond's shoulders.

“Go now, my son--and you, my daughter,” he said gently. “It is very near
the end, and the time is short.”

Raymond rose blindly from his knees. Mother Blondin was very still, and
a pallor, gray and premonitory, had crept into her face. Her eyes were
closed. He raised the thin hand, and touched it with his lips--and
turned away.

And Valérie passed out of the room with him.

And by the open window of the room beyond, Valérie knelt down, and he
knelt down beside her.

It was quiet without--and there was no sound, save now the murmur of the
Bishop's voice from the inner room. He was to live--and not to die. To
go free! To give himself up--but to be set free--and there were to
be the years with Valérie. He could not understand it yet in all its
fulness.

Valérie was crying softly. With a great tenderness he put his arm about
her.

“It was the _Benedictus_--'into the way of peace'--that you said for her
that night,” she whispered. “Say it now again, my lover--for her--and
for us.”

He drew her closer to him, and, with her wet cheek against his own, they
repeated the words together.

And after a little time she raised her hands, and held his face between
them, and looked into his face for a long while, and there was a great
gladness, and a great love, and a great trust in the tear-wet eyes.

“I do not know your name,” she said.

“It is Raymond,” he answered.

THE END







End of Project Gutenberg's The Sin That Was His, by Frank L. Packard

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51983 ***