The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right of Way, Complete, by Gilbert Parker

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Title: The Right of Way, Complete

Author: Gilbert Parker

Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6249]
Last Updated: August 27, 2016

Language: English

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THE RIGHT OF WAY

By Gilbert Parker


CONTENTS

  Volume 1.
  I.        THE WAY TO THE VERDICT
  II.       WHAT CAME OF THE TRIAL
  III.      AFTER FIVE YEARS
  IV.       CHARLEY MAKES A DISCOVERY
  V.        THE WOMAN IN HELIOTROPE
  VI.       THE WIND AND THE SHORN LAMB
  VII.      “PEACE, PEACE, AND THERE IS NO PEACE!”
   VIII.     THE COST OF THE ORNAMENT

  Volume 2.
  IX.       OLD DEBTS FOR NEW
  X.        THE WAY IN AND THE WAY OUT
  XI.       THE RAISING OF THE CURTAIN
  XII.      THE COMING OF ROSALIE
  XIII.     HOW CHARLEY WENT ADVENTURING, AND WHAT HE FOUND
  XIV.      ROSALIE, CHARLEY, AND THE MAN THE WIDOW PLOMONDON JILTED
  XV.       THE MARK IN THE PAPER
  XVI.      MADAME DAUPHIN HAS A MISSION
  XVII.     THE TAILOR MAKES A MIDNIGHT FORAY
  XVIII.    THE STEALING OF THE CROSS

  Volume 3.
  XIX.      THE SIGN FROM HEAVEN
  XX.       THE RETURN OF THE TAILOR
  XXI.      THE CURE HAS AN INSPIRATION
  XXII.     THE WOMAN WHO SAW
  XXIII.    THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELL
  XXIV.     THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
  XXV.      THE COLONEL TELLS HIS STORY
  XXVI.     A SONG, A BOTTLE, AND A GHOST
  XXVII.    OUT ON THE OLD TRAIL
  XXVIII.   THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING

  Volume 4.
  XXIX.     THE WILD RIDE
  XXX.      ROSALIE WARNS CHARLEY
  XXXI.     CHARLEY STANDS AT BAY
  XXXII.    JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY
  XXXIII.   THE EDGE OF LIFE
  XXXIV.    IN AMBUSH
  XXXV.     THE COMING OF MAXIMILIAN COUR AND ANOTHER
  XXXVI.    BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
  XXXVII.   THE CHALLENGE OF PAULETTE DUBOIS
  XXXVIII.  THE CURE AND THE SEIGNEUR VISIT THE TAILOR
  XXXIX.    THE SCARLET WOMAN
  XL.       AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

  Volume 5.
  XLI.      IT WAS MICHAELMAS DAY
  XLII.     A TRIAL AND A VERDICT
  XLIII.    JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY
  XLIV.     “WHO WAS KATHLEEN?”
   XLV.      SIX MONTHS GO BY
  XLVI.     THE FORGOTTEN MAN
  XLVII.    ONE WAS TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFT
  XLVIII.   “WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING--”
   XLIX.     THE OPEN GATE

  Volume 6.
  L.        THE PASSION PLAY AT CHAUDIERE
  LI.       FACE TO FACE
  LII.      THE COMING OF BILLY
  LIII.     THE SEIGNEUR AND THE CURE HAVE A SUSPICION
  LIV.      M. ROSSIGNOL SLIPS THE LEASH
  LV.       ROSALIE PLAYS A PART
  LVI.      MRS. FLYNN SPEAKS
  LVII.     A BURNING FIERY FURNACE
  LVIII.    WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL
  LIX.      IN WHICH CHARLEY MEETS A STRANGER
  LX.       THE HAND AT THE DOOR
  LXI.      THE CURE SPEAKS

  EPILOGUE




INTRODUCTION

In a book called ‘The House of Harper’, published in this year, 1912,
there are two letters of mine, concerning ‘The Right of Way’, written
to Henry M. Alden, editor of Harper’s Magazine. To my mind those letters
should never have been published. They were purely personal. They were
intended for one man’s eyes only, and he was not merely an editor but a
beloved and admired personal friend. Only to him and to W. E. Henley, as
editors, could I ever have emptied out my heart and brain; and, as may
be seen by these two letters, one written from London and the other from
a place near Southampton, I uncovered all my feelings, my hopes and my
ambitions concerning The Right of Way. Had I been asked permission to
publish them I should not have granted it. I may wear my heart upon my
sleeve for my friend, but not for the universe.

The most scathing thing ever said in literature was said by Robert
Buchanan on Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s verses--“He has wheeled his nuptial
bed into the street.” Looking at these letters I have a great shrinking,
for they were meant only for the eyes of an aged man for whom I cared
enough to let him see behind the curtain. But since they have been
printed, and without a “by your leave,” I will use one or two passages
in them to show in what mood, under what pressure of impulse, under what
mental and, maybe, spiritual hypnotism it was written. I first planned
it as a story of twenty-five thousand words, even as ‘Valmond’ was
planned as a story of five thousand words, and ‘A Ladder of Swords’ as
a story of twenty thousand words; but I had not written three chapters
before I saw what the destiny of the tale was to be. I had gone to
Quebec to start the thing in the atmosphere where Charley Steele
belonged, and there it was borne in upon me that it must be a
three-decker novel, not a novelette. I telegraphed to Harper & Brothers
to ask them whether it would suit them just as well if I made it into a
long novel. They telegraphed their assent at once; so I went on. At that
time Mr. F. N. Doubleday was a sort of director of Harper’s firm. To
him I had told the tale in a railway train, and he had carried me off
at once to Henry M. Alden, to whom I also told it, with the result that
Harper’s Magazine was wide open to it, and there in Quebec, soon after
my interview with Mr. Alden and Mr. Doubleday, the book was begun.

The first of the letters published in The House of Harper, however, was
apparently written immediately after my return to London when the novel
was well on its way. Evidently the first paragraph of the letter was an
apology for having suddenly announced the development of the book from a
long short story to a long novel; for I used these words:

“Yet if you really take an interest in the working of the human mind in
its relation to the vicissitudes of life, you will appreciate what I am
going to tell you, and will recognise that there is only stability in
evolution which the vulgar call chance.... Now, sir, perpend. Charley
Steele is going to be a novel of one hundred thousand words or one
hundred and twenty thousand--a real bang-up heartful of a novel.”

Then there follows the confidence of a friend to a friend. As I look at
the words I am not sorry that I wrote them. They were a part of me. They
were the inveterate truth, but I would not willingly have uncovered my
inner self to any except the man to whom the words were written. But
here is what I wrote:

“I am a bit of a fool over this book. It catches me at every tender
corner of my nature. It has aroused all the old ardent dreams of youth
and springtime puissance. I cannot lay it down, and I cannot shorten it,
for story, character, soul and reflection, imagination, observation
are dragging me along after them.... This novel will make me or break
me--prove me human and an artist, or an affected literary bore. If
you want it you must take the risk. But, my dear Alden, you will be
investing in a man’s heart--which may be a fortune or a folly. Why,
I ought to have seen--and far back in my brain I did see--that the
character of Charley Steele was a type, an idiosyncrasy of modern life,
a resultant of forces all round us, and that he would demand space in
which to live and tell his story to the world.... And behold with what
joy I follow him, not only lovingly but sternly and severely, noting him
down as he really is, condoning naught, forgiving naught, but above
all else, understanding him--his wilful mystification of the world, his
shameless disdain of it, but the old law of interrogation, of sad yet
eager inquiry and wonder and ‘non possumus’ with him to the end.”

This letter was evidently written in December, 1899, and the other went
to Mr. Alden on the 7th August, 1900; therefore, eight or nine months
later. The work had gone well. Week after week, month after month it had
unfolded itself with an almost unpardonable ease. Evidently, the very
ease with which the book was written troubled me, because I find that in
this letter of the 7th August, 1900, to Mr. Alden, I used these words:

“A kind of terror has seized me, and instead of sending a dozen more
chapters to you as I proposed to do, I am setting to to break this love
story anew under the stones of my most exacting criticism and troubled
regard. I go to bury myself at a solitary little seaside place” (it
was Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire), “there to live alone with Rosalie and
Charley, and if I do not know them hereafter, never ask me to write for
‘Harper’s’ again.... This book has been written out of something vital
in me--I do not mean the religious part of it, I mean the humanity that
becomes one’s own and part of one’s self, by observation, experience,
and understanding got from dead years.”

Anyhow that shows the spirit in which the book was written, and there
must have been something in it that rang true, because not only did
it have an enormous sale and therefore a multitude of readers, but I
received hundreds of letters from people who in one way or another were
deeply interested in the story.

The majority of them were inquisitive letters. A great many of them said
that the writer had shared in controversy as to what the relations
of Charley and Rosalie were, and asked me to set for ever queries and
controversies at rest by declaring either that the relations of these
two were what, in the way of life’s stern conventions, they ought not
to be, or that Rosalie passed unscathed through the fire. I had foreseen
all this, though I could not have foreseen the passionately intense
interest which my readers would take in the life-story of these unhappy
yet happy people. I had, however, only one reply. It was that all I had
meant to say concerning Charley and Rosalie had been said in the book,
to the last word. All I had meant not to say would not be said after the
book was written. I asked them to take exactly the same view of Charley
and Rosalie as they would in real life regarding two human beings with
whom they were acquainted, and concerning whom, to their minds, there
was sufficient evidence, or not sufficient evidence, to come to a
conclusion as to what their relations were. I added that, as in real
life we used our judgment upon such things with a reasonable amount
of accuracy, I asked them to apply that judgment to Charley Steele and
Rosalie Evanturel. They and their story were there for eyes to see and
read, and when I had ended my manuscript in the year 1900 I had said
the last word I ever meant to say as to their history. The controversy
therefore continues, for the book still makes its appeal to an ever
increasing congregation of new readers.

But another kind of letter came to me--the letter of some man who had
just such a struggle as Charley Steele, or whose father or brother or
friend had had such a struggle. Letters came from clergymen who had
preached concerning the book; from men who told me in brief their own
life problems and tragedies. These letters I prize; most of them had the
real thing in them, the human truth.

That the book drew wide attention to the Dominion of Canada,
particularly to French Canada, and crystallised something of the life of
that dear Province, was a deep pleasure to me; and I was glad that I
had been able to culminate my efforts to portray the life of the
French-Canadian as I saw it, by a book which arrested the attention of
so comprehensive a public.

I have seen many statements as to the original of Charley Steele, but
I have never seen a story which was true. Many people have told me that
they had seen the original of Charley Steele in an American lawyer. They
knew he was the original, because he himself had said so. The gentleman
was mistaken; I have never seen him. As with the purple cow, I never
hope to see him. Whoever he is or whatever he is, the original Charley
was an abler and a more striking man. I knew him as a boy, and he died
while I was yet a boy, taking with him, save in the memory of a few, a
rare and wonderful, if not wholly lovable personality. For over twenty
years I had carried him in my mind, wondering whether, and when, I
should-make use of him. Again and again I was tempted, but was never
convinced that his time had come; yet through all the years he was
gaining strength, securing possession of my mind, and gathering to him,
magnet-like, the thousand observations which my experience sent in his
direction. In my mind his life-story ended with his death at the Cote
Dorion. For years and years I saw his ending there. Yet it all seemed to
me so futile, despite the wonder of his personality, that I could make
nothing of him, and though always fascinated by his character I was held
back from exploiting it, because of the hopelessness of it all. It led
nowhere. It was the ‘quid refert’ of the philosopher, and I could not
bring myself to get any further than an interrogation mark at the end of
a life which was all scepticism, mind and matter, and nothing more.

There came a day, however, when that all ended, when the doors were
flung wide to a new conception of the man, and of what he might have
become. I was going to America, and I paid an angry and reluctant visit
to my London tailor thirty-six hours before I was to start. A suit of
clothes had been sent home which, after an effective trying-on, was a
monstrosity. I went straight to my tailor, put on the clothes and bade
him look at them. He was a great tailor-he saw exactly what I saw, and
what I saw was bad; and when a tailor will do that, you may be quite
sure he is a good and a great man. He said the clothes were as bad as
they could be, but he added: “You shall have them before you sail, and
they shall be exactly as you want them. I’ll have the foreman down.” He
rang a bell. Presently the door swung open and in stepped a man with
an eyeglass in his eye. There, with a look at once reflective and
penetrating, with a figure at once slovenly and alert, was a caricature
of Charley Steele as I had known him, and of all his characteristics.
There was such a resemblance as an ugly child in a family may have to
his handsome brother. It was Charley Steele with a twist--gone to seed.
Looking at him in blank amazement, I burst out: “Good heavens, so you
didn’t die, Charley Steele! You became a tailor!”

All at once the whole new landscape of my story as it eventually became,
spread out before me. I was justified in waiting all the years. My
discontent with the futile end of the tale as I originally knew it
and saw it was justified. Charley Steele, brilliant, enigmatic and
epigrammatic, did not die at the Cote Dorion, but lived in that far
valley by Dalgrothe Mountain, and became a tailor! So far as I am
concerned he became much more. He was the beginning of a new epoch in
my literary life. I had got into subtler methods, reached more intimate
understandings, had come to a place where analysis of character had
shaken itself free--but certainly not quite free--from a natural yet
rather dangerous eloquence.

As a play The Right of Way, skilfully and sympathetically dramatised by
Mr. Eugene Presbery, has had a career extending over several years, and
still continues to make its appearance.




NOTE

It should not be assumed that the “Chaudiere” of this story is the real
Chaudiere of Quebec province. The name is characteristic, and for this
reason alone I have used it.

I must also apologise to my readers for appearing to disregard a
statement made in ‘The Lane that Had no Turning’, that that tale was the
last I should write about French Canada. In explanation I would say that
‘The Lane that Had no Turning’ was written after the present book was
finished. G. F.




THE RIGHT OF WAY

By Gilbert Parker



   “They had lived and loved, and walked and worked in their own way,
   and the world went by them. Between them and it a great gulf was
   fixed: and they met its every catastrophe with the Quid Refert? of
   the philosophers.”

       “I want to talk with some old lover’s ghost,
        Who lived before the god of love was born.”

   “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and
   none of them is without signification.”




CHAPTER I. THE WAY TO THE VERDICT

“Not guilty, your Honour!”

A hundred atmospheres had seemed pressing down on the fretted people in
the crowded court-room. As the discordant treble of the huge foreman of
the jury squeaked over the mass of gaping humanity, which had twitched
at skirts, drawn purposeless hands across prickling faces, and kept
nervous legs at a gallop, the smothering weights of elastic air lifted
suddenly, a great suspiration of relief swept through the place like a
breeze, and in a far corner of the gallery a woman laughed outright.

The judge looked up reprovingly at the gallery; the clerk of the court
angrily called “Silence!” towards the offending corner, and seven or
eight hundred eyes raced between three centres of interest--the judge,
the prisoner, and the prisoner’s counsel. Perhaps more people looked
at the prisoner’s counsel than at the prisoner, certainly far more than
looked at the judge.

Never was a verdict more unexpected. If a poll had been taken of the
judgment of the population twenty-four hours before, a great majority
would have been found believing that there was no escape for the
prisoner, who was accused of murdering a wealthy timber merchant. The
minority would have based their belief that the prisoner had a chance of
escape, not on his possible innocence, not on insufficient evidence,
but on a curious faith in the prisoner’s lawyer. This minority would not
have been composed of the friends of the lawyer alone, but of outside
spectators, who, because Charley Steele had never lost a criminal case,
attached to him a certain incapacity for bad luck; and of very young
men, who looked upon him as the perfect pattern of the person good to
see and hard to understand.

During the first two days of the trial the case had gone wholly against
the prisoner, who had given his name as Joseph Nadeau. Witnesses had
heard him quarrelling with the murdered man, and the next day the
body of the victim had been found by the roadside. The prisoner was a
stranger in the lumber-camp where the deed was done, and while there
had been morose and lived apart; no one knew him; and he refused to
tell even his lawyer whence he came, or what his origin, or to bring
witnesses from his home to speak for his character.

One by one the points had been made against him--with no perceptible
effect upon Charley Steele, who seemed the one cool, undisturbed person
in the courtroom.

Indifferent as he seemed, seldom speaking to the prisoner, often
looking out of the windows to the cool green trees far over on the hill,
absorbed and unbusinesslike, yet judge and jury came to see, before the
second day was done, that he had let no essential thing pass, that the
questions he asked had either a pregnant aptness, opened up new avenues
of deliberation, or were touched with mystery--seemed to have a longer
reach than the moment or the hour.

Before the end of this second day, however, more attention was upon him
than upon the prisoner, and nine-tenths of the people in the court-room
could have told how many fine linen handkerchiefs he used during the
afternoon, how many times he adjusted his monocle to look at the judge
meditatively. Probably no man, for eight hours a day, ever exasperated
and tried a judge, jury, and public, as did this man of twenty-nine
years of age, who had been known at college as Beauty Steele, and who
was still so spoken of familiarly; or was called as familiarly, Charley
Steele, by people who never had attempted to be familiar with him.

The second day of the trial had ended gloomily for the prisoner. The
coil of evidence had drawn so close that extrication seemed impossible.
That the evidence was circumstantial, that no sign of the crime was upon
the prisoner, that he was found sleeping quietly in his bed when he was
arrested, that he had not been seen to commit the deed, did not weigh
in the minds of the general public. The man’s guilt was freely believed;
not even the few who clung to the opinion that Charley Steele would yet
get him off thought that he was innocent. There seemed no flaw in the
evidence, once granted its circumstantiality.

During the last two hours of the sitting the prisoner had looked at his
counsel in despair, for he seemed perfunctorily conducting the case: was
occupied in sketching upon the blotting-pad before him, looking out of
the window, or turning his head occasionally towards a corner where sat
a half-dozen well-dressed ladies, and more particularly towards one
lady who watched him in a puzzled way--more than once with a look of
disappointment. Only at the very close of the sitting did he appear to
rouse himself. Then, for a brief ten minutes, he cross-examined a friend
of the murdered merchant in a fashion which startled the court-room,
for he suddenly brought out the fact that the dead man had once struck
a woman in the face in the open street. This fact, sharply stated by the
prisoner’s counsel, with no explanation and no comment, seemed uselessly
intrusive and malicious. His ironical smile merely irritated all
concerned. The thin, clean-shaven face of the prisoner grew more pinched
and downcast, and he turned almost pleadingly towards the judge. The
judge pulled his long side-whiskers nervously, and looked over his
glasses in severe annoyance, then hastily adjourned the sitting and
left the bench, while the prisoner saw with dismay his lawyer leave the
court-room with not even a glance towards him.

On the morning of the third day Charley Steele’s face, for the first
time, wore an expression which, by a stretch of imagination, might be
called anxious. He also took out his monocle frequently, rubbed it with
his handkerchief, and screwed it in again, staring straight before him
much of the time. But twice he spoke to the prisoner in a low voice, and
was hurriedly answered in French as crude as his own was perfect. When
he spoke, which was at rare intervals, his voice was without feeling,
concise, insistent, unappealing. It was as though the business before
him was wholly alien to him, as though he were held there against his
will, but would go on with his task bitterly to the bitter end.

The court adjourned for an hour at noon. During this time Charley
refused to see any one, but sat alone in his office with a few biscuits
and an ominous bottle before him, till the time came for him to go back
to the court-house. Arrived there he entered by a side door, and was not
seen until the court opened once more.

For two hours and a half the crown attorney mercilessly made out his
case against the prisoner. When he sat down, people glanced meaningly
at each other, as though the last word had been said, then looked at the
prisoner, as at one already condemned.

Yet Charley Steele was to reply. He was not now the same man that had
conducted the case during the past two days and a half. Some
great change had passed over him. There was no longer abstraction,
indifference, or apparent boredom, or disdain, or distant stare. He
was human, intimate and eager, yet concentrated and impelling: he was
quietly, unnoticeably drunk.

He assured the prisoner with a glance of the eye, with a word scarce
above a whisper, as he slowly rose to make his speech for the defence.

His first words caused a new feeling in the courtroom. He was a new
presence; the personality had a changed significance. At first the
public, the jury, and the judge were curiously attracted, surprised into
a fresh interest. The voice had an insinuating quality, but it also
had a measured force, a subterranean insistence, a winning tactfulness.
Withal, a logical simplicity governed his argument. The flaneur,
the poseur--if such he was--no longer appeared. He came close to the
jurymen, leaned his hands upon the back of a chair--as it were, shut out
the public, even the judge, from his circle of interest--and talked in a
conversational tone. An air of confidence passed from him to the amazed
yet easily captivated jury; the distance between them, so gaping
during the last two days, closed suddenly up. The tension of the past
estrangement, relaxing all at once, surprised the jury into an almost
eager friendliness, as on a long voyage a sensitive traveller finds
in some exciting accident a natural introduction to an exclusive
fellow-passenger, whom he discovers as human as he had thought him
offensively distant.

Charley began by congratulating the crown attorney on his statement of
the case. He called it masterly; he said that in its presentations
it was irrefutable; as a precis of evidence purely circumstantial it
was--useful and interesting. But, speech-making aside, and ability--and
rhetoric--aside, and even personal conviction aside, the case should
stand or fall by its total, not its comparative, soundness. Since the
evidence was purely circumstantial, there must be no flaw in its cable
of assumption, it must be logically inviolate within itself. Starting
with assumption only, there must be no straying possibilities, no loose
ends of certainty, no invading alternatives. Was this so in the case of
the man before them? They were faced by a curious situation. So far as
the trial was concerned, the prisoner himself was the only person who
could tell them who he was, what was his past, and, if he committed the
crime, what was--the motive of it: out of what spirit--of revenge, or
hatred--the dead man had been sent to his account. Probably in the whole
history of crime there never was a more peculiar case. Even himself
the prisoner’s counsel was dealing with one whose life was hid from him
previous to the day the murdered man was discovered by the roadside.
The prisoner had not sought to prove an alibi; he had done no more than
formally plead not guilty. There was no material for defence save
that offered by the prosecution. He had undertaken the defence of
the prisoner because it was his duty as a lawyer to see that the law
justified itself; that it satisfied every demand of proof to the last
atom of certainty; that it met the final possibility of doubt with
evidence perfect and inviolate if circumstantial, and uncontradictory if
eye-witness, if tell-tale incident, were to furnish basis of proof.

Judge, jury, and public riveted their eyes upon Charley Steele. He had
now drawn a little farther away from the jury-box; his eye took in
the judge as well; once or twice he turned, as if appealingly and
confidently, to the people in the room. It was terribly hot, the air
was sickeningly close, every one seemed oppressed--every one save a
lady sitting not a score of feet from where the counsel for the prisoner
stood. This lady’s face was not one that could flush easily; it belonged
to a temperament as even as her person was symmetrically beautiful.
As Charley talked, her eyes were fixed steadily, wonderingly upon him.
There was a question in her gaze, which never in the course of the
speech was quite absorbed by the admiration--the intense admiration--she
was feeling for him. Once as he turned with a concentrated earnestness
in her direction his eyes met hers. The message he flashed her was
sub-conscious, for his mind never wavered an instant from the cause in
hand, but it said to her:

“When this is over, Kathleen, I will come to you.” For another quarter
of an hour he exposed the fallacy of purely circumstantial evidence;
he raised in the minds of his hearers the painful responsibility of the
law, the awful tyranny of miscarriage of justice; he condemned prejudice
against a prisoner because that prisoner demanded that the law should
prove him guilty instead of his proving himself innocent. If a man chose
to stand to that, to sternly assume this perilous position, the law had
no right to take advantage of it. He turned towards the prisoner and
traced his possible history: as the sensitive, intelligent son of godly
Catholic parents from some remote parish in French Canada. He drew an
imaginary picture of the home from which he might have come, and of the
parents and brothers and sisters who would have lived weeks of torture
knowing that their son and brother was being tried for his life. It
might at first glance seem quixotic, eccentric, but was it unnatural
that the prisoner should choose silence as to his origin and home,
rather than have his family and friends face the undoubted peril
lying before him? Besides, though his past life might have been wholly
blameless, it would not be evidence in his favour. It might, indeed,
if it had not been blameless, provide some element of unjust suspicion
against him, furnish some fancied motive. The prisoner had chosen his
path, and events had so far justified him. It must be clear to the
minds of judge and jury that there were fatally weak places in the
circumstantial evidence offered for the conviction of this man.

There was the fact that no sign of the crime, no drop of blood, no
weapon, was found about him or near him, and that he was peacefully
sleeping at the moment the constable arrested him.

There was also the fact that no motive for the crime had been shown. It
was not enough that he and the dead man had been heard quarrelling. Was
there any certainty that it was a quarrel, since no word or sentence
of the conversation had been brought into court? Men with quick tempers
might quarrel over trivial things, but exasperation did not always
end in bodily injury and the taking of life; imprecations were not so
uncommon that they could be taken as evidence of wilful murder. The
prisoner refused to say what that troubled conversation was about,
but who could question his right to take the risk of his silence being
misunderstood?

The judge was alternately taking notes and looking fixedly at the
prisoner; the jury were in various attitudes of strained attention; the
public sat open mouthed; and up in the gallery a woman with white face
and clinched hands listened moveless and staring. Charley Steele was
holding captive the emotions and the judgments of his hearers. All
antipathy had gone; there was a strange eager intimacy between the
jurymen and himself. People no longer looked with distant dislike at the
prisoner, but began to see innocence in his grim silence, disdain only
in his surly defiance.

But Charley Steele had preserved his great stroke for the psychological
moment. He suddenly launched upon them the fact, brought out in
evidence, that the dead man had struck a woman in the face a year ago;
also that he had kept a factory girl in affluence for two years. Here
was motive for murder--if motive were to govern them--far greater than
might be suggested by excited conversation which listeners who could not
hear a word construed into a quarrel--listeners who bore the prisoner
at the bar ill-will because he shunned them while in the lumber-camp.
If the prisoner was to be hanged for motive untraceable, why should not
these two women be hanged for motive traceable!

Here was his chance. He appeared to impeach subtly every intelligence in
the room for having had any preconviction about the prisoner’s guilt. He
compelled the jury to feel that they, with him, had made the discovery
of the unsound character of the evidence. The man might be guilty, but
their personal guilt, the guilt of the law, would be far greater if they
condemned the man on violable evidence. With a last simple appeal, his
hands resting on the railing before the seat where the jury sat, his
voice low and conversational again, his eyes running down the line of
faces of the men who had his client’s life in their hands, he said:

“It is not a life only that is at stake, it is not revenge for a life
snatched from the busy world by a brutal hand that we should heed
to-day, but the awful responsibility of that thing we call the State,
which, having the power of life and death without gainsay or hindrance,
should prove to the last inch of necessity its right to take a human
life. And the right and the reason should bring conviction to every
honest human mind. That is all I have to say.”

The crown attorney made a perfunctory reply. The judge’s charge was
brief, and, if anything, a little in favour of the prisoner--very
little, a casuist’s little; and the jury filed out of the room. They
were gone but ten minutes. When they returned, the verdict was given:
“Not guilty, your Honour!”

Then it was that a woman laughed in the gallery. Then a whispering voice
said across the railing which separated the public from the lawyers:
“Charley! Charley!”

Though Charley turned and looked at the lady who spoke, he made no
response.

A few minutes later, outside the court, as he walked quickly away, again
inscrutable and debonair, the prisoner, Joseph Nadeau, touched him on
the arm and said:

“M’sieu’, M’sieu’, you have saved my life--I thank you, M’sieu’!”

Charley Steele drew his arm away with disgust. “Get out of my sight!
You’re as guilty as hell!” he said.




CHAPTER II. WHAT CAME OF THE TRIAL

“When this is over, Kathleen, I will come to you.” So Charley Steele’s
eyes had said to a lady in the court room on that last day of the great
trial. The lady had left the court-room dazed and exalted. She, with
hundreds of others, had had a revelation of Charley Steele; had had also
the great emotional experience of seeing a crowd make the ‘volte face’
with their convictions; looking at a prisoner one moment with eyes of
loathing and anticipating his gruesome end, the next moment seeing him
as the possible martyr to the machinery of the law. She whose heart
was used to beat so evenly had felt it leap and swell with excitement,
awaiting the moment when the jury filed back into the court-room. Then
it stood still, as a wave might hang for an instant at its crest ere it
swept down to beat upon the shore.

With her as with most present, the deepest feeling in the agitated
suspense was not so much that the prisoner should go free, as that the
prisoner’s counsel should win his case. It was as if Charley Steele were
on trial instead of the prisoner. He was the imminent figure; it was his
fate that was in the balance--such was the antic irony of suggestion.
And the truth was, that the fates of both prisoner and counsel had been
weighed in the balance that sweltering August day.

The prisoner was forgotten almost as soon as he had left the court-room
a free man, but wherever men and women met in Montreal that day, one
name was on the lips of all-Charley Steele! In his speech he had done
two things: he had thrown down every barrier of reserve--or so it
seemed--and had become human and intimate. “I could not have believed
it of him,” was the remark on every lip. Of his ability there never had
been a moment’s doubt, but it had ever been an uncomfortable ability,
it had tortured foes and made friends anxious. No one had ever seen
him show feeling. If it was a mask, he had worn it with a curious
consistency: it had been with him as a child, at school, at college,
and he had brought it back again to the town where he was born. It had
effectually prevented his being popular, but it had made him--with his
foppishness and his originality--an object of perpetual interest. Few
men had ventured to cross swords with him. He left his fellow-citizens
very much alone. He was uniformly if distantly courteous, and he was
respected in his own profession for his uncommon powers and for an utter
indifference as to whether he had cases in court or not.

Coming from the judge’s chambers after the trial he went to his office,
receiving as he passed congratulations more effusively offered than, as
people presently found, his manner warranted.

For he was again the formal, masked Charley Steele, looking calmly
through the interrogative eye-glass. By the time he reached his office,
greetings became more subdued. His prestige had increased immensely in
a few short hours, but he had no more friends than before. Old relations
were soon re-established. The town was proud of his ability as it
had always been, irritated by his manner as it had always been, more
prophetic of his future than it had ever been, and unconsciously
grateful for the fact that he had given them a sensation which would
outlast the summer.

All these things concerned him little. Once the business of the
court-room was over, a thought which had quietly lain in waiting behind
the strenuous occupations of his brain leaped forward to exclude all
others.

As he entered his office he was thinking of that girl’s face in the
court-room, with its flush of added beauty which he and his speech had
brought there. “What a perfect loveliness!” he said to himself as he
bathed his face and hands, and prepared to go into the street again.
“She needed just such a flush to make her supreme Kathleen!” He stood,
looking out into the square, out into the green of the trees where the
birds twittered. “Faultless--faultless in form and feature. She was so
as a child, she is so as a woman.” He lighted a cigarette, and blew away
little clouds of smoke. “I will do it. I will marry her. She will have
me: I saw it in her eye. Fairing doesn’t matter. Her uncle will never
consent to that, and she doesn’t care enough for him. She cares, but she
doesn’t care enough.... I will do it.”

He turned towards a cupboard into which he had put a certain bottle
before he went to the court-room two hours before. He put the key in the
lock, then stopped. “No, I think not!” he said. “What I say to her shall
not be said forensically. What a discovery I’ve made! I was dull,
blank, all iron and ice; the judge, the jury, the public, even Kathleen,
against me; and then that bottle in there--and I saw things like
crystal! I had a glow in my brain, I had a tingle in my fingers; and
I had success, and”--his face clouded--“He was as guilty as hell!”
 he added, almost bitterly, as he put the key of the cupboard into his
pocket again.

There was a knock at the door, and a youth of about nineteen entered.

“Hello!” he said. “I say, sir, but that speech of yours struck us all
where we couldn’t say no. Even Kathleen got in a glow over it. Perhaps
Captain Fairing didn’t, for he’s just left her in a huff, and she’s
looking--you remember those lines in the school-book:

         “‘A red spot burned upon her cheek,
          Streamed her rich tresses down--’”

He laughed gaily. “I’ve come to ask you up to tea,” he added. “The
Unclekins is there. When I told him that Kathleen had sent Fairing away
with a flea in his ear, he nearly fell off his chair. He lent me twenty
dollars on the spot. Are you coming our way?” he continued, suddenly
trying to imitate Charley’s manner. Charley nodded, and they left the
office together and moved away under a long avenue of maples to where,
in the shade of a high hill, was the house of the uncle of Kathleen
Wantage, with whom she and her brother Billy lived. They walked in
silence for some time, and at last Billy said, ‘a propos’ of nothing:

“Fairing hasn’t a red cent.”

“You have a perambulating mind, Billy,” said Charley, and bowed to a
young clergyman approaching them from the opposite direction.

“What does that mean?” remarked Billy, and said “Hello!” to the young
clergyman, and did not wait for Charley’s answer.

The Rev. John Brown was by no means a conventional parson. He was
smoking a cigarette, and two dogs followed at his heels. He was
certainly not a fogy. He had more than a little admiration for Charley
Steele, but he found it difficult to preach when Charley was in the
congregation. He was always aware of a subterranean and half-pitying
criticism going on in the barrister’s mind. John Brown knew that he
could never match his intelligence against Charley’s, in spite of the
theological course at Durham, so he undertook to scotch the snake by
kindness. He thought that he might be able to do this, because Charley,
who was known to be frankly agnostical, came to his church more or less
regularly.

The Rev. John Brown was not indifferent to what men thought of him. He
had a reputation for being “independent,” but his chief independence
consisted in dressing a little like a layman, posing as the athletic
parson of the new school, consorting with ministers of the dissenting
denominations when it was sufficiently effective, and being a “good
fellow” with men easily bored by church and churchmen. He preached
theatrical sermons to societies and benevolent associations. He wanted
to be thought well of on all hands, and he was shrewd enough to know
that if he trimmed between ritualism on one hand and evangelicism on
the other, he was on a safe road. He might perforate old dogmatical
prejudices with a good deal of freedom so long as he did not begin
bringing “millinery” into the service of the church. He invested his own
personal habits with the millinery. He looked a picturesque figure with
his blond moustache, a little silk-lined brown cloak thrown carelessly
over his shoulder, a gold-headed cane, and a brisk jacket half
ecclesiastical, half military.

He had interested Charley Steele, also he had amused him, and sometimes
he had surprised him into a sort of admiration; for Brown had a
temperament capable of little inspirations--such a literary inspiration
as might come to a second-rate actor--and Charley never belittled
any man’s ability, but seized upon every sign of knowledge with the
appreciation of the epicure.

John Brown raised his hat to Charley, then held out a hand.
“Masterly-masterly!” he said. “Permit my congratulations. It was the
one thing to do. You couldn’t have saved him by making him an object of
pity, by appealing to our sympathies.”

“What do you take to be the secret, then?” asked Charley, with a look
half abstracted, half quizzical. “Terror--sheer terror. You startled
the conscience. You made defects in the circumstantial evidence, the
imminent problems of our own salvation. You put us all on trial. We
were under the lash of fear. If we parsons could only do that from the
pulpit!”

“We will discuss that on our shooting-trip next week. Duck-shooting
gives plenty of time for theological asides. You are coming, eh?”

John Brown scarcely noticed the sarcasm, he was so delighted at the
suggestion that he was to be included in the annual duck-shoot of the
Seven, as the little yearly party of Charley and his friends to Lake
Aubergine was called. He had angled for this invitation for two years.

“I must not keep you,” Charley said, and dismissed him with a bow. “The
sheep will stray, and the shepherd must use his crook.”

Brown smiled at the badinage, and went on his way rejoicing in the fact
that he was to share the amusements of the Seven at Lake Aubergine--the
Lake of the Mad Apple. To get hold of these seven men of repute and
position, to be admitted into this good presence!--He had a pious
exaltation, but whether it was because he might gather into the fold
erratic and agnostical sheep like Charley Steele, or because it pleased
his social ambitions, he had occasion to answer in the future. He gaily
prepared to go to the Lake of the Mad Apple, where he was fated to eat
of the tree of knowledge.

Charley Steele and Billy Wantage walked on slowly to the house under the
hill.

“He’s the right sort,” said Billy. “He’s a sport. I can stand that kind.
Did you ever hear him sing? No? Well, he can sing a comic song fit to
make you die. I can sing a bit myself, but to hear him sing ‘The Man Who
Couldn’t Get Warm’ is a show in itself. He can play the banjo too, and
the guitar--but he’s best on the banjo. It’s worth a dollar to listen
to his Epha-haam--that’s Ephraim, you know--Ephahaam Come Home,’ and ‘I
Found Y’ in de Honeysuckle Paitch.’”

“He preaches, too!” said Charley drily.

They had reached the door of the house under the hill, and Billy had
no time for further remark. He ran into the drawing-room, announcing
Charley with the words: “I say, Kathleen, I’ve brought the man that made
the judge sit up.”

Billy suddenly stopped, however, for there sat the judge who had tried
the case, calmly munching a piece of toast. The judge did not allow
himself the luxury of embarrassment, but bowed to Charley with a
smile, which he presently turned on Kathleen, who came as near being
disconcerted as she had ever been in her life.

Kathleen had passed through a good deal to look so unflurried. She
had been on trial in the court-room as well as the prisoner. Important
things had been at stake with her. She and Charley Steele had known each
other since they were children. To her, even in childhood, he had been
a dominant figure. He had judicially and admiringly told her she was
beautiful--when he was twelve and she five. But he had said it without
any of those glances which usually accompanied the same sentiments in
the mouths of other lads. He had never made boy-love to her, and she had
thrilled at the praise of less splendid people than Charley Steele. He
had always piqued her, he was so superior to the ordinary enchantments
of youth, beauty, and fine linen.

As he came and went, growing older and more characteristic, more and
more “Beauty Steele,” accompanied by legends of wild deeds and days
at college, by tales of his fopperies and the fashions he had set, she
herself had grown, as he had termed it, more “decorative.” He had told
her so, not in the least patronisingly, but as a simple fact in which
no sentiment lurked. He thought her the most beautiful thing he had ever
seen, but he had never regarded her save as a creation for the perfect
pleasure of the eye; he thought her the concrete glory of sensuous
purity, no more capable of sentiment than himself. He had said again and
again, as he grew older and left college and began the business of life
after two years in Europe, that sentiment would spoil her, would scatter
the charm of her perfect beauty; it would vitalise her too much, and her
nature would lose its proportion; she would be decentralised! She had
been piqued at his indifference to sentiment; she could not easily be
content without worship, though she felt none. This pique had grown
until Captain Tom Fairing crossed her path.

Fairing was the antithesis of Charley Steele. Handsome, poor,
enthusiastic, and none too able, he was simple and straightforward, and
might be depended on till the end of the chapter. And the end of it was,
that in so far as she had ever felt real sentiment for anybody, she felt
it for Tom Fairing of the Royal Fusileers. It was not love she felt in
the old, in the big, in the noble sense, but it had behind it selection
and instinct and natural gravitation.

Fairing declared his love. She would give him no answer. For as soon as
she was presented with the issue, the destiny, she began to look round
her anxiously. The first person to fill the perspective was Charley
Steele. As her mind dwelt on him, her uncle gave forth his judgment,
that she should never have a penny if she married Tom Fairing. This only
irritated her, it did not influence her. But there was Charley. He was
a figure, was already noted in his profession because of a few
masterly successes in criminal cases, and if he was not popular, he was
distinguished, and the world would talk about him to the end. He was
handsome, and he was well-to-do-he had a big unoccupied house on the
hill among the maples. How many people had said, What a couple they
would make-Charley Steele and Kathleen Wantage!

So, as Fairing presented an issue to her, she concentrated her thoughts
as she had never done before on the man whom the world set apart for
her, in a way the world has.

As she looked and looked, Charley began to look also. He had not been
enamoured of the sordid things of the world; he had been merely curious.
He thought vice was ugly; he had imagination and a sense of form.
Kathleen was beautiful. Sentiment had, so he thought, never seriously
disturbed her; he did not think it ever would. It had not affected
him. He did not understand it. He had been born non-intime. He had had
acquaintances, but never friendships, and never loves or love. But he
had a fine sense of the fitting and the proportionate, and he worshipped
beauty in so far as he could worship anything. The homage was cerebral,
intellectual, temperamental, not of the heart. As he looked out upon the
world half pityingly, half ironically, he was struck with wonder at the
disproportion which was engendered by “having heart,” as it was called.
He did not find it necessary.

Now that he had begun to think of marriage, who so suitable as Kathleen?
He knew of Fairing’s adoration, but he took it as a matter of course
that she had nothing to give of the same sort in return. Her beauty was
still serene and unimpaired. He would not spoil it by the tortures of
emotion. He would try to make Kathleen’s heart beat in harmony with his
own; it should not thunder out of time. He had made up his mind that he
would marry her.

For Kathleen, with the great trial, the beginning of the end had come.
Charley’s power over her was subtle, finely sensuous, and, in deciding,
there were no mere heart-impulses working for Charley. Instinct and
impulse were working in another direction. She had not committed her
mind to either man, though her heart, to a point, was committed to
Fairing.

On the day of the trial, however, she fell wholly under that influence
which had swayed judge, jury, and public. To her the verdict of the jury
was not in favour of the prisoner at the bar--she did not think of him.
It was in favour of Charley Steele.

And so, indifferent as to who heard, over the heads of the people in
front of her, to the accused’s counsel inside the railings, she had
called, softly: “Charley! Charley!”

Now, in the house under the hill, they were face to face, and the end
was at hand: the end of something and the beginning of something.

There was a few moments of casual conversation, in which Billy talked as
much as anybody, and then Kathleen said:

“What do you suppose was the man’s motive for committing the murder?”

Charley looked at Kathleen steadily, curiously, through his monocle. It
was a singular compliment she paid him. Her remark took no heed of
the verdict of the jury. He turned inquiringly towards the judge, who,
though slightly shocked by the question, recovered himself quickly.

“What do you think it was, sir?” Charley asked quietly.

“A woman--and revenge, perhaps,” answered the judge, with a
matter-of-course air.

A few moments afterwards the judge was carried off by Kathleen’s uncle
to see some rare old books; Billy, his work being done, vanished; and
Kathleen and Charley were left alone.

“You did not answer me in the court-room,” Kathleen said. “I called to
you.”

“I wanted to hear you say them here,” he rejoined. “Say what?” she
asked, a little puzzled by the tone of his voice.

“Your congratulations,” he answered.

She held out a hand to him. “I offer them now. It was wonderful. You
were inspired. I did not think you could ever let yourself go.”

He held her hand firmly. “I promise not to do it again,” he said
whimsically.

“Why not?”

“Have I not your congratulations?” His hand drew her slightly towards
him; she rose to her feet.

“That is no reason,” she answered, confused, yet feeling that there was
a double meaning in his words.

“I could not allow you to be so vain,” he said. “We must be
companionable. Henceforth I shall congratulate myself--Kathleen.”

There was no mistaking now. “Oh, what is it you are going to say to me?”
 she asked, yet not disengaging her hand.

“I said it all in the court-room,” he rejoined; “and you heard.”

“You want me to marry you--Charley?” she asked frankly.

“If you think there is no just impediment,” he answered, with a smile.

She drew her hand away, and for a moment there was a struggle in
her mind--or heart. He knew of what she was thinking, and he did not
consider it of serious consequence. Romance was a trivial thing, and
women were prone to become absorbed in trivialities. When the woman had
no brains, she might break her life upon a trifle. But Kathleen had an
even mind, a serene temperament. Her nerves were daily cooled in a bath
of nature’s perfect health. She had never had an hour’s illness in her
life.

“There is no just or unjust impediment, Kathleen,” he added presently,
and took her hand again.

She looked him in the eyes clearly. “You really think so?” she asked.

“I know so,” he answered. “We shall be two perfect panels in one picture
of life.”




CHAPTER III. AFTER FIVE YEARS

“You have forgotten me?”

Charley Steele’s glance was serenely non-committal as he answered drily:

“I cannot remember doing so.”

The other man’s eyelids drew down with a look of anger, then the humour
of the impertinence worked upon him, and he gave a nervous little laugh
and said: “I am John Brown.”

“Then I’m sure my memory is not at fault,” remarked Charley, with an
outstretched hand. “My dear Brown! Still preaching little sermons?”

“Do I look it?” There was a curious glitter in John Brown’s eyes. “I’m
not preaching little sermons, and you know it well enough.” He laughed,
but it was a hard sort of mirth. “Perhaps you forgot to remember that,
though,” he sneeringly added. “It was the work of your hands.”

“That’s why I should remember to forget it--I am the child of modesty.”
 Charley touched the corners of his mouth with his tongue, as though his
lips were dry, and his eyes wandered to a saloon a little farther down
the street.

“Modesty is your curse,” rejoined Brown mockingly.

“Once when you preached at me you said that beauty was my curse.”
 Charley laughed a curt, distant little laugh which was no more the
spontaneous humour lying for ever behind his thoughts than his eye-glass
was the real sight of his eyes, though since childhood this laugh and
his eye-glass were as natural to all expression of himself as John
Brown’s outward and showy frankness did not come from the real John
Brown.

John Brown looked him up and down quickly, then fastened his eyes on
the ruddy cheeks of his old friend. “Do they call you Beauty now as they
used to?” he asked, rather insolently.

“No. They only say, ‘There goes Charley Steele!’” The tongue again
touched the corners of the mouth, and the eyes wandered to the doorway
down the street, over which was written in French: “Jean Jolicoeur,
Licensed to sell wine, beer, and other spirituous and fermented
liquors.”

Just then an archdeacon of the cathedral passed them, bowed gravely to
Charley, glanced at John Brown, turned colour slightly, and then with a
cold stare passed on too quickly for dignity.

“I’m thinking of Bunyan,” said the aforetime friend of Charley Steele.
“I’ll paraphrase him and say: ‘There, but for beauty and a monocle,
walks John Brown.’”

Under the bitter sarcasm of the man, who, five years ago, had gone down
at last beneath his agnostic raillery, Charley’s blue eye did not waver,
not a nerve stirred in his face, as he replied: “Who knows!”

“That was what you always said--who knows! That did for John Brown.”

Charley seemed not to hear the remark. “What are you doing now?” he
asked, looking steadily at the face whence had gone all the warmth
of manhood, all that courage of life which keeps men young. The lean
parchment visage had the hunted look of the incorrigible failure, had
written on it self-indulgence, cunning, and uncertainty.

“Nothing much,” John Brown replied.

“What last?”

“Floated an arsenic-mine on Lake Superior.”

“Failed?”

“More or less. There are hopes yet. I’ve kept the wolf from the door.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Don’t know--nothing, perhaps; I’ve not the courage I had.”

“I’d have thought you might find arsenic a good thing,” said Charley,
holding out a silver cigarette-case, his eyes turning slowly from the
startled, gloomy face of the man before him, to the cool darkness beyond
the open doorway of that saloon on the other side of the street.

John Brown shivered--there was something so cold-blooded in the
suggestion that he might have found arsenic a good thing. The metallic
glare of Charley’s eye-glass seemed to give an added cruelty to the
words. Charley’s monocle was the token of what was behind his blue
eye-one ceaseless interrogation. It was that everlasting questioning,
the ceaseless who knows! which had in the end unsettled John Brown’s
mind, and driven him at last from the church and the possible gaiters of
a dean into the rough business of life, where he had been a failure. Yet
as Brown looked at Charley the old fascination came on him with a rush.
His hand suddenly caught Charley’s as he took a cigarette, and he said:
“Perhaps I’ll find arsenic a good thing yet.”

For reply Charley laid a hand on his arm-turned him towards the shade of
the houses opposite. Without a word they crossed the street, entered
the saloon, and passed to a little back room, Charley giving an
unsympathetic stare to some men at the bar who seemed inclined to speak
to him.

As the two passed into the small back room with the frosted door, one
of the strangers said to the other: “What does he come here for, if
he’s too proud to speak! What’s a saloon for! I’d like to smash that
eye-glass for him!”

“He’s going down-hill fast,” said the other. “He drinks steady--steady.”

“Tiens--tiens!” interposed Jean Jolicoeur, the landlord. “It is not harm
to him. He drink all day, an’ he walk a crack like a bee-line.”

“He’s got the handsomest wife in this city. If I was him, I’d think more
of myself,” answered the Englishman.

“How you think more--hein? You not come down more to my saloon?”

“No, I wouldn’t come to your saloon, and I wouldn’t go to Theophile
Charlemagne’s shebang at the Cote Dorion.”

“You not like Charlemagne’s hotel?” said a huge black-bearded pilot,
standing beside the landlord. “Oh, I like Charlemagne’s hotel, and
I like to talk to Suzon Charlemagne, but I’m not married, Rouge
Gosselin--”

“If he go to Charlemagne’s hotel, and talk some more too mooch to dat
Suzon Charlemagne, he will lose dat glass out of his eye,” interrupted
Rouge Gosselin.

“Who say he been at dat place?” said Jean Jolicoeur. “He bin dere four
times las’ month, and dat Suzon Charlemagne talk’bout him ever since.
When dat Narcisse Bovin and Jacques Gravel come down de river, he better
keep away from dat Cote Dorion,” sputtered Rouge Gosselin. “Dat’s a long
story short, all de same for you--bagosh!”

Rouge Gosselin flung off his glass of white whiskey, and threw after it
a glass of cold water.

“Tiens! you know not M’sieu’ Charley Steele,” said Jean Jolicoeur, and
turned on his heel, nodding his head sagely.




CHAPTER IV. CHARLEY MAKES A DISCOVERY

A hot day a month later Charley Steele sat in his office staring before
him into space, and negligently smoking a cigarette. Outside there was a
slow clacking of wheels, and a newsboy was crying “La Patrie! La
Patrie! All about the War in France! All about the massacree!”
 Bells--wedding-bells--were ringing also, and the jubilant sounds, like
the call of the newsboy, were out of accord with the slumberous feeling
of the afternoon. Charley Steele turned his head slowly towards the
window. The branches of a maple-tree half crossed it, and the leaves
moved softly in the shadow they made. His eye went past the tree and
swam into the tremulous white heat of the square, and beyond to where in
the church-tower the bells were ringing-to the church doors, from
which gaily dressed folk were issuing to the carriages, or thronged
the pavement, waiting for the bride and groom to come forth into a
new-created world--for them.

Charley looked through his monocle at the crowd reflectively, his head
held a little to one side in a questioning sort of way, on his lips the
ghost of a smile--not a reassuring smile. Presently he leaned forward
slightly and the monocle dropped from his eye. He fumbled for it,
raised it, blew on it, rubbed it with his handkerchief, and screwed it
carefully into his eye again, his rather bushy brow gathering over it
strongly, his look sharpened to more active thought. He stared straight
across the square at a figure in heliotrope, whose face was turned to a
man in scarlet uniform taller than herself two glowing figures towards
whom many other eyes than his own were directed, some curiously, some
disdain fully, some sadly. But Charley did not see the faces of those
who looked on; he only saw two people--one in heliotrope, one in
scarlet.

Presently his white firm hand went up and ran through his hair
nervously, his comely figure settled down in the chair, his tongue
touched the corners of his red lips, and his eyes withdrew from the
woman in heliotrope and the man in scarlet, and loitered among the
leaves of the tree at the window. The softness of the green, the cool
health of the foliage, changed the look of his eye from something cold
and curious to something companionable, and scarcely above a whisper two
words came from his lips:

“Kathleen! Kathleen!”

By the mere sound of the voice it would have been hard to tell what the
words meant, for it had an inquiring cadence and yet a kind of distant
doubt, a vague anxiety. The face conveyed nothing--it was smooth, fresh,
and immobile. The only point where the mind and meaning of the man
worked according to the law of his life was at the eye, where the
monocle was caught now as in a vise. Behind this glass there was a
troubled depth which belied the self-indulgent mouth, the egotism
speaking loudly in the red tie, the jewelled finger, the ostentatiously
simple yet sumptuous clothes.

At last he drew in a sharp, sibilant breath, clicked his tongue--a
sound of devil-may-care and hopelessness at once--and turned to a little
cupboard behind him. The chair squeaked on the floor as he turned, and
he frowned, shivered a little, and kicked it irritably with his heel.

From the cupboard he took a bottle of liqueur, and, pouring out a small
glassful, drank it off eagerly. As he put the bottle away, he said
again, in an abstracted fashion, “Kathleen!”

Then, seating himself at the table, as if with an effort towards energy,
he rang a bell. A clerk entered. “Ask Mr. Wantage to come for a moment,”
 he said. “Mr. Wantage has gone to the church--to the wedding,” was the
reply.

“Oh, very well. He will be in again this afternoon?”

“Sure to, sir.”

“Just so. That will do.”

The clerk retired, and Charley, rising, unlocked a drawer, and taking
out some books and papers, laid them on the table. Intently, carefully,
he began to examine them, referring at the same time to a letter which
had lain open at his hand while he had been sitting there. For a quarter
of an hour he studied the books and papers, then, all at once, his
fingers fastened on a point and stayed. Again he read the letter lying
beside him. A flush crimsoned his face to his hair--a singular flush
of shame, of embarrassment, of guilt--a guilt not his own. His breath
caught in his throat.

“Billy!” he gasped. “Billy, by God!”




CHAPTER V. THE WOMAN IN HELIOTROPE

The flush was still on Charley’s face when the door opened slowly, and
a lady dressed in heliotrope silk entered, and came forward. Without a
word Charley rose, and, taking a step towards her, offered a chair;
at the same time noticing her heightened colour, and a certain rigid
carriage not in keeping with her lithe and graceful figure. There was no
mistaking the quiver of her upper lip--a short lip which did not hide a
wonderfully pretty set of teeth.

With a wave of the hand she declined the seat. Glancing at the books and
papers lying on the table, she flashed an inquiry at his flushed face,
and, misreading the cause, with slow, quiet point, in which bitterness
or contempt showed, she said meaningly:

“What a slave you are!”

“Behold the white man work!” he said good-naturedly, the flush passing
slowly from his face. With apparent negligence he pushed the letter
and the books and papers a little to one side, but really to place them
beyond the range of her angry eyes. She shrugged her shoulders at his
action.

“For ‘the fatherless children and widows, and all that are desolate and
oppressed?’” she said, not concealing her malice, for at the wedding
she had just left all her married life had rushed before her in a swift
panorama, and the man in scarlet had fixed the shooting pictures in her
mind.

Again a flush swept up Charley’s face and seemed to blur his sight. His
monocle dropped the length of its silken tether, and he caught it and
slowly adjusted it again as he replied evenly:

“You always hit the nail on the head, Kathleen.” There was a kind of
appeal in his voice, a sort of deprecation in his eye, as though he
would be friends with her, as though, indeed, there was in his mind some
secret pity for her.

Her look at his face was critical and cold. It was plain that she was
not prepared for any extra friendliness on his part--there seemed no
reason why he should add to his usual courtesy a note of sympathy to
the sound of her name on his lips. He had not fastened the door of the
cupboard from which he had taken the liqueur, and it had swung open a
little, disclosing the bottle and the glass. She saw. Her face took on a
look of quiet hardness.

“Why did you not come to the wedding? She was your cousin. People asked
where you were. You knew I was going.”

“Did you need me?” he asked quietly, and his eyes involuntarily swept
to the place where he had seen the heliotrope and scarlet make a glow of
colour on the other side of the square. “You were not alone.”

She misunderstood him. Her mind had been overwrought, and she caught
insinuation in his voice. “You mean Tom Fairing!” Her eyes blazed. “You
are quite right--I did not need you. Tom Fairing is a man that all the
world trusts save you.”

“Kathleen!” The words were almost a cry. “For God’s sake! I have never
thought of ‘trusting’ men where you are concerned. I believe in no
man”--his voice had a sharp bitterness, though his face was smooth and
unemotional--“but I trust you, and believe in you. Yes, upon my soul and
honour, Kathleen.”

As he spoke she turned quickly and stepped towards the window, an
involuntary movement of agitation. He had touched a chord. But even as
she reached the window and glanced down to the hot, dusty street, she
heard a loud voice below, a reckless, ribald sort of voice, calling to
some one to, “Come and have a drink.”

“Billy!” she said involuntarily, and looked down, then shrank back
quickly. She turned swiftly on her husband. “Your soul and honour,
Charley!” she said slowly. “Look at what you’ve made of Billy! Look at
the company he keeps--John Brown, who hasn’t even decency enough to keep
away from the place he disgraced. Billy is always with him. You ruined
John Brown, with your dissipation and your sneers at religion and
your-’I-wonder-nows!’ Of what use have you been, Charley? Of what use to
anyone in the world? You think of nothing but eating, and drinking, and
playing the fop.”

He glanced down involuntarily, and carefully flicked some cigarette-ash
from his waistcoat. The action arrested her speech for a moment, and
then, with a little shudder, she continued: “The best they can say of
you is, ‘There goes Charley Steele!’”

“And the worst?” he asked. He was almost smiling now, for he admired her
anger, her scorn. He knew it was deserved, and he had no idea of making
any defence. He had said all in that instant’s cry, “Kathleen!”--that
one awakening feeling of his life so far. She had congealed the word on
his lips by her scorn, and now he was his old debonair, dissipated self,
with the impertinent monocle in his eye and a jest upon his tongue.

“Do you want to know the worst they say?” she asked, growing pale to
the lips. “Go and stand behind the door of Jolicoeur’s saloon. Go to any
street corner, and listen. Do you think I don’t know what they say? Do
you think the world doesn’t talk about the company you keep? Haven’t I
seen you going into Jolicoeur’s saloon when I was walking on the other
side of the street? Do you think that all the world, and I among the
rest, are blind? Oh, you fop, you fool, you have ruined my brother,
you have ruined my life, and I hate and despise you for a cold-blooded,
selfish coward!”

He made a deprecating gesture and stared--a look of most curious
inquiry. They had been married for five years, and during that time they
had never been anything but persistently courteous to each other. He had
never on any occasion seen her face change colour, or her manner show
chagrin or emotion. Stately and cold and polite, she had fairly met his
ceaseless foppery and preciseness of manner. But people had said of her,
“Poor Kathleen Steele!” for her spotless name stood sharply off from his
negligence and dissipation. They called her “Poor Kathleen Steele!” in
sympathy, though they knew that she had not resisted marriage with the
well-to-do Charley Steele, while loving a poor captain in the Royal
Fusileers. She preserved social sympathy by a perfect outward decorum,
though the man of the scarlet coat remained in the town and haunted the
places where she appeared, and though the eyes of the censorious world
were watching expectantly. No voice was raised against her. Her cold
beauty held the admiration of all women, for she was not eager for men’s
company, and she kept her poise even with the man in scarlet near her,
glacially complacent, beautifully still, disconcertingly emotionless.
They did not know that the poise with her was to an extent as much a
pose as Charley’s manner was to him.

“I hate you and despise you for a cold-blooded, selfish coward!” So that
was the way Kathleen felt! Charley’s tongue touched his lips quickly,
for they were arid, and he slowly said:

“I assure you I have not tried to influence Billy. I have no remembrance
of his imitating me in anything. Won’t you sit down? It is very
fatiguing, this heat.”

Charley was entirely himself again. His words concerning Billy Wantage
might have been either an impeachment of Billy’s character and, by
deduction, praise of his own, or it may have been the insufferable
egoism of the fop, well used to imitators. The veil between the two,
which for one sacred moment had seemed about to lift, was fallen now,
leaded and weighted at the bottom.

“I suppose you would say the same about John Brown! It is disconcerting
at least to think that we used to sit and listen to Mr. Brown as he
waved his arms gracefully in his surplice and preached sentimental
sermons. I suppose you will say, what we have heard you say before,
that you only asked questions. Was that how you ruined the Rev. John
Brown--and Billy?”

Charley was very thirsty, and because of that perhaps, his voice had an
unusually dry tone as he replied: “I asked questions of John Brown; I
answer them to Billy. It is I that am ruined!”

There was that in his voice she did not understand, for though long used
to his paradoxical phrases and his everlasting pose--as it seemed to her
and all the world--there now rang through his words a note she had never
heard before. For a fleeting instant she was inclined to catch at some
hidden meaning, but her grasp of things was uncertain. She had been
thrown off her balance, or poise, as Charley had, for an unwonted
second, been thrown off his pose, and her thought could not pierce
beneath the surface.

“I suppose you will be flippant at Judgment Day,” she said with a bitter
laugh, for it seemed to her a monstrous thing that they should be such
an infinite distance apart.

“Why should one be serious then? There will be no question of an alibi,
or evidence for the defence--no cross-examination. A cut-and-dried
verdict!”

She ignored his words. “Shall you be at home to dinner?” she rejoined
coldly, and her eyes wandered out of the window again to that spot
across the square where heliotrope and scarlet had met.

“I fancy not,” he answered, his eyes turned away also--towards the
cupboard containing the liqueur. “Better ask Billy; and keep him in, and
talk to him--I really would like you to talk to him. He admires you so
much. I wish--in fact I hope you will ask Billy to come and live with
us,” he added half abstractedly. He was trying to see his way through
a sudden confusion of ideas. Confusion was rare to him, and his senses,
feeling the fog, embarrassed by a sudden air of mystery and a cloud of
futurity, were creeping to a mind-path of understanding.

“Don’t be absurd,” she said coldly. “You know I won’t ask him, and you
don’t want him.”

“I have always said that decision is the greatest of all qualities--even
when the decision is bad. It saves so much worry, and tends to health.”
 Suddenly he turned to the desk and opened a tin box. “Here is further
practice for your admirable gift.” He opened a paper. “I want you to
sign off for this building--leaving it to my absolute disposal.” He
spread the paper out before her.

She turned pale and her lips tightened. She looked at him squarely in
the eyes. “My wedding-gift!” she said. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
A moment she hesitated, and in that moment seemed to congeal. “You need
it?” she asked distantly.

He inclined his head, his eye never leaving hers. With a swift angry
motion she caught the glove from her left hand, and, doubling it back,
dragged it off. A smooth round ring came off with it and rolled upon the
floor.

Stooping, he picked up the ring, and handed it back to her, saying:
“Permit me.” It was her wedding-ring. She took it with a curious
contracted look and put it on the finger again, then pulled off the
other glove quietly. “Of course one uses the pen with the right hand,”
 she said calmly.

“Involuntary act of memory,” he rejoined slowly, as she took the pen
in her hand. “You had spoken of a wedding, this was a wedding-gift,
and--that’s right, sign there!”

There was a brief pause, in which she appeared to hesitate, and then she
wrote her name in a large firm hand, and, throwing down the pen, caught
up her gloves, and began to pull them on viciously.

“Thanks. It is very kind of you,” he said. He put the document in the
tin box, and took out another, as without a word, but with a grave face
in which scorn and trouble were mingled, she now turned towards the
door.

“Can you spare a minute longer?” he said, and advanced towards her,
holding the new document in his hand. “Fair exchange is no robbery.
Please take this. No, not with the right hand; the left is better
luck--the better the hand, the better the deed,” he added with a
whimsical squint and a low laugh, and he placed the paper in her left
hand. “Item No. 2 to take the place of item No. 1.”

She scrutinised the paper. Wonder filled her face. “Why, this is a
deed of the homestead property--worth three times as much!” she said.
“Why--why do you do this?”

“Remember that questions ruin people sometimes,” he answered, and
stepped to the door and turned the handle, as though to show her out.
She was agitated and embarrassed now. She felt she had been unjust, and
yet she felt that she could not say what ought to be said, if all the
rules were right.

“Thank you,” she said simply. “Did you think of this when--when you
handed me back the ring?”

“I never had an inspiration in my life. I was born with a plan of
campaign.”

“I suppose I ought to--kiss you!” she said in some little confusion.

“It might be too expensive,” he answered, with a curious laugh. Then he
added lightly: “This was a fair exchange”--he touched the papers--“but I
should like you to bear witness, madam, that I am no robber!” He opened
the door. Again there was that curious penetrating note in his voice,
and that veiled look. She half hesitated, but in the pause there was a
loud voice below and a quick foot on the stairs.

“It’s Billy!” she said sharply, and passed out.




CHAPTER VI. THE WIND AND THE SHORN LAMB

A half-hour later Charley Steele sat in his office alone with Billy
Wantage, his brother-in-law, a tall, shapely fellow of twenty-four.
Billy had been drinking, his face was flushed, and his whole manner was
indolently careless and irresponsible. In spite of this, however, his
grey eyes were nervously fixed on Charley, and his voice was shaky as
he said, in reply to a question as to his finances: “That’s my own
business, Charley.”

Charley took a long swallow from the tumbler of whiskey and soda beside
him, and, as he drew some papers towards him, answered quietly: “I must
make it mine, Billy, without a doubt.”

The tall youth shifted in his chair and essayed to laugh.

“You’ve never been particular about your own business. Pshaw, what’s the
use of preaching to me!”

Charley pushed his chair back, and his look had just a touch of
surprise, a hint of embarrassment. This youth, then, thought him
something of a fool: read him by virtue of his ornamentations, his outer
idiosyncrasy! This boy, whose iniquity was under his finger on that
table, despised him for his follies, and believed in him less than his
wife--two people who had lived closer to him than any others in the
world. Before he answered he lifted the glass beside him and drank to
the last drop, then slowly set it down and said, with a dangerous smile:

“I have always been particular about other people’s finances, and the
statement that you haven’t isn’t preaching, it’s an indictment--so it
is, Billy.”

“An indictment!” Billy bit his finger-nails now, and his voice shook.

“That’s what the jury would say, and the judge would do the preaching.
You have stolen twenty-five thousand dollars of trust-moneys!”

For a moment there was absolute silence in the room. From outside in the
square came the Marche-t’en! of a driver, and the loud cackling laugh of
some loafer at the corner. Charley’s look imprisoned his brother-in-law,
and Billy’s eyes were fixed in a helpless stare on Charley’s finger,
which held like a nail the record of his infamy.

Billy drew himself back with a jerk of recovery, and said with bravado,
but with fear in look and motion: “Don’t stare like that. The thing’s
done, and you can’t undo it, and that’s all there is about it.” Charley
had been staring at the youth-staring and not seeing him really, but
seeing his wife and watching her lips say again: “You are ruining
Billy!” He was not sober, but his mind was alert, his eccentric soul was
getting kaleidoscopic glances at strange facts of life as they rushed
past his mind into a painful red obscurity.

“Oh yes, it can be undone, and it’s not all there is about it!” he
answered quietly.

He got up suddenly, went to the door, locked it, put the key in his
pocket, and, coming back, sat down again beside the table.

Billy watched him with shrewd, hunted eyes. What did Charley mean to
do? To give him in charge? To send him to jail? To shut him out from the
world where he had enjoyed himself so much for years and years? Never to
go forth free among his fellows! Never to play the gallant with all the
pretty girls he knew! Never to have any sports, or games, or tobacco,
or good meals, or canoeing in summer, or tobogganing in winter, or
moose-hunting, or any sort of philandering!

The thoughts that filled his mind now were not those of regret for his
crime, but the fears of the materialist and sentimentalist, who revolted
at punishment and all the shame and deprivation it would involve.

“What did you do with the money?” said Charley, after a minute’s
silence, in which two minds had travelled far.

“I put it into mines.”

“What mines?”

“Out on Lake Superior.”

“What sort of mines?”

“Arsenic.”

Charley’s eye-glass dropped, and rattled against the gold button of his
white waistcoat.

“In arsenic-mines!” He put the monocle to his eye again. “On whose
advice?”

“John Brown’s.”

“John Brown’s!” Charley Steele’s ideas were suddenly shaken and
scattered by a man’s name, as a bolting horse will crumple into
confusion a crowd of people. So this was the way his John Brown had come
home to roost. He lifted the empty whiskey-glass to his lips and drained
air. He was terribly thirsty; he needed something to pull himself
together. Five years of dissipation had not robbed him of his splendid
native ability, but it had, as it were, broken the continuity of his
will and the sequence of his intellect.

“It was not investment?” he asked, his tongue thick and hot in his
mouth.

“No. What would have been the good?”

“Of course. Speculation--you bought heavily to sell on an expected
rise?”

“Yes.”

There was something so even in Charley’s manner and tone that Billy
misinterpreted it. It seemed hopeful that Charley was going to make the
best of a bad job.

“You see,” Billy said eagerly, “it seemed dead certain. He showed me the
way the thing was being done, the way the company was being floated, how
the market in New York was catching hold. It looked splendid. I thought
I could use the money for a week or so, then put it back, and have
a nice little scoop, at no one’s cost. I thought it was a dead-sure
thing--and I was hard up, and Kathleen wouldn’t lend me any more. If
Kathleen had only done the decent thing--”

A sudden flush of anger swept over Charley’s face--never before in his
life had that face been so sensitive, never even as a child. Something
had waked in the odd soul of Beauty Steele.

“Don’t be a sweep--leave Kathleen out of it!” he said, in a sharp,
querulous voice--a voice unnatural to himself, suggestive of little use,
as though he were learning to speak, using strange words stumblingly
through a melee of the emotions. It was not the voice of Charley Steele
the fop, the poseur, the idlest man in the world.

“What part of the twenty-five thousand went into the arsenic?” he said,
after a pause. There was no feeling in the voice now; it was again even
and inquiring.

“Nearly all.”

“Don’t lie. You’ve been living freely. Tell the truth, or--or I’ll know
the reason why, Billy.”

“About two-thirds-that’s the truth. I had debts, and I paid them.”

“And you bet on the races?”

“Yes.”

“And lost?”

“Yes. See here, Charley; it was the most awful luck--”

“Yes, for the fatherless children and widows, and all that are
oppressed!”

Charley’s look again went through and beyond the culprit, and he
recalled his wife’s words and his own reply. A quick contempt and a sort
of meditative sarcasm were in the tone. It was curious, too, that he
could smile, but the smile did not encourage Billy Wantage now.

“It’s all gone, I suppose?” he added.

“All but about a hundred dollars.”

“Well, you have had your game; now you must pay for it.”

Billy had imagination, and he was melodramatic. He felt danger ahead.

“I’ll go and shoot myself!” he said, banging the table with his fist so
that the whiskey-tumbler shook.

He was hardly prepared for what followed. Charley’s nerves had been
irritated; his teeth were on edge. This threat, made in such a cheap,
insincere way, was the last thing in the world he could bear to hear.
He knew that Billy lied; that if there was one thing Billy would not
do, shooting himself was that one thing. His own life was very sweet to
Billy Wantage. Charley hated him the more at that moment because he was
Kathleen’s brother. For if there was one thing he knew of Kathleen, it
was that she could not do a mean thing. Cold, unsympathetic she might
be, cruel at a pinch perhaps, but dishonourable--never! This weak,
cowardly youth was her brother! No one had ever seen such a look on
Charley Steele’s face as came upon it now--malicious, vindictive. He
stooped over Billy in a fury.

“You think I’m a fool and an ass--you ignorant, brainless, lying
cub! You make me a thief before all the world by forging my name, and
stealing the money for which I am responsible, and then you rate me
so low that you think you’ll bamboozle me by threats of suicide. You
haven’t the courage to shoot yourself--drunk or sober. And what do you
think would be gained by it? Eh, what do you think would be gained? You
can’t see that you’d insult your sister as well as--as rob me.”

Billy Wantage cowered. This was not the Charley Steele he had known,
not like the man he had seen since a child. There was something almost
uncouth in this harsh high voice, these gauche words, this raw accent;
but it was powerful and vengeful, and it was full of purpose. Billy
quivered, yet his adroit senses caught at a straw in the words, “as rob
me!” Charley was counting it a robbery of himself, not of the widows and
orphans! That gave him a ray of hope. In a paroxysm of fear, joined to
emotional excitement, he fell upon his knees, and pleaded for mercy--for
the sake of one chance in life, for the family name, for Kathleen’s
sake, for the sake of everything he had ruthlessly dishonoured. Tears
came readily to his eyes, real tears--of excitement; but he could
measure, too, the strength of his appeal.

“If you’ll stand by me in this, I’ll pay you back every cent, Charley,”
 he cried. “I will, upon my soul and honour! You shan’t lose a penny, if
you’ll only see me through. I’ll work my fingers off to pay it back till
the last hour of my life. I’ll be straight till the day I die--so help
me God!”

Charley’s eyes wandered to the cupboard where the liqueurs were. If
he could only decently take a drink! But how could he with this boy
kneeling before him? His breath scorched his throat.

“Get up!” he said shortly. “I’ll see what I can do--to-morrow. Go away
home. Don’t go out again to-night. And come here at ten o’clock in the
morning.”

Billy took up his hat, straightened his tie, carefully brushed the dust
from his knees, and, seizing Charley’s hand, said: “You’re the best
fellow in the world, Charley.” He went towards the door, dusting his
face of emotion as he had dusted his knees. The old selfish, shrewd
look was again in his eyes. Charley’s gaze followed him gloomily. Billy
turned the handle of the door. It was locked.

Charley came forward and unlocked it. As Billy passed through, Charley,
looking sharply in his face, said hoarsely: “By Heaven, I believe you’re
not worth it!” Then he shut the door again and locked it.

He almost ran back and opened the cupboard. Taking out the bottle of
liqueur, he filled a glass and drank it off. Three times he did this,
then seated himself at the table with a sigh of relief and no emotion in
his face.




CHAPTER VII. “PEACE, PEACE, AND THERE IS NO PEACE”’

The sun was setting by the time Charley was ready to leave his office.
Never in his life had he stayed so late in “the halls of industry,” as
he flippantly called his place of business. The few cases he had won so
brilliantly since the beginning of his career, he had studied at night
in his luxurious bedroom in the white brick house among the maples on
the hill. In every case, as at the trial of Joseph Nadeau, the man who
murdered the timber-merchant, the first prejudice of judge and jury had
given way slowly before the deep-seeing mind, which had as rare a power
of analysis as for generalisation, and reduced masses of evidence to
phrases; and verdicts had been given against all personal prejudice--to
be followed outside the court by the old prejudice, the old look askance
at the man called Beauty Steele.

To him it had made no difference at any time. He cared for neither
praise nor blame. In his actions a materialist, in his mind he was a
watcher of life, a baffled inquirer whose refuge was irony, and whose
singular habits had in five years become a personal insult to the
standards polite society and Puritan morality had set up. Perhaps the
insult had been intended, for irregularities were committed with an
insolent disdain for appearances. He did nothing secretly; his page
of life was for him who cared to read. He played cards, he talked
agnosticism, he went on shooting expeditions which became orgies, he
drank openly in saloons, he whose forefathers had been gentlemen of
King George, and who sacrificed all in the great American revolution for
honour and loyalty--statesmen, writers, politicians, from whom he had
direct inheritance, through stirring, strengthening forces, in the
building up of laws and civilisation in a new land. Why he chose to be
what he was--if he did choose--he alone could answer. His personality
had impressed itself upon his world, first by its idiosyncrasies and
afterwards by its enigmatical excesses.

What was he thinking of as he laid the papers away in the tin box in a
drawer, locked it, and put the key in his pocket? He had found to the
smallest detail Billy’s iniquity, and he was now ready to shoulder the
responsibility, to save the man, who, he knew, was scarce worth the
saving. But Kathleen--there was what gave him pause. As he turned to the
window and looked out over the square he shuddered. He thought of the
exchange of documents he had made with her that day, and he had a sense
of satisfaction. This defalcation of Billy’s would cripple him, for
money had flown these last few years. He had had heavy losses, and he
had dug deep into his capital. Down past the square ran a cool avenue of
beeches to the water, and he could see his yacht at anchor. On the other
side of the water, far down the shore, was a house which had been begun
as a summer cottage, and had ended in being a mansion. A few Moorish
pillars, brought from Algiers for the decoration of the entrance,
had necessitated the raising of the roof, and then all had to be in
proportion, and the cottage became like an appanage to a palace. So
it had gone, and he had cared so little about it all, and for the
consequences. He had this day secured Kathleen from absolute poverty, no
matter what happened, and that had its comfort. His eyes wandered among
the trees. He could see the yellow feathers of the oriole and catch the
note of the whippoorwill, and from the great church near the voices of
the choir came over. He could hear the words “Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace, according to thy word.”

Depart in peace--how much peace was there in the world? Who had it? The
remembrance of what Kathleen said to him at the door--“I suppose I ought
to kiss you”--came to him, was like a refrain in his ears.

“Peace is the penalty of silence and inaction,” he said to himself
meditatively. “Where there is action there is no peace. If the brain and
body fatten, then there is peace. Kathleen and I have lived at peace, I
suppose. I never said a word to her that mightn’t be put down in large
type and pasted on my tombstone, and she never said a word to me--till
to-day--that wasn’t like a water-colour picture. Not till to-day, in a
moment’s strife and trouble, did I ever get near her. And we’ve lived
in peace. Peace? Where is the right kind of peace? Over there is old
Sainton. He married a rich woman, he has had the platter of plenty
before him always, he wears ribbons and such like baubles given by the
Queen, but his son had to flee the country. There’s Herring. He doesn’t
sleep because his daughter is going to marry an Italian count. There’s
Latouche. His place in the cabinet is begotten in corruption, in the
hotbed of faction war. There’s Kenealy. His wife has led him a dance
of deep damnation. There’s the lot of them--every one, not an ounce of
peace among them, except with old Casson, who weighs eighteen stone,
lives like a pig, grows stuffier in mind and body every day, and drinks
half a bottle of whiskey every night. There’s no one else--yes, there
is!”

He was looking at a small black-robed figure with clean-shaven face,
white hair, and shovel-hat, who passed slowly along the wooden walk
beneath, with meditative content in his face.

“There’s peace,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve known Father Hallon
for twenty-five years, and no man ever worked so hard, ever saw more
trouble, ever shared other people’s bad luck mere than he; ever took the
bit in his teeth, when it was a matter of duty, stronger than he;
and yet there’s peace; he has it; a peace that passes all
understanding--mine anyhow. I’ve never had a minute’s real peace. The
World, or Nature, or God, or It, whatever the name is, owes me peace.
And how is It to give it? Why, by answering my questions. Now it’s
a curious thing that the only person I ever met who could answer any
questions of mine--answer them in the way that satisfies--is Suzon. She
works things down to phrases. She has wisdom in the raw, and a real grip
on life, and yet all the men she has known have been river-drivers and
farmers, and a few men from town who mistook the sort of Suzon she is.
Virtuous and straight, she’s a born child of Aphrodite too--by nature.
She was made for love. A thousand years ago she would have had a
thousand loves! And she thinks the world is a magnificent place, and she
loves it, and wallows--fairly wallows--in content. Now which is right:
Suzon or Father Hallon--Aphrodite or the Nazarene? Which is peace--as
the bird and the beast of the field get it--the fallow futile content,
or--”

He suddenly stopped, hiccoughed, then hurriedly drawing paper before
him, he sat down. For an hour he wrote. It grew darker. He pushed the
table nearer the window, and the singing of the choir in the church
came in upon him as his pen seemed to etch words into the paper, firm,
eccentric, meaning. What he wrote that evening has been preserved, and
the yellow sheets lie loosely in a black despatch-box which contains the
few records Charley Steele left behind him. What he wrote that night was
the note of his mind, the key to all those strange events through which
he began to move two hours after the lines were written:

        Over thy face is a veil of white sea-mist,
        Only thine eyes shine like stars; bless or blight me,
        I will hold close to the leash at thy wrist,
        O Aphrodite!

        Thou in the East and I here in the West,
        Under our newer skies purple and pleasant:
        Who shall decide which is better--attest,
        Saga or peasant?

        Thou with Serapis, Osiris, and Isis,
        I with Jehovah, in vapours and shadows;
        Thou with the gods’ joy-enhancing devices,
        Sweet-smelling meadows!

        What is there given us?--Food and some raiment,
        Toiling to reach to some Patmian haven,
        Giving up all for uncertain repayment,
        Feeding the raven!

        Striving to peer through the infinite azure,
        Alternate turning to earthward and falling,
        Measuring life with Damastian measure,
        Finite, appalling.

        What does it matter! They passed who with Homer
        Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols:
        Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer,
        It and their idols?

        Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher,
        Each to his office, but who holds the key?
        Death, only Death--thou, the ultimate teacher
        Wilt show it to me.

        And when the forts and the barriers fall,
        Shall we then find One the true, the almighty,
        Wisely to speak with the worst of us all--
        Ah, Aphrodite!

        Waiting, I turn from the futile, the human,
        Gone is the life of me, laughing with youth
        Steals to learn all in the face of a woman,
        Mendicant Truth!

Rising with a bitter laugh, and murmuring the last lines, he thrust the
papers into a drawer, locked it, and going quickly from the room, he
went down-stairs. His horse and cart were waiting for him, and he got
in.

The groom looked at him inquiringly. “The Cote Dorion!” he said, and
they sped away through the night.




CHAPTER VIII. THE COST OF THE ORNAMENT

One, two, three, four, five, six miles. The sharp click of the iron
hoofs on the road; the strong rush of the river; the sweet smell of the
maple and the pungent balsam; the dank rich odour of the cedar
swamp; the cry of the loon from the water; the flaming crane in the
fishing-boat; the fisherman, spear in hand, staring into the dark waters
tinged with sombre red; the voice of a lonely settler keeping time to
the ping of the axe as, lengthening out his day to nightly weariness, he
felled a tree; river-drivers’ camps spotted along the shore; huge cribs
or rafts which had swung down the great stream for scores of miles, the
immense oars motionless, the little houses on the timbers blinking with
light; and from cheerful raftsmen coming the old familiar song of the
rivers:

          “En roulant, ma boule roulant,
          En roulant ma boule!”

Not once had Charley Steele turned his head as the horse sped on. His
face was kept straight along the line of the road; he seemed not to see
or to hear, to be unresponsive to sound or scene. The monocle at his eye
was like a veil to hide the soul, a defence against inquiry, itself
the unceasing question, a sort of battery thrown forward, a kind of
field-casemate for a lonely besieged spirit.

It was full of suggestion. It might have been the glass behind which
showed some mediaeval relic, the body of some ancient Egyptian king
whose life had been spent in doing wonders and making signs--the
primitive, anthropomorphic being. He might have been a stone man, for
any motion that he made. Yet looking at him closely you would have seen
discontent in the eye, a kind of glaze of the sardonic over the whole
face.

What is the good! the face asked. What is there worth doing? it said.
What a limitless futility! it urged, fain to be contradicted too, as the
grim melancholy of the figure suggested.

“To be an animal and soak in the world,” he thought to himself--“that is
natural; and the unnatural is civilisation, and the cheap adventure of
the mind into fields of baffling speculation, lighted by the flickering
intelligences of dead speculators, whose seats we have bought in the
stock-exchange of mortality, and exhaust our lives in paying for. To
eat, to drink, to lie fallow, indifferent to what comes after, to roam
like the deer, and to fight like the tiger--”

He came to a dead stop in his thinking. “To fight like the tiger!” He
turned his head quickly now to where upon a raft some river-drivers were
singing:

       “And when a man in the fight goes down,
        Why, we will carry him home!”

“To fight like the tiger!” Ravage--the struggle to possess from all the
world what one wished for one’s self, and to do it without mercy and
without fear-that was the clear plan in the primitive world, where
action was more than speech and dominance than knowledge. Was not
civilisation a mistake, and religion the insinuating delusion designed
to cover it up; or, if not designed, accepted by the original few who
saw that humanity could not turn back, and must even go forward with
illusions, lest in mere despair all men died and the world died with
them?

His eyes wandered to the raft where the men were singing, and he
remembered the threat made: that if he came again to the Cote Dorion
he “would get what for!” He remembered the warning of Rouge Gosselin
conveyed by Jolicoeur, and a sinister smile crossed over his face. The
contradictions of his own thoughts came home to him suddenly, for was it
not the case that his physical strength alone, no matter what his skill,
would be of small service to him in a dark corner of contest? Primitive
ideas could only hold in a primitive world. His real weapon was his
brain, that which civilisation had given him in lieu of primitive
prowess and the giant’s strength.

They had come to a long piece of corduroy-road, and the horse’s hoofs
struck rumbling hollow sounds from the floor of cedar logs. There was
a swamp on one side where fire-flies were flickering, and there flashed
into Charley Steele’s mind some verses he had once learned at school:

       “They made her a grave too cold and damp
        For a soul so warm and true--”

It kept repeating itself in his brain in a strange dreary monotone.

“Stop the horse. I’ll walk the rest of the way,” he said presently to
the groom. “You needn’t come for me, Finn; I’ll walk back as far as the
Marochal Tavern. At twelve sharp I’ll be there. Give yourself a drink
and some supper”--he put a dollar into the man’s hand--“and no white
whiskey, mind: a bottle of beer and a leg of mutton, that’s the thing.”
 He nodded his head, and by the light of the moon walked away smartly
down the corduroy-road through the shadows of the swamp. Finn the groom
looked after him.

“Well, if he ain’t a queer dick! A reg’lar ‘centric--but a reg’lar
brick, cutting a wide swathe as he goes. He’s a tip-topper; and he’s a
sort of tough too--a sort of a kind of a tough. Well, it’s none of my
business. Get up!” he added to the horse, and turning round in the road
with difficulty, he drove back a mile to the Tavern Marochal for his
beer and mutton--and white whiskey.

Charley stepped on briskly, his shining leather shoes, straw hat, and
light cane in no good keeping with his surroundings. He was thinking
that he had never been in such a mood for talk with Suzon Charlemagne.
Charlemagne’s tavern of the Cote Dorion was known over half a province,
and its patrons carried news of it half across a continent. Suzon
Charlemagne--a girl of the people, a tavern-girl, a friend of sulking,
coarse river-drivers! But she had an alert precision of brain, an
instinct that clove through wastes of mental underbrush to the tree of
knowledge. Her mental sight was as keen and accurate as that which runs
along the rifle-barrel of the great hunter with the red deer in view.
Suzon Charlemagne no company for Charley Steele? What did it matter!
He had entered into other people’s lives to-day, had played their games
with them and for them, and now he would play his own game, live his own
life in his own way through the rest of this day. He thirsted for some
sort of combat, for the sharp contrasts of life, for the common and the
base; he thirsted even for the white whiskey against which he had warned
his groom. He was reckless--not blindly, but wilfully, wildly reckless,
caring not at all what fate or penalty might come his way.

“What do I care!” he said to himself. “I shall never squeal at any
penalty. I shall never say in the great round-up that I was weak and I
fell. I’ll take my gruel expecting it, not fearing it--if there is to be
any gruel anywhere, or any round-up anywhere!”

A figure suddenly appeared coming round the bend of the road before
him. It was Rouge Gosselin. Rouge Gosselin was inclined to speak. Some
satanic whim or malicious foppery made Charley stare him blankly in the
face. The monocle and the stare stopped the bon soir and the friendly
warning on Rouge Gosselin’s tongue, and the pilot passed on with a
muttered oath.

Gosselin had not gone far, however, before he suddenly stopped and
laughed outright, for at the bottom he had great good-nature, in keeping
with his “six-foot” height, and his temper was friendly if quick.
It seemed so absurd, so audacious, that a man could act like Charley
Steele, that he at once became interested in the phenomenon, and
followed slowly after Charley, saying as he went: “Tiens, there will be
things to watch to-night!”

Before Charley was within five hundred yards of the tavern he could
hear the laughter and song coming from the old seigneury which Theophile
Charlemagne called now the Cote Dorion Hotel, after the name given to
the point on which the house stood. Low and wide-roofed, with dormer
windows and a wide stoop in front, and walls three feet thick, behind,
on the river side, it hung over the water, its narrow veranda supported
by piles, with steps down to the water-side. Seldom was there an hour
when boats were not tied to these steps. Summer and winter the tavern
was a place of resort. Inside, the low ceiling, the broad rafters, the
great fireplace, the well-worn floor, the deep windows, the wooden cross
let into the wall, and the varied and picturesque humanity frequenting
this great room, gave it an air of romance. Yet there were people
who called the tavern a “shebang”--slander as it was against Suzon
Charlemagne, which every river-driver and woodsman and habitant who
frequented the place would have resented with violence. It was because
they thought Charley Steele slandered the girl and the place in his
mind, that the river-drivers had sworn they would make it hot for him if
he came again. Charley was the last man in the world to undeceive them
by words.

When he coolly walked into the great room, where a half-dozen of
them were already assembled, drinking white “whiskey-wine,” he had no
intention of setting himself right. He raised his hat cavalierly to
Suzon and shook hands with her.

He took no notice of the men around him. “Brandy, please!” he said. “Why
do I drink, do you say?” he added, as Suzon placed the bottle and glass
before him.

She was silent for an instant, then she said gravely: “Perhaps because
you like it; perhaps because something was left out of you when you were
made, and--”

She paused and went no further, for a red-shirted river-driver with
brass rings in his ears came close to them, and called gruffly for
whiskey. He glowered at Charley, who looked at him indolently, then
raised his glass towards Suzon and drank the brandy.

“Pish!” said Red Shirt, and, turning round, joined his comrades. It was
clear he wanted a pretext to quarrel.

“Perhaps because you like it; perhaps because something was left out of
you when you were made--” Charley smiled pleasantly as Suzon came over
to him again. “You’ve answered the question,” he said, “and struck the
thing at the centre. Which is it? The difficulty to decide which has
divided the world. If it’s only a physical craving, it means that we are
materialists naturally, and that the soil from which the grape came is
the soil that’s in us; that it is the body feeding on itself all the
time; that like returns to like, and we live a little together, and
then mould together for ever and ever, amen. If it isn’t a natural
craving--like to like--it’s a proof of immortality, for it represents
the wild wish to forget the world, to be in another medium.

“I am only myself when I am drunk. Liquor makes me human. At other times
I’m merely Charley Steele! Now isn’t it funny, this sort of talk here?”

“I don’t know about that,” she answered, “if, as you say, it’s natural.
This tavern’s the only place I have to think in, and what seems to you
funny is a sort of ordinary fact to me.”

“Right again, ma belle Suzon. Nothing’s incongruous. I’ve never felt so
much like singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs as when I’ve been
drinking. I remember the last time I was squiffy I sang all the way home
that old nursery hymn:

         “‘On the other side of Jordan,
          In the sweet fields of Eden,
          Where the tree of life is blooming,
             There is rest for you.
          There is rest for the weary,
          There is rest for the weary,
          There is rest for the weary,
             There is rest for you!’”

“I should have liked to hear you sing it--sure!” said Suzon, laughing.

Charley tossed off a quarter-tumbler of brandy, which, instead of
flushing the face, seemed only to deepen the whiteness of the skin,
showing up more brightly the spots of colour in the cheeks, that white
and red which had made him known as Beauty Steele. With a whimsical
humour, behind which was the natural disposition of the man to do
what he listed without thinking of the consequences, he suddenly began
singing, in a voice shaken a little now by drink, but full of a curious
magnetism:

          “On the other side of Jordan--”

“Oh, don’t; please don’t!” said the girl, in fear, for she saw two
river-drivers entering the door, one of whom had sworn he would do for
Charley Steele if ever he crossed his path.

“Oh, don’t--M’sieu’ Charley!” she again urged. The “Charley” caught his
ear, and the daring in his eye brightened still more. He was ready
for any change or chance to-night, was standing on the verge of any
adventure, the most reckless soul in Christendom.

          “On the other side of Jordan,
          In the sweet fields of Eden,
          Where the tree of life is blooming,
             There is rest for you!”

What more incongruous thing than this flaneur in patent leathers and red
tie, this “hell-of-a-fellow with a pane of glass in his eye,” as
Jake Hough, the horse-doctor, afterwards said, surrounded by red and
blue-shirted river-men, woodsmen, loafers, and toughs, singing a sacred
song with all the unction of a choir-boy; with a magnetism, too, that
did its work in spite of all prejudice? It was as if he were counsel in
one of those cases when, the minds and sympathies of judge and jury at
first arrayed against him, he had irresistibly cloven his way to their
judgment--not stealing away their hearts, but governing, dominating
their intelligences. Whenever he had done this he had been drinking
hard, was in a mental world created by drink, serene, clear-eyed, in
which his brain worked like an invincible machine, perfect and powerful.
Was it the case that, as he himself suggested, he was never so natural
as when under this influence? That then and only then the real man
spoke, that then and only then the primitive soul awakened, that it
supplied the thing left out of him at birth?

          “There is rest for the weary,
          There is rest for the weary,
          There is rest for the weary,
             There is rest for you!”

One, two verses he sang as the men, at first snorting and scornful,
shuffled angrily; then Jake Hough, the English horse-doctor, roared in
the refrain:

          “There is rest for the weary,
             There is rest for you!”

Upon which, carried away, every one of them roared, gurgled, or shouted

          “There is rest for the weary,
             There is rest for you!”

Rouge Gosselin, who had entered during the singing, now spoke up quickly
in French:

“A sermon now, M’sieu’!”

Charley took his monocle out of his eye and put it back again. Now each
man present seemed singled out for an attack by this little battery
of glass. He did not reply directly to Rouge Gosselin, but standing
perfectly still, with one hand resting on the counter at which Suzon
stood, he prepared to speak.

Suzon did not attempt to stop him now, but gazed at him in a sort
of awe. These men present were Catholics, and held religion in
superstitious respect, however far from practising its precepts. Many
of them had been profane and blasphemous in their time; may have sworn
“sacre bapteme!” one of the worst oaths of their race; but it had been
done in the wildness of anger, and they were little likely to endure
from Charley Steele any word that sounded like blasphemy. Besides,
the world said that he was an infidel, and that was enough for bitter
prejudice.

In the pause--very short--before Charley began speaking, Suzon’s
fingers stole to his on the counter and pressed them quickly. He made no
response; he was scarcely aware of it. He was in a kind of dream. In an
even, conversational tone, in French at once idiomatic and very simple,
he began:

“My dear friends, this is a world where men get tired. If they work they
get tired, and if they play they get tired. If they look straight ahead
of them they walk straight, but then they get blind by-and-by; if they
look round them and get open-eyed, their feet stumble and they fall. It
is a world of contradictions. If a man drinks much he loses his head,
and if he doesn’t drink at all he loses heart. If he asks questions he
gets into trouble, and if he doesn’t ask them he gets old before his
time. Take the hymn we have just sung:

          “‘On the other side of Jordan,
          In the sweet fields of Eden,
          Where the tree of life is blooming,
             There is rest for you!’

“We all like that, because we get tired, and it isn’t always summer, and
nothing blooms all the year round. We get up early and we work late, and
we sleep hard, and when the weather is good and wages good, and there’s
plenty in the house, we stay sober and we sadly sing, ‘On the other side
of Jordan’; but when the weather’s heavy and funds scarce, and the pork
and molasses and bread come hard, we get drunk, and we sing the comic
chanson ‘Brigadier, vows avez raison!’ We’ve been singing a sad song
to-night when we’re feeling happy. We didn’t think whether it was sad or
not, we only knew it pleased our ears, and we wanted those sweet fields
of Eden, and the blooming tree of life, and the rest under the tree. But
ask a question or two. Where is the other side of Jordan? Do you go up
to it, or down to it? And how do you go? And those sweet fields of Eden,
what do they look like, and how many will they hold? Isn’t it clear that
the things that make us happiest in this world are the things we go for
blind?”

He paused. Now a dozen men came a step or two nearer, and crowded
close together, looking over each others’ shoulders at him with sharp,
wondering eyes.

“Isn’t that so?” he continued. “Do you realise that no man knows where
that Jordan and those fields are, and what the flower of the tree of
life looks like? Let us ask a question again. Why is it that the one
being in all the world who could tell us anything about it, the one
being who had ever seen Jordan or Eden or that tree of life-in fact,
the one of all creation who could describe heaven, never told? Isn’t it
queer? Here he was--that one man-standing just as I am among you, and
round him were the men who followed him, all ordinary men, with ordinary
curiosity. And he said he had come down from heaven, and for years they
were with him, and yet they never asked him what that heaven was like:
what it looked like, what it felt like, what sort of life they lived
there, what manner of folk were the angels, what was the appearance of
God. Why didn’t they ask, and why didn’t he answer? People must have
kept asking that question afterwards, for a man called John answered
it. He described, as only an oriental Jew would or could, a place all
precious stones and gold and jewels and candles, in oriental language
very splendid and auriferous. But why didn’t those twelve men ask the
One Man who knew, and why didn’t the One answer? And why didn’t the One
tell without being asked?”

He paused again, and now there came a shuffling and a murmuring, a
curious rumble, a hard breathing, for Charley had touched with steely
finger the tender places in the natures of these Catholics, who,
whatever their lives, held fast to the immemorial form, the sacredness
of Mother Church. They were ever ready to step into the galley which
should bear them all home, with the invisible rowers of God at the oars,
down the wild rapids, to the haven of St. Peter. There was savagery in
their faces now.

He saw, and he could not refrain from smiling as he stretched out
his hand to them again with a little quieting gesture, and continued
soothingly:

“But why should we ask? There’s a thing called electricity. Well, you
know that if you take a slice out of anything, less remains behind. We
can take the air out of this room, and scarcely leave any in it.

“We take a drink out of a bottle, and certainly there isn’t as much left
in it! But the queer thing is that with this electricity you take it
away and just as much remains. It goes out from your toe, rushes away
to Timbuctoo, and is back in your toe before you can wink. Why? No one
knows. What’s the good of asking? You can’t see it: you can only see
what it does. What good would it do us if we knew all about it? There it
is, and it’s going to revolutionise the world. It’s no good asking--no
one knows what it is and where it comes from, or what it looks like.
It’s better to go it blind, because you feel the power, though you can’t
see where it comes from. You can’t tell where the fields of Eden are,
but you believe they’re somewhere, and that you’ll get to them some day.
So say your prayers, believe all you can, don’t ask questions, and don’t
try to answer ‘em; and remember that Charley Steele preached to you the
fear of the Lord at the Cote Dorion, and wound up the service with the
fine old hymn:

     “‘I’ll away, I’ll away, to the promised land--’”

A whole verse of this camp-meeting hymn he sang in an ominous silence
now, for it had crept into their minds that the hymn they had previously
sung so loudly was a Protestant hymn, and that this was another
Protestant hymn of the rankest sort. When he stopped singing and pushed
over his glass for Suzon to fill it, the crowd were noiseless and silent
for a moment, for the spell was still on them. They did not recover
themselves until they saw him lift his glass to Suzon, his back on them,
again insolently oblivious of them all. They could not see his face, but
they could see the face of Suzon Charlemagne, and they misunderstood the
light in her eye, the flush on her cheek. They set it down to a personal
interest in Charley Steele.

Charley had, however, thrown a spell over her in another fashion. In her
eye, in her face, was admiration, the sympathy of a strong intelligence,
the wonder of a mind in the presence of its master, but they thought
they saw passion, love, desire, in her face--in the face of their Suzon,
the pride of the river, the flower of the Cote Dorion. Not alone because
Charley had blasphemed against religion did they hate him at this
moment, but because every heart was scorched with envy and jealousy--the
black unreasoning jealousy which the unlettered, the dull, the crude,
feels for the lettered, the able and the outwardly refined.

Charley was back again in the unfriendly climate of his natural life.
Suzon felt the troubled air round them, saw the dark looks on the faces
of the men, and was at once afraid and elated. She loved the glow of
excitement, she had a keen sense of danger, but she also felt that in
any possible trouble to-night the chances of escape would be small for
the man before her.

He pushed out his glass again. She mechanically poured brandy into it.

“You’ve had more than enough,” she said, in a low voice.

“Every man knows his own capacity, Suzon. Love me little, love me long,”
 he added, again raising his glass to her, as the men behind suddenly
moved forward upon the bar.

“Don’t--for God’s sake!” she whispered hastily. “Do go--or there’ll be
trouble!”

The black face of Theophile Charlemagne was also turned anxiously in
Charley’s direction as he pushed out glasses for those who called for
liquor.

“Oh, do, do go--like a good soul!” Suzon urged. Charley laughed
disdainfully. “Like a good soul!” Had it come to this, that Suzon
pleaded with him as if he were a foolish, obstreperous child!

“Faithless and unbelieving!” he said to Suzon in English. “Didn’t I play
my game well a minute ago--eh--eh--eh, Suzon?”

“Oh, yes, yes, M’sieu’,” she replied in English; “but now you are
differen’ and so are they. You must goah, so, you must!”

He laughed again, a queer sardonic sort of laugh, yet he put out his
hand and touched the girl’s arm lightly with a forefinger. “I am a
Quaker born; I never stir till the spirit moves me,” he said.

He scented conflict, and his spirits rose at the thought. Some reckless
demon of adventure possessed him; some fatalistic courage was upon him.
So far as the eye could see, the liquor he had drunk had done no more
than darken the blue of his eye, for his hand was steady, his body was
well poised, his look was direct; there seemed some strange electric
force in leash behind his face, a watchful yet nonchalant energy of
spirit, joined to an indolent pose of body. As the girl looked at
him something of his unreckoning courage passed into her. Somehow she
believed in him, felt that by some wild chance he might again conquer
this truculent element now almost surrounding him. She spoke quickly to
her step-father. “He won’t go. What can we do?”

“You go, and he’ll follow,” said Theophile, who didn’t want a row--a
dangerous row-in his house.

“No, he won’t,” she said; “and I don’t believe they’d let him follow
me.”

There was no time to say more. The crowd were insistent and restless
now. They seemed to have a plan of campaign, and they began to carry it
out. First one, then another, brushed roughly against Charley. Cool and
collected, he refused to accept the insults.

“Pardon,” he said, in each case; “I am very awkward.”

He smiled all the time; he seemed waiting. The pushing and crowding
became worse. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “You should learn how to
carry your liquor in your legs.”

Suddenly he changed from apology to attack. He talked at them with
a cheerful scorn, a deprecating impertinence, as though they were
children; he chided them with patient imprecations. This confused them
for a moment and cleared a small space around him. There was no defiance
in his aspect, no aggressiveness of manner; he was as quiet as though
it were a drawing-room and he a master of monologues. He hurled original
epithets at them in well-cadenced French, he called them what he listed,
but in language which half-veiled the insults--the more infuriating to
his hearers because they did not perfectly understand.

Suddenly a low-set fellow, with brass rings in his ears, pulled off
his coat and threw it on the floor. “I’ll eat your heart,” he said, and
rolled up blue sleeves along a hairy arm.

“My child,” said Charley, “be careful what you eat. Take up your coat
again, and learn that it is only dogs that delight to bark and bite. Our
little hands were never made to tear each other’s eyes.”

The low-set fellow made a rush forward, but Rouge Gosselin held him
back. “No, no, Jougon,” he said. “I have the oldest grudge.”

Jougon struggled with Rouge Gosselin. “Be good, Jougon,” said Charley.

As he spoke a heavy tumbler flew from the other side of the room.
Charley saw the missile thrown and dodged. It missed his temple, but
caught the rim of his straw hat, carrying it off his head, and crashed
into a lantern hanging against the wall, putting out the light. The room
was only lighted now by another lantern on the other side of the room.
Charley stooped, picked up his hat, and put it on his head again coolly.

“Stop that, or I’ll clear the bar!” cried Theophile Charlemagne, taking
the pistol Suzon slipped into his hand. The sight of the pistol drove
the men wild, and more than one snatched at the knife in his belt.

At that instant there pushed forward into the clear space beside Charley
Steele the great figure of Jake Hough, the horse-doctor, the strongest
man, and the most popular Englishman on the river. He took his stand by
Charley, raised his great hand, smote him in the small of his back, and
said:

“By the Lord, you have sand, and I’ll stand by you!” Under the friendly
but heavy stroke the monocle shot from Charley’s eye the length of the
string. Charley lifted it again, put it up, and staring hard at Jake,
coolly said:

“I beg your pardon--but have I ever--been introduced to you?”

What unbelievable indifference to danger, what disdain to friendliness,
made Charley act as he did is a matter for speculation. It was throwing
away his one chance; it was foppery on the scaffold--an incorrigible
affectation or a relentless purpose.

Jake Hough strode forward into the crowd, rage in his eye. “Go to the
devil, then, and take care of yourself!” he said roughly.

“Please,” said Charley.

They were the last words he uttered that night, for suddenly the other
lantern went out, there was a rush and a struggle, a muffled groan,
a shrill woman’s voice, a scramble and hurrying feet, a noise of a
something splashing heavily in the water outside. When the lights were
up again the room was empty, save for Theophile Charlemagne, Jake Hough,
and Suzon, who lay in a faint on the floor with a nasty bruise on her
forehead.

A score of river-drivers were scattering into the country-side, and
somewhere in the black river, alive or dead, was Charley Steele.




CHAPTER IX. OLD DEBTS FOR NEW

Jo Portugtais was breaking the law of the river--he was running a
little raft down the stream at night, instead of tying up at sundown and
camping on the shore, or sitting snugly over cooking-pot by the little
wooden caboose on his raft. But defiance of custom and tradition was a
habit with Jo Portugais. He had lived in his own way many a year, and he
was likely to do so till the end, though he was a young man yet. He had
many professions, or rather many gifts, which he practised as it pleased
him. He was river-driver, woodsman, hunter, carpenter, guide, as whim or
opportunity came to him. On the evening when Charley Steele met with his
mishap he was a river-driver--or so it seemed. He had been up nor’west
a hundred and fifty miles, and he had come down-stream alone with his
raft-which in the usual course should take two men to guide it--through
slides, over rapids, and in strong currents. Defying the code of the
river, with only one small light at the rear of his raft, he voyaged the
swift current towards his home, which, when he arrived opposite the Cote
Dorion, was still a hundred miles below. He had watched the lights in
the river-drivers’ camps, had seen the men beside the fires, and had
drifted on, with no temptation to join in the songs floating out over
the dark water, to share the contents of the jugs raised to boisterous
lips, or to thrust his hand into the greasy cooking-pot for a succulent
bone.

He drifted on until he came opposite Charlemagne’s tavern. Here the
current carried him inshore. He saw the dim light, he saw dark figures
in the bar-room, he even got a glimpse of Suzon Charlemagne. He dropped
the house behind quickly, but looked back, leaning on the oar and
thinking how swift was the rush of the current past the tavern. His eyes
were on the tavern door and the light shining through it. Suddenly
the light disappeared, and the door vanished into darkness. He heard a
scuffle, and then a heavy splash.

“There’s trouble there,” said Jo Portugais, straining his eyes through
the night, for a kind of low roar, dwindling to a loud whispering, and
then a noise of hurrying feet, came down the stream, and he could dimly
see dark figures running away into the night by different paths.

“Some dirty work, very sure,” said Jo Portugais, and his eyes travelled
back over the dark water like a lynx’s, for the splash was in his ear,
and a sort of prescience possessed him. He could not stop his raft. It
must go on down the current, or be swerved to the shore, to be fastened.

“God knows, it had an ugly sound,” said Jo Portugais, and again strained
his eyes and ears. He shifted his position and took another oar, where
the raft-lantern might not throw a reflection upon the water. He saw a
light shine again through the tavern doorway, then a dark object
block the light, and a head thrust forward towards the river as though
listening.

At this moment he fancied he saw something in the water nearing him. He
stretched his neck. Yes, there was something.

“It’s a man. God save us--was it murder?” said Jo Portugais, and
shuddered. “Was it murder?”

The body moved more swiftly than the raft. There was a hand thrust
up--two hands.

“He’s alive!” said Jo Portugais, and, hurriedly pulling round his waist
a rope tied to a timber, jumped into the water.

Three minutes later, on the raft, he was examining a wound in the head
of an insensible man.

As his hand wandered over the body towards the heart, it touched
something that rattled against a button. He picked it up mechanically
and held it to the light. It was an eye-glass.

“My God!” said Jo Portugais, and peered into the man’s face. “It’s him.”
 Then he remembered the last words the man had spoken to him--“Get out of
my sight. You’re as guilty as hell!” But his heart yearned towards the
man nevertheless.




CHAPTER X. THE WAY IN AND THE WAY OUT

In his own world of the parish of Chaudiere Jo Portugais was counted a
widely travelled man. He had adventured freely on the great rivers and
in the forests, and had journeyed up towards Hudson’s Bay farther than
any man in seven parishes.

Jo’s father and mother had both died in one year--when he was
twenty-five. That year had turned him from a clean-shaven cheerful boy
into a morose bearded man who looked forty, for it had been marked by
his disappearance from Chaudiere and his return at the end of it, to
find his mother dead and his father dying broken-hearted. What had
driven Jo from home only his father knew; what had happened to him
during that year only Jo himself knew, and he told no one, not even his
dying father.

A mystery surrounded him, and no one pierced it. He was a figure apart
in Chaudiere parish. A dreadful memory that haunted him, carried him out
of the village, which clustered round the parish church, into Vadrome
Mountain, three miles away, where he lived apart from all his kind. It
was here he brought the man with the eye-glass one early dawn, after two
nights and two days on the river, pulling him up the long hill in a
low cart with his strong faithful dogs, hitching himself with them and
toiling upwards through the dark. In his three-roomed hut he laid his
charge down upon a pile of bear-skins, and tended him with a strange
gentleness, bathing the wound in the head and binding it again and
again.

The next morning the sick man opened his eyes heavily. He then began
fumbling mechanically on his breast. At last his fingers found his
monocle. He feebly put it to his eye, and looked at Jo in a strange,
questioning, uncomprehending way.

“I beg--your pardon,” he said haltingly, “have I ever--been intro--”
 Suddenly his eyes closed, a frown gathered on his forehead. After
a minute his eyes opened again, and he gazed with painful, pathetic
seriousness at Jo. This grew to a kind of childish terror; then slowly,
as a shadow passes, the perplexity, anxiety and terror cleared away,
and left his forehead calm, his eyes unvexed and peaceful. The monocle
dropped, and he did not heed it. At length he said wearily, and with an
incredibly simple dependence:

“I am thirsty now.”

Jo lifted a wooden bowl to his lips, and he drank, drank, drank to
repletion. When he had finished he patted Jo’s shoulder.

“I am always thirsty,” he said. “I shall be hungry too. I always am.”

Jo brought him some milk and bread in a bowl. When the sick man had
eaten and drunk the bowlful to the last drop and crumb, he lay back with
a sigh of content, but trembling from weakness and the strain, though
Jo’s hand had been under his head, and he had been fed like a little
child.

All day he lay and watched Jo as he worked, as he came and went.
Sometimes he put his hand to his head and said to Jo: “It hurts.” Then
Jo would cool the wound with fresh water from the mountain spring, and
he would drag down the bowl to drink from it greedily.

It was as though he could never get enough water to drink. So the first
day in the hut at Vadrome Mountain passed without questioning on the
part of either Charley Steele or his host.

With good reason. Jo Portugais saw that memory was gone; that the past
was blotted out. He had watched that first terrible struggle of memory
to reassert itself, as the eyes mechanically looked out upon new and
strange surroundings, but it was only the automatic habit of the sight,
the fumbling of the blind soul in its cell-fumbling for the latch which
it could not find, for the door which would not open. The first day on
the raft, as Charley had opened his eyes upon the world again after
that awful night at the Cote Dorion, Jo. had seen that same blank
uncomprehending look--as it were, the first look of a mind upon the
world. This time he saw, and understood what he saw, and spoke as men
speak, but with no knowledge or memory behind it--only the involuntary
action of muscle and mind repeated from the vanished past.

Charley Steele was as a little child, and having no past, and
comprehending in the present only its limited physical needs and
motions, he had no hope, no future, no understanding. In three days he
was upon his feet, and in four he walked out of doors and followed Jo
into the woods, and watched him fell a tree and do a woodsman’s work.
Indoors he regarded all Jo did with eager interest and a pleased,
complacent look, and readily did as he was told. He seldom spoke--not
above three or four times a day, and then simply and directly, and only
concerning his wants. From first to last he never asked a question, and
there was never any inquiry by look or word. A hundred and twenty miles
lay between him and his old home, between him and Kathleen and Billy and
Jean Jolicoeur’s saloon, but between him and his past life the unending
miles of eternity intervened. He was removed from it as completely as
though he were dead and buried.

A month went by. Sometimes Jo went down to the village below, and then,
at first, he locked the door of the house behind him upon Charley.
Against this Charley made no motion and said no word, but patiently
awaited Jo’s return. So it was that, at last, Jo made no attempt to lock
the door, but with a nod or a good-bye left him alone. When Charley saw
him returning he would go to meet him, and shake hands with him, and say
“Good-day,” and then would come in with him and help him get supper or
do the work of the house.

Since Charley came no one had visited the house, for there were no paths
beyond it, and no one came to the Vadrome Mountain, save by chance. But
after two months had gone the Cure came. Twice a year the Cure made it
a point to visit Jo in the interests of his soul, though the visits came
to little, for Jo never went to confession, and seldom to mass. On this
occasion the Cure arrived when Jo was out in the woods. He discovered
Charley. Charley made no answer to his astonished and friendly greeting,
but watched him with a wide-eyed anxiety till the Cure seated himself at
the door to await Jo’s coming. Presently, as he sat there, Charley,
who had studied his face as a child studies the unfamiliar face of a
stranger, brought him a bowl of bread and milk and put it in his hands.
The Cure smiled and thanked him, and Charley smiled in return and said:
“It is very good.”

As the Cure ate, Charley watched him with satisfaction, and nodded at
him kindly.

When Jo came he lied to the Cure. He said he had found Charley wandering
in the woods, with a wound in his head, and had brought him home with
him and cared for him. Forty miles away he had found him.

The Cure was perplexed. What was there to do? He believed what Jo said.
So far as he knew, Jo had never lied to him before, and he thought he
understood Jo’s interest in this man with the look of a child and no
memory: Jo’s life was terribly lonely; he had no one to care for, and
no one cared for him; here was what might comfort him! Through this
helpless man might come a way to Jo’s own good. So he argued with
himself.

What to do? Tell the story to the world by writing to the newspaper at
Quebec? Jo pooh-poohed this. Wait till the man’s memory came back? Would
it come back--what chance was there of its ever coming back? Jo said
that they ought to wait and see--wait awhile, and then, if his memory
did not return, they would try to find his friends, by publishing his
story abroad.

Chaudiere was far from anywhere: it knew little of the world, and the
world knew naught of it, and this was a large problem for the Cure.
Perhaps Jo was right, he thought. The man was being well cared for, and
what more could be wished at the moment? The Cure was a simple man, and
when Jo urged that if the sick man could get well anywhere in the world
it would be at Vadrome Mountain in Chaudiere, the Cure’s parochial pride
was roused, and he was ready to believe all Jo said. He also saw reason
in Jo’s request that the village should not be told of the sick man’s
presence. Before he left, the Cure knelt down and prayed, “for the good
of this poor mortal’s soul and body.”

As he prayed, Charley knelt down also, and kept his eyes-calm
unwondering eyes-full fixed on the good M. Loisel, whose grey hair, thin
peaceful face, and dark brown eyes made a noble picture of patience and
devotion.

When the Cure shook him by the hand, murmuring in good-bye, “God be
gracious to thee, my son,” Charley nodded in a friendly way. He watched
the departing figure till it disappeared over the crest of the hill.

This day marked an epoch in the solitude of the hut on Vadrome Mountain.
Jo had an inspiration. He got a second set of carpenter’s tools, and
straightway began to build a new room to the house. He gave the extra
set of tools to Charley with an encouraging word. For the first time
since he had been brought here, Charley’s face took on a look of
interest. In half-an-hour he was at work, smiling and perspiring, and
quickly learning the craft. He seldom spoke, but he sometimes laughed a
mirthful, natural boy’s laugh of good spirits and contentment. From that
day his interest in things increased, and before two months went round,
while yet it was late autumn, he looked in perfect health. He ate
moderately, drank a great deal of water, and slept half the circle of
the clock each day. His skin was like silk; the colour of his face was
as that of an apple; he was more than ever Beauty Steele. The Cure
came two or three times, and Charley spoke to him but never held
conversation, and no word concerning the past ever passed his tongue,
nor did he have memory of what was said to him from one day to the next.
A hundred ways Jo had tried to rouse his memory. But the words Cote
Dorion had no meaning to him, and he listened blankly to all names and
phrases once so familiar. Yet he spoke French and English in a slow,
passive, involuntary way. All was automatic, mechanical.

The weeks again wore on, and autumn became winter, and then at last one
day the Cure came, bringing his brother, a great Parisian surgeon lately
arrived from France on a short visit. The Cure had told his brother the
story, and had been met by a keen, astonished interest in the unknown
man on Vadrome Mountain. A slight pressure on the brain from accident
had before now produced loss of memory--the great man’s professional
curiosity was aroused: he saw a nice piece of surgical work ready to his
hand; he asked to be taken to Vadrome Mountain.

Now the Cure had lived long out of the world, and was not in touch with
the swift-minded action and adventuring intellects of such men as his
brother, Marcel Loisel. Was it not tempting Providence, a surgical
operation? He was so used to people getting ill and getting well without
a doctor--the nearest was twenty miles distant--or getting ill and dying
in what seemed a natural and preordained way, that to cut open a man’s
head and look into his brain, and do this or that to his skull, seemed
almost sinful. Was it not better to wait and see if the poor man would
not recover in God’s appointed time?

In answer to his sensitively eager and diverse questions, Marcel
Loisel replied that his dear Cure was merely mediaeval, and that he had
sacrificed his mental powers on the altar of a simple faith, which
might remove mountains but was of no value in a case like this, where,
clearly, surgery was the only providence.

At this the Cure got to his feet, came over, laid his hand on his
brother’s shoulder, and said, with tears in his eyes:

“Marcel, you shock me. Indeed you shock me!”

Then he twisted a knot in his cassock cords, and added “Come then,
Marcel. We will go to him. And may God guide us aright!”

That afternoon the two grey-haired men visited Vadrome Mountain, and
there they found Charley at work in the little room that the two men had
built. Charley nodded pleasantly when the Cure introduced his brother,
but showed no further interest at first. He went on working at the
cupboard under his hand. His cap was off and his hair was a little
rumpled where the wound had been, for he had a habit of rubbing the
place now and then--an abstracted, sensitive motion--although he seemed
to suffer no pain. The surgeon’s eyes fastened on the place, and as
Charley worked and his brother talked, he studied the man, the scar, the
contour of the head. At last he came up to Charley and softly placed his
fingers on the scar, feeling the skull. Charley turned quickly.

There was something in the long, piercing look of the surgeon which
seemed to come through limitless space to the sleeping and imprisoned
memory of Charley’s sick mind. A confused, anxious, half-fearful look
crept into the wide blue eyes. It was like a troubled ghost, flitting
along the boundaries of sight and sense, and leaving a chill and a
horrified wonder behind. The surgeon gazed on, and the trouble in
Charley’s eye passed to his face, stayed an instant. Then he turned away
to Jo Portugais. “I am thirsty now,” he said, and he touched his lips
in the way he was wont to do in those countless ages ago, when, millions
upon millions of miles away, people said: “There goes Charley Steele!”

“I am thirsty now,” and that touch of the lip with the tongue, were a
revelation to the surgeon.

A half-hour later he was walking homeward with the Cure. Jo accompanied
them for a distance. As they emerged into the wider road-paths that
began half-way down the mountain, the Cure, who had watched his
brother’s face for a long time in silence, said:

“What is in your mind, Marcel?” The surgeon turned with a half-smile.

“He is happy now. No memory, no conscience, no pain, no responsibility,
no trouble--nothing behind or before. Is it good to bring him back?”

The Cure had thought it all over, and he had wholly changed his mind
since that first talk with his brother. “To save a mind, Marcel!” he
said.

“Then to save a soul?” suggested the surgeon. “Would he thank me?”

“It is our duty to save him.”

“Body and mind and soul, eh? And if I look after the body and the mind?”

“His soul is in God’s hands, Marcel.”

“But will he thank me? How can you tell what sorrows, what troubles,
he has had? What struggles, temptations, sins? He has none now, of any
sort; not a stain, physical or moral.”

“That is not life, Marcel.”

“Well, well, you have changed. This morning it was I who would, and you
hesitated.”

“I see differently now, Marcel.”

The surgeon put a hand playfully on his brother’s shoulder.

“Did you think, my dear Prosper, that I should hesitate? Am I a
sentimentalist? But what will he say?

“We need not think of that, Marcel.”

“But yet suppose that with memory come again sin and shame--even crime?”

“We will pray for him.”

“But if he isn’t a Catholic?”

“One must pray for sinners,” said the Curb, after a silence.

This time the surgeon laid a hand on the shoulder of his brother
affectionately. “Upon my soul, dear Prosper, you almost persuade me to
be reactionary and mediaeval.”

The Curb turned half uneasily towards Jo, who was following at a little
distance. This seemed hardly the sort of thing for him to hear.

“You had better return now, Jo,” he said.

“As you wish, M’sieu’,” Jo answered, then looked inquiringly at the
surgeon.

“In about five days, Portugais. Have you a steady hand and a quick eye?”

Jo spread out his hands in deprecation, and turned to the Curb, as
though for him to answer.

“Jo is something of a physician and surgeon too, Marcel. He has a gift.
He has cured many in the parish with his herbs and tinctures, and he has
set legs and arms successfully.”

The surgeon eyed Jo humorously, but kindly. “He is probably as good a
doctor as some of us. Medicine is a gift, surgery is a gift and an art.
You shall hear from me, Portugais.” He looked again keenly at Jo. “You
have not given him ‘herbs and tinctures’?”

“Nothing, M’sieu’.”

“Very sensible. Good-day, Portugais.”

“Good-day, my son,” said the priest, and raised his fingers in
benediction, as Jo turned and quickly retraced his steps.

“Why did you ask him if he had given the poor man any herbs or
tinctures, Marcel?” said the priest.

“Because those quack tinctures have whiskey in them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whiskey in any form would be bad for him,” the surgeon answered
evasively.

But to himself he kept saying: “The man was a drunkard--he was a
drunkard.”




CHAPTER XI. THE RAISING OF THE CURTAIN

M. Marcel Loisel did his work with a masterly precision, with the aid
of his brother and Portugais. The man under the instruments, not wholly
insensible, groaned once or twice. Once or twice, too, his eyes opened
with a dumb hunted look, then closed as with an irresistible weariness.
When the work was over, and every stain or sign of surgery removed,
sleep came down on the bed--a deep and saturating sleep, which seemed
to fill the room with peace. For hours the surgeon sat beside the couch,
now and again feeling the pulse, wetting the hot lips, touching the
forehead with his palm. At last, with a look of satisfaction, he came
forward to where Jo and the Cure sat beside the fire.

“It is all right,” he said. “Let him sleep as long as he will.” He
turned again to the bed. “I wish I could stay to see the end of it. Is
there no chance, Prosper?” he added to the priest.

“Impossible, Marcel. You must have sleep. You have a seventy-mile drive
before you to-morrow, and sixty the next day. You can only reach the
port now by starting at daylight to-morrow.”

So it was that Marcel Loisel, the great surgeon, was compelled to leave
Chaudiere before he knew that the memory of the man who had been under
his knife had actually returned to him. He had, however, no doubt in his
own mind, and he was confident that there could be no physical harm from
the operation. Sleep was the all-important thing. In it lay the strength
for the shock of the awakening--if awakening of memory there was to be.

Before he left he stooped over Charley and said musingly: “I wonder what
you will wake up to, my friend?” Then he touched the wound with a light
caressing finger. “It was well done, well done,” he murmured proudly.

A moment afterwards he was hurrying down the hill to the open road,
where a cariole awaited the Cure and himself.

For a day and a half Charley slept, and Jo watched him with an
affectionate solicitude. Once or twice, becoming anxious, because of the
heavy breathing and the motionless sleep, he had forced open the teeth,
and poured a little broth between.

Just before dawn on the second morning, worn out and heavy with slumber,
Jo lay down by the piled-up fire and dropped into a sleep that wrapped
him like a blanket, folding him away into a drenching darkness.

For a time there was a deep silence, troubled only by Jo’s deep
breathing, which seemed itself like the pulse of the silence. Charley
appeared not to be breathing at all. He was lying on his back, seemingly
lifeless. Suddenly on the snug silence there was a sharp sound. A tree
outside snapped with the frost.

Charley awoke. The body seemed not to awake, for it did not stir, but
the eyes opened wide and full, looking straight before them--straight
up to the brown smoke-stained rafters, along which were ranged guns and
fishing-tackle, axes and bear-traps. Full clear blue eyes, healthy and
untired as a child’s fresh from an all-night’s drowse, they looked and
looked. Yet, at first, the body did not stir; only the mind seemed to be
awakening, the soul creeping out from slumber into the day. Presently,
however, as the eyes gazed, there stole into them a wonder, a trouble,
an anxiety. For a moment they strained at the rafters and the crude
weapons and implements there, then the body moved, quickly, eagerly,
and turned to see the flickering shadows made by the fire and the simple
order of the room.

A minute more, and Charley was sitting on the side of his couch, dazed
and staring. This hut, this fire, the figure by the hearth in a sound
sleep-his hand went to his head: it felt the bandage there!

He remembered now! Last night at the Cote Dorion! Last night he had
talked with Suzon Charlemagne at the Cote Dorion; last night he had
drunk harder than he had ever drunk in his life, he had defied, chaffed,
insulted the river-drivers. The whole scene came back: the faces of
Suzon and her father; Suzon’s fingers on his for an instant; the glass
of brandy beside him; the lanterns on the walls; the hymn he sang; the
sermon he preached--he shuddered a little; the rumble of angry noises
round him; the tumbler thrown; the crash of the lantern, and only one
light left in the place! Then Jake Hough and his heavy hand, the flying
monocle, and his disdainful, insulting reply; the sight of the pistol in
the hand of Suzon’s father; then a rush, a darkness, and his own fierce
plunge towards the door, beyond which were the stars and the cool night
and the dark river. Curses, hands that battered and tore at him, the
doorway reached, and then a blow on the head and--falling, falling,
falling, and distant noises growing more distant, and suddenly and
sweetly--absolute silence.

Again he shuddered. Why? He remembered that scene in his office
yesterday with Kathleen, and the one later with Billy. A sensitive chill
swept all over him, making his flesh creep, and a flush sped over his
face from chin to brow. To-day he must pick up all these threads again,
must make things right for Billy, must replace the money he had stolen,
must face Kathleen again he shuddered. Was he at the Cote Dorion still?
He looked round him. No, this was not the sort of house to be found at
the Cote Dorion. Clearly this was the hut of a hunter. Probably he had
been fished out of the river by this woodsman and brought here. He felt
his head. The wound was fresh and very sore. He had played for death,
with an insulting disdain, yet here he was alive.

Certainly he was not intended to be drowned or knifed--he remembered the
knives he saw unsheathed--or kicked or pummelled into the hereafter.
It was about ten o’clock when he had had his “accident”--he affected a
smile, yet somehow he did not smile easily--it must be now about five,
for here was the morning creeping in behind the deer-skin blind at the
window.

Strange that he felt none the worse for his mishap, and his tongue was
as clean and fresh as if he had been drinking milk last night, and
not very doubtful brandy at the Cote Dorion. No fever in his hands,
no headache, only the sore skull, so well and tightly bandaged but a
wonderful thirst, and an intolerable hunger. He smiled. When had he ever
been hungry for breakfast before? Here he was with a fine appetite: it
was like coals of fire heaped on his head by Nature for last night’s
business at the Cote Dorion. How true it was that penalties did not
always come with--indiscretions. Yet, all at once, he flushed again to
the forehead, for a curious sense of shame flashed through his whole
being, and one Charley Steele--the Charley Steele of this morning,
an unknown, unadventuring, onlooking Charley Steele--was viewing with
abashed eyes the Charley Steele who had ended a doubtful career in the
coarse and desperate proceedings of last night. With a nervous confusion
he sought refuge in his eye-glass. His fingers fumbled over his
waistcoat, but did not find it. The weapon of defence and attack, the
symbol of interrogation and incomprehensibility, was gone. Beauty Steele
was under the eyes of another self, and neither disdain, nor contempt,
nor the passive stare, were available. He got suddenly to his feet, and
started forward, as though to find refuge from himself.

The abrupt action sent the blood to his head, and feeling a blindness
come over him, he put both hands up to his temples, and sank back on the
couch, dizzy and faint.

His motions waked Jo Portugais, who scrambled from the floor, and came
towards him.

“M’sieu’,” he said, “you must not. You are faint.” He dropped his hands
supportingly to Charley’s shoulders.

Charley nodded, but did not yet look up. His head throbbed sorely.
“Water--please!” he said.

In an instant Jo was beside him again, with a bowl of fresh water at his
lips. He drank, drank, drank, until the great bowl was drained to the
last drop.

“Whew! That was good!” he said, and looked up at Jo with a smile. “Thank
you, my friend; I haven’t the honour of your acquaintance, but--”

He stopped suddenly and stared at Jo. Inquiry, mystification, were in
his look.

“Have I ever seen you before?” he said. “Who knows, M’sieu’!”

Since Jo had stood before Charley in the dock near six years ago he had
greatly changed. The marks of smallpox, a heavy beard, grey hair, and
solitary life had altered him beyond Charley’s recognition.

Jo could hardly speak. His legs were trembling under him, for now he
knew that Charley Steele was himself again. He was no longer the simple,
quiet man-child of three days ago, and of these months past, but the
man who had saved him from hanging, to whom he owed a debt he dare not
acknowledge. Jo’s brain was in a muddle. Now that the great crisis was
over, now that the expected thing had come, and face to face with the
cure, he had neither tongue, nor strength, nor wit. His words stuck in
his throat where his heart was, and for a minute his eyes had a kind of
mist before them.

Meanwhile Charley’s eyes were upon him, curious, fixed, abstracted.

“Is this your house?”

“It is, M’sieu’.”

“You fished me out of the river by the Cote Dorion?” He still held his
head with his hands, for it throbbed so, but his eyes were intent on his
companion.

“Yes, M’sieu’.”

Charley’s hand mechanically fumbled for his monocle. Jo turned quickly
to the wall, and taking it by its cord from the nail where it had been
for these long months, handed it over. Charley took it and mechanically
put it in his eye. “Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Have I been
conscious at all since you rescued me last night?” he asked.

“In a way, M’sieu’.”

“Ah, well, I can’t remember, but it was very kind of you--I do thank you
very much. Do you think you could find me something to eat? I beg your
pardon--it isn’t breakfast-time, of course, but I was never so hungry in
my life!”

“In a minute, M’sieu’--in one minute. But lie down, you must lie down a
little. You got up too quick, and it makes your head throb. You have had
nothing to eat.”

“Nothing, since yesterday noon, and very little then. I didn’t eat
anything at the Cote Dorion, I remember.” He lay back on the couch and
closed his eyes. The throbbing in his head presently stopped, and he
felt that if he ate something he could go to sleep again, it was so
restful in this place--a whole day’s sleep and rest, how good it
would be after last night’s racketing! Here was primitive and material
comfort, the secret of content, if you liked! Here was this poor
hunter-fellow, with enough to eat and to drink, earning it every day
by every day’s labour, and, like Robinson Crusoe no doubt, living in a
serene self-sufficiency and an elysian retirement. Probably he had no
responsibilities in the world, with no one to say him nay, himself only
to consider in all the universe: a divine conception of adequate life.
Yet himself, Charley Steele, an idler, a waster, with no purpose in
life, with scarcely the necessity to earn his bread-never, at any rate,
until lately--was the slave of the civilisation to which he belonged.
Was civilisation worth the game?

His hand involuntarily went to his head. It changed the course of his
thoughts. He must go back to-day to put Billy’s crime right, to replace
the trust-moneys Billy had taken by forging his brother-in-law’s name.
Not a moment must be lost. No doubt he was within driving distance
of his office, and, bandaged head or no bandaged head, last night’s
disgraceful doings notwithstanding, it was his duty to face the
wondering eyes--what did he care for wondering eyes? hadn’t he been
making eyes wonder all his life?--face the wondering eyes in the little
city, and set a crooked business straight. Fool and scoundrel certainly
Billy was, but there was Kathleen!

His lips tightened; he had a strange anxious flutter of the heart. When
had his heart fluttered like this? When had he ever before considered
Kathleen’s feelings as to his personal conduct so delicately? Well,
since yesterday he did feel it, and a sudden sense of pity sprang up
in him--vague, shamefaced pity, which belied the sudden egotistical
flourish with which he put his monocle to his eye and tried futilely to
smile in the old way.

He had lain with his eyes closed. They opened now, and he saw his host
spreading a newspaper as a kind of cloth on a small rough table, and
putting some food upon it-bread, meat, and a bowl of soup. It was
thoughtful of this man to make his soup overnight-he saw Jo lift it from
beside the fire where it had been kept hot. A good fellow-an excellent
fellow, this woodsman.

His head did not throb now, and he drew himself up slowly on his
elbow-then, after a moment, lifted himself to a sitting posture.

“What is your name, my friend?” he said.

“Jo Portugais, M’sieu’,” Jo answered, and brought a candle and put it on
the table, then lifted the tin-plate from over the bowl of savoury soup.

Never before had Charley Steele sat down to such a breakfast. A roll and
a cup of coffee had been enough, and often too much, for him. Yet now
he could not wait to eat the soup with a spoon, but lifted the bowl and
took a long draught of it, and set it down with a sigh of content. Then
he broke bread into the soup--large pieces of black oat bread--until the
bowl was a mass of luscious pulp. This he ate almost ravenously, his eye
wandering avidly the while to the small piece of meat beside the bowl.
What meat was it? It looked like venison, yet summer was not the time
for venison. What did it matter! Jo sat on a bench beside the fire, his
face turned towards his guest, dreading the moment when the man he had
nursed and cared for, with whom he had eaten and drunk for so long,
should know the truth about himself. He could not tell him all there was
to tell, he was taking another means of letting him know.

Charley did not speak. Hunger was a new sensation, a delicious thing,
too good to be broken by talking. He ate till he had cleared away the
last crumbs of bread and meat and drunk the last drop of soup. He looked
at the woodsman as though wondering if he would bring more. Jo evidently
thought he had had enough, for he did not move. Charley’s glance
withdrew from Jo, and busied itself with the few crumbs remaining upon
the table. He saw a little piece of bread on the floor. He picked it up
and ate it with relish, laughing to himself.

“How long will it take us to get to town? Can we do it this morning?”

“Not this morning, M’sieu’,” said Jo, in a sort of hoarse whisper.

“How many hours would it take?”

He was gathering the last crumbs of his feast with his hand, and looking
casually down at the newspaper spread as a table-cloth.

All at once his hand stopped, his eyes became fixed on a spot in the
paper. He gave a hoarse, guttural cry, like an animal in agony. His lips
became dry, his hand wiped a blinding mist from his eyes.

Jo watched him with an intense alarm and a horrified curiosity. He felt
a base coward for not having told Charley what this paper contained.
Never had he seen such a look as this. He felt his beads, and told
them over and over again, as Charley Steele, in a dry, croaking sort
of whisper, read, in letters that seemed monstrous symbols of fire, a
record of himself:

“To-day, by special license from the civil and ecclesiastical courts
[the paragraph in the paper began], was married, at St. Theobald’s
Church, Mrs. Charles Steele, daughter of the late Hon. Julien Wantage,
and niece of the late Eustace Wantage, Esq., to Captain Thomas Fairing,
of the Royal Fusileers--”

Charley snatched at the top of the paper and read the date “Tenth of
February, 18-!” It was August when he was at the Cote Dorion, the 5th
August, 18-, and this paper was February 10th, 18-. He read on, in the
month-old paper, with every nerve in his body throbbing now: a fierce
beating that seemed as if it must burst the heart and the veins:

“--Captain Thomas Fairing, of the Royal Fusileers, whose career in our
midst has been marked by an honourable sense of public and private duty.
Our fellow-citizens will unite with us in congratulating the bride,
whose previous misfortunes have only increased the respect in which she
is held. If all remember the obscure death of her first husband (though
the body was not found, there has never been a doubt of his death),
and the subsequent discovery that he had embezzled trust-moneys to the
extent of twenty-five thousand dollars, thereby setting the final seal
of shame upon a misspent life, destined for brilliant and powerful
uses, all have conspired to forget the association of our beautiful
and admired townswoman with his career. It is painful to refer to these
circumstances, but it is only within the past few days that the estate
of the misguided man has been wound up, and the money he embezzled
restored to its rightful owners; and it is better to make these remarks
now than repeat them in the future, only to arouse painful memories in
quarters where we should least desire to wound.

“In her new life, blessed by a romantic devotion known and admired by
all, Mrs. Fairing and her husband will be followed by the affectionate
good wishes of the whole community.”

The man on the hearth-stone shrank back at the sight of the still, white
face, in which the eyes were like sparks of fire. His impulse had been
to go over and offer the hand of sympathy to the stricken man, but his
simple mind grasped the fact that no one might, with impunity, invade
this awful quiet. Charley was frozen in body, but his brain was awake
with the heat of “a burning fiery furnace.”

Seven months of unconscious life-seven months of silence--no sight, no
seeing, no knowing; seven months of oblivion, in which the world had
buried him out of ken in an unknown grave of infamy! Seven months--and
Kathleen was married again to the man she had always loved. To the world
he himself was a rogue and thief. Billy had remained silent--Billy, whom
he had so befriended, had let decent men heap scorn and reproaches on
his memory. Here was what the world thought of him--he read the lines
over again, his eyes scorching, but his finger steady, as it traced the
lines slowly: “the obscure death...” “embezzled trustmoneys...” “the
final seal of shame upon a misspent life!”

These were the epitaphs on the tombstone of Charley Steele; dead and
buried, out of sight, out of repute, soon to be out of mind and out of
memory, save as a warning to others--an old example raked out of the
dust-bin of time by the scavengers of morality, to toss at all who trod
the paths of dalliance.

What was there to do? Go back? Go back and knock at Kathleen’s door,
another Enoch Arden, and say: “I have come to my own again?” Return and
tell Tom Fairing to go his way and show his face no more? Break up
this union, this marriage of love in which these two rejoiced? Summon
Kathleen out of her illegal intercourse with the man who had been true
to her all these years?

To what end? What had he ever done for her that he might destroy her
now? What sort of Spartan tragedy was this, that the woman who had been
the victim of circumstances, who had been the slave to a tie he never
felt, yet which had been as iron-bound to her, should now be brought out
to be mangled body and soul for no fault of her own? What had she done?
What had she ever done to give him right to touch so much as a hair of
her head?

Go back, and bring Billy to justice, and clear his own name? Go back,
and send Kathleen’s brother, the forger, to jail? What an achievement
in justice! Would not the world have a right to say that the only decent
thing he could do was to eliminate himself from the equation? What
profit for him in the great summing-up, that he was technically innocent
of this one thing, and that to establish his innocence he broke a
woman’s heart and destroyed a boy’s life? To what end! It was the
murderer coming back as a ghost to avenge himself for being hanged.
Suppose he went back--the death’s-head at the feast--what would there be
for himself afterwards; for any one for whom he was responsible? Living
at that price?

To die and end it all, to disappear from this petty life where he had
done so little, and that little ill? To die?

No. There was in him some deep, if obscure, fatalism after all. If he
had been meant to die now, why had he not gone to the bottom of the
river that yesterday at the Cote Dorion? Why had he been saved by this
yokel at the fire, and brought here to lie in oblivion in this mountain
hut, wrapped in silence and lost to the world? Why had his brain and
senses lain fallow all these months, a vacuous vegetation, an empty
consciousness? Was it fate? Did it not seem probable that the Great
Machine had, in its automatic movement, tossed him up again on the
shores of Time because he had not fallen on the trap-door predestined
for his eternal exit?

It was clear to him that death by his own hand was futile, and that if
there were trap-doors set for him alone, it were well to wait until he
trod upon them and fell through in his appointed hour in the movement of
the Great Machine.

What to do--where to live--how to live?

He got slowly to his feet and took a step forward half blindly. The man
on the bench stirred. Crossing the room he dropped a hand on the man’s
shoulder. “Open the blind, my friend.”

Jo Portugais got to his feet quickly, eyes averted--he did not dare look
into Charley’s face--and went over and drew back the deer-skin blind.
The clear, crisp sunlight of a frosty morning broke gladly into the
room. Charley turned and blew out the candle on the table where he had
eaten, then walked feebly to the window. Standing on the crest of the
mountain the hut looked down through a clearing, flanked by forest
trees.

It was a goodly scene. The green and frosted foliage of the pines and
cedars; the flowery tracery of frost hanging like cobwebs everywhere;
the poudre sparkle in the air; the hills of silver and emerald sloping
down to the valley miles away, where the village clustered about the
great old parish church; the smoke from a hundred chimneys, in purple
spirals, rising straight up in the windless air; over all peace and a
perfect silence.

Charley mechanically fixed his eye-glass and stood with hands resting on
the window-sill, looking, looking out upon a new world.

At length he turned.

“Is there anything I can do for you, M’sieu’?” said Jo huskily.

Charley held out his hand and clasped Jo’s. “Tell me about all these
months,” he said.




CHAPTER XII. THE COMING OF ROSALIE

Charley Steele saw himself as he had been through the eyes of another.
He saw the work that he had done in the carpentering shed, and had no
memory of it. The real Charley Steele had been enveloped in oblivion for
seven months. During that time a mild phantom of himself had wandered,
as it were in a somnambulistic dream, through the purlieus of life.
Open-eyed, but with the soul asleep, all idiosyncrasy laid aside, all
acquired impressions and influences vanished, he had been walking in
the world with no more complexity of mind than a new-born child, nothing
intervening between the sight of the eyes and the original sense.

Now, when the real Charley Steele emerged again, the folds of mind and
soul unrolling to the million-voiced creation and touched by the antenna
of a various civilisation, the phantom Charley was gone once more into
obscurity. The real Charley could remember naught of the other, could
feel naught, save, as in the stirring industrious day, one remembers
that he has dreamed a strange dream the night before, and cannot recall
it, though the overpowering sense of it remains.

He saw the work of his hands, the things he had made with adze and
plane, with chisel and hammer, but nothing seemed familiar save the
smell of the glue pot, which brought back in a cloudy impression curious
unfamiliar feelings. Sights, sounds, motions, passed in a confused way
through his mind as the smell of the glue crept through his nostrils;
and he struggled hard to remember. But no--seven months of his life were
gone for ever. Yet he knew and felt that a vast change had gone over
him, had passed through him. While the soul had lain fallow, while the
body had been growing back to childlike health again, and Nature
had been pouring into his sick senses her healing balm; while the
medicaments of peace and sleep and quiet labour had been having their
way with him, he had been reorganised, renewed, flushed of the turgid
silt of dissipation. For his sins and weaknesses there had been no gall
and vinegar to drink.

As Charley stood looking round the workshop, Jo entered, shaking the
snow from his moccasined feet. “The Cure, M’sieu’ Loisel, has come,” he
said. Charley turned, and, without a word, followed Jo into the house.
There, standing at the window and looking down at the village
beneath, was the Cure. As Charley entered, M. Loisel came forward with
outstretched hand.

“I am glad to see you well again, Monsieur,” he said, and his cool thin
hand held Charley’s for a moment, as he looked him benignly in the eye.

With a kind of instinct as to the course he must henceforth pursue,
Charley replied simply, dropping his eye-glass as he met that clear
soluble look of the priest--such a well of simplicity he had never
before seen. Only naked eye could meet that naked eye, imperfect though
his own sight was.

“It is good of you to feel so, and to come and tell me so,” he answered
quietly. “I have been a great trouble, I know.”

There was none of the old pose in his manner, none of the old cryptic
quality in his words.

“We were anxious for your sake--and for the sake of your friends,
Monsieur.”

Charley evaded the suggestion. “I cannot easily repay your kindness and
that of Jo Portugais, my good friend here,” he rejoined.

“M’sieu’,” replied Jo, his face turned away, and his foot pushing a log
on the fire, “you have repaid it.”

Charley shook his head. “I am in a conspiracy of kindness,” he said. “It
is all a mystery to me. For why should one expect such treatment from
strangers, when, besides all, one can never make any real return, not
even to pay for board and lodging!”

“‘I was a stranger and ye took me in,”’ said the Cure, smiling by no
means sentimentally. “So said the Friend of the World.”

Charley looked the Curb steadily in the eyes. He was thinking how simply
this man had said these things; as if, indeed, they were part of
his life; as though it were usual speech with him, a something that
belonged, not an acquired language. There was the old impulse to ask a
question, and he put the monocle to his eye, but his lips did not open,
and the eye-glass fell again. He had seen familiarity with sacred names
and things in the uneducated, in excited revivalists, worked up to a
state clairvoyant and conversational with the Creator; but he had never
heard an educated man speak as this man did.

At last Charley said: “Your brother--Portugais tells me that your
brother, the surgeon, has gone away. I should have liked to thank
him--if no more.”

“I have written him of your good recovery. He will be glad, I know. But
my brother, from one stand-point--a human stand-point--had scruples.
These I did not share, but they were strong in him, Monsieur. Marcel
asked himself--” He stopped suddenly and looked towards Jo.

Charley saw the look, and said quickly: “Speak plainly. Portugais is my
friend.”

Jo turned slowly towards him, and a light seemed to come to his eyes--a
shining something that resolved itself into a dog-like fondness, an
utter obedience, a strange intense gratitude.

“Marcel asked himself,” the Cure continued, “whether you would thank him
for bringing you back to--to life and memory. I fear he was trying to
see what I should say--I fear so. Marcel said, ‘Suppose that he should
curse me for it? Who knows what he would be brought back to--to what
suffering and pain, perhaps?’ Marcel said that.”

“And you replied, Monsieur le Cure?”

“I replied that Nature required you to answer that question for
yourself, and whether bitterly or gladly, it was your duty to take up
your life and live it out. Besides, it was not you alone that had to be
considered. One does not live alone or die alone in this world. There
were your friends to consider.”

“And because I had no friends here, you were compelled to think for me!”
 answered Charley calmly. “Truth is, it was not a question of my friends,
for what I was during those seven months, or what I am now, can make no
difference to them.”

He looked the Cure in the eyes steadily, and as though he would
convey his intentions without words. The Curb understood. The habit of
listening to the revelations of the human heart had given him something
of that clairvoyance which can only be pursued by the primitive mind,
unvexed by complexity.

“It is, then, as though you had not come to life again? It is as though
you had no past, Monsieur?”

“It is that, Monsieur.”

Jo suddenly turned and left the room, for he heard a step on the frosty
snow without.

“You will remain here, Monsieur?” said the Cure. “I cannot tell.”

The Cure had the bravery of simple souls with a duty to perform. He
fastened his eyes on Charley. “Monsieur, is there any reason why you
should not stay here? I ask it now, man to man--not as a priest of my
people, but as man to man.”

Charley did not answer for a moment. He was wondering how he should put
his reply. But his look did not waver, and the Cure saw the honesty of
the gaze. At length he replied: “If you mean, have I committed any crime
which the law may punish?--I answer no, Monsieur. If you mean, have I
robbed or killed, or forged--or wronged a woman as men wrong women? No.
These, I take it, are the things that matter first. For the rest,
you can think of me as badly as you will, or as well, for what I do
henceforth is the only thing that really concerns the world, Monsieur le
Cure.”

The Cure came forward and put out his hand with a kindly gesture.
“Monsieur, you have suffered,” he said.

“Never, never at all, Monsieur. Never for a moment, until I was dropped
down here like a stone from a sling. I had life by the throat; now it
has me there--that is all.”

“You are not a Catholic, Monsieur?” asked the priest, almost pleadingly,
and as though the question had been much on his mind.

“No, Monsieur.”

The Cure made no rejoinder. If he was not a Catholic, what matter
what he was? If he was not a Catholic, were he Buddhist, pagan, or
Protestant, the position for them personally was the same. “I am
very sorry,” he said gently. “I might have helped you had you been a
Catholic.”

The eye-glass came like lightning to the eye, and a caustic, questioning
phrase was on the tongue, but Charley stopped himself in time. For,
apart from all else, this priest had been his friend in calamity, had
acted with a charming sensibility. The eye-glass troubled the Cure, and
the look on Charley’s face troubled him still more, but it passed as
Charley said, in a voice as simple as the Cure’s own:

“You may still help me as you have already done. I give you my word,
too”--strange that he touched his lips with his tongue as he did in the
old days when his mind turned to Jean Jolicoeur’s saloon--“that I
will do nothing to cause regret for your humanity and--and Christian
kindness.” Again the tongue touched the lips--a wave of the old life had
swept over him, the old thirst had rushed upon him. Perhaps it was the
force of this feeling which made him add, with a curious energy, “I give
you my word, Monsieur le Cure.” At that moment the door opened and Jo
entered.

“M’sieu’,” he said to Charley, “a registered parcel has come for you.
It has been brought by the postmaster’s daughter. She will give it to no
one but yourself.”

Charley’s face paled, and the Cure’s was scarcely less pale. In
Charley’s mind was the question, Who had discovered his presence here?
Was he not, then, to escape? Who should send him parcels through the
post?

The Cure was perturbed. Was he, then, to know who this man was--his name
and history? Was the story of his life now to be told?

Charley broke the silence. “Tell the girl to come in.” Instantly
afterwards the postmaster’s daughter entered. The look of the girl’s
face, at once delicate and rosy with health, almost put the question of
the letter out of his mind for an instant. Her dark eyes met his as he
came forward with outstretched hand.

“This is addressed, as you will see, ‘To the Sick Man at the House of
Jo Portugais, at Vadrome Mountain.’ Are you that person, Monsieur?” she
asked.

As she handed the parcel, Charley’s eyes scanned her face quickly. How
did this habitant girl come by this perfect French accent, this refined
manner? He did not know the handwriting on the parcel; he hastily tore
it open. Inside were a few dozen small packets. Here also was a sheet of
paper. He opened and read it quickly. It said:

   Monsieur, I am not sure that you have recovered your memory and your
   health, and I am also not sure that in such case you will thank me
   for my work. If you think I have done you an injury, pray accept my
   profound apologies. Monsieur, you have been a drunkard. If you
   would reverse the record now, these powders, taken at opportune
   moments, will aid you. Monsieur, with every expression of my good-
   will, and the hope that you will convey to me without reserve your
   feelings on this delicate matter, I append my address in Paris, and
   I have the honour to subscribe myself, with high consideration,
   Monsieur, yours faithfully,
                    MARCEL LOISEL.

The others looked at him with varied feelings as he read. Curiosity,
inquiry, expectation, were common to them all, but with each was a
different personal feeling. The Cure’s has been described. Jo Portugais’
mind was asking if this meant that the man who had come into his life
must now go out of it; and the girl was asking who was this mysterious
man, like none she had ever seen or known.

Without hesitation Charley handed over the letter to the Cure, who took
it with surprise, read it with amazement, and handed it back with a
flush on his face.

“Thank you,” said Charley to the girl. “It is good of you to bring it
all this way. May I ask--”

“She is Mademoiselle Rosalie Evanturel,” said the Cure smiling.

“I am Charles Mallard,” said Charley slowly. “Thank you. I will go
now, Monsieur Mallard,” the girl said, lifting her eyes to his face.
He bowed. As she turned and went towards the door her eyes met his. She
blushed.

“Wait, Mademoiselle; I will go back with you,” said the Cure kindly.
He turned to Charley and held out his hand. “God be with you,
Monsieur--Charles,” he said. “Come and see me soon.” Remembering that
his brother had written that the man was a drunkard, his eyes had a
look of pity. This was the man’s own secret and his. It was a way to the
man’s heart; he would use it.

As the two went out of the door, the girl looked back. Charley was
putting the surgeon’s letter into the fire, and did not see her; yet she
blushed again.




CHAPTER XIII. HOW CHARLEY WENT ADVENTURING AND WHAT HE FOUND

A week passed. Charley’s life was running in a tiny circle, but his mind
was compassing large revolutions. The events of the last few days had
cut deep. His life had been turned upside down. All his predispositions
had been suddenly brought to check, his habits turned upon the flank and
routed, his mental postures flung into confusion. He had to start life
again; but it could not be in the way of any previous travel of mind or
body. The line of cleavage was sharp and wide, and the only connection
with the past was in the long-reaching influence of evil habits, which
crept from their coverts, now and again, to mock him as his old self
had mocked life--to mock him and to tempt him. Through seven months of
healthy life for his body, while brain and will were sleeping, the whole
man had made long strides towards recreation. But with the renewal of
will and mind the old weaknesses, roused by memory, began to emerge
intermittently, as water rises from a spring. There was something
terrible in this repetition of sensation--the law of habit answering
to the machine-like throbbing of memory, as, a kaleidoscope turning,
turning, its pictures pass a certain point at fixed intervals--an
automatic recurrence. He found himself at times touching his lips with
his tongue, and with this act came the dry throat, the hot eye, the
restless hand feeling for a glass that eluded his fingers.

Twice in one week did this fever surge up in him, and it caught him
in those moments when, exhausted by the struggle of his mind to adapt
itself to the new conditions, his senses were delicately susceptible.
Visions of Jolicoeur’s saloon came to his mind’s eye. With a singular
separateness, a new-developed dual sense, he saw himself standing in the
summer heat, looking over to the cool dark doorway of the saloon, and
he caught again the smell of the fresh-drawn beer. He was conscious
of watching himself do this and that, of seeing himself move here and
there. He began to look upon Charley Steele as a man he had known--he,
Charles Mallard, had known--while he had to suffer for what Charley
Steele had done. Then, all at once, as he was thinking and dreaming and
seeing, there would seize upon him the old appetite, coincident with the
seizure of his brain by the old sense of cynicism at its worst--such a
worst as had made him insult Jake Hough when the rough countryman was
ready to take his part that wild night at the Cote Dorion.

At such moments life became a conflict--almost a terror--for as yet he
had not swung into line with the new order of things. In truth, there
was no order of things; for one life was behind him and the new one
was not yet decided upon, save that here he would stay--here out of the
world, out of the game, far from old associations, cut off, and to be
for ever cut off, from all that he had ever known or seen or felt or
loved!... Loved! When did he ever love? If love was synonymous with
unselfishness, with the desire to give greater than the desire to get,
then he had never known love. He realised now that he had given Kathleen
only what might be given across a dinner-table--the sensuous tribute of
a temperament, passionate without true passion or faith or friendship.
Kathleen had known that he gave her nothing worth the having; for in
some meagre sense she knew what love was, and had given it meagrely,
after her nature, to another man, preserving meanwhile the letter of the
law, respecting that bond which he had shamed by his excesses.

Kathleen was now sitting at another man’s table--no, probably at his own
table--his, Charley Steele’s own table in his own house--the house he
had given her by deed of gift the day he died. Tom Fairing was sitting
where he used to sit, talking across the table--not as he used to
talk--looking into Kathleen’s face as he had never looked. He was no
more to them than a dark memory. “Well, why should I be more?” he asked
himself. “I am dead, if not buried. They think me down among the fishes.
My game is done; and when she gets older and understands life better,
Kathleen will say, ‘Poor Charley--he might have been anything!’ She’ll
be sure to say that some day, for habit and memory go round in a circle
and pass the same point again and again. For me--they take me by the
throat--” He put his hand up as if to free his throat from a grip, his
tongue touched his lips, his hands grew restless.

“It comes back on me like a fit of ague, this miserable thirst. If I
were within sight of Jolicoeur’s saloon, I should be drinking hard this
minute. But I’m here, and--” His hand felt his pocket, and he took out
the powders the great surgeon had sent him.

“He knew--how did he know that I was a drunkard? Does a man carry in his
face the tale he would not tell? Jo says I didn’t talk of the past, that
I never had delirium, that I never said a word to suggest who I was, or
where I came from. Then how did the doctor--man know? I suppose every
particular habit carries its own signal, and the expert knows the
ciphers.” He opened the paper containing the powders, and looked round
for water, then paused, folded the paper up, and put it in his pocket
again. He went over to the window and looked out. His shoulders set
square. “No, no, no, not a speck on my tongue!” he said. “What I can’t
do of my own will is not worth doing. It’s too foolish, to yield to the
shadow of an old appetite. I play this game alone--here in Chaudiere.”

He looked out and down. The sweet sun of early spring was shining
hard, and the snow was beginning to pack, to hang like a blanket on
the branches, to lie like a soft coverlet over all the forest and the
fields. Far away on the frozen river were saplings stuck up to show
where the ice was safe--a long line of poles from shore to shore--and
carioles were hurrying across to the village. Being market-day, the
place was alive with the cheerful commerce of the habitant. The bell
of the parish church was ringing. The sound of it came up distantly and
peacefully. Charley drew a long breath, turned away to a pail of water,
filled a dipper half full, and drank it off gaspingly. Then he returned
to the window with a look of relief.

“That does it,” he said. “The horrible thing is gone again--out of my
brain and out of my throat.”

As he stood there, Jo came up the hill with a bundle in his arms.
Charley watched him for a moment, half whimsically, half curiously. Yet
he sighed once too as Portugais opened the door and came into the room.
“Well done, Jo!” said he. “You have ‘em?”

“Yes, M’sieu’. A good suit, and I believe they’ll fit. Old Trudel says
it’s the best suit he’s made in a year. I’m afraid he’ll not make many
more suits, old Trudel.

“He’s very bad. When he goes there’ll be no tailor--ah, old Trudel will
be missed for sure, M’sieu’!”

Jo spread the clothes out on the table--a coat, waistcoat, and trousers
of fulled cloth, grey and bulky, and smelling of the loom and the
tailor’s iron. Charley looked at them interestedly, then glanced at
the clothes he had on, the suit that had belonged to him last
year--grave-clothes.

He drew himself up as though rousing from a dream. “Come, Jo, clear out,
and you shall have your new habitant in a minute,” he said. Portugais
left the room, and when he came back, Charley was dressed in the suit
of grey fulled cloth. It was loose, but comfortable, and save for the
refined face--on which a beard was growing now--and the eye-glass, he
might easily have passed for a farmer. When he put on the dog-skin
fur cap and a small muffler round his neck, it was the costume of the
habitant complete.

Yet it was no disguise, for it was part of the life that Charles
Mallard, once Charley Steele, should lead henceforth.

He turned to the door and opened it. “Good-bye, Portugais,” he said.

Jo was startled. “Where are you going, M’sieu’?”

“To the village.”

“What to do, M’sieu’?”

“Who knows?”

“You will come back?” Jo asked anxiously.

“Before sundown, Jo. Good-bye!”

This was the first long walk he had taken since he had become himself
again. The sweet, cold air, with a bracing wind in his face, gave peace
to the nerves but now strained and fevered in the fight with appetite.
His mind cleared, and he drank in the sunny air and the pungent smell
of the balsams. His feet light with moccasins, he even ran a distance,
enjoying the glow from a fast-beating pulse.

As he came into the high-road, people passed him in carioles and
sleighs. Some eyed him curiously. What did he mean to do? What object
had he in coming to the village? What did he expect? As he entered the
village his pace slackened. He had no destination, no object. He was
simply aware that his new life was beginning.

He passed a little house on which was a sign, “Narcisse Dauphin,
Notary.” It gave him a curious feeling. It was the old life before him.
“Charles Mallard, Notary?”--No, that was not for him. Everything that
reminded him of the past, that brought him in touch with it, must be set
aside. He moved on. Should he go to the Cure? No; one thing at a time,
and today he wanted his thoughts for himself. More people passed
him, and spoke of him to each other, though there was no coarse
curiosity--the habitant has manners.

Presently he passed a low shop with a divided door. The lower half was
closed, the upper open, and the winter sun was shining full into the
room, where a bright fire burned.

Charley looked up. Over the door was painted, in straggling letters:
“Louis Trudel, Tailor.” He looked inside. There, on a low table, bent
over his work, with a needle in his hand, sat Louis Trudel the tailor.
Hearing footsteps, feeling a shadow, he looked up. Charley started at
the look of the shrunken, yellow face; for if ever death had set his
seal, it was on that haggard parchment. The tailor’s yellow eyes ran
from Charley’s face to his clothes.

“I knew they’d fit,” he said, with a snarl. “Drove me hard, too!”

Charley had an inspiration. He opened the halfdoor, and entered.

“Do you want help?” he said, fixing his eyes on the tailor’s, steady and
persistent.

“What’s the good of wanting--I can’t get it,” was the irritable reply,
as he uncrossed his legs.

Charley took the iron out of his hand. “I’ll press, if you’ll show me
how,” he said.

“I don’t want a fiddling ten-minutes’ help like that.”

“It isn’t fiddling. I’m going to stay, if you think I’ll do.”

“You are going to stop-every day?” The old man’s voice quavered a
little.

“Precisely that.” Charley wetted a seam with water as he had often
seen tailors do. He dropped the hot iron on the seam, and sniffed with
satisfaction.

“Who are you?” said the tailor.

“A man who wants work. The Cure knows. It’s all right. Shall I stay?”

The tailor nodded, and sat down with a colour in his face.




CHAPTER XIV. ROSALIE, CHARLEY, AND THE MAN THE WIDOW PLOMONDON JILTED

From the moment there came to the post-office the letter addressed to
“The Sick Man at the House of Jo Portugais at Vadrome Mountain,” Rosalie
Evanturel dreamed dreams. Mystery, so fascinating a thing in all the
experiences of life, took hold of her. The strange man in the lonely
hut on the hill, the bandaged head, the keen, piercing blue eyes,
the monocle, like a masked battery of the mind, levelled at her--all
appealed to that life she lived apart from the people with whom she had
daily commerce. Her world was a world of books and dreams, and simple,
practical duties of life. Most books were romance to her, for most were
of a life to which she had not been educated. Even one or two purely
Protestant books of missionary enterprise, found in a box in her dead
mother’s room, had had all the charms of poetry and adventure. It was
all new, therefore all delightful, even when the Protestant sentiments
shocked her as being not merely untrue, but hurting that aesthetic sense
never remote from the mind of the devout Catholic.

She had blushed when monsieur had first looked at her, in the hut on
Vadrome Mountain, not because there was any soft sentiment about him
in her heart--how could there be for a man she had but just seen!--but
because her feelings, her imagination, were all at high temperature;
because the man compelled attention. The feeling sprang from a deep
sensibility, a natural sense, not yet made incredulous by the ironies
of life. These had never presented themselves to her in a country, in
a parish, where people said of fortune and misfortune, happiness and
sorrow, “C’est le bon Dieu!”--always “C’est le bon Dieu!”

In some sense it was a pity that she had brains above the ordinary, that
she had had a good education and nice tastes. It was the cultivation of
the primitive and idealistic mind, which could not rationalise a sense
of romance, of the altruistic, by knowledge of life. As she sat behind
the post-office counter she read all sorts of books that came her way.
When she learned English so as to read it almost as easily as she read
French, her greatest joy was to pore over Shakespeare, with a heart full
of wonder, and, very often, eyes full of tears--so near to the eyes of
her race. Her imagination inhabited Chaudiere with a different folk,
living in homes very unlike these wide, sweeping-roofed structures, with
double windows and clean-scrubbed steps, tall doors, and wide, uncovered
stoops. Her people--people of bright dreaming--were not quarrelsome,
or childish, or merely traditional, like the habitants. They were
picturesque and able and simple, doing good things in disguise,
succouring distress, yielding their lives without thought for a cause,
or a woman, and loving with an undying love.

Charley was of these people--from the first instant she saw him. The
Cure, the Avocat, and the Seigneur were also of them, but placidly,
unimportantly. “The Sick Man at Jo Portugais’ House” came out of a
mysterious distance. Something in his eyes said, “I have seen, I have
known,” told her that when he spoke she would answer freely, that they
were kinsfolk in some hidden way. Her nature was open and frank; she
lived upon the house-tops, as it were, going in and out of the lives of
the people of Chaudiere with neighbourly sympathy and understanding. Yet
she knew that she was not of them, and they knew that, poor as she was,
in her veins flowed the blood of the old nobility of France. For this
the Cure could vouch. Her official position made her the servant of the
public, and she did her duty with naturalness.

She had been a figure in the parish ever since the day she returned from
the convent at Quebec, and took her dead mother’s place in the home and
the parish. She had a quick temper, but there was not a cheerless note
in her nature, and there was scarce a dog or a horse in the parish but
knew her touch, and responded to it. Squirrels ate out of her hand, she
had even tamed two partridges, and she kept in her little garden a bear
she had brought up from a cub. Her devotion to her crippled father was
in keeping with her quick response to every incident of sorrow or joy in
the parish--only modified by wilful prejudices scarcely in keeping with
her unselfishness.

As Mrs. Flynn, the Seigneur’s Irish cook, said of her: “Shure, she’s not
made all av wan piece, the darlin’! She’ll wear like silk, but she’s not
linen for everybody’s washin’.” And Mrs. Flynn knew a thing or two, as
was conceded by all in Chaudiere. No gossip was Mrs. Flynn, but she knew
well what was going on in the parish, and she had strong views upon
all subjects, and a special interest in the welfare of two people in
Chaudiere. One of these was the Seigneur, who, when her husband died,
leaving behind him a name for wit and neighbourliness, and nothing else,
proposed that she should come to be his cook. In spite of her protest
that what was “fit for Teddy was not fit for a gintleman of quality,”
 the Seigneur had had his way, never repenting of his choice. Mrs.
Flynn’s cooking was not her only good point. She had the rarest sense
and an unfailing spring of good-nature--life bubbled round her. It was
she that had suggested the crippled M. Evanturel to the Seigneur when
the office of postmaster became vacant, and the Seigneur had acted on
her suggestion, henceforth taking greater interest in Rosalie.

It was Mrs. Flynn who gave Rosalie information concerning Charley’s
arrival at the shop of Louis Trudel the tailor. The morning after
Charley came, Mrs. Flynn had called for a waistcoat of the Seigneur, who
was expected home from a visit to Quebec. She found Charley standing at
a table pressing seams, and her quick eye took him in with knowledge and
instinct. She was the one person, save Rosalie, who could always divert
old Louis, and this morning she puckered his sour face with amusement by
the story of the courtship of the widow Plomondon and Germain Boily the
horse-trainer, whose greatest gift was animal-training, and greatest
weakness a fondness for widows, temporary and otherwise. Before she left
the shop, with the stranger’s smile answering to her nod, she had made
up her mind that Charley was a tailor by courtesy only. So she told
Rosalie a few moments afterwards.

“‘Tis a man, darlin’, that’s seen the wide wurruld. ‘Tis himisperes he
knows, not parrishes. Fwhat’s he doin’ here, I dun’no’. Fwhere’s he come
from, I dun’no’. French or English, I dun’no’. But a gintleman born, I
know. ‘Tis no tailor, darlin’, but tailorin’ he’ll do as aisy as he’ll
do a hunderd other things anny day. But how he shlipped in here, an’
when he shlipped in here, an’ what’s he come for, an’ how long he’s
stayin’, an’ meanin’ well, or doin’ ill, I dun’no’, darlin’, I dun’
no’.”

“I don’t think he’ll do ill, Mrs. Flynn,” said Rosalie, in English.

“An’ if ye haven’t seen him, how d’ye know?” asked Mrs. Flynn, taking a
pinch of snuff.

“I have seen him--but not in the tailor-shop. I saw him at Jo Portugais’
a fortnight ago.”

“Aisy, aisy, darlin’. At Jo Portugais’--that’s a quare place for a
stranger. ‘Tis not wid Jo’s introducshun I’d be comin’ to Chaudiere.”

“He comes with the Cure’s introduction.”

“An’ how d’ye know that, darlin’?”

“The Curb was at Jo Portugais’ with monsieur when I went there.”

“You wint there!”

“To take him a letter--the stranger.” “What’s his name, darlin’?”

“The letter I took him was addressed, ‘To the Sick Man at Jo Portugais’
House at Vadrome Mountain.’”

“Ah, thin, the Cure knows. ‘Tis some rich man come to get well, and
plays at bein’ tailor. But why didn’t the letther come to his name, I
wander now? That’s what I wander.”

Rosalie shook her head, and looked reflectively through the window
towards the tailor-shop.

“How manny times have ye seen him?”

“Only once;” answered Rosalie truthfully. She did not, however, tell
Mrs. Flynn that she had thrice walked nearly to Vadrome Mountain in the
hope of seeing him again; and that she had gone to her favourite resort,
the Rest of the Flax-Beaters, lying in the way of the riverpath from
Vadrome Mountain, on the chance of his passing. She did not tell Mrs.
Flynn that there had scarcely been a waking hour when she had not
thought of him.

“What Portugais knows, he’ll not be tellin’,” said Mrs. Flynn, after a
moment. “An’ ‘tis no business of ours, is it, darlin’? Shure, there’s Jo
comin’ out of the tailor-shop now!”

They both looked out of the window, and saw Jo encounter Filion Lacasse
the saddler, and Maximilian Cour the baker. The three stood in the
middle of the street for a minute, Jo talking freely. He was usually
morose and taciturn, but now he spoke as though eager to unburden his
mind--Charley and he had agreed upon what should be said to the people
of Chaudiere.

The sight of the confidences among the three was too much for Mrs.
Flynn. She opened the door of the post office and called to Jo. “Like
three crows shtandin’ there!” she said. “Come in--ma’m’selle says come
in, and tell your tales here, if they’re fit to hear, Jo Portugais. Who
are you to say no when ma’m’selle bids!” she added.

Very soon afterwards Jo was inside the post-office, telling his tale
with the deliberation of a lesson learned by heart.

“It’s all right, as ma’m’selle knows,” he said. “The Cure was there
when ma’m’selle brought a letter to M’sieu’ Mallard. The Cure knows all.
M’sieu’ come to my house sick-and he stayed there. There is nothing like
the pine-trees and the junipers to cure some things. He was with me
very quiet some time. The Cure come and come. He knows. When m’sieu’ got
well, he say, ‘I will not go from Chaudiere; I will stay. I am poor,
and I will earn my bread here.’ At first, when he is getting well, he is
carpent’ring. He makes cupboards and picture-frames. The Cure has one of
the cupboards in the sacristy; the frames he puts on the Stations of the
Cross in the church.”

“That’s good enough for me!” said Maximilian Cour. “Did he make them for
nothing?” asked Filion Lacasse solemnly.

“Not one cent did he ask. What’s more, he’s working for Louis Trudel
for nothing. He come through the village yesterday; he see Louis old and
sick on his bench, and he set down and go to work.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said the saddler. “If a man work for the
Church for nothing, he is a Christian. If he work for Louis Trudel for
nothing, he is a fool--first-class--or a saint. I wouldn’t work for
Louis Trudel if he give me five dollars a day.”

“Tiens! the man that work for Louis Trudel work for the Church, for all
old Louis makes goes to the Church in the end--that is his will. The
Notary knows,” said Maximilian Cour.

“See there, now,” interposed Mrs. Flynn, pointing across the street
to the tailor-shop. “Look at that grocer-man stickin’ in his head; and
there’s Magloire Cadoret and that pig of a barber, Moise Moisan, starin’
through the dure, an’--”

As she spoke, the barber and his companion suddenly turned their faces
to the street, and started forward with startled exclamations, the
grocer following. They all ran out from the post-office. Not far up
the street a crowd was gathering. Rosalie locked the office-door and
followed the others quickly.

In front of the Hotel Trois Couronnes a painful thing was happening.
Germain Boily, the horse-trainer, fresh from his disappointment with the
widow Plomondon, had driven his tamed moose up to the Trois Couronnes,
and had drunk enough whiskey to make him ill-tempered. He had then begun
to “show off” the animal, but the savage instincts of the moose being
roused, he had attacked his master, charging with wide-branching horns,
and striking with his feet. Boily was too drunk to fight intelligently.
He went down under the hoofs of the enraged animal, as his huge
boar-hound, always with him, fastened on the moose’s throat, dragged him
to the ground, and tore gaping wounds in his neck.

It was all the work of a moment. People ran from the doorways and
sidewalks, but stayed at a comfortable distance until the moose was
dragged down; then they made to approach the insensible man. Before
any one could reach him, however, the great hound, with dripping fangs,
rushed to his master’s body, and, standing over it, showed his teeth
savagely. The hotel-keeper approached, but the bristles of the hound
stood up, he prepared to attack, and the landlord drew back in haste.
Then M. Dauphin, the Notary, who had joined the crowd, held out a hand
coaxingly, and with insinuating rhetoric drew a little nearer than the
landlord had done; but he retreated precipitously as the hound crouched
back for a spring. Some one called for a gun, and Filion Lacasse ran
into his shop. The animal had now settled down on his master’s body, his
bloodshot eyes watching in menace. The one chance seemed to be to shoot
him, and there must be no bungling, lest his prostrate master suffer at
the same time. The crowd had melted away into the houses, and were now
standing at doorways and windows, ready for instant retreat.

Filion Lacasse’s gun was now at disposal, but who would fire it? Jo
Portugais was an expert shot, and he reached out a hand for the weapon.

As he did so, Rosalie Evanturel cried: “Wait, oh, wait!” Before any
one could interfere she moved along the open space to the mad beast,
speaking soothingly, and calling his name.

The crowd held their breath. A woman fainted. Some wrung their hands,
and Jo Portugais, with blanched face, stood with gun half raised. With
assured kindness of voice and manner, Rosalie walked deliberately over
to the hound. At first the animal’s bristles came up, and he prepared to
spring, but murmuring to him, she held out her hand, and presently laid
it on his huge head. With a growl of subjection, the dog drew from the
body of his master, and licked Rosalie’s fingers as she knelt beside
Boily and felt his heart. She put her arm round the dog’s neck, and said
to the crowd, “Some one come--only one--ah, yes, you, Monsieur!” she
added, as Charley, who had just arrived on the scene, came forward.
“Only you, if you can lift him. Take him to my house.”

Her arm still round the dog, she talked to him, as Charley came forward,
and, lifting up the body of the little horse-trainer, drew him across
his shoulder. The hound at first resented the act, but under Rosalie’s
touch became quiet, and followed at their heels towards the post-office,
licking the wounded man’s hands as they hung down. Inside M. Evanturel’s
house the injured man was laid upon a couch. Charley examined his
wounds, and, finding them severe, advised that the Cure be sent for,
while he and Jo Portugais set about restoring him to consciousness. Jo
had skill of a sort, and his crude medicaments were efficacious.

When the Cure came, the injured man was handed over to his care, and he
arranged that in the evening Boily should be removed to his house, to
await the arrival of the doctor from the next parish.

This was Charley’s public introduction to the people of Chaudiere, and
it was his second meeting with Rosalie Evanturel.

The incident brought him into immediate prominence. Before he left the
post-office, Filion Lacasse, Maximilian Cour, and Mrs. Flynn had given
forth his history, as related by Jo Portugais. The village was agog with
excitement.

But attention was not centred on himself, for Rosalie’s courage had set
the parish talking. When the Notary stood on the steps of the saddler’s
shop, and with fine rhetoric proposed a vote of admiration for the girl,
the cheering could be heard inside the post-office, and it brought Mrs.
Flynn outside.

“‘Tis for her, the darlin’--for Ma’m’selle Rosalie--they’re splittin’
their throats!” she said to Charley as he was making his way from the
sick man’s room to the street door. “Did ye iver see such an eye an’
hand? That avil baste that’s killed two Injins already--an’ all the men
o’ the place sneakin’ behind dures, an’ she walkin’ up cool as leaf in
mornin’ dew, an’ quietin’ the divil’s own! Did ye iver see annything
like it, sir--you that’s seen so much?”

“Madame, it is not touch of hand alone, or voice alone,” answered
Charley.

“Shure, ‘tis somethin’ kin in baste an’ maid, you’re manin’ thin?”

“Quite so, Madame.”

“Simple like, an’ understandin’ what Noah understood in that ark av
his--for talk to the bastes he must have, explainin’ what was for thim
to do.”

“Like that, Madame.”

“Thrue for you, sir, ‘tis as you say. There’s language more than tongue
of man can shpake. But listen, thin, to me”--her voice got
lower--“for ‘tis not the furst time, a thing like that, the lady she
is--granddaughter of a Seigneur, and descinded from nobility in France!
‘Tis not the furst time to be doin’ brave things. Just a shlip of a girl
she was, three years ago, afther her mother died, an’ she was back from
convint. A woman come to the parish an’ was took sick in the house of
her brother--from France she was. Small-pox they said at furst. ‘Twas
no small-pox, but plague, got upon the seas. Alone she was in the
house--her brother left her alone, the black-hearted coward. The people
wouldn’t go near the place. The Cure was away. Alone the woman was--poor
soul! Who wint--who wint and cared for her? Who do ye think, sir?”

“Mademoiselle?”

“None other. ‘Go tell Mrs. Flynn,’ says she, ‘to care for my father
till I come back,’ an’ away she wint to the house of plague. A week she
stayed, an’ no one wint near her. Alone she was with the woman and the
plague. ‘Lave her be,’ said the Cure when he come back; ‘‘tis for the
love of God. God is with her--lave her be, and pray for her,’ says he.
An’ he wint himself, but she would not let him in. ‘‘Tis my work,’ says
she. ‘‘Tis God’s work for me to do,’ says she. ‘An’ the woman will live
if ‘tis God’s will,’ says she. ‘There’s an agnus dei on her breast,’
says she. ‘Go an’ pray,’ says she. Pray the Cure did, an’ pray did we
all, but the woman died of the plague. All alone did Rosalie draw her to
the grave on a stone-boat down the lane, an’ over the hill, an’ into the
churchyard. An’ buried her with her own hands at night, no one knowin’
till the mornin’, she did. So it was. An’ the burial over, she wint back
an’ burned the house to the ground--sarve the villain right that lave
the sick woman alone! An’ her own clothes she burned, an’ put on the
clothes I brought her wid me own hand. An’ for that thing she did, the
love o’ God in her heart, is it for Widdy Flynn or Cure or anny other to
forgit? Shure the Cure was for iver broken-hearted, for that he was sick
abed for days an’ could not go to the house when the woman died, an’
say to Rosalie, ‘Let me in for her last hour.’ But the word of
Rosalie--shure ‘twas as good as the words of a praste, savin’ the Cure
prisince wheriver he may be!”

This was the story of Rosalie which Mrs. Flynn told Charley, as he stood
at the street door of the post-office. When she had finished, Charley
went back into the room where Rosalie sat beside the sick man’s couch,
the hound at her feet. She came forward, surprised, for he had bade her
good-bye but a few minutes before.

“May I sit and watch for an hour longer, Mademoiselle?” he said. “You
will have your duties in the post-office.”

“Monsieur--it is good of you,” she answered.

For two hours Charley watched her going in and out, whispering
directions to Mrs. Flynn, doing household duty, bringing warmth in with
her, and leaving light behind her.

It was afternoon when he returned to his bench in the tailor-shop, and
was received by old Louis Trudel in peevish silence. For an hour they
worked in silence, and then the tailor said:

“A brave girl--that. We will work till nine to-night!”




CHAPTER XV. THE MARK IN THE PAPER

Chaudiere was nearing the last of its nine-days’ wonder. It had filed
past the doorway of the tailor-shop; it had loitered on the other side
of the street; it had been measured for more clothes than in three
months past--that it might see Charley at work in the shop, cross-legged
on a bench, or wielding the goose, his eye glass in his eye. Here was
sensation indeed, for though old M. Rossignol, the Seigneur, had an
eye-glass, it was held to his eye--a large bone-bound thing with a
little gold handle; but no one in Chaudiere had ever worn a glass in
his eye like that. Also, no one in Chaudiere had ever looked quite like
“M’sieu’”--for so it was that, after the first few days (a real tribute
to his importance and sign of the interest he created) Charley came to
be called “M’sieu’,” and the Mallard was at last entirely dropped.

Presently people came and stood at the tailor’s door and talked, or
listened to Louis Trudel and M’sieu’ talking. And it came to be noised
abroad that the stranger talked as well as the Cure and better than the
Notary. By-and-by they associated his eye-glass with his talent, so that
it seemed, as it were, to be the cause of it. Yet their talk was ever of
simple subjects, of everyday life about them, now and then of politics,
occasionally of the events of the world filtered to them through vast
tracts of country. There was one subject which, however, was barred;
perhaps because there was knowledge abroad that M’sieu’ was not
a Catholic, perhaps because Charley himself adroitly changed the
conversation when it veered that way.

Though the parish had not quite made up its mind about him, there were
a number of things in his favour. In the first place, the Cure seemed
satisfied; secondly, he minded his own business. Also, he was working
for Louis Trudel for nothing. These things Jo Portugais diligently
impressed on the minds of all who would listen.

From above the frosted part of the windows of the post-office, in the
corner where she sorted letters, Rosalie could look over at the tailor’s
shop at an angle; could sometimes even see M’sieu’ standing at the long
table with a piece of chalk, a pair of shears, or a measure. She watched
the tailor-shop herself, but it annoyed her when she saw any one else
do so. She resented--she was a woman and loved monopoly--all inquiry
regarding M’sieu’, so frequently addressed to her.

One afternoon, as Charley came out, on his way to the house on Vadrome
Mountain, she happened to be outside. He saw her, paused, lifted his fur
cap, and crossed the street to her.

“Have you, perhaps, paper, pens, and ink for sale, Mademoiselle?”

“Yes, oh yes; come in, Monsieur Mallard.”

“Ah, it is nice of you to remember me,” he answered. “I see you every
day--often,” she answered.

“Of course, we are neighbours,” he responded. “The man--the
horse-trainer--is quite well again?”

“He has gone home almost well,” she answered. She placed pens, paper,
and ink before him. “Will these do?”

“Perfectly,” he answered mechanically, and laid a few pens and a bottle
of ink beside the paper.

“You were very brave that day,” he said--they had not talked together
since, though seeing each other so often.

“Oh, no; I knew he would make friends with me--the hound.”

“Of course,” he rejoined.

“We should show animals that we trust them,” she said, in some
confusion, for being near him made her heart throb painfully.

He did not answer. Presently his eye glanced at the paper again, and was
arrested. He ran his fingers over it, and a curious look flashed across
his face. He held the paper up to the light quickly, and looked through
it. It was thin, half-foreign paper, without lines, and there was a
water-mark in it-large, shadowy, filmy--Kathleen.

It was paper made in the mills which had belonged to Kathleen’s uncle.
This water-mark was made to celebrate their marriage-day. Only for one
year had this paper been made, and then the trade in it was stopped. It
had gone its ways down the channels of commerce, and here it was in
his hand, a reminder, not only of the old life, but, as it were, the
parchment for the new. There it was, a piece of plain good paper, ready
for pen and ink and his letter to the Cure’s brother in Paris--the
only letter he would ever write, ever again until he died, so he told
himself; but hold it up to the light and there was the name over which
his letter must be written--Kathleen, invisible but permanent, obscured,
but brought to life by the raising of a hand.

The girl caught the flash of feeling in his face, saw him holding the
paper up to the light, and then, with an abstracted air, calmly lay it
down.

“That will do, thank you,” he said. “Give me the whole packet.” She
wrapped it up for him without a word, and he laid down a two-dollar
note, the last he had in the world.

“How much of this paper have you?” he asked. The girl looked under the
counter. “Six packets,” she said. “Six, and a few sheets over.”

“I will take it all. But keep it for me, for a week, or perhaps a
fortnight, will you?” He did not need all this paper to write letters
upon, yet he meant to buy all the paper of this sort that the shop
contained. But he must get money from Louis Trudel--he would speak about
it to-morrow.

“Monsieur does not want me to sell even the loose sheets?”

“No. I like the paper, and I will take it all.”

“Very good, Monsieur.”

Her heart was beating hard. All this man did had peculiar significance
to her. His look seemed to say: “Do not fear. I will tell you things.”

She gave him the parcel and the change, and he turned to go. “You read
much?” he asked, almost casually, yet deeply interested in the charm and
intelligence of her face.

“Why, yes, Monsieur,” she answered quickly. “I am always reading.”

He did not speak at once. He was wondering whether, in this primitive
place, such a mind and nature would be the wiser for reading; whether
it were not better to be without a mental aspiration, which might set up
false standards.

“What are you reading now?” he asked, with his hand on the door.

“Antony and Cleopatra, also Enoch Arden,” she answered, in good English,
and without accent.

His head turned quickly towards her, but he did not speak.

“Enoch Arden is terrible,” she added eagerly. “Don’t you think so,
Monsieur?”

“It is very painful,” he answered. “Good-night.” He opened the door and
went out.

She ran to the door and watched him go down the street. For a little she
stood thinking, then, turning to the counter, and snatching up a sheet
of the paper he had bought, held it up to the light. She gave a cry of
amazement.

“Kathleen!” she exclaimed.

She thought of the start he gave when he looked at the water-mark; she
thought of the look on his face when he said he would buy all this paper
she had.

“Who was Kathleen?” she whispered, as though she was afraid some one
would hear. “Who was Kathleen!” she said again resentfully.




CHAPTER XVI. MADAME DAUPHIN HAS A MISSION

One day Charley began to know the gossip of the village about him from a
source less friendly than Jo Portugais. The Notary’s wife, bringing her
boy to be measured for a suit of broadcloth, asked Charley if the things
Jo had told about him were true, and if it was also true that he was a
Protestant, and perhaps an Englishman. As yet, Charley had been asked no
direct questions, for the people of Chaudiere had the consideration of
their temperament; but the Notary’s wife was half English, and being a
figure in the place, she took to herself more privileges than did old
Madame Dugal, the Cure’s sister.

To her ill-disguised impertinence in English, as bad as her French and
as fluent, Charley listened with quiet interest. When she had finished
her voluble statement she said, with a simper and a sneer-for, after
all, a Notary’s wife must keep her position--“And now, what is the truth
about it? And are you a Protestant?”

There was a sinister look in old Trudel’s eyes as, cross-legged on
his table, he listened to Madame Dauphin. He remembered the time,
twenty-five years ago, when he had proposed to this babbling woman, and
had been rejected with scorn--to his subsequent satisfaction; for there
was no visible reason why any one should envy the Notary, in his house
or out of it. Already Trudel had a respect for the tongue of M’sieu’.
He had not talked much the few days he had been in the shop, but, as
the old man had said to Filion Lacasse the saddler, his brain was like
a pair of shears--it went clip, clip, clip right through everything. He
now hoped that his new apprentice, with the hand of a master-workman,
would go clip, clip through madame’s inquisitiveness. He was not
disappointed, for he heard Charley say:

“One person in the witness-box at a time, Madame. Till Jo Portugais is
cross-examined and steps down, I don’t see what I can do!”

“But you are a Protestant!” said the woman snappishly. This man was only
a tailor, dressed in fulled cloth, and no doubt his past life would not
bear inspection; and she was the Notary’s wife, and had said to people
in the village that she would find out the man’s history from himself.

“That is one good reason why I should not go to confession,” he
replied casually, and turned to a table where he had been cutting a
waistcoat--for the first time in his life.

“Do you think I’m going to stand your impertinence? Do you know who I
am?”

Charley calmly put up his monocle. He looked at the foolish little woman
with so cruel a flash of the eye that she shrank back.

“I should know you anywhere,” he said.

“Come, Stephan,” she said nervously to her boy, and pulled him towards
the door.

On the instant Charley’s feeling changed. Was he then going to carry the
old life into the new, and rebuke a silly garish woman whose faults
were generic more than personal? He hurried forward to the door and
courteously opened it for her.

“Permit me, Madame,” he said.

She saw that there was nothing ironical in this politeness. She had a
sudden apprehension of an unusual quality called “the genteel,” for no
storekeeper in Chaudiere ever opened or shut a shop-door for anybody.
She smiled a vacuous smile; she played “the lady” terribly, as, with a
curious conception of dignity, she held her body stiff as a ramrod, and
with a prim merci sailed into the street.

This gorgeous exit changed her opinion of the man she had been unable to
catechise. Undoubtedly he had snubbed her--that was the word she used
in her mind--but his last act had enabled her, in the sight of several
habitants and even of Madame Dugal, “to put on airs,” as the charming
Madame Dugal said afterwards.

Thinking it better to give the impression that she had had a successful
interview, she shook her head mysteriously when asked about M’sieu’,
and murmured, “He is quite the gentleman!” which she thought a socially
distinguished remark.

When she had gone, Charley turned to old Louis.

“I don’t want to turn your customers away,” he said quietly, “but there
it is! I don’t need to answer questions as a part of the business, do
I?”

There was a sour grin on the face of old Trudel. He grunted some
inaudible answer, then, after a pause, added: “I’d have been hung for
murder, if she’d answered the question I asked her once as I wanted her
to.”

He opened and shut his shears with a sardonic gesture.

Charley smiled, and went to the window. For a minute he stood watching
Madame Dauphin and Rosalie at the post-office door. The memory of his
talk with Rosalie was vivid to him at the moment. He was thinking also
that he had not a penny in the world to pay for the rest of the paper he
had bought. He turned round and put on his coat slowly.

“What are you doing that for?” asked the old man, with a kind of snarl,
yet with trepidation.

“I don’t think I’ll work any more to-day.”

“Not work! Smoke of the devil, isn’t Sunday enough to play in? You’re
not put out by that fool wife of Dauphin’s?”

“Oh no--not that! I want an understanding about wages.”

To Louis the dread crisis had come. He turned a little green, for he was
very miserly-for the love of God.

He had scarcely realised what was happening when Charley first sat down
on the bench beside him. He had been taken by surprise. Apart from the
excitement of the new experience, he had profited by the curiosity of
the public, for he had orders enough to keep him busy until summer, and
he had had to give out work to two extra women in the parish, though
he had never before had more than one working for him. But his ruling
passion was strong in him. He always remembered with satisfaction that
once when the Cure was absent and he was supposed to be dying, a priest
from another parish came, and, the ministrations over, he had made an
offering of a gold piece. When the young priest hesitated, his fingers
had crept back to the gold piece, closed on it, and drawn it back
beneath the coverlet again. He had then peacefully fallen asleep. It was
a gracious memory.

“I don’t need much, I don’t want a great deal,” continued Charley when
the tailor did not answer, “but I have to pay for my bed and board, and
I can’t do it on nothing.”

“How have you done it so far?” peevishly replied the tailor.

“By working after hours at carpentering up there”--he made a gesture
towards Vadrome Mountain. “But I can’t go on doing that all the time, or
I’ll be like you too soon.”

“Be like me!” The voice of the tailor rose shrilly.

“Be like me! What’s the matter with me?”

“Only that you’re in a bad way before your time, and that you mayn’t
get out of this hole without stepping into another. You work too hard,
Monsieur Trudel.”

“What do you want--wages?”

Charley inclined his head. “If you think I’m worth them.”

The tailor viciously snipped a piece of cloth. “How can I pay you wages,
if you stand there doing nothing?” “This is my day for doing nothing,”
 Charley answered pleasantly, for the tailor-man amused him, and the
whimsical mental attitude of his past life was being brought to the
surface by this odd figure, with big spectacles pushed up on a yellow
forehead, and shrunken hands viciously clutching the shears.

“You don’t mean to say you’re not going to work to-day, and this suit of
clothes promised for to-morrow night--for the Manor House too!”

With a piece of chalk Charley idly made heads on brown paper. “After
all, why should clothes be the first thing in one’s mind--when they are
some one else’s! It’s a beautiful day outside. I’ve never felt the sun
so warm and the air so crisp and sweet--never in all my life.”

“Then where have you lived?” snapped out the tailor with a sneer. “You
must be a Yankee--they have only what we leave over down there!”--he
jerked his head southward. “We don’t stop to look at weather here. I
suppose you did where you come from?”

Charley smiled in a distant sort of way. “Where I came from, when we
weren’t paid for our work we always stopped to consider our health--and
the weather. I don’t want a great deal. I put it to you honestly. Do you
want me? If you do, will you give me enough to live on--enough to buy
a suit of clothes a year, to pay for food and a room? If I work for you
for nothing, I have to live on others for nothing, or kill myself as
you’re doing.”

There was no answer at once, and Charley went on: “I came to you because
I saw you wanted help badly. I saw that you were hard-pushed and sick--”

“I wasn’t sick,” interrupted the tailor with a snarl.

“Well, overworked, which is the same thing in the end. I did the best I
could: I gave you my hands--awkward enough they were at first, I know,
but--”

“It’s a lie. They weren’t awkward,” churlishly cut in the tailor.

“Well, perhaps they weren’t so awkward, but they didn’t know quite what
to do--”

“You knew as well as if you’d been taught,” came back in a growl.

“Well, then, I wasn’t awkward, and I had a knack for the work. What was
more, I wanted work. I wanted to work at the first thing that appealed
to me. I had no particular fancy for tailoring--you get bowlegged in
time!”--the old spirit was fighting with the new--“but here you were at
work, and there I was idle, and I had been ill, and some one who wasn’t
responsible for me--a stranger-worked for me and cared for me. Wasn’t
it natural, when you were playing the devil with yourself, that I should
step in and give you a hand? You’ve been better since--isn’t that so?”
 The tailor did not answer.

“But I can’t go on as we are, though I want only enough to keep me
going,” Charley continued.

“And if I don’t give you what you want, you’ll leave?”

“No. I’m never going to leave you. I’m going to stay here, for you’ll
never get another man so cheap; and it suits me to stay--you need some
one to look after you.”

A curious soft look suddenly flashed into the tailor’s eyes.

“Will you take on the business after I’m gone?” he asked at last. “It’s
along time to look ahead, I know,” he added quickly, for not in words
would he acknowledge the possibility of the end.

“I should think so,” Charley answered, his eyes on the bright sun and
the soft snow on the trees beyond the window.

The tailor snatched up a pattern and figured on it for a moment. Then he
handed it to Charley. “Will that do?” he asked with anxious, acquisitive
look, his yellow eyes blinking hard.

Charley looked at it musingly, then said “Yes, if you give me a room
here.”

“I meant board and lodging too,” said Louis Trudel with an outburst of
eager generosity, for, as it was, he had offered about one-half of what
Charley was worth to him.

Charley nodded. “Very well, that will do,” he said, and took off his
coat and went to work. For a long time they worked silently. The tailor
was in great good-humour; for the terrible trial was over, and he now
had an assistant who would be a better tailor than himself. There would
be more profit, more silver nails for the church door, and more masses
for his soul.

“The Cure says you are all right.... When will you come here?” he said
at last.

“To-morrow night I shall sleep here,” answered Charley.

So it was arranged that Charley should come to live in the tailor’s
house, to sleep in the room which the tailor had provided for a wife
twenty-five years before--even for her that was now known as Madame
Dauphin.

All morning the tailor chuckled to himself. When they sat down at noon
to a piece of venison which Charley had prepared himself--taking the
frying-pan out of the hands of Margot Patry, the old servant, and
cooking it to a turn--Louis Trudel saw his years lengthen to an
indefinite period. He even allowed himself to nervously stand up, bow,
shake Charley’s hand jerkingly, and say:

“M’sieu’, I care not what you are or where you come from, or even if
you’re a Protestant, perhaps an Englishman. You’re a gentleman and a
tailor, and old Louis Trudel will not forget you. It shall be as you
said this morning--it is no day for work. We will play, and the clothes
for the Manor can go to the devil. Smoke of hell-fire, I will go and
have a pipe with that, poor wretch the Notary!”

So, a wonderful thing happened. Louis Trudel, on a week-day and a
market-day, went to smoke a pipe with Narcisse Dauphin, and to tell him
that M. Mallard was going to stay with him for ever, at fine wages. He
also announced that he had paid this whole week’s wages in advance; but
he did not tell what he did not know--that half the money had already
been given to old Margot, whose son lay ill at home with a broken leg,
and whose children were living on bread and water. Charley had slowly
drawn from the woman the story of her life as he sat by the kitchen fire
and talked to her, while her master was talking to the Notary.




CHAPTER XVII. THE TAILOR MAKES A MIDNIGHT FORAY

Since the day Charley had brought home the paper bought at the
post-office, and water-marked Kathleen, he had, at odd times, written
down his thoughts, and promptly torn the paper up again or put it in the
fire. In the repression of the new life, in which he must live wholly
alone, so far as all past habits of mind were concerned, it was a relief
to record his passing reflections, as he had been wont to do when the
necessity for it was less. Writing them here was like the bursting of
an imprisoned stream; it was relaxing the ceaseless eye of vigilance;
freeing an imprisoned personality. This personality was not yet
merged into that which must take its place, must express itself in the
involuntary acts which tell of a habit of mind and body--no longer the
imitative and the histrionic, but the inherent and the real.

On the afternoon of the day that old Louis agreed to give him wages,
and went to smoke a pipe with the Notary, Charley scribbled down his
thoughts on this matter of personality and habit.

“Who knows,” he wrote, “which is the real self? A child comes into the
world gin-begotten, with the instinct for liquor in his brain, like the
scent of the fox in the nostrils of the hound. And that seems the real.
But the same child caught up on the hands of chance is carried into
another atmosphere, is cared for by ginhating minds and hearts: habit
fastens on him--fair, decent, and temperate habit--and he grows up like
the Cure yonder, a brother of Aaron. Which is the real? Is the instinct
for the gin killed, or covered? Is the habit of good living mere habit
and mere acting, in which the real man never lives his real life, or is
it the real life?

“Who knows! Here am I, born with a question in my mouth, with the
ever-present ‘non possumus’ in me. Here am I, to whom life was one
poor futility; to whom brain was but animal intelligence abnormally
developed; to whom speechless sensibility and intelligence was the only
reality; to whom nothing from beyond ever sent a flash of conviction,
an intimation, into my soul--not one. To me God always seemed a being of
dreams, the creation of a personal need and helplessness, the despairing
cry of the victims of futility--And here am I flung like a stone from a
sling into this field where men believe in God as a present and tangible
being; who reply to all life’s agonies and joys and exultations with the
words ‘C’est le bon Dieu.’ And what shall I become? Will habit do its
work, and shall I cease to be me? Shall I, in the permanency of habit,
become like unto this tailor here, whose life narrows into one sole
cause; whose only wish is to have the Church draw the coverlet of
forgiveness and safety over him; who has solved all questions in a blind
belief or an inherited predisposition--which? This stingy, hard, unhappy
man--how should he know what I am denied! Or does he know? Is it all
illusion? If there is a God who receives such devotion, to the exclusion
of natural demand and spiritual anxieties, why does not this tailor
‘let his light so shine before men that they may see his good works,
and glorify his Father which is in heaven?’ That is it. Therefore,
wherefore, tailor-man? Therefore, wherefore, God? Show me a sign from
Heaven, tailor-man!”

Seated on his bench in the shop, with his eyes ever and anon raised
towards the little post-office opposite, he wrote these words.
Afterwards he sat and thought till the shadows deepened, and the tailor
came in to supper. Then he took up the pieces of paper, and, going to
the fire, which was still lighted of an evening, thrust them inside.

Louis Trudel saw the paper burning, and, glancing down, he noticed that
one piece--the last--had slipped to the floor and was lying under the
table. He saw the pencil still in Charley’s hand. Forthwith his natural
suspicion leaped up, and the cunning of the monomaniac was upon him.
With all his belief in le bon Dieu and the Church, Louis Trudel trusted
no one. One eye was ever open to distrust man, while the other was ever
closed with blind belief in Heaven.

As Charley stooped to put wood in the fire, the tailor thrust a foot
forward and pushed the piece of paper further under the table.

That night the tailor crept down into the shop, felt for the paper
in the dark, found it, and carried it away to his room. All kinds of
thoughts had raged through his diseased mind. It was a letter, perhaps,
and if a letter, then he would gain some facts about the man’s life.
But if it was a letter, why did he burn it? It was said that he never
received a letter and never sent one, therefore it was little likely to
be a letter if not a letter, then what could it be? Perhaps the man
was English and a spy of the English government, for was there not
disaffection in some of the parishes? Perhaps it was a plan of robbery.
To such a state of hallucination did his weakened mind come, that he
forgot the kindly feeling he had had for this stranger who had worked
for him without pay. Suspicion, the bane of sick old age, was hot on
him. He remembered that M’sieu’ had put an arm through his when they
went upstairs, and that now increased suspicion. Why should the man have
been so friendly? To lull him into confidence, perhaps, and then to rob
and murder him in his sleep. Thank God, his ready money was well hid,
and the rest was safe in the bank far away! He crept back to his room
with the paper in his hand. It was the last sheet of what Charley had
written, and had been accidentally brushed off on the floor. It was in
French, and, holding the candle close, he slowly deciphered the crabbed,
characteristic handwriting.

His eyes dilated, his yellow cheeks took on spots of unhealthy red, his
hand trembled. Anger seized him, and he mumbled the words over and over
again to himself. Twice or thrice, as the paper lay in one hand, he
struck it with the clinched fist of the other, muttering and distraught.

“This tailor here.... This stingy, hard, unhappy man.... If there is
a God!... Therefore, wherefore, tailor-man?... Therefore, wherefore,
God?... Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!”

Hatred of himself, blasphemy, the profane and hellish humour of--of
the infidel! A Protestant heretic--he was already damned; a robber--you
could put him in jail; a spy--you could shoot him or tar and feather
him; a murderer--you could hang him. But an infide--this was a
deadly poison, a black danger, a being capable of all crimes. An
infidel--“Therefore, wherefore, tailor-man?... Therefore, wherefore,
God?... Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!”

The devil laughing--the devil incarnate come to mock a poor tailor, to
sow plague through a parish where all were at peace in the bosom of
the Church. The tailor had three ruling passions--cupidity, vanity,
and religion. Charley had now touched the three, and the whole man
was alive. His cupidity had been flattered by the unpaid service of a
capable assistant, but now he saw that he was paying the devil a wage.
His vanity was overwhelmed by a satanic ridicule. His religion and his
God had been assaulted in so shameful a way that no punishment could be
great enough for the man of hell. In religion he was a fanatic; he was a
demented fanatic now.

He thrust the paper into his pocket, then crept out into the hall and
to the door of Charley’s bedroom. He put his ear to the door. After
a moment he softly raised the latch, and opened the door and listened
again. ‘M’sieu’ was in a deep sleep.

Louis Trudel scarcely knew why he had listened, why he had opened the
door and stood looking at the figure in the bed, barely definable in the
semi-darkness of the room. If he had meant harm to the helpless man,
he had brought no weapon; if he had been curious, there the man was
peacefully sleeping!

His sick, morbid imagination was so alive, that he scarcely knew what
he did. As he stood there listening, hatred and horror in his heart, a
voice said to him: “Thou shalt do no murder.” The words kept ringing in
his ears. Yet he had not thought of murder. The fancied command itself
was his first temptation towards such a deed. He had thought of raising
the parish, of condign punishment of many sorts, but not this. As he
closed the door softly, killing entered his mind and stayed there. “Thou
shalt not” had been the first instigation to “Thou shalt.”

It haunted him as he returned to his room, undressed himself, and went
to bed. He could not sleep. “Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!”
 The challenge had been to himself. He must respond to it. The duty lay
with him; he must answer this black infidel for the Church, for faith,
for God.

The more he thought of it, the more Charley’s face came before him, with
the monocle shining and hard in the eye. The monocle haunted him. That
was the infidel’s sign. “Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!” What
sign should he show?

Presently he sat up straight in bed. In another minute he was out and
dressing. Five minutes later he was on his way to the parish church.
When he reached it he took a tool from his pocket and unscrewed a small
iron cross from the front door. It was a cross which had been blessed by
the Pope, and had been brought to Chaudiere by the beloved mother of the
Cure, now dead.

“When I have done with it I will put it back,” he said, as he thrust it
inside his shirt, and hurried stealthily back to his house. As he got
into bed he gave a noiseless, mirthless laugh. All night he lay with
his yellow eyes wide open, gazing at the ceiling. He was up at dawn,
hovering about the fire in the shop.




CHAPTER XVIII. THE STEALING OF THE CROSS

If Charley had been less engaged with his own thoughts, he would have
noticed the curious baleful look in the eyes of the tailor; but he was
deeply absorbed in a struggle that had nothing to do with Louis Trudel.

The old fever of thirst and desire was upon him. All morning the door of
Jolicoeur’s saloon was opening and shutting before his mind’s eye, and
there was a smell of liquor everywhere. It was in his nostrils when the
hot steam rose from the clothes he was pressing, in the thick odour of
the fulled cloth, in the melting snow outside the door.

Time and again he felt that he must run out of the shop and away to the
little tavern where white whiskey was sold to unwise habitants. But he
fought on. Here was the heritage of his past, the lengthening chain
of slavery to his old self--was it his real self? Here was what would
prevent him from forgetting all that he had been and not been, all
the happiness he might have had, all that he had lost--the ceaseless
reminder. He was still the victim to a poison which gave not only a
struggle of body, but a struggle of soul--if he had a soul.

“If he had a soul!” The phrase kept repeating itself to him even as he
fought the fever in his throat, resisting the temptation to take that
medicine which the Curb’s brother had sent him.

“If he had a soul!” The thinking served as an antidote, for by the
ceaseless iteration his mind was lulled into a kind of drowse. Again and
again he went to the pail of water that stood on the window-sill, and
lifting it to his lips, drank deep and full, to quench the wearing
thirst.

“If he had a soul!” He looked at Louis Trudel, silent and morose, the
clammy yellow of a great sickness in his face and hands, but his mind
only intent on making a waistcoat--and the end of all things very near!
The words he had written the night before came to him: “Therefore,
wherefore, tailor-man? Therefore, wherefore, God?... Show me a sign from
Heaven, tailor-man!” As if in reply to his thoughts there came the sound
of singing, and of bells ringing in the parish church.

A procession with banners was coming near. It was a holy day, and
Chaudiere was mindful of its duties. The wanderers of the parish had
come home for Easter. All who belonged to Chaudiere and worked in the
woods or shanties, or lived in big cities far away, were returned--those
who could return--to take the holy communion in the parish church.
Yesterday the parish had been alive with a pious hilarity. The great
church had been crowded beyond the doors, the streets had been full of
cheerily dressed habitants. There had, however, come a sudden chill to
the seemly rejoicings--the little iron cross blessed by the Pope had
been stolen from the door of the church!

The fact had been told to the Cure as he said the Mass, and from the
altar steps, before going to the pulpit, he referred to the robbery with
poignant feeling; for the relic had belonged to a martyr of the Church,
who, two centuries before, had laid down his life for the Master on the
coast of Africa.

Louis Trudel had heard the Cure’s words, and in his place at the rear
of the church he smiled sourly to himself. In due time the little cross
should be returned, but it had work to do first. He did not take the
holy communion this Easter day, or go to confession as was his wont.
Not, however, until a certain day later did the Cure realise this,
though for thirty years the tailor had never omitted his Easter-time
duties.

The people guessed and guessed, but they knew not on whom to cast
suspicion at first. No sane Catholic of Chaudiere could possibly have
taken the holy thing. Presently a murmur crept about that M’sieu’ might
have been the thief. He was not a Catholic, and--who could tell?
Who knew where he came from? Who knew what he had been? Perhaps a
jail-bird-robber-murderer! Charley, however, stitched on, intent upon
his own struggle.

The procession passed the doorway: men bearing banners with sacred
texts, acolytes swinging censers, a figure of the Saviour carved in wood
borne aloft, the Cure under a silk canopy, and a long line of habitants
following with sacred song. People fell upon their knees in the street
as the procession passed, and the Cure’s face was bent here and there,
his hand raised in blessing.

Old Louis got up from his bench, and, putting on a coat over his wool
jacket, hastened to the doorway, knelt down, made the sign of the cross,
and said a prayer. Then he turned quickly towards Charley, who,
looking at the procession, then at the tailor, then back again at the
procession, smiled.

Charley was hardly conscious of what he did. His mind had ranged far
beyond this scene to the large issues which these symbols represented.
Was it one universal self-deception? Was this “religion” the pathetic,
the soul-breaking make-believe of mortality? So he smiled--at himself,
at his own soul, which seemed alone in this play, the skeleton in
armour, the thing that did not belong. His own words written that
fateful day before he died at the Cote Dorion came to him:

“Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher, Each to his office, but who
holds the key? Death, only Death, thou, the ultimate teacher, Wilt show
it to me!”

He was suddenly startled from his reverie, through which the procession
was moving--a cloud of witnesses. It was the voice of Louis Trudel,
sharp and piercing:

“Don’t you believe in God and the Son of God?”

“God knows!” answered Charley slowly in reply--an involuntary
exclamation of helplessness, an automatic phrase deflected from its
first significance to meet a casual need of the mind. Yet it seemed like
satire, like a sardonic, even vulgar, humour. So it struck Louis Trudel,
who snatched up a hot iron from the fire and rushed forward with
a snarl. So astounded was Charley that he did not stir. He was not
prepared for the sudden onslaught. He did not put up his hand even, but
stared at the tailor, who, within a foot of him, stopped short with the
iron poised.

Louis Trudel repented in time. With the cunning of the monomaniac he
realised that an attack now might frustrate his great stroke. It would
bring the village to his shop door, precipitate the crisis upon the
wrong incident.

As it chanced, only one person in Chaudiere saw the act. That was
Rosalie Evanturel across the way. She saw the iron raised, and looked
for M’sieu’ to knock the tailor down; but, instead, she beheld the
tailor go back and put the iron on the fire again. She saw also that
M’sieu’ was speaking, though she could hear no words.

Charley’s words were simple enough. “I beg your pardon, Monsieur,” he
said across the room to old Louis; “I meant no offence at all. I was
trying to think it out in a human sort of way. I suppose I wanted a sign
from Heaven--wanted too much, no doubt.”

The tailor’s lips twitched, and his hand convulsively clutched the
shears at his side.

“It is no matter now,” he answered shortly. “I have had signs from
Heaven; perhaps you will have one too!”

“It would be worth while,” rejoined Charley musingly. Charley wondered
bitterly if he had made an irreparable error in saying those ill-chosen
words. This might mean a breach between them, and so make his position
in the parish untenable. He had no wish to go elsewhere--where could he
go? It mattered little what he was, tinker or tailor. He had now only
to work his way back to the mind of the peasant; to be an animal with
intelligence; to get close to mother earth, and move down the declivity
of life with what natural wisdom were possible. It was his duty to adapt
himself to the mind of such as this tailor; to acquire what the
tailor and his like had found--an intolerant belief and an inexpensive
security, to be got through yielding his nature to the great religious
dream. And what perfect tranquillity, what smooth travelling found
therein.

Gazing across the street towards the little post-office, he saw Rosalie
Evanturel at the window. He fell to thinking about her. Rosalie, on her
part, kept wondering what old Louis’ violence meant.

Presently she saw a half-dozen men come quickly down the street, and,
before they reached the tailorshop, stand in a group talking excitedly.
Afterwards one came forward from the others quickly--Filion Lacasse the
saddler. He stopped short at the tailor’s door. Looking at Charley, he
exclaimed roughly:

“If you don’t hand out the cross you stole from the church door, we’ll
tar and feather you, M’sieu’.” Charley looked up, surprised. It had
never occurred to him that they could associate him with the theft. “I
know nothing of the cross,” he said quietly. “You’re the only heretic
in the place. You’ve done it. Who are you? What are you doing here in
Chaudiere?”

“Working at my trade,” was Charley’s quiet answer. He looked towards
Louis Trudel, as though to see how he took this ugly charge.

Old Louis responded at once. “Get away with you, Filion Lacasse,” he
croaked. “Don’t come here with your twaddle. M’sieu’ hasn’t stole the
cross. What does he want with a cross? He’s not a Catholic.”

“If he didn’t steal the cross, why, he didn’t,” answered the saddler;
“but if he did, what’ll you say for yourself, Louis? You call yourself a
good Catholic--bah!--when you’ve got a heretic living with you.”

“What’s that to you?” growled the tailor, and reached out a nervous hand
towards the iron. “I served at the altar before you were born. Sacre!
I’ll make your grave-clothes yet, and be a good Catholic when you’re in
the churchyard. Be off with you. Ach,” he sharply added, when Filion did
not move, “I’ll cut your hair for you!” He scrambled off the bench with
his shears.

Filion Lacasse disappeared with his friends, and the old man settled
back on his bench.

Charley, looking up quietly from his work, said “Thank you, Monsieur.”

He did not notice what an evil look was in Louis Trudel’s face as it
turned towards him, but Rosalie Evanturel, standing outside, saw it; and
she stole back to the post-office ill at ease and wondering.

All that day she watched the tailor’s shop, and even when the door was
shut in the evening, her eyes were fastened on the windows.




CHAPTER XIX. THE SIGN FROM HEAVEN

The agitation and curiosity possessing Rosalie all day held her in the
evening when the wooden shutters of the tailor’s shop were closed and
only a flickering light showed through the cracks. She was restless and
uneasy during supper, and gave more than one unmeaning response to
the remarks of her crippled father, who, drawn up for supper in his
wheel-chair, was more than usually inclined to gossip.

Damase Evanturel’s mind was stirred concerning the loss of the iron
cross; the threat made by Filion Lacasse and his companions troubled
him. The one person beside the Cure, Jo Portugais, and Louis Trudel, to
whom M’sieu’ talked much, was the postmaster, who sometimes met him of
an evening as he was taking the air. More than once he had walked behind
the wheel-chair and pushed it some distance, making the little crippled
man gossip of village matters.

As the two sat at supper the postmaster was inclined to take a serious
view of M’sieu’s position. He railed at Filion Lacasse; he called the
suspicious habitants clodhoppers, who didn’t know any better--which
was a tribute to his own superior birth; and at last, carried away by a
feverish curiosity, he suggested that Rosalie should go and look through
the cracks in the shutters of the tailor-shop and find out what was
going on within. This was indignantly rejected by Rosalie, but the more
she thought, the more uneasy she became. She ceased to reply to her
father’s remarks, and he at last relapsed into gloom, and said that
he was tired and would go to bed. Thereupon she wheeled him inside his
bedroom, bade him good-night, and left him to his moodiness, which,
however, was soon absorbed in a deep sleep, for the mind of the little
grey postmaster could no more hold trouble or thought than a sieve.

Left alone, Rosalie began to be tortured. What were they doing in the
house opposite?

Go and look through the windows? But she had never spied on people in
her life! Yet would it be spying? Would it not be pardonable? In the
interest of the man who had been attacked in the morning by the tailor,
who had been threatened by the saddler, and concerning whom she had seen
a signal pass between old Louis and Filion Lacasse, would it not be a
humane thing to do? It might be foolish and feminine to be anxious, but
did she not mean well, and was it not, therefore, honourable?

The mystery inflamed her imagination. Charley’s passiveness when he was
assaulted by old Louis and afterwards threatened by the saddler seemed
to her indifference to any sort of danger--the courage of the hopeless
life, maybe. Instantly her heart overflowed with sympathy. Monsieur was
not a Catholic perhaps? Well, so much the more he should be befriended,
for he was so much the more alone and helpless. If a man was born a
Protestant--or English--he could not help it, and should not be punished
in this world for it, since he was sure to be punished in the next.

Her mind became more and more excited. The postoffice had been long
since closed, and her father was asleep--she could hear him snoring.
It was ten o’clock, and there was still a light in the tailor’s
shop. Usually the light went out before nine o’clock. She went to the
post-office door and looked out. The streets were empty; there was not
a light burning anywhere, save in the house of the Notary. Down towards
the river a sleigh was making its way over the thin snow of spring, and
screeching on the stones. Some late revellers, moving homewards from the
Trois Couronnes, were roaring at the top of their voices the habitant
chanson, ‘Le Petit Roger Bontemps’:

          “For I am Roger Bontemps,
             Gai, gai, gai!
          With drink I am full and with joy content,
             Gai, gaiment!”

The chanson died away as she stood there, and still the light was
burning in the shop opposite. A thought suddenly came to her. She would
go over and see if the old housekeeper, Margot Patry, had gone to bed.
Here was the solution to the problem, the satisfaction of modesty and
propriety.

She crossed the street quickly, hurried round the corner of the house,
and was passing the side-window of the shop, when a crack in the
shutters caught her eye. She heard something fall on the floor within.
Could it be that the tailor and M’sieu’ were working at so late an hour?
She had an irresistible impulse, and glued her eye to the crack.

But presently she started back with a smothered cry. There by the great
fireplace stood Louis Trudel picking up a red-hot cross with a pair of
pincers. Grasping the iron firmly just below the arms of the cross, the
tailor held it up again. He looked at it with a wild triumph, yet with a
malignancy little in keeping with the object he held--the holy relic he
had stolen from the door of the parish church. The girl gave a low cry
of dismay.

She saw old Louis advance stealthily towards the door of the shop
leading into the house. In bewilderment, she stood still an instant,
then, with a sudden impulse, she ran to the kitchen-door and tried it
softly. It was not locked. She opened it, entered quickly, and found old
Margot standing in the middle of the room in her night-dress.

“Oh, Rosalie, Rosalie!” cried the old woman, “something’s going to
happen. M’sieu’ Trudel has been queer all evening. I peeped in the
key-hole of the shop just now, and--”

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen too. Come!” said Rosalie, and going quickly to the
door, opened it, and passed through to another room. Here she opened
another door, leading into the hall between the shop and the house.
Entering the hall, she saw a glimmer of light above. It was the reddish
glow of the iron cross held by old Louis. She crept softly up the stone
steps. She heard a door open very quietly. She hurried now, and came to
the landing. She saw the door of Charley’s room open--all the village
knew what room he slept in--and the moonlight was streaming in at the
window.

She saw the sleeping man on the bed, and the tailor standing over him.
Charley was lying with one arm thrown above his head; the other lay over
the side of the bed.

As she rushed forward, divining old Louis’ purpose, the fiery
cross descended, and a voice cried: “‘Show me a sign from Heaven,
tailor-man!’”

This voice was drowned by that of another, which, gasping with agony
out of a deep sleep, as the body sprang upright, cried: “God-oh God!”
 Rosalie’s hand grasped old Louis’ arm too late. The tailor sprang
back with a horrible laugh, striking her aside, and rushed out to the
landing.

“Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!” cried Rosalie, and, snatching a scarf from
her bosom, thrust it in upon the excoriated breast, as Charley, hardly
realising what had happened, choked back moans of pain.

“What did he do?” he gasped.

“The iron cross from the church door!” she answered. “A minute, one
minute, Monsieur!”

She rushed out upon the landing in time to see the tailor stumble on
the stairs and fall head forwards to the bottom, at the feet of Margot
Patry.

Rosalie paid no heed to the fallen man. “Oil! flour! Quick!” she cried.
“Quick! Quick!” She stepped over the body of the tailor, snatched at
Margot’s arm, and dragged her into the kitchen. “Quick-oil and flour!”

The old woman showed her where they were, moaning and whining.

“He tried to kill Monsieur,” cried Rosalie, “burned him on the breast
with the holy cross!”

With oil and flour she hurried back, over the body of the tailor, up
the stairs, and into Charley’s room. Charley was now out of bed and half
dressed, though choking with pain, and preserving consciousness only by
a great effort.

“Good Mademoiselle!” he said.

She took the scarf off gently, soaked it in oil and splashed it with
flour, and laid it quickly back on the burnt flesh.

Margot came staggering into the room.

“I cannot rouse him. I cannot rouse him. He is dead! He is dead!” she
whimpered.

“He--”

Charley swayed forward towards the woman, recovered himself, and said:

“Now not a word of what he did to me, remember. Not one word, or you
will go to jail with him. If you keep quiet, I’ll say nothing. He didn’t
know what he was doing.” He turned to Rosalie. “Not a word of this,
please,” he moaned. “Hide the cross.”

He moved towards the door. Rosalie saw his purpose, and ran out ahead of
him and down the stairs to where the tailor lay prone on his face, one
hand still holding the pincers. The little iron cross lay in a dark
corner. Stooping, she lifted up the tailor’s head, then felt his heart.

“He is not dead,” she cried. “Quick, Margot, some water,” she added,
to the whimpering woman. Margot tottered away, and came again presently
with the water.

“I will go for some one to help,” Rosalie said, rising to her feet,
as she saw Charley come slowly down the staircase, his face white with
misery. She ran and took his arm to help him down.

“No, no, dear Mademoiselle,” he said; “I shall be all right presently.
You must get help to carry him up stairs. Bring the Notary; he and I can
carry him up.”

“You, Monsieur! You--it would kill you! You are terribly hurt.”

“I must help to carry him, else people will be asking questions,” he
answered painfully. “He is going to die. It must not be known--you
understand!” His eyes searched the floor until they found the cross.
Rosalie picked it up with the pincers. “It must not be known what he did
to me,” Charley said to the muttering and weeping old woman. He caught
her shoulder with his hand, for she seemed scarcely to heed.

She nodded. “Yes, yes, M’sieu’, I will never speak.” Rosalie was
standing in the door. “Go quickly, Mademoiselle,” he said. She
disappeared with the iron cross, and flying across the street, thrust it
inside the post-office, then ran to the house of the Notary.




CHAPTER XX. THE RETURN OF THE TAILOR

Twenty minutes later the tailor was lying in his bed, breathing, but
still unconscious, the Notary, M’sieu’, and the doctor of the next
parish, who by chance was in Chaudiere, beside him. Charley’s face was
drawn and haggard with pain, for he had helped to carry old Louis to
bed, though every motion of his arms gave him untold agony. In the
doorway stood Rosalie and Margot Patry.

“Will he live?” asked the Notary.

The doctor shook his head. “A few hours, perhaps. He fell downstairs?”

Charley nodded. There was silence for some time, as the doctor went on
with his ministrations, and the Notary sat drumming his fingers on the
little table beside the bed. The two women stole away to the kitchen,
where Rosalie again pressed secrecy on Margot. In the interest of the
cause she had even threatened Margot with a charge of complicity. She
had heard the phrase “accessory before the fact,” and she used it now
with good effect.

Then she took some fresh flour and oil, and thrust them inside the
bedroom door where Charley now sat clinching his hands and fighting down
the pain. Careful as ever of his personal appearance, however, he had
brushed every speck of flour from his clothes, and buttoned his coat up
to the neck.

Nearly an hour passed, and then the Cure appeared. When he entered the
sick man’s room, Charley followed, and again Rosalie and old Margot came
and stood within the doorway.

“Peace be to this house!” said the Cure. He had a few minutes of
whispered conversation with the doctor, and then turned to Charley.

“He fell down-stairs, Monsieur? You saw him fall?”

“I was in my room--I heard him fall, Cure.”

“Had he been ill during the day?”

“He appeared to be feeble, and he seemed moody.”

“More than usual, Monsieur?” The Cure had heard of the incident of the
morning when Filion Lacasse accused Charley of stealing the cross.

“Rather more than usual, Monsieur.”

The Cure turned towards the door. “You, Mademoiselle Rosalie, how came
you to know?”

“I was in the kitchen with Margot, who was not well.”

The Cure looked at Margot, who tearfully nodded. “I was ill,” she said,
“and Rosalie was here with me. She helped M’sieu’ and me. Rosalie is a
good girl, and kind to me,” she whimpered.

The Cure seemed satisfied, and after looking at the sick man for a
moment, he came close to Charley. “I am deeply pained at what happened
to-day,” he said courteously. “I know you have had nothing to do with
the beloved little cross.”

The Notary tried to draw near and listen, but the Cure’s look held him
back. The doctor was busy with his patient.

“You are only just, Monsieur,” said Charley in response, wishing that
these kind eyes were fixed anywhere than on his face.

All at once the Cure laid a hand upon his arm. “You are ill,” he said
anxiously. “You look very ill indeed. See, Vaudrey,” he added to the
doctor, “you have another patient here!”

The friendly, oleaginous doctor came over and peered into Charley’s
face. “Ill-sure enough!” he said. “Look at this sweat!” he pointed to
the drops of perspiration on Charley’s forehead. “Where do you suffer?”

“Severe pains all through my body,” Charley answered simply, for it
seemed easier to tell the truth, as near as might be.

“I must look to you,” said the doctor. “Go and lie down, and I will come
to you.”

Charley bowed, but did not move. Just then two things drew the attention
of all: the tailor showed returning consciousness, and there was noise
of many voices outside the house and the tramping of feet below-stairs.

“Go and tell them no one must come up,” said the doctor to the Notary,
and the Cure made ready to say the last offices for the dying.

Presently the noise below-stairs diminished, and the priest’s voice
rose in the office, vibrating and touching. The two women sank to their
knees, the doctor followed, his eyes still fixed on the dying man.
Presently, however, Charley did the same; for something penetrating and
reasonable in the devotion touched him.

All at once Louis Trudel opened his eyes. Staring round with acute
excitement, his eyes fell on the Cure, then upon Charley.

“Stop--stop, M’sieu’ le Cure!” he cried. “There’s other work to do.” He
gasped and was convulsed, but the pallor of his face was alive with fire
from the distempered eyes. He snatched from his breast the paper Charley
had neglected to burn. He thrust it into the Curb’s hand.

“See--see!” he croaked. “He is an infidel--black infidel--from hell!”
 His voice rose in a kind of shriek, piercing to every corner of the
house. He pointed at Charley with shaking finger.

“He wrote it there--on that paper. He doesn’t--believe in God.”

His strength failed him, his hand clutched tremblingly at the air. He
laughed, a dry, crackling laugh, and his mouth opened twice or thrice
to speak, but gasping breaths only came forth. With a last effort,
however--as the priest, shocked, stretched out his hand and said: “Have
done, have done, Trudel!”--he cried, in a voice that quavered shrilly:

“He asked--tailor-man--sign--from--Heaven. Look-look!” He pointed wildly
at Charley. “I--gave him--sign of--”

But that was the end. With a shudder the body collapsed in a formless
heap, and the tailor-man was gone to tell of the work he had done for
his faith on earth.




CHAPTER XXI. THE CURE HAS AN INSPIRATION

White and malicious faces peered through the doorway. There was an ugly
murmur coming up the staircase. Many habitants had heard Louis Trudel’s
last words, and had passed them on with vehement exaggeration.

Chaudiere had been touched in its most superstitious corner.
Protestantism was a sin, but atheism was a crime against humanity. The
Protestant might be the victim of a mistake, but the atheist was the
deliberate son of darkness, the source of fearful dangers. An atheist in
their midst was like a scorpion in a flower-bed--no one could tell when
and where he would sting. Rough misdemeanours among them had been many,
there had once been a murder in the parish, but the undefined horrors of
infidelity were more shameful than crimes the eye could see.

To the minds of these excited people the tailor-man’s death was due to
the infidel before them. They were ready to do all that might become
a Catholic intent to avenge the profaned honour of the Church and the
faith. Bodily harm was the natural form for their passion to take.

“Bring him out--let us have him!” they cried with fierce gestures, to
which Rosalie Evanturel turned a pained, indignant face.

As the Curb stood with the paper in his hand, his face set and bitter,
Rosalie made a step forward. She meant to tell the truth about Louis
Trudel, and show how good this man was, who stood charged with an
imaginary crime. But she met the warning eye of the man himself, calm
and resolute, she saw the suffering in the face, endured with what
composure! and she felt instantly that she must obey him, and that--who
could tell?--his plan might be the best in the end. She looked at the
Cure anxiously. What would he say and do? In the Cure’s heart and mind a
great struggle was going on. All his inherent prejudice, the hereditary
predisposition of centuries, the ingrain hatred of atheism, were alive
in him, hardening his mind against the man before him. His first
impulse was to let Charley take his fate at the hands of the people
of Chaudiere, whatever it might be. But as he looked at the man, as he
recalled their first meeting, and remembered the simple, quiet life he
had lived among them--charitable, and unselfish--the barriers of creed
and habit fell down, and tears unbidden rushed into his eyes.

The Cure had, all at once, the one great inspiration of his life--its
one beautiful and supreme imagining. For thus he reasoned swiftly:

Here he was, a priest who had shepherded a flock of the faithful passed
on to him by another priest before him, who again had received them from
a guardian of the fold--a family of faithful Catholics whose thoughts
never strayed into forbidden realms. He had done no more than keep them
faithful and prevent them from wandering--counselling, admonishing,
baptising, and burying, giving in marriage and blessing, sending them on
their last great journey with the cachet of Holy Church upon them. But
never once, never in all his life, had he brought a lost soul into
the fold. If he died to-night, he could not say to St. Peter, when he
arrived at Heaven’s gate: “See, I have saved a soul!” Before the Throne
he could not say to Him who cried: “Go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature”--he could not say: “Lord, by Thy grace
I found this soul in the wilderness, in the dark and the loneliness,
having no God to worship, denial and rebellion in his heart; and behold,
I took him to my breast, and taught him in Thy name, and led him home to
Thy haven, the Church!”

Thus it was that the Cure dreamed a dream. He would set his life to
saving this lost soul. He would rescue him from the outer darkness.

His face suffused, he handed the paper in his hand back to the man
who had written the words upon it. Then he lifted his hand against the
people at the door and the loud murmuring behind them.

“Peace--peace!” he said, as though from the altar. “Leave this room of
death, I command you. Go at once to your homes. This man”--he pointed to
Charley--“is my friend. Who seeks to harm him, would harm me. Go hence
and pray. Pray for yourselves, pray for him, and for me; and pray for
the troubled soul of Louis Trudel. Go in peace.”

Soon afterwards the house was empty, save for the Cure, Charley, old
Margot, and the Notary.

That night Charley sat in the tailor’s bedroom, rigid and calm, though
racked with pain, and watched the candles flickering beside the dead
body. He was thinking of the Cure’s last words to the people.

“I wonder--I wonder,” he said, and through his eyeglass he stared at the
crucifix that threw a shadow on the dead man’s face. Morning found him
there. As dawn crept in he rose to his feet. “Whither now?” he said,
like one in a dream.




CHAPTER XXII. THE WOMAN WHO SAW

Up to the moment of her meeting with Charley, Rosalie Evanturel’s life
had been governed by habit, which was lightly coloured by temperament.
Since the eventful hour on Vadrome Mountain it had become a life of
temperament, in which habit was involuntary and mechanical. She did her
daily duties with a good heart, but also with a sense superior to the
practical action. This grew from day to day, until, in the tragical days
wherein she had secretly played a great part, she moved as in a dream,
but a dream so formal that no one saw any change taking place in her, or
associated her with the events happening across the way.

She had been compelled to answer many questions, for it was known she
was in the tailor’s house when Louis Trudel fell down-stairs, but what
more was there to tell than that she had run for the Notary, and
sent word to the Cure, and that she was present when the tailor died,
charging M’sieu’ with being an infidel? At first she was ill disposed
to answer any questions, but she soon felt that attitude would only do
harm. For the first time in her life she was face to face with moral
problems--the beginning of sorrow, of knowledge, and of life.

In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful
they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy
means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind. To the
primitive mind, with its direct yes and no, there is danger of it
becoming a tragical problem ere it is realised that truth is various
and diverse. Perhaps even with that Mary who hid the matter in her
heart--the exquisite tragedy and glory of Christendom--there was a
delicate feeling of guilt, the guilt of the hidden though lofty and
beautiful thing.

If secrecy was guilt, then Charley and Rosalie were bound together by
a bond as strong as death: Rosalie held the key to a series of fateful
days and doings.

In ordinary course, they might have known each other for five years and
not have come to this sensitive and delicate association. With one great
plunge she had sprung into the river of understanding. In the moment
that she had thrust her scarf into his scorched breast, in that little
upper room, the work of years had been done.

As long as he lived, that mark must remain on M’sieu’s breast--the red,
smooth scar of a cross! She had seen the sort of shining scar a bad burn
makes, and at thought of it she flushed, trembled, and turned her
head away, as though some one were watching her. Even in the night
she flushed and buried her face in the pillow when the thought flashed
through her mind; though when she had soaked the scarf in oil and
flour and laid it on the angry wound she had not flushed at all, was
determined, quiet, and resourceful.

That incident had made her from a girl into a woman, from a child of the
convent into a child of the world. She no longer thought and felt as she
had done before. What she did think or feel could not easily have been
set down, for her mind was one tremulous confusion of unusual thoughts,
her heart was beset by new feelings, her imagination, suddenly finding
itself, was trying its wings helplessly. The past was full of wonder and
event, the present full of surprises.

There was M’sieu’ established already in Louis Trudel’s place, having
been granted a lease of the house and shop by the Curte, on the part of
the parish, to which the property had been left; receiving also a gift
of the furniture and of old Margot, who remained where she had been so
many years. She could easily see Charley at work--pale and suffering
still--for the door was generally open in the sweet April weather,
with the birds singing, and the trees bursting into blossom. Her wilful
imagination traced the cross upon his breast--it almost seemed as if it
were outside upon his clothes, exposed to every eye, a shining thing all
fire, not a wound inside, for which old Margot prepared oiled linen now.

The parish was as perturbed as her own mind, for the mystery of the
stolen cross had never been cleared up, and a few still believed that
M’sieu’ had taken it. They were of those who kept hinting at dark things
which would yet be worked upon the infidel in the tailor’s shop. These
were they to whom the Curb’s beautiful ambition did not appeal. He had
said that if the man were an infidel, then they must pray that he be
brought into the fold; but a few were still suspicious, and they said in
Rosalie’s presence: “Where is the little cross? M’sieu’ knows.”

He did know. That was the worst of it. The cross was in her possession.
Was it not necessary, then, to quiet suspicion for his sake? She had
locked the relic away in a cupboard in her bedroom, and she carried the
key of it always in her pocket. Every day she went and looked at it,
as at some ghostly token. To her it was a symbol, not of supernatural
things, but of life in its new reality to her. It was M’sieu’, it was
herself, it was their secret--she chafed inwardly that Margot should
share a part of that secret. If it were only between their two
selves--between M’sieu’ and herself! If Margot--she paused suddenly,
for she was going to say, If Margot would only die! She was not wicked
enough to wish that; yet in the past few weeks she had found herself
capable of thinking things beyond the bounds of any past experience.

She found a solution at last. She would go to-night secretly and nail
the cross again on the church door, and so stop the chatter of evil
tongues. The moon set very early now, and as every one in Chaudiere was
supposed to be in bed by ten o’clock, the chances of not being seen were
in her favour. She received the final impetus to her resolution by a
quarrelsome and threatening remark of Jo Portugais to some sharp-tongued
gossip in the post-office. She was glad that Jo should defend M’sieu’,
but she was jealous of his friendship for the tailor. Besides, did there
not appear to be a secret between Jo and M’sieu’? Was it not possible
that Jo knew where M’sieu’ came from, and all about him? Of late Jo
had come in and gone out of the shop oftener than in the past, had even
brought her bunches of mosses for her flower-pots, the first budding
lilacs, and some maple-sugar made from the trees on Vadrome Mountain.
She remembered that when she was a girl at school, years ago--ten years
ago--Jo Portugais, then scarcely out of his teens, a cheerful, pleasant,
quick-tempered lad, had brought her bunches of the mountain-ash berry;
that once he had mended the broken runner of her sled; and yet another
time had sent her a birch-bark valentine at the convent, where it was
confiscated by the Mother Superior. Since those days he had become a
dark morose figure, living apart from men, never going to confession,
seldom going to Mass, unloving and unlovable.

There was only one other person in the parish more unloved. That was the
woman called Paulette Dubois, who lived in the little house at the outer
gate of the Manor. Paulette Dubois had a bad name in the parish--so bad
that all women shunned her, and few men noticed her. Yet no one
could say that at the present time she did not live a careful life,
justifying, so far as eye could see, the protection of the Seigneur,
M. Rossignol, a man of queer habits and queerer dress, a dabbler in
physical science, a devout Catholic, and a constant friend of the Cure.
He it was who, when an effort was made to drive Paulette out of the
parish, had said that she should not go unless she wished; that, having
been born in Chaudiere, she had a right to live there and die there; and
if she had sinned there, the parish was in some sense to blame. Though
he had no lodge-gates, and though the seigneury was but a great wide
low-roofed farmhouse, with an observatory, and a chimney-piece dating
from the time of Louis the Fourteenth, the Seigneur gave Paulette Dubois
a little hut at his outer gate, which had been there since the great
Count Frontenac visited Chaudiere. Probably Rosalie spoke to Paulette
Dubois more often than did any one else in the parish, but that was
because the woman came for little things at the shop, and asked for
letters, and every week sent one--to a man living in Montreal. She sent
these letters, but not more than once in six months did she get a reply,
and she had not had one in a whole year. Yet every week she asked, and
Rosalie found it hard to answer her politely, and sometimes showed it.

So it was that the two disliked each other without good cause, save that
they were separated by a chasm as wide as a sea. The one disliked the
other because she must recognise her; the other chafed because she could
be recognised by Rosalie officially only.

The late afternoon of the day in which Rosalie decided to nail the cross
on the church door again, Paulette arrived to ask for letters at the
moment that the office wicket was closed, and Rosalie had answered that
it was after office hours, and had almost closed the door in her face.
As she turned away Jo Portugais came out of the tailor-shop opposite.
He saw Paulette, and stood still an instant. She did the same. A strange
look passed across the face of each, then they turned and went in
opposite directions.

Never in her life had time gone so slowly with Rosalie. She watched
the clock. A dozen times she went to the front door and looked out. She
tried to read--it was no use; she tried to spin-her fingers trembled;
she sorted the letters in the office again, and rearranged every letter
and parcel and paper in its little pigeonhole--then did it all over
again. She took out again the letter Paulette had dropped in the
letter-box; it was addressed in the name of the man at Montreal. She
looked at it in a kind of awe, as she had ever done the letters of this
woman who was without the pale. They had a sense of mystery, an air of
forbidden imagination.

She put the letter back, went to the door again, and looked out. It was
now time to go. Drawing a hood over her head, she stepped out into the
night. There was a little frost, though spring was well forward, and the
smell of the rich earth and the budding trees was sweet to the sense.
The moon had just set, but the stars were shining, and here and there
patches of snow on the hillside and in the fields added to the light.
Yet it was not bright enough to see far, and as Rosalie moved down the
street she did not notice a figure at a little distance behind, walking
on the new-springing grass by the roadside. All was quiet at the tavern;
there was no light in the Notary’s house--as a rule, he sat up late,
reading; and even the fiddle of Maximilian Cour, the baker, was silent.
The Cure’s windows were dark, and the church with its white tin spire
stood up sentinel-like above the village.

Rosalie had the fateful cross in her hand as she softly opened the
gate of the churchyard and approached the great oak doors. Taking a
screw-driver and some screws from her pocket, she felt with a finger
for the old screw-holes in the door. Then she began her work, looking
fearfully round once or twice at first. Presently, however, because the
screws were larger than the old ones, it became much harder; the task
called forth more strength, and drove all thought of being seen out of
her mind for a space. At last, however, she gave the final turn to the
handle, and every screw was in its place, its top level and smooth with
the iron of the cross. She stopped and looked round again with an uneasy
feeling. She could see no one, hear no one, but she began to tremble,
and, overcome, she fell on her knees before the door, and, with her
fingers on the foot of the little cross, prayed passionately; for
herself, for Monsieur.

Suddenly she heard footsteps inside the church. They were coming towards
the doorway, nearer and nearer. At first she was so struck with terror
that she could not move. Then with a little cry she sprang to her feet,
rushed to the gate, threw it open, ran out into the road, ind wildly on
towards home. She did not stop for at least three hundred yards. Turning
and looking back she saw at the church door a pale round light. With
another cry she sped on, and did not pause till she reached the house.
Then, bursting in and locking the door, she hurried to her room,
undressed quickly, got into bed without saying her prayers, and buried
her face in the pillow, shivering and overwrought.

The footsteps she had heard were those of the Cure and Jo Portugais.
The Cure had sent for Jo to do some last work upon a little altar, to
be used the next day for the first time. The carpenter and the carver
in wood who were responsible for the work had fallen victims to white
whiskey on the very last day of their task, and had been driven from the
church by the Cure, who then sent for Jo. Rosalie had not seen the light
at the shrine, as it was on the side of the church farthest from the
village.

Their labour finished, the two came towards the front door, the Cure’s
lantern in his hand. Opening the door, Jo heard the sound of
footsteps and saw a figure flying down the road. As the Cure came out
abstractedly, he glanced sorrowfully towards the place where the little
cross was used to be. He gave a wondering cry, and almost dropped the
lantern.

“See, see, Portugais,” he said, “our little cross again!” Jo nodded. “So
it seems, Monsieur,” he said.

At that instant he saw a hood lying on the ground, and as the Cure held
up the lantern, peering at the little cross, he hastily picked it up and
thrust it inside his coat.

“Strange--very strange!” said the Cure. “It must have been done while we
were inside. It was not there when we entered.”

“We entered by the vestry door,” said Jo.

“Ah, true-true,” responded the Cure.

“It comes as it went,” said Jo. “You can’t account for some things.”

The Cure turned and looked at Jo curiously. “Are you then so
superstitious, Jo? Nonsense; it is the work of human hands--very human
hands,” he added sadly.

“There is nothing to show,” said the Cure, seeing Jo’s glance round.

“As you see, M’sieu’ le Cure.”

“Well, it is a mystery which time no doubt will clear up. Meanwhile, let
us be thankful to God,” said the Cure.

They parted, the Cure going through a side-gate into his own garden, Jo
passing out of the churchyard-gate through which Rosalie had gone. He
looked down the road towards the village.

“Well!” said a voice in his ear. Paulette Dubois stood before him.

“It was you, then,” he said, with a glowering look. “What did you want
with it?”

“What do you want with the hood in your coat there?” She threw her head
back with a spiteful laugh. “Whose do you think it is?” he said quietly.

“You and the schoolmaster made verses about her once.”

“It was Rosalie Evanturel?” he asked, with aggravating composure.

“You have the hood-look at it! You saw her running down the road; I
saw her come, watched her, and saw her go. She is a thief--pretty
Rosalie--thief and postmistress! No doubt she takes letters too.”

“The ones you wait for, and that never come--eh?” Her face darkened with
rage and hatred. “I will tell the world she’s a thief,” she sneered.

“Who will believe you?”

“You will.” She was hard and fierce, and looked him in the eyes
squarely. “You’ll give evidence quick enough, if I ask you.”

“I wouldn’t do anything you asked me to-nothing, if it was to save my
life.”

“I’ll prove her a thief without you. She can’t deny it.”

“If you try it, I’ll--” He stopped, husky and shaking.

“You’ll kill me, eh? You killed him, and you didn’t hang. Oh no, you
wouldn’t kill me, Jo,” she added quickly, in a changed voice. “You’ve
had enough of that kind of thing. If I’d been you, I’d rather have
hung--ah, sure!” She suddenly came close to him. “Do you hate me so bad,
Jo?” she said anxiously. “It’s eight years--do you hate me so bad as
then?”

“You keep your tongue off Rosalie Evanturel,” he said, and turned on his
heel.

She caught his arm. “We’re both bad, Jo. Can’t we be friends?” she said
eagerly, her voice shaking.

He did not reply.

“Don’t drive a woman too hard,” she said between her teeth.

“Threats! Pah!” he rejoined. “What do you think I’m made of?”

“I’ll find that out,” she said, and, turning on her heel, ran down the
road towards the Manor House. “What had Rosalie to do with the cross?”
 Jo said to himself. “This is her hood.” He took it out and looked at it.
“It’s her hood--but what did she want with the cross?”

He hurried on, and as he neared the post-office he saw the figure of a
woman in the road. At first he thought it might be Rosalie, but as he
came nearer he saw it was not. The woman was muttering and crying. She
wandered to and fro bewilderedly. He came up, caught her by the arm, and
looked into her face.

It was old Margot Patry.




CHAPTER XXIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELL. “Oh, M’sieu’, I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what, Margot?”

“Of the last moment, M’sieu’ le Cure.”

“There will be no last moment to your mind--you will not know it when it
comes, Margot.”

The woman trembled. “I am not sorry to die. But I am afraid; it is so
lonely, M’sieu’ le Cure.”

“God is with us, Margot.”

“When we are born we do not know. It is on the shoulders of others. When
we die we know, and we have to answer.”

“Is the answering so hard, Margot?”

The woman shook her head feebly and sadly, but did not speak.

“You have been a good mother, Margot.” She made no sign.

“You have been a good neighbour; you have done unto others as you would
be done by.”

She scarcely seemed to hear.

“You have been a good servant--doing your duty in season and out of
season; honest and just and faithful.”

The woman’s fingers twitched on the coverlet, and she moved her head
restlessly.

The Curb almost smiled, for it seemed as if Margot were finding herself
wanting. Yet none in Chaudiere but knew that she had lived a blameless
life--faithful, friendly, a loving and devoted mother, whose health had
been broken by sleepless attendance at sick-beds by night, while doing
her daily work at the house of the late Louis Trudel.

“I will answer for the way you have done your duty, Margot,” said the
Cure. “You have been a good daughter of the Church.”

He paused a minute, and in the pause some one rose from a chair by
the window and looked out on the sunset sky. It was Charley. The woman
heard, and turned her eyes towards him. “Do you wish him to go?” asked
the Cure.

“No, no--oh no, M’sieu’!” she said eagerly. She had asked all day that
either Rosalie or M’sieu’ should be in the room with her. It would seem
as though she were afraid she had not courage enough to keep the secret
of the cross without their presence. Charley had yielded to her request,
while he shrank from granting it. Yet, as he said to himself, the woman
was keeping his secret--his and Rosalie’s--and she had some right to
make demand.

When the Cure asked the question of old Margot, he turned expectantly,
and with a sense of relief. He thought it strange that the Cure should
wish him to remain. The Cure, on his part, was well pleased to have him
in the influence of a Christian death-bed. A time must come when the
last confidences of the dying woman could be given to no ears but his
own, but meanwhile it was good that M’sieu’ should be there.

“M’sieu’ le Cure,” said the dying woman, “must I tell all?”

“All what, Margot?”

“All that is sin?”

“There is no must, Margot.”

“If you should ask me, M’sieu’--”

She paused, and the man at the window turned and looked curiously at
her. He saw the problem in the woman’s mind: had she the right to die
with the secret of another’s crime upon her mind?

“The priest does not ask, Margot: it is you who confess your sins. That
is between you and God.”

The Cure spoke firmly, for he wanted the man at the window to clearly
understand.

“But if there are the sins of others, and you know, and they trouble
your soul, M’sieu’?”

“You have nothing to do with the sins of others; it is enough to repent
of your own sins. The priest has nothing to do with any sins but those
confessed by the sinner to himself. Your own sins are your sole concern
to-night, Margot.”

The woman’s face seemed to clear a little, and her eyes wandered to
the man at the window with less anxiety. Charley was wondering whether,
after all, she would have the courage to keep her word, whether
spiritual terror would surmount the moral attitude of honour. He was
also wondering how much right he had to put the strain upon the woman
in her desperate hour. “How long did the doctor say I could live?” the
woman asked presently.

“Till morning, perhaps, Margot.”

“I should like to live till sunrise,” she answered, “till after
breakfast. Rosalie makes good tea,” she added musingly.

The Cure almost smiled. “There is the Living Bread, my daughter.”

She nodded. “But I should like to see the sunrise and have Rosalie bring
me tea,” she persisted.

“Very well, Margot. We will ask God for that.”

Her mind flew back again to the old question.

“Is it wrong to keep a secret?” she asked, her face turned away from the
man at the window.

“If it is the secret of a sin, and the sin is your own--yes, Margot.”

“And if the sin is not your own?”

“If you share the sin, and if the secret means injury to others, and a
wrong is being done, and the law can right that wrong, then you must go
to the law, not to your priest.”

The Cure’s look was grave, even anxious, for he saw that the old woman’s
mind was greatly disturbed. But her face cleared now, and stayed so.
“It has all been a mix and a muddle,” she answered; “and it hurt my poor
head, M’sieu’ le Cure, but now I think I under stand. I am not afraid; I
will confess.”

The Cure had made it clear to her that she could carry to her grave the
secret of the little cross and the work it had done, and so keep her
word and still not injure her chances of salvation. She was content.
She no longer needed the helpful presence of M’sieu’ or Rosalie. Charley
instinctively felt what was in her mind, and came towards the bed.

“I will tell Mademoiselle Rosalie about the tea,” he said to her.

She looked up at him, almost smiling. “Thank you, good M’sieu’,” she
said.

“I will confess now, M’sieu’ le Cure” she continued. Charley left the
room.

Towards morning Margot waked out of a brief sleep, and found the Cure
and his sister and others about her bed.

“Is it near sunrise?” she whispered.

“It is just sunrise. See; God has been good,” answered the Cure, drawing
open the blind and letting in the first golden rays.

Rosalie entered the room with a cup of tea, and came towards the bed.

Old Margot looked at the girl, at the tea, and then at the Cure.

“Drink the tea for me, Rosalie,” she whispered. Rosalie did as she was
asked.

She looked round feebly; her eyes were growing filmy. “I never
gave--so much--trouble--before,” she managed to say. “I never had--so
much--attention.... I can keep--a secret too,” she said, setting her
lips feebly with pride. “But I--never--had--so much--attention--before;
have I--Rosalie?”

Rosalie did not need to answer, for the woman was gone. The crowning
interest of her life had come all at the last moment, as it were, and
she had gone away almost gladly and with a kind of pride.

Rosalie also had a hidden pride: the secret was now her very own--hers
and M’sieu’s.




CHAPTER XXIV. THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME

It was St. Jean Baptiste’s day, and French Canada was en fete. Every
seigneur, every cure, every doctor, every notary--the chief figures in a
parish--and every habitant was bent for a happy holiday, dressed in his
best clothes, moved in his best spirits, in the sweet summer weather.

Bells were ringing, flags were flying, every road and lane was filled
with caleches and wagons, and every dog that could draw a cart pulled
big and little people, the old and the blind and the mendicant, the
happy and the sour, to the village, where there were to be sports and
speeches, races upon the river, and a review of the militia, arranged
by the member of the Legislature for the Chaudiere-half of the county.
French soldiers in English red coats and carrying British flags were
straggling along the roads to join the battalion at the volunteers’ camp
three miles from the town, and singing:

          “Brigadier, respondez Pandore--
          Brigadier, vous avez raison.”

It was not less incongruous and curious when one group presently broke
out into ‘God save the Queen’, and another into the ‘Marseillaise’, and
another still into ‘Malbrouck s’en va t’en guerre’. At last songs and
soldiers were absorbed in the battalion at the rendezvous, and the long
dusty march to the village gave a disciplined note to the gaiety of the
militant habitant.

At high noon Chaudiere was filled to overflowing. There were booths
and tents everywhere--all sorts of cheap-jacks vaunted their wares,
merry-go-rounds and swings and shooting-galleries filled the usual
spaces in the perspective. The Cure, M. Rossignol the Seigneur, and
the Notary stood on the church steps viewing the scene and awaiting the
approach of the soldier-citizens. The Seigneur and the Cure had ceased
listening to the babble of M. Dauphin, who seemed not to know that his
audience closed its ears and found refuge in a “Well, well!” or “Think
of that!” or an abstracted “You surprise me!”

The Notary talked on with eager gesture and wreathing smile, shaking
back his oiled ringlets as though they trespassed on his smooth,
somewhat jaundiced cheeks, until it began to dawn upon him that there
was no coin of real applause to be got at this mint. Fortune favoured
him at the critical juncture, for the tailor walked slowly past them,
looking neither to right nor to left, his eyes cast upon the ground,
apparently oblivious to all round him. Almost opposite the church door,
however, Charley was suddenly stopped by Filion Lacasse, who ran out
from a group before the tavern, and, standing in front of him with
outstretched hand, said loudly:

“M’sieu’, it’s all right. What you said done it, sure! I’m a thousand
dollars richer to-day. You may be an infidel, but you have a head, and
you save me money, and you give away your own, and that’s good enough
for me,”--he wrung Charley’s hand,--“and I don’t care who knows
it--sacre!”

Charley did not answer him, but calmly withdrew his hand, smiled, raised
his hat at the lonely cheer the saddler raised, and passed on, scarce
conscious of what had happened. Indeed he was indifferent to it, for he
had a matter on his mind this day which bitterly absorbed him.

But the Notary was not indifferent. “Look there, what do you think
of that?” he asked querulously. “I am glad to see that Lacasse treats
Monsieur well,” said the Cure.

“What do you think of that, Monsieur?” repeated the Notary excitedly to
the Seigneur.

The Seigneur put his large gold-handled glass to his eye and looked
interestedly after Charley for a moment, then answered: “Well, Dauphin,
what?”

“He’s been giving Filion Lacasse advice about the old legacy business,
and Filion’s taken it; and he’s got a thousand dollars; and now there’s
all that fuss. And four months ago Filion wanted to tar and feather him
for being just what he is to-day--an infidel--an infidel!”

He was going to say something else, but he did not like the look the
Cure turned on him, and he broke off short.

“Do you regret that he gave Lacasse good advice?” asked the Cure.

“It’s taking bread out of other men’s mouths.”

“It put bread into Filion’s mouth. Did you ever give Lacasse advice? The
truth now, Dauphin!” said the Seigneur drily.

“Yes, Monsieur, and sound advice too, within the law-precedent and code
and every legal fact behind.” The Seigneur was a man of laconic speech.
“Tut, tut, Dauphin; precedent and code and legal fact are only good when
there’s brain behind ‘em. The tailor yonder has brains.”

“Ah, but what does he know about the law?” answered Dauphin, with
acrimonious voice but insinuating manner, for he loved to stand well
with the Seigneur.

“Enough for the saddler evidently,” sharply rejoined the Seigneur.

Dauphin was fighting for his life, as it were. His back was to the wall.
If this man was to be allowed to advise the habitants of Chaudiere on
their disputes and “going to law,” where would his own prestige be? His
vanity had been deeply wounded.

“It’s guesswork with him. Let him stick to his trade as I stick to mine.
That sort of thing only does harm.”

“He puts a thousand dollars into the saddler’s pocket: that’s a positive
good. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket:
that’s a negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you had
already cost Lacasse--how much had you cost him, Dauphin?” continued the
Seigneur, with a half-malicious smile. “I’ve been out of Chaudiere for
near a year; I don’t know the record--how much, eh, Dauphin?”

The Notary was too offended to answer. He shook his ringlets back
angrily, and a scarlet spot showed on each straw-coloured cheek.

“Twenty dollars is what Lacasse paid our dear Dauphin,” said the Cure
benignly, “and a very proper charge. Lacasse probably gave Monsieur
there quite as much, and Monsieur will give it to the first poor man he
meets, or send it to the first sick person of whom he hears.”

“My own opinion is, he’s playing some game here,” said the Notary.

“We all play games,” said the Seigneur. “His seems to give him hard work
and little luxury. Will you bring him to see me at the Manor, my dear
Cure?” he added. “He will not go. I have asked him.”

“Then I shall visit him at his tailor-shop,” said the Seigneur. “I need
a new suit.”

“But you always had your clothes made in Quebec, Monsieur,” said the
Notary, still carping.

“We never had such a tailor,” answered the Seigneur.

“We’ll hear more of him before we’re done with him,” obstinately urged
the Notary.

“It would give Dauphin the greatest pleasure if our tailor proved to be
a murderer or a robber. I suppose you believe that he stole our little
cross here,” the Cure added, turning to the church door, where his eye
lingered lovingly on the relic, hanging on a pillar just inside, whither
he had had it removed.

“I’m not sure yet he hadn’t something to do with it,” was the stubborn
response.

“If he did, may it bring him peace at last!” said the Cure piously. “I
have set my heart on nailing him to our blessed faith as that cross is
fixed to the pillar yonder--‘I will fasten him like a nail in a sure
place,’ says the Book. I take it hard that my friend Dauphin will not
help me on the way. Suppose the man were evil, then the Church should
try to snatch him like a brand from the burning. But suppose that in his
past there was no wrong necessary to be hidden in the present--and this
I believe with all my heart; suppose that he was wronged, not wronging:
then how much more should the Church strive to win him to the light!
Why, man, have you no pride in Holy Church? I am ashamed of you,
Dauphin, with your great intelligence, your wide reading. With our
knowledge of the world we should be broader.”

The Seigneur’s eyes were turned away, for there was in them at once
humour and a suspicious moisture. Of all men in the world he most
admired the Cure, for his utter truth and nobility; but he could not
help smiling at his enthusiasm--his dear Cure turned evangelist like any
“Methody”!--and at the appeal of the Notary on the ground of knowledge
of the world. He was wise enough to count himself an old fogy, a
provincial, and “a simon-pure habitant,” but of the three he only had
any knowledge of life. As men of the world the Cure and the Notary
were sad failures, though they stood for much in Chaudiere. Yet this
detracted nothing from the fine gentlemanliness of the Cure or the
melodramatic courtesy of the Notary.

Amused and touched as the Seigneur had been at the Cure’s words, he
turned now and said: “Always on the weaker side, Cure; always hoping the
best from the worst of us.”

“I am only following an example at my door--you taught us all charity
and justice,” answered M. Loisel, looking meaningly at the Seigneur.
There was silence a little while, for all three were thinking of the
woman of the hut, at the gate of the Seigneur’s manor.

On this topic M. Dauphin was not voluble. His original kindness to the
woman had given him many troubled hours at home, for Madame Dauphin had
construed his human sympathy into the dark and carnal desires of
the heart, and his truthful eloquence had made his case the worse. A
miserable sentimentalist, the Notary was likely to be misunderstood
for ever, and one or two indiscretions of his extreme youth had been a
weapon against him through the long years of a blameless married life.

He heaved a sigh of sympathy with the Cure now. “She has not come
back yet?” he said to the Seigneur. “No sign of her. She locked up and
stepped out, so my housekeeper says, about the time--”

“The day of old Margot’s funeral,” interposed the Notary. “She’d had
a letter that day, a letter she’d been waiting for, and abroad she
went--alas! the flyaway--from bad to worse, I fear--ah me!”

The Seigneur turned sharply on him. “Who told you she had a letter that
day, for which she had been waiting?” he said.

“Monsieur Evanturel.”

The Seigneur’s face became sterner still. “What business had he to know
that she received a letter that day?”

“He is postmaster,” innocently replied the Notary. “He is the
devil!” said the Seigneur tartly. “I beg your pardon, Cure; but it is
Evanturel’s business not to know what letters go to and fro in that
office. He should be blind and dumb, so far as we all are concerned.”

“Remember that Evanturel is a cripple,” the Cure answered gently. “I am
glad, very glad it was not Rosalie.”

“Rosalie has more than usual sense for her sex,” gruffly but kindly
answered the Seigneur, a look of friendliness in his eyes. “I shall talk
to her about her father; I can’t trust myself to speak to the man.”

“Rosalie is down there with Madame Dauphin,” said the Notary, pointing.
“Shall I ask her to come?”

The Seigneur nodded. He was magistrate and magnate, and he was the
guarantor of the post-office, and of Rosalie and her father. His eyes
fixed in reverie on Rosalie; he and the Cure passively waited her
approach.

She came over, pale and a little anxious, but with a courageous look.
She had a vague sense of trouble, and she feared it might be the little
cross, that haunting thing of all these months.

When she came near, the Cure greeted her courteously, and then, taking
the Notary by the arm, led him away.

The Seigneur and Rosalie being left alone, the girl said: “You wish to
speak with me, Monsieur?”

The Seigneur scrutinised her sharply. Though her colour came and went,
her look was frank and fearless. She had had many dark hours since that
fateful month of April. At night, trying to sleep, she had heard the
ghostly footsteps in the church, which had sent her flying homeward.
Then, there was the hood. She had waited on and on, fearing word would
come that it had been found in the churchyard, and that she had been
seen putting the cross back upon the church door. As day after day
passed she had come at length to realise that, whatever had happened to
the hood, she was not suspected. Yet the whole train of circumstances
had a supernatural air, for the Cure and Jo Portugais had not made
public their experience on the eventful night; she had been educated in
a land of legend and superstition, and a deep impression had been made
upon her mind, giving to her other new emotions a touch of pathos, of
imagination, and adding character to her face. The old Seigneur stroked
his chin as he looked at her. He realised that a change had come upon
her, that she had developed in some surprising way.

“What has happened--who has happened, Mademoiselle Rosalie?” he asked.
He had suddenly made up his mind about that look in her face--he thought
it the woman in her which answers to the call of man, not perhaps any
particular man, but man the attractive influence, the complement.

Her eyes dropped, then raised frankly to his. “I don’t know,”--adding,
with a quick humour, for he had been very friendly with her, and joked
with her in his dry way all her life; “do you, Monsieur?”

He pulled his nose with a quick gesture habitual to him, and answered
slowly and meaningly: “The government’s a good husband and pays regular
wages, Mademoiselle. I’d stick to government.”

“I am not asking for a divorce, Monsieur.”

He pulled his nose again delightedly--so many people were pathetically
in earnest in Chaudiere--even the Cure’s humour was too mediaeval and
obvious. He had never before thought Rosalie so separate from them all.
All at once he had a new interest in her. His cheek flushed a little,
his eye kindled, humour relaxed his lips.

“No other husband would intrude so little,” he rejoined.

“True, there’s little love lost between us, Monsieur.” She felt
exhilaration in talking with him, a kind of joy in measuring word
against word; yet a year ago she would have done no more than smile
respectfully and give a demure reply if the Seigneur had spoken to her
like this.

The Seigneur noted the mixed emotions in her face and the delicate
alertness of expression. As a man of the world, he was inclined to
believe that only one kind of experience can bring such looks to a
woman’s face. He saw in her the awakening of the deeper interests of
life, the tremulous apprehension of nascent emotions and passions which,
at some time or other, give beauty and importance to the nature of every
human being. It did not occur to him that the tailor--the mysterious
figure in the parish--might be responsible. He was observant, but not
imaginative; he was moved by what he saw, in a quiet, unexplainable
manner.

“The government is the best sort of husband. From the other sort you
would get more kisses and less ha’pence,” he continued.

“That might be a satisfactory balance-sheet, Monsieur.”

“Take care, Mademoiselle Rosalie,” he rejoined, half seriously, “that
you don’t miss the ha’pence before you get the kisses.”

She turned pale in very fear. What was he going to say? Was the
post-office to be taken from them? She came straight to the point.

“What have I done wrong, Monsieur? I’ve never kept the mail-stage
waiting; I’ve never left the mailbag unlocked; I’ve never been late
in opening the wicket; I’ve never been careless, and no one’s ever
complained of a lost letter.”

The Seigneur saw her agitation, and was sorry for her. He came to the
point as she had done:

“We will have you made postmistress--you alone, Rosalie Evanturel. I’ve
made up my mind to that. But you’ll promise not to get married--eh?
Anyhow, there’s no one in the parish for you to marry. You’re too
well-born and you’ve been too well educated for a habitant’s wife--and
the Cure or I can’t marry you.”

He was not taken back to see her flush deeply, and it pleased him to see
this much life rising to his own touch, this much revelation to give his
mind a new interest. He had come to that age when the mind is surprised
to find that the things that once charmed charm less, and the things
once hated are less acutely repulsive. He saw her embarrassment. He
did not know that this was the first time that she had ever thought of
marriage since it ceased to be a dream of girlhood, and, by reason of
thinking much on a man, had become a possibility, which, however, she
had never confessed to herself. Here she was faced by it now in the
broad open day: a plain, hard statement, unrelieved by aught save the
humour of the shrewd eyes bent upon her.

She did not answer him at once. “Do you promise not to marry so useless
a thing as man, and to remain true to the government?” he continued.

“If I wished to marry a man, I should not let the government stand in my
way,” she said, in brave confusion.

“But do you wish to marry any man?” he asked abruptly, even petulantly.

“I have not asked myself that question, Monsieur, and--should you ask
it, unless--” she said, and paused with as pretty and whimsical a glance
of merriment as could well be.

He burst out laughing at the swift turn she had given her reply, and at
the double suggestion. Then he suddenly changed. A curious expression
filled his eyes. A smile, almost beautiful, came to his lips.

“‘Pon my honour,” he said, in a low tone, “you have me caught! And I beg
to say--I beg to say,” he added, with a flush mounting in his own face,
a sudden inspiration in his look, “that if you do not think me too old
and crabbed and ugly, and can endure me, I shall be profoundly happy if
you will marry me, Rosalie.”

He stood upright, holding himself very hard, for this idea had shot
into his mind all in an instant, though, unknown to himself, it had been
growing for years, cherished by many a kind act to her father and by
a simple gratitude on her part. He had spoken without feeling the
absurdity of the proposal. He had never married, and he was unprepared
to make any statement on such a theme; but now, having made it somehow,
he would stand by it, in spite of any and all criticism. He had known
Rosalie since her birth, her education was as good as a convent could
secure, she was the granddaughter of a notable seigneur, and here
she was, as fine a type of health, beauty and character as man could
wish--and he was only fifty! Life was getting lonelier for him every
day, and, after all, why should he leave distant relations and the
Church his worldly goods? All this flashed through his mind as he waited
for her answer. Now it seemed to him that he had meant to say this thing
for many years. He had seen an awakening in her--he had suddenly been
awakened himself.

“Monsieur, Monsieur,” she said in a bewildered way, “do not amuse
yourself at my expense.”

“Would it be that, then?” he said, with a smile, behind which there was
determination and self-will. “I want you to marry me; I do with all my
heart. You shall have those ha’pence, and the kisses too, if so be you
will take them--or not, as you will, Rosalie.”

“Monsieur,” she gasped, for something caught her in the throat, and the
tears started to her eyes, “ask me to forget that you have ever said
those words. Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible, it never could be
possible! I am only the postmaster’s daughter.”

“You are my wife, if you will but say the word,” he answered, “and I as
proud a husband as the land holds!”

“You were always kind to me, Monsieur,” she rejoined, her lips
trembling; “won’t you be so still?”

“I am too old?” he asked.

“Oh no, it is not that,” she replied.

“You have as good manners as my mother had. You need not fear comparison
with any lady in the land. Have I not known you all your life? I know
the way you have come, and your birth is as good as mine.”

“Ah, it is not that, Monsieur!”

“I give you my word that I do not come to you because no one else would
have me,” he said with a curious simplicity. “I never asked a woman to
marry me--never! You are the first. There was talk once--but it was all
false. I never meant to ask any one to marry me. But I have the wish now
which I never had in my youth. I thought best of myself always; now, I
think--I think better of you than--”

“Oh, Monsieur, I beg of you, no more! I cannot; oh, I cannot--”

“You--but no; I will not ask you, Mademoiselle. If you have some one
else in your heart, or want some one else there, that is your affair,
not mine--undoubtedly. I would have tried to make you happy; you would
have had peace and comfort all your life; you could have trusted me--but
there it is....” He felt all at once that he was unfair to her, that he
had thrust upon her too hard a problem in too troubled an hour.

“I could trust you with my life, Monsieur Rossignol,” she replied. “And
I love you in a way that a man may be loved to no one’s harm or sorrow:
it is true that!” She raised her eyes to his simply, trustingly.

He looked at her steadily for a moment. “If you change your mind--”

She shook her head sadly.

“Good, then,” he went on, for he thought it wise not to press her now,
though he had no intention of taking her no as final. “I’ll keep an
eye on you. You’ll need me some day soon; I can do things that the Cure
can’t, perhaps.” His manner changed still more. “Now to business,” he
continued. “Your father has been talking about letters received and sent
from the post-office. That is punishable. I am responsible for you both,
and if it is reported, if the woman were to report it--you know the
letter I mean--there would be trouble. You do not talk. Now I am
going to ask the government to make you sole postmistress, with full
responsibility. Then you must govern your father--he hasn’t as much
sense as you.”

“Monsieur, we owe you so much! I am deeply grateful, and, whatever you
do for us, you may rely on me to do my duty.”

They could scarcely hear each other speak now, for the soldiers were
coming nearer, and the fife-and-drum bands were screeching, ‘Louis the
King was a Soldier’.

“Then you will keep the government as your husband?” he asked, with
forced humour, as he saw the Cure and the Notary approaching.

“It is less trouble, Seigneur,” she answered, with a smile of relief.

M. Rossignol turned to the Cure and the Notary. “I have just offered
Mademoiselle a husband she might rule in place of a government that
rules her, and she has refused,” he said in the Cure’s ear, with a dry
laugh.

“She’s a sensible girl, is Rosalie,” said the Cure, not apprehending.

The soldiers were now opposite the church, and riding at their head was
the battalion Colonel, also member of the Legislature.

They all moved down, and Rosalie disappeared in the crowd. As the
Seigneur and the Cure greeted the Colonel, the latter said:

“At luncheon I’ll tell you one of the bravest things ever seen. Happened
half-hour ago at the Red Ravine. Man who did it wore an eye-glass--said
he was a tailor.”




CHAPTER XXV. THE COLONEL TELLS HIS STORY

The Colonel had lunched very well indeed. He had done justice to every
dish set before him; he had made a little speech, congratulating himself
on having such a well-trained body of men to command, and felicitating
Chaudiere from many points of view. He was in great good-humour with
himself, and when the Notary asked him--it was at the Manor, with the
soldiers resting on the grass without--about the tale of bravery he
had promised them, he brought his fist down on the table with great
intensity but little noise, and said:

“Chaudiere may well be proud of it. I shall refer to it in the
Legislature on the question of roads and bridges--there ought to be
a stone fence on that dangerous road by the Red Ravine--Have I your
attention?”

He stood up, for he was an excitable and voluble Colonel, and he loved
oration as a cat does milk. With a knife he drew a picture of the
locale on the table cloth. “Here I was riding on my sorrel, all my noble
fellows behind, the fife and drums going as at Louisburg--that day!
Martial ardour united to manliness and local pride--follow me? Here we
were, Red Ravine left, stump fences and waving fields of grain right.
From military point of view, bad position--ravine, stump fence, brave
soldiers in the middle, food for powder--catch it?--see?”

He emptied his glass, drew a long breath, and again began, the
carving-knife cutting a rhetorical path before him. “I was engaged
upon the military problem--demonstration in force, no scouts ahead,
no rearguard, ravine on the right, stump fence on the left, red coats,
fife-and-drum band, concealed enemy--follow me? Observant mind
always sees problems everywhere--unresting military genius accustoms
intelligence to all possible contingencies--‘stand what I mean?”

The Seigneur took a pinch of snuff, and the Cure, whose mind was
benevolent, listened with the gravest interest.

“At the juncture when, in my mind’s eye, I saw my gallant fellows
enfiladed with a terrible fire, caught in a trap, and I, despairing,
spurring on to die at their head--have I your attention?--just at that
moment there appeared between the ravine and the road ahead a man.
He wore an eye-glass; he seemed an unconcerned spectator of our
movements--so does the untrained, unthinking eye look out upon destiny!
Not far away was a wagon, in it a man. Wagon bisecting our course from a
cross-road--”

He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notary
said: “Yes, yes, the concession road.”

“So, Messieurs. There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band;
there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet
the engine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man
driving--catch it? The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at
that instant strikes up ‘The Chevalier Drew his Sabre’. He shies from
the road with a leap, the man falls backwards into the wagon, and the
reins drop. The horse dashes from the road into the open, and rushes on
to the ravine. What good now to stop the fifes and drums-follow me?
What can we, an armed force, bandoleered, knapsacked, sworded, rifled,
impetuous, brave, what can we do before this tragedy? The man in the
wagon senseless, the flying horse, the ravine, death! How futile the
power of man--‘stand what I mean?”

“Why didn’t your battalion shoot the horse?” said the Seigneur drily,
taking a pinch of snuff. “Monsieur,” said the Colonel, “see the irony,
the implacable irony of fate--we had only blank cartridge! But see you,
here was this one despised man with an eye-glass, a tailor--takes nine
tailors to make a man!--between the ravine and the galloping tragedy.
His spirit arrayed itself like an army with banners, prepared to wrestle
with death as Jacob wrestled with his shadow all the night ‘sieur le
Cure!”

The Cure bowed; the Notary shook back his oiled locks in excitement.

“Awoke a whole man--nine-ninths, as in Adam--in the obscure soul of the
tailor, and, rushing forward, he seized the mottled horse by the bridle
as he galloped upon the chasm: The horse dragged him on--dragged him
on--on--on. We, an army, so to speak, stood and watched the Tailor and
the Tragedy! All seemed lost, but, by the decree of fate--”

“The will of God,” said the Cure softly.

“By the great decree, the man was able to stop the horse, not a
half-dozen feet from the ravine. The horse and the insensible driver
were spared death--death. So, Messieurs, does bravery come from
unexpected places--see?”

The Seigneur, the Cure, and even the Notary clapped their hands, and
murmured praises of the tailor-man. But the Colonel did not yet take his
seat.

“But now, mark the sequel,” he said. “As I galloped over, I saw the
tailor look into the wagon, and turn away quickly. He waited by the
horse till I came near, and then walked off without a word. I rode up,
and tapped him with my sword upon the shoulder. ‘A noble deed, my good
man,’ said I. ‘I approve of your conduct, and I will remember it in the
Legislature when I address the committee of the whole house on roads and
bridges.’ What do you think was his reply to my affable words? When I
tapped him approvingly on the shoulder a second time, he screwed his
eye-glass in his eye, and, with no emotion, though my own eyes were
full of tears, he said, in a tone of affront, ‘Look after the man there,
constable,’ and pointed to the wagon. Constable--mon Dieu! Gross manners
even for a tailor!”

“I had not thought his manners bad,” said the Cure, as the Colonel sat
down, gulped a glass of brandy-and-water, and mopped his forehead.

“A most remarkable tailor,” said the Seigneur, peering into his
snuff-box.

“And the driver of the mottled horse?” asked the Notary.

“Knocked senseless. One of my captains soon restored him. He followed
us into the village. He is a quack-doctor. I suppose he is now selling
tinctures, pulling teeth, and driving away rheumatics. He gave me his
card. I told him he should leave one on the tailor.”

With a flourish he threw a professional card upon the table, before the
Cure.

The Cure picked it up and read:

             JOHN BROWN, B.A., M.D.,

     Healer of Ailments that Defy the Ordinary Skill of Ordinary
     Medical Men. Rheumatism, Sciatica, Headache, Toothache,
     Asthma, Ague, Pleurisy, Gout, and all Chronic Diseases Yield
     Instantly to the Power of his Medicines.

   Dr. Brown will publicly treat the most stubborn cases, laying
   himself open to the derision of mankind if he does not instantly
   give relief and benefit. His whole career has been a blessing to
   his fellows, and his journey now through this country, fresh from
   his studies in the Orient, is to introduce his remedies to a
   suffering world, for the conquest of malady, not for personal
   profit.

             JOHN BROWN, B.A., M.D.,

     Specialist in Chronic Diseases and General Practitioner.




CHAPTER XXVI. A SONG, A BOTTLE, AND A GHOST

All day John Brown, ex-clergyman and quack-doctor, harangued the people
of Chaudiere from his gaily-painted wagon. He had the perfect gift
of the charlatan, and he had discovered his metier. Inclined to the
picturesque by nature, melodramatic and empirical, his earlier career
had been the due fruit of habit and education. As a dabbler in mines
he had been out of his element. He lacked the necessary reticence, and
arsenic had not availed him, though it had tempted Billy Wantage to
forgery; and because Billy hid himself behind the dismal opportunity of
silence, had ruined the name of a dead man called Charley Steele. Since
Charley’s death John Brown had never seen Billy: he had left the town
one woful day an hour after Billy had told him of the discovery Charley
had made. From a far corner of the country he had read the story of
Charley’s death; of the futile trial of the river-drivers afterwards,
ending in acquittal, and the subsequent discovery of the theft of the
widows’ and orphans’ trust-moneys.

On this St. Jean Baptiste’s day he was thinking of anything and
everything else but Charley Steele. Nothing could have been a better
advertisement for him than the perilous incident at the Red Ravine.
Falling backwards when the horse suddenly bolted, his head had struck
the medicine-chest, and he had lain insensible till brought back to
consciousness by the good offices of the voluble Colonel. He had not,
therefore, seen Charley. It was like him that his sense of gratitude to
the unknown tailor should be presently lost in exploiting the interest
he created in the parish. His piebald horse, his white “plug” hat,
his gaily painted wagon, his flamboyant manner, and, above all, the
marvellous tale of his escape from death, were more exciting to
the people of Chaudiere than the militia, the dancing-bears, the
shooting-galleries, or the boat-races. He could sing extremely well--had
he not trained his own choir when he was a parson? had not Billy
approved his comic songs?--and these comic songs, now sandwiched between
his cures and his sales, created much laughter. He cured headaches,
toothaches, rheumatism, and all sorts of local ailments “with despatch.”
 He miraculously juggled away pains by what he called his Pain Paint, and
he stopped a cough by a laugh and a dose of his Golden Pectoral. In the
exuberance of trade, which steadily increased till sundown, he gave no
thought to the tailor, to whom, however, he had sent by a messenger
a two-dollar bill and two bottles of Pain Paint, with the lordly
announcement that he would call in the evening and “present his
compliments and his thanks.” The messenger left the Pain Paint on the
door-step of the tailor-shop, and the two dollars he promptly spent at
the Trois Couronnes.

Rosalie Evanturel rescued the bottles from the doorstep and awaited
Charley’s return to his shop, that she might take them over to him, and
so have an excuse to speak with him; for to-day her heart and mind were
full of him. He had done a brave thing for the medicine-man, and had
then fled from public gaze as a brave man should. There was no one to
compare with him. Not even the Cure was his superior in ability, and
certainly he was a greater man--though seemingly only a tailor--than M.
Rossignol. M. Rossignol--she flushed. Who could have believed that the
Seigneur would say those words to her this morning--to her, Rosalie
Evanturel, who hadn’t five hundred dollars to her name? That she should
be asked to be Madame Rossignol! Confusion mingled with her simple
pride, and she ran out into the street, to where her father sat
listening to the medicine-man singing, in doubtful French:

          “I am a waterman bold,
          Oh, I’m a waterman bold:
          But for my lass I have great fear,
          Yes, in the isles I have great fear,
          For she is young, and I am old,
          And she is bien gentille!”

It was night now. The militia had departed, their Colonel roaring
commands at them out of a little red drill-book; the older people had
gone to their homes, but festive youth hovered round the booths and
sideshows, the majority enjoying themselves at some expense in the
medicine-man’s encampment.

As Rosalie ran towards the crowd she turned a wistful glance to the
tailor-shop. Not a sign of life there! She imagined M’sieu’ to be at
Vadrome Mountain, until, glancing round the crowd at the quack-doctor’s
wagon, she saw Jo Portugais gloomily watching the travelling tinker of
human bodies. Evidently M’sieu’ was not at Vadrome Mountain.

He was not far from her. At the side of the road, under a huge
maple-tree with wide-spreading branches, Charley stood and watched John
Brown performing behind the flaring oil-lights stuck on poles round his
wagon, his hat now on, now off; now singing a comic song in English---‘I
found Y’ in de Honeysuckle Paitch;’ now a French chanson--‘En Revenant
de St. Alban;’ now treating a stiff neck or a bent back, or giving
momentary help to the palsy of an old man, or again making a speech.

Charley was in touch again with the old life, but in a kind of fantasy
only--a staring, high-coloured dream. This man--John Brown--had gone
down before his old ironical questioning, had been, indirectly, the
means of disgracing his name. A step forward to that wagon, a word
uttered, a look, and he would have to face again the life he had put
by for ever, would have to meet a hard problem and settle it--to what
misery and tragedy, who might say? Under this tree he was M. Mallard,
the infidel tailor, whose life was slowly entering into the life of
this place called Chaudiere, slowly being acted upon by habit, which,
automatically repeated, at length becomes character. Out in that red
light, before that garish wagon, he would be Charley Steele, barrister,
‘flaneur’, and fop, who, according to the world, had misused a wife,
misled her brother, robbed widows and orphans, squandered a fortune,
become drunkard and wastrel, and at last had lost his life in
a disorderly tavern at the Cote Dorion. This man before him had
contributed to his disgrace; but once he had contributed to John Brown’s
disgrace; and to-day he had saved John Brown’s life. They were even.

All the night before, all this morning, he had fought a fierce battle
with his past--with a raging thirst. The old appetite had swept over him
fiercely. All day he had moved in a fevered conflict, which had lifted
him away from the small movements of everyday life into a region where
only were himself and one strong foe, who tirelessly strove with him. In
his old life he had never had a struggle of any sort. His emotions had
been cloaked, his soul masked, there had been a film before his eyes, he
had worn an armour of selfishness on a life which had no deep problems,
because it had no deep feelings--a life never rising to the intellectual
prowess for which it was fitted, save when under the stimulus of liquor.

From the moment he had waked from a long seven months’ sleep in the
hut on Vadrome Mountain, new deep feelings had come to him as he faced
problems of life. Fighting had begun from that hour--a fighting which
was putting his nature through bitter mortal exercises, yet, too, giving
him a sense of being he had never known. He had now the sweetness of
earning daily bread by the work of his hands; of giving to the poor, the
needy, and the afflicted; of knowing for the first time in his life that
he was not alone in the world. Out of the grey dawn of life a woman’s
voice had called to him; the look of her face had said to him: “Viens
ici! Viens ici!”--“Come to me! Come to me!”

But with that call there was the answer of his soul, the desolating cry
of the dispossessed Lear--“--never--never--never--never!”

He had not questioned himself concerning Rosalie--had dared not to do
so. But now, as he stood under the great tree, within hand-touch of the
old life, in imminent danger of being thrust back into it, the question
of Rosalie came upon him with all the force of months of feeling behind
it. Thus did he argue with himself:

“Do I love her? And if I love her, what is to be done? Marry her, with
a wife living? Marry her while charged with a wretched crime? Would that
be love? But suppose I never were discovered, and we might live here for
ever, I as ‘Monsieur Mallard,’ in peace and quiet all the days of our
life? Would that be love?... Could there be love with a vital secret,
like, a cloud between, out of which, at any hour, might spring
discovery? Could I build our life upon a silence which must be a lie?
Would I not have to face the question, Does any one know cause or
just impediment why this woman should not be married to this man? Tell
Rosalie all, and let the law separate myself and Kathleen? That would
mean Billy’s ruin and imprisonment, and Kathleen’s shame, and it might
not bring Rosalir. She is a Catholic, and her Church would not listen to
it. Would I have the right to bring trouble into her life? To wrong one
woman should seem enough for one lifetime!”

At that instant Rosalie, who had been on the outskirts of the crowd,
moved into his line of vision. The glare from the lights fell on her
face as she stood by her father’s chair, looking curiously at the
quack-doctor who, having sold many bottles of his medicines, noy picked
up a guitar and began singing an old dialect chanson of Saintonge:

          “Voici, the day has come
          When Rosette leaves her home!
          With fear she walks in the sun,
          For Raoul is ninety year,
          And she not twenty-one.
          La petit’ Rosette,
          She is not twenty-one.

          “He takes her by the hand,
          And to the church they go;
          By parents ‘twas well meant,
          But is Rosette content?
          ‘Tis gold and ninety year
          She walks in the sun with fear,
          La petit’ Rosette,
          Not twenty-one as yet!”

Charley’s eyes, which had watched her these months past, noted the
deepening colour of the face, the glow in the eyes, the glances of keen
but agitated interest towards the singer. He could not translate her
looks; and she, on her part, had she been compelled to do so, could only
have set down a confusion of sensations.

In Rosette she saw herself, Rosalie Evanturel; in the man “de
quatre-vingt-dix ans,” who was to marry this Rosette of Saintonge, she
saw M. Rossignol. Disconcerting pictures of a possible life with
the Seigneur flitted before her mind. She beheld herself, young,
fresh-cheeked, with life beating high and all the impulses of youth
panting to use, sitting at the head of the seigneury table. She saw
herself in the great pew at Mass, stiff with dignity, old in the way
of manorial pride--all laughter dead in her, all spring-time joy
overshadowed by the grave decorum of the Manor, all the imagination of
her dreaming spirit chilled by the presence of age, however kindly and
quaint and cheerful.

She shuddered, and dropped her eyes upon the ground, as, to the laughter
and giggling of old and young gathered round the wagon, the medicine-man
sang:

          “He takes her by the hand,
          And to her chamber fair--”

Then, suddenly turning, she vanished into the night, followed by the
feeble inquiry of her father’s eyes, the anxious look in Charley’s.

Charley could not read her tale. He had, however, a hot impulse
to follow and ask her if she would vanish from the scene if the
medicine-man should sing of Rosette and a man of thirty, not ninety,
years. The fight he had had all day with his craving for drink had made
him feverish, and all his emotions--unregulated, under the command of
his will only--were in high temperature. A reckless feeling seized him.
He would go to Rosalie, look into her eyes, and tell her that he loved
her, no matter what the penalty of fate. He had never loved a human
being, and the sudden impulse to cry out in the new language was driving
him to follow the girl whose spirit for ever called to him.

He made a step forward to follow her, but stopped short, recalled to
caution and his danger by the voice of the medicine-man:

“I had a friend once--good fellow, bad fellow, cleverest chap I ever
knew. Tremendous fop--ladies loved him--cheeks like roses--tongue like
sulphuric acid. Beautiful to look at. Clothes like a fashion-plate--got
any fashion-plates in Chaudiere? ‘who’s your tailor?’” he added, in the
slang of the hour, with a loud laugh, then stopped suddenly and took
off his hat. “I forgot,” he added, with upturned eyes and a dramatic
seriousness, “your tailor saved my life to-day-henceforth I am the
friend of all tailors. Well, to continue. My friend that was--I call him
my friend, though he ruined me and ruined others,--didn’t mean to, but
he did just the same,--he came to a bad end. But he was a great man
while he lived. And what I’m coming to is this, the song he used to sing
when, in youthful exuberance, we went on the war-path like our young
friend over there”--he pointed to a young habitant farmer, who was
trying hard to preserve equilibrium--“Brown’s Golden Pectoral will cure
that cough, my friend!” he added, as the young man, gloomily ashamed of
the laughter of the crowd, hiccoughed and turned away to the tree under
which Charley Steele stood. “Well,” he went on, “I was going to say
that my friend’s name was Charley, and the song he used to sing when the
roosters waked the morn was called ‘Champagne Charlie.’ He was called
‘Champagne Charlie’--till he came to a bad end.”

He twanged his guitar, cleared his throat, winked at Maximilian Cour the
baker, and began:

     “The way I gained my title’s by a hobby which I’ve got
     Of never letting others pay, however long the shot;
     Whoever drinks at my expense is treated all the same;
     Whoever calls himself my friend, I make him drink champagne.
     Some epicures like Burgundy, Hock, Claret, and Moselle,
     But Moet’s vintage only satisfies this champagne swell.
     What matter if I go to bed and head is muddled thick,
     A bottle in the morning sets me right then very quick.
     Champagne Charlie is my name;
     Champagne Charlie is my name.
     Who’s the man with the heart so young,
     Who’s the man with the ginger tongue?
     Champagne Charlie is his name!”

Under the tree, Charley Steele listened to this jaunty epitaph on his
old self. At the first words of the coarse song there rushed on him
the dreaded thirst. He felt his veins beating with desire, with anger,
disgust, and shame; for there was John Brown, to the applause of the
crowd, imitating his old manner, his voice, his very look. He started
forward, but the drunken young habitant lurched sideways under the tree
and collapsed upon the ground, a bottle of whiskey falling out of his
pocket and rolling almost to his own feet.

          “Champagne Charlie is my name,”

sang the medicine-man. All Charley’s old life surged up in him as
dyked water suddenly bursts bounds and spreads destruction. He had an
uncontrollable impulse. As a starving animal snatches at the first food
offered it, he stooped, with a rattle in his throat, seized the bottle,
uncorked it, put it to his lips, and drank--drank--drank.

Then he turned and plunged away into the trees. The sound of the song
followed him. It came to him, the last refrain, sung loudly to the
laughter of the crowd, in imitation of his own voice as it used to
be--it had been a different voice during this past year. He turned with
headlong intention, and, as the last notes of the song and the applause
that followed it, died away, threw back his head and sang out of the
darkness:

          “Champagne Charlie is my name--”

With a shrill laugh, like the half-mad cry of an outcast soul, he flung
away farther into the trees.

There was a sudden silence. The crowd turned with half-apprehensive
laughter to the trees. Upon John Brown the effect was startling. His
face blanched, his eyes grew large with terror, his mouth opened in
helpless agitation. Charley Steele was lying under the waters of the
great river, his bones rotting there for a year, yet here was his voice
coming out of the night, in response to his own grotesque imitation of
the dead man. Seeing his agitation, women turned pale, men felt their
flesh creep, imagination gave a thrilling coldness to the air. For a
moment the silence was unbroken. Then John Brown stretched out his hand
and said, in a hoarse whisper:

“It was his voice--Charley’s voice, and he’s been dead a year!”

Within half-an-hour, in utter collapse and fright, he was being driven
to the next parish by two young habitants whom he paid to accompany him.




CHAPTER XXVII. OUT ON THE OLD TRAIL.

There was one person in the crowd surrounding the medicine-man’s wagon
who had none of that superstitious thrill which had scattered the
habitants into little awe-stricken groups, and then by twos and threes
to their homes; none of that fear which had reduced the quack-doctor to
such nervous collapse that he would not spend the night in the village.
Jo Portugais had recognised the voice--that of Charley Steele the lawyer
who had saved him from hanging years ago. It was little like the voice
of M’sieu’! There was that in it which frightened him. He waited until
he had seen the quackdoctor start for the next parish, then he went
slowly down the street. There were people still about, so he walked on
towards the river. When he returned, the street was empty. Keeping in
the shadow of the trees, he went to Charley’s house. There was a light
in a window. He went to the back door and tried it. It was not locked,
and, without knocking, he stepped inside the kitchen. Here was no light,
and he passed into the hallway and on to a little room opening from the
tailorshop. He knocked; then, not waiting for response, opened the door
and entered.

Charley was standing before a mirror, holding a pair of scissors. He
turned abruptly, and said forbiddingly: “I am at my toilet!”

Then, turning again to the mirror, with a shrug of the shoulders, he
raised the shears to his beard. Before he could use them, Jo’s hand was
on his arm.

“Stop that, M’sieu’!” he said huskily.

Charley had drunk nearly a whole bottle of cheap whiskey within an hour.
He was intoxicated, but, as had ever been the case with him, his brain
was working clearly, his hand was steady; he was in that wide dream
of clear-seeing and clear-knowing which, in old days, had given him
glimpses of the real life from which, in the egotism of the non-intime,
he had been shut out. Looking at Jo now, he was possessed by a composed
intoxication like that in which he had moved during that last night at
the Cote Dorion.

But now, with the baleful crust of egotism gone, with every nerve of
life exposed, with conscience struggling to its feet from the torpor of
thirty-odd vacant years, he was as two men in one, with different lives
and different souls, yet as inseparable in their misery as those poor
victims of Gallic tyranny, chained back to back and thrown into the
Seine.

Jo’s words, insistent and eager, suddenly roused in him some old memory,
which stayed his hand.

“Why should I stop?” he asked quietly, and smiling that smile which had
infuriated the river-drivers at the Cote Dorion.

“Are you going back, M’sieu?”

“Back where?” Charley’s eyes were fixed on Jo with a penetrating
intensity, heightened to a strange abstraction, as though he saw not Jo
alone, but something great distances beyond.

Jo did not answer this question directly. “Some one came to-day--he is
gone; some one may come to-morrow--and stay,” he said meaningly.

Charley went over to the fire and sat down on a bench, opening and
shutting the scissors mechanically. Jo was in the light, and Charley’s
eyes again studied him hard.

His memory was industriously feeling its way into the baffling distance.

“What if some one did come-and stay?” he urged quietly.

“You might be recognised without the beard.”

“What difference would it make?” Charley’s memory was creeping close to
the hidden door. It was feeling-feeling for the latch.

“You know best, M’sieu’.”

“But what do you know?” Charley’s face now had a strained look, and he
touched his lips with his tongue. “What John Brown knows, M’sieu’.”

There flashed across Charley’s mind the fatal newspaper he had read on
the day he awakened to memory again in the but on Vadrome Mountain. He
remembered that he had put it in the fire. But Jo might have read it
before it was spread upon the bench-put it there of purpose for him to
read. Yet what reason could Jo have for being silent, for hiding his
secret?

There was silence for a space, in which Charley’s eyes were like
unmoving sparks of steel. He did not see Jo’s face--it was in a mist--he
was searching, searching, searching. All at once he felt the latch of
the hidden door under his finger; he saw a court-room, a judge and jury,
and hundreds of excited faces, himself standing in the midst. He saw
twelve men file slowly into the room and take their seats-all save one,
who stood still in his place and said: “Not guilty, your Honour!” He
saw the prisoner leave the box and step down a free man. He saw himself
coming out into the staring summer day. He watched the prisoner come to
him and touch his arm, and say: “Thank you, M’sieu’. You have saved my
life.” He saw himself turn to this man:

He roused from his trance, he staggered to his feet, the shears rattled
to the floor. Lurching forward, he caught Jo Portugais by the throat,
and said, as he had said outside the court-room years ago:

“Get out of my sight. You’re as guilty as hell!”

His grip tightened--tightened on Jo’s throat. Jo did not move, though
his face grew black. Then, suddenly, the hands relaxed, a bluish
paleness swept over the face, and Charley fell sidewise to the floor
before Jo could catch him.

All night, alone, the murderer struggled with death over the body of the
lawyer who had saved his life.




CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING

Rosalie had watched a shut door for five days--a door from which, for
months past, had come all the light and glow of her life. It framed a
figure which had come to represent to her all that meant hope and soul
and conscience-and love. The morning after St. Jean Baptiste’s day
she had awaited the opening door, but it had remained closed. Ensued
watchful hours, and then from Jo Portugais she had learned that M’sieu’
had been ill and near to death. She had been told the weird story of the
medicine-man and the ghostly voice, and, without reason, she took the
incident as a warning, and associated it with the man across the way.
She was come of a superstitious race, and she herself had heard and seen
things of which she never had been able to speak--the footsteps in the
church the night she had screwed the little cross to the door again;
the tiny round white light by the door of the church; the hood which had
vanished into the unknown. One mystery fed another. It seemed to her as
if some dreadful event were forward; and all day she kept her eyes fixed
on the tailor’s door.

Dead--if M’sieu’ should die! If M’sieu’ should die--it needed all her
will to prevent herself from going over and taking things in her
own hands, being his nurse, his handmaid, his slave. Duty--to the
government, to her father? Her heart cried out that her duty lay where
all her life was eddying to one centre. What would the world say? She
was not concerned for that, save for him. What, then, would M’sieu’ say?
That gave her pause. The Seigneur’s words the day before had driven her
back upon a tide of emotions which carried her far out upon that sea
where reason and life’s conventions are derelicts, where Love sails with
reckless courage down the shoreless main.

“If I could only be near him!” she kept saying to herself. “It is my
right. I would give my life, my soul for his. I was with him before when
his life was in danger. It was my hand that saved him. It was my love
that tended him. It was my soul that kept his secret. It was my faith
that spoke for him. It was my heart that ached for him. It is my heart
that aches for him now as none other in all the world can. No one on
earth could care as I care. Who could there be?” Something whispered in
her ear, “Kathleen!” The name haunted her, as the little cross had done.
Misery and anger possessed her, and she fought on with herself through
dark hours.

Thus five days had gone, until at last a wagon was brought to the door
of the tailor-shop, and M’sieu’ came out, leaning on the arm of Jo
Portugais. There were several people in the street at the time, and they
kept whispering that M’sieu’ had been at death’s door. He was pale and
haggard, with dark hollows under the eyes. Just as he got into the wagon
the Cure came up. They shook hands. The Cure looked him earnestly in the
face, his lips moved, but no one could have told what he said. As the
wagon started, Charley looked across to the post-office. Rosalie was
standing a little back from the door, but she stepped forward now. Their
eyes met. Her heart beat faster, for there was a look in his eyes she
had never seen before--a look of human helplessness, of deep anxiety. It
was meant for her--for herself alone. She could not trust herself to go
and speak to him. She felt that she must burst into tears. So, with a
look of pity and pain, she watched the wagon go down the street.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!--the Seigneur’s gold-headed cane rattled on the
front door of the tailor-shop. It was plain to be seen his business was
urgent.

Madame Dauphin came hurrying from the postoffice, followed by Maximilian
Cour and Filion Lacasse. “Ah, M’sieu’, the tailor will not answer.
There’s no use knocking--not a bit, M’sieu’ Rossignol,” said Madame.

The Seigneur turned querulously upon the Notary’s wife, yet with a glint
of hard humour in his eye. He had no love for Madame Dauphin. He thought
she took unfair advantages of M. Dauphin, whom also he did not love, but
whose temperament did him credit.

“How should Madame know whether or no the gentleman will answer? Does
Madame share the gentleman’s confidence, perhaps?” he remarked.

Madame did not reply at once. She turned on the saddler and the baker.
“I hope you’ll learn a lesson,” she cried triumphantly. “I’ve always
said the tailor was quite the gentleman; and now you see how your
betters call him. No, M’sieu’, the gentleman will not answer,” she added
to the Seigneur.

“He is in bed yet, Madame?”

“His bed is empty there, M’sieu’,” she said, impressively, and pointing.

“I suppose I should trust you in this matter; I suppose you should know.
But, Dauphin--what does Dauphin say?”

The saddler laughed outright. Maximilian Cour suddenly blushed in
sympathy with Madame Dauphin, who now saw the drift of the Seigneur’s
remarks, and was sensibly agitated, as the Seigneur had meant her to be.
Had she not turned Dauphin’s human sympathies into a crime? Had not
the Notary supported the Seigneur in his friendly offices to Paulette
Dubois; and had not Madame troubled her husband’s life because of it?
Madame bridled up now--with discretion, for it was not her cue to offend
the Seigneur.

“All the village knows his bed’s empty there, M’sieu’,” she said, with
tightening lips.

“I am subtracted from the total, then?” he asked drily.

“You have been away for the last five days--”

“Come, now, how did you know that?”

“Everybody knows it. You went away with the Colonel and the soldiers on
St. Jean Baptiste’s day. Since then M’sieu’ the tailor has been ill. I
should think Mrs. Flynn would have told you that, M’sieu’.”

“H’m! Would you? Well, Mrs. Flynn has been away too--and you didn’t know
that! What is the matter with Monsieur Mallard?”

“Some kind of fever. On St. Jean Baptiste’s day he was taken ill, and
that animal Portugais took care of him all night--I wonder how M’sieu’
can have the creature about! That St. Jean Baptiste’s night was an awful
night. Have you heard of what happened, M’sieu’? Ghost or no ghost--”

“Come, come, I want to know about the tailor, not of ghosts,”
 impatiently interrupted the Seigneur. “Tiens! M’sieu’, the tailor was
ill for three days here, and he would let no one except the Cure and Jo
Portugais near him. I went myself to clean up and make some broth, but
that toad of a Portugais shut the door in my face. The Cure told us to
go home and leave M’sieu’ with Portugais. He must be very sick to have
that black sheep about him--and no doctor either.”

The saddler spoke up now. “I took him a bottle of good brandy and some
buttermilk-pop and seed cake--I would give him a saddle if he had a
horse--he got my thousand dollars for me! Well, he took them, but what
do you think? He sent them right off to the shantyman, Gugon, who has a
broken leg. Infidel or no, I’m on his side for sure. And God blesses a
cheerful giver, I’m told.”

It was the baker’s chance, and he took it. “I played ‘The Heart Bowed
Down’-it is English-under his window, two nights ago, and he sent word
for me to come and play it again in the kitchen. Ah, that is a good
song, ‘The Heart Bowed Down.’”

“You’d be a better baker if you fiddled less,” said Madame Dauphin,
annoyed at being dropped out of the conversation.

“The soul must be fed, Madame,” rejoined the baker, with asperity.

“Where is the tailor now?” said the Seigneur shortly. “At Portugais’s on
Vadrome Mountain. They say he looked like a ghost when he went. Rosalie
Evanturel saw him, but she has no tongue in her head this morning,”
 added Madame.

The Seigneur moved away. “Good-bye to you--I am obliged to you, Madame.
Good-bye, Lacasse. Come and fiddle to me some night, Cour.”

He bowed to the obsequious three, and then bent his steps towards the
post-office. They seemed about to follow him, but he stopped them with a
look. The men raised their bonnets-rouges, the woman bowed low, and the
Seigneur entered the post-office door.

From the shadows of the office Rosalie had watched the little group
before the door of the tailor-shop. She saw the Seigneur coming across
the street. Suddenly she flushed deeply, for there came to her mind the
song the quack-doctor sang:

            “Voila, the day has come
             When Rosette leaves her home!
             With fear she walks in the sun,
             For Raoul is ninety year,
             And she not twenty-one.”

As M. Rossignol’s figure darkened the doorway, she pretended to be busy
behind the wicket, and not to see him. He was not sure, but he
thought it quite possible that she had seen him coming, and he put her
embarrassment down to shyness. Naturally the poor child was not given
the chance every day to receive an offer of marriage from a seigneur.
He had made up his mind that she would be sure to accept him if he asked
her a second time.

“Ah, Ma’m’selle Rosalie,” he said gaily, “what have you to say that you
should not come before a magistrate at once?”

“Nothing, if Monsieur Rossignol is to be the magistrate,” she replied,
with forced lightness.

“Good!” He looked at her quizzically through his gold-handled glass. “I
can’t frighten you, I see. Well, you must wait a little; you shall be
sworn in postmistress in three days.” His voice lowered, became more
serious. “Tell me,” he said, “do you know what is the matter with the
gentleman across the way?” Turning, he looked across to the tailor-shop,
as though he expected “the gentleman” to appear, and he did not see her
turn pale. When his look fell on her again, she was self-controlled.

“I do not know, Monsieur.”

“You have been opposite him here these months past--did you ever see
anything not--not as it should be?”

“With him, Monsieur? Never.”

“It is as though the infidel behaved like a good Catholic and a
Christian?”

“There are good Catholics in Chaudiere who do not behave like
Christians.”

“What would you say, for instance, about his past?”

“What should I say about his past, Monsieur? What should I know?”

“You should know more than any one else in Chaudiere. The secrets of his
breast might well be bared to you.”

She started and crimsoned. Before her eyes there came a mist obscuring
the Seigneur, and for an instant shutting out the world. The secrets of
his breast--what did he mean? Did he know that on Monsieur’s breast was
the red scar which...

M. Rossignol’s voice seemed coming from an infinite distance, and as it
came, the mist slowly passed from her eyes.

“You will know, Mademoiselle Rosalie,” he was saying, “that while I
suggested that the secrets of his breast might well be bared to you, I
meant that as an honest lady and faithful postmistress they were not. It
was my awkward joke--a stupid gambolling by an old man who ought to know
better.”

She did not answer, and he continued:

“You know that you are trusted. Pray accept my apologies.”

She was herself again. “Monsieur,” she said quietly; “I know nothing of
his past. I want to know nothing. It does not seem to me that it is my
business. The world is free for a man to come and go in, if he keeps the
law and does no ill--is it not? But, in any case, I know nothing. Since
you have said so much, I shall say this, and betray no ‘secrets of his
breast’--that he has received no letter through this office since the
day he first came from Vadrome Mountain.”

The Seigneur smiled. “A wonderful tailor! How does he carry on business
without writing letters?”

“There was a large stock of everything left by Louis Trudel, and not
long ago a commercial traveller was here with everything.”

“You think he has nothing to hide, then?”

“Have not we all something to hide--with or without shame?” she asked
simply.

“You have more sense than any woman in Chaudiere, Mademoiselle.”

She shook her head, yet she raised her eyes gratefully to him.

“I put faith in what you say,” he continued. “Now listen. My brother,
the Abbe, chaplain to the Archbishop, is coming here. He has heard of
‘the infidel’ of our parish. He is narrow and intolerant--the Abbe. He
is going to stir up trouble against the tailor. We are a peaceful people
here, and like to be left alone. We are going on very well as we are. So
I wanted to talk to Monsieur to-day. I must make up my own mind how to
act. The tailor-shop is the property of the Church. An infidel occupies
it, so it is said; the Abbe does not like that. I believe there are
other curious suspicions about Monsieur: that he is a robber, or
incendiary, or something of the sort. The Abbe may take a stand, and the
Cure’s position will be difficult. What is more, my brother has friends
here, fanatics like himself. He has been writing to them. They are men
capable of doing unpleasant things--the Abbe certainly is. It is fair to
warn the tailor. Shall I leave it to you? Do not frighten him. But there
is no doubt he should be warned--fair play, fair play! I hear nothing
but good of him from those whose opinions I value. But, you see, every
man’s history in this parish and in every parish of the province is
known. This man, for us, has no history. The Cure even admits there are
some grounds for calling him an infidel, but, as you know, he would keep
the man here, not drive him out from among us. I have not told the Cure
about the Abbe yet. I wished first to talk with you. The Abbe may come
at any moment. I have been away, and only find his letters to-day.”

“You wish me to tell Monsieur?” interrupted Rosalie, unable to hold
silence any longer. More than once during the Seigneur’s disclosure she
had felt that she must cry out and fiercely repel the base insinuations
against the man she loved.

“You would do it with discretion. You are friendly with him, are you
not?--you talk with him now and then?”

She inclined her head. “Very well, Monsieur. I will go to Vadrome
Mountain to-morrow,” she said quietly. Anger, apprehension, indignation,
possessed her, but she held herself firmly. The Seigneur was doing a
friendly thing; and, in any case, she could have no quarrel with him.
There was danger to the man she loved, however, and every faculty was
alive.

“That’s right. He shall have his chance to evade the Abbe if he wishes,”
 answered M. Rossignol.

There was silence for a moment, in which she was scarcely conscious of
his presence; then he leaned over the counter towards her, and spoke in
a low voice.

“What I said the other day I meant. I do not change my mind--I am too
old for that. Yet I’m young enough to know that you may change yours.”

“I cannot change, Monsieur,” she said tremblingly.

“But you will change. I knew your mother well, I know how anxious she
was for your future. I told her once that I should keep an eye on you
always. Her father was my father’s good friend. I knew you when you were
in the cradle--a little brown-haired babe. I watched you till you went
to the convent. I saw you come back to take up the duties which your
mother laid down, alas!--”

“Monsieur--!” she said choking, and with a troubled little gesture.

“You must let me speak, Rosalie. We got your father this post-office.
It is a poor living, but it keeps a roof over your head. You have never
failed us you have always fulfilled our hopes. But the best years of
your life are going, and your education and your nature have not their
chance. Oh, I’ve not watched you all these years for nothing. I never
meant to ask you to marry me. It came to me, though, all at once, and I
know that it has been in my mind all these years--far back in my mind. I
don’t ask you for my own sake alone. Your father may grow very ill--who
can tell what may happen!”

“I should be postmistress still,” she said sadly.

“As a young girl you could not have the responsibility here alone. And
you should not waste your life it is a fine, full spirit; let the lean,
the poor-spirited, go singly. You should be mated. You can’t marry
any of the young farmers of Chaudiere. ‘Tis impossible. I can give you
enough for any woman’s needs--the world may be yours to see and use to
your heart’s content. I can give, too”--he drew himself up proudly--“the
unused emotions of a lifetime.” This struck him as a very fine and
important thing to say.

“Ah, Monsieur, that is not enough,” she responded.

“What more can you want?”

She looked up with a tearful smile. “I will tell you one day, Monsieur.”

“What day?”

“I have not picked it out in the calendar.”

“Fix the day, and I will wait till then. I will not open my mouth again
till then.”

“Michaelmas day, then, Monsieur,” she answered mechanically and at
haphazard, but with an urged gaiety, for a great depression was on her.

“Good. Till Michaelmas day, then!” He pulled his long nose, laughing
silently.... “I leave the tailor in your hands. Give every man his
chance, I say. The Abbe is a hard man, but our hearts are soft--eh, eh,
very soft!” He raised his hat and turned to the door.




CHAPTER XXIX. THE WILD RIDE

There had been a fierce thunder-storm in the valley of the Chaudiere.
It had come suddenly from the east, had shrieked over the village,
levelling fences, carrying away small bridges, and ending in a pelting
hail, which whitened the ground with pebbles of ice. It had swept up to
Vadrome Mountain, and had marched furiously through the forest, carrying
down hundreds of trees, drowning the roars of wild animals and the
crying and fluttering of birds. One hour of ravage and rage, and then,
spent and bodiless, the storm crept down the other side of the mountain
and into the next parish, whither the affrighted quack-doctor had
betaken himself. After, a perfect calm, a shining sun, and a sweet smell
over all the land, which had thirstily drunk the battering showers.

In the house on Vadrome Mountain the tailor of Chaudiere had watched the
storm with sympathetic interest. It was in accord with his own feelings.
He had had a hard fight for months past, and had gone down in the storm
of his emotions one night when a song called Champagne Charlie had had a
weird and thrilling antiphonal. There had been a subsequent debacle for
himself, and then a revelation concerning Jo Portugais. Ensued hours
and days, wherein he had fought a desperate fight with the present--with
himself and the reaction from his dangerous debauch.

The battle for his life had been fought for him by this gloomy woodsman
who henceforth represented his past, was bound to him by a measureless
gratitude, almost a sacrament--of the damned. Of himself he had played
no conscious part in it till the worst was over. On the one side was the
Cure, patient, gentle, friendly, never pushing forward the Faith which
the good man dreamed should give him refuge and peace; on the other
side was the murderer, who typified unrest, secretiveness, an awful
isolation, and a remorse which had never been put into words or acts of
restitution. For six days the tailor-shop and the life at Chaudiere had
been things almost apart from his consciousness. Ever-recurring
memories of Rosalie Evanturel were driven from his mind with a painful
persistence. In the shadows where his nature dwelt now he would not
allow her good innocence and truth to enter. His self-reproach was the
more poignant because it was silent.

Watching the tempest-swept valley, the tortured forest, where wild life
was in panic, there came upon him the old impulse to put his thoughts
into words, “and so be rid of them,” as he was wont to say in other
days. Taking from his pocket some slips of paper, he laid them on the
table before him. Three or four times he leaned over the paper to write,
but the noise of the storm again and again drew his look to the window.
The tempest ceased almost as suddenly as it had come, and, as the first
sunlight broke through the flying clouds, he mechanically lifted a sheet
of the paper and held it up to the light. It brought to his eyes the
large water-mark, Kathleen!

A sombre look passed over his face, he shifted in his chair, then bent
over the paper and began to write. Words flowed from his pen. The lines
of his face relaxed, his eyes lightened; he was lost in a dream. He
thought of the present, and he wrote:

          “Wave walls to seaward,
          Storm-clouds to leeward,
          Beaten and blown by the winds of the West;
          Sail we encumbered
          Past isles unnumbered,
          But never to greet the green island of Rest.”

He thought of Father Loisel. He had seen the good man’s lips tremble at
some materialistic words he had once used in their many talks, and he
wrote:

            “Lips that now tremble,
             Do you dissemble
          When you deny that the human is best?--
             Love, the evangel,
             Finds the Archangel?
          Is that a truth when this may be a jest?

            “Star-drifts that glimmer
             Dimmer and dimmer,
          What do ye know of my weal or my woe?
             Was I born under
             The sun or the thunder?
          What do I come from? and where do I go?

            “Rest, shall it ever
             Come? Is endeavour
          But a vain twining and twisting of cords?
             Is faith but treason;
             Reason, unreason,
          But a mechanical weaving of words?”

He thought of Louis Trudel, in his grave, and his own questioning: “Show
me a sign from Heaven, tailorman!” and he wrote:

            “What is the token,
             Ever unbroken,
          Swept down the spaces of querulous years,
             Weeping or singing
             That the Beginning
          Of all things is with us, and sees us, and hears?”

He made an involuntary motion of his hand to his breast, where old Louis
Trudel had set a sign. So long as he lived, it must be there to read:
a shining smooth scar of excoriation, a sacred sign of the faith he had
never been able to accept; of which he had never, indeed, been able to
think, so distant had been his soul, until, against his will, his
heart had answered to the revealing call in a woman’s eyes. He felt her
fingers touch his breast as they did that night the iron seared him; and
out of this first intimacy of his soul he wrote:

            “What is the token?
             Bruised and broken,
          Bend I my life to a blossoming rod?
             Shall then the worst things
             Come to the first things,
          Finding the best of all, last of all, God?”

Like the cry of his “Aphrodite,” written that last afternoon of the old
life, this plaint ended with the same restless, unceasing question. But
there was a difference. There was no longer the material, distant
note of a pagan mind; there was the intimate, spiritual note of a mind
finding a foothold on the submerged causeway of life and time.

As he folded up the paper to put it into his pocket, Jo Portugais
entered the room. He threw in a corner the wet bag which had protected
his shoulders from the rain, hung his hat on a peg of the chimney-piece,
nodded to Charley, and put a kettle on the little fire.

“A big storm, M’sieu’,” Jo said presently as he put some tea into a pot.

“I have never seen a great storm in a forest before,” answered Charley,
and came nearer to the window through which the bright sun streamed.

“It always does me good,” said Jo. “Every bird and beast is awake and
afraid and trying to hide, and the trees fall, and the roar of it like
the roar of the chasse-galerie on the Kimash River.”

“The Kimash River--where is it?”

Jo shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows!”

“Is it a legend, then?”

“It is a river.”

“And the chasse-galerie?”

“That is true, M’sieu’, no matter what any one thinks. I know; I have
seen--I have seen with my own eyes.” Jo was excited now.

“I am listening.” He took a cup of tea from Portugais and drank eagerly.

“The Kimash River, M’sieu’, that is the river in the air. On it is the
chasse-galerie. You sell your soul to the devil; you ask him to help
you; you deny God. You get into a canoe and call on the devil. You are
lifted up, canoe and all, and you rush on down rapids, over falls, on
the Kimash River in the air. The devil stands behind you and shouts, and
you sing, ‘V’la! l’bon vent! V’la l’joli vent!’ On and on you go, faster
and faster, and you forget the world, and you forget yourself, and
the devil is with you in the air--in the chasse-galerie on the Kimash
River.”

“Jo,” said Charley Steele, “do you honestly think there’s a river like
that?”

‘M’sieu’, I know it. I saw Ignace Latoile, who robbed a priest and got
drunk on the communion wine--I saw him with the devil in the Black Canoe
at the Saguenay. I could see Ignace; I could see the devil; I could see
the Kimash River. I shall ride myself some day.

“Ride where?”

“What does it matter where?”

“Why should you ride?”

“Because you ride fast with the devil.”

“What is the good of riding fast?”

“In the rush a man forget.”

“What does he forget, my friend?”

There was a pause, in which a man with a load of crime upon his soul
dwelt upon the words my friend, coming from the lips of one who knew the
fulness of his iniquity. Then he answered:

“In the noise he forget that a voice is calling in his ear, ‘You did
It!’ He forget what he see in his dreams. He forget the hand that touch
him on the arm when he walk in the woods alone, or lie down to sleep at
night, no one near. He forget that some one wait--wait--wait, till he
has suffer long enough, or till, one day, he think he is happy again,
and the Thing he did is far off like a dream--to drag him out to the
death he did not die. He forget that he is alone--all alone in the
world, for ever and ever and ever.”

He suddenly sank upon the floor beside Charley, and a groan burst from
his lips. “To have no friend--ah, it is so awful!” he said. “Never to
see a face that look into yours, and know how bad are you, and doesn’t
mind. For five years I have live like that. I cannot let any one be
my friend because I was that! They seem to know--everything,
everybody--what I am. The little children when I pass them run away to
hide. I have wake in the night and cry out in fear, it is so lonely. I
have hear voices round me in the woods, and I run and run and run from
them, and not leave them behind. Three times I go to the jails in Quebec
to see the prisoners behind the bars, and watch the pains on their
faces, to understand what I escape. Five times have I go to the courts
to listen to murderers tried, and watch them when the Jury say Guilty!
and the Judge send them to death--that I might know. Twice have I go to
see murderers hung. Once I was helper to the hangman, that I might hear
and know what the man said, what he felt. When the arms were bound, I
felt the straps on my own; when the cap come down, I gasp for breath;
when the bolt is shot, I feel the wrench and the choke, and shudder go
through myself--feel the world jerk out in the dark. When the body is
bundled in the pit, I see myself lie still under the quick-lime with the
red mark round my throat.”

Charley touched him on the shoulder. “Jo--poor Jo, my friend!” he said.
Jo raised his eyes, red with an unnatural fire, deep with gratitude.

“As I sit at my dinner, with the sun shining and the woods green and
glad, and all the world gay, I have see what happened all over again.
I have see his strong hands; his bad face laugh at my words; I have see
him raise his riding-whip and cut me across the head. I have see him
stagger and fall from the blows I give him with the knife--the knife
which never was found--why, I not know, for I throw it on the ground
beside him! There, as I sit in the open day, a thousand times I have
see him shiver and fall, staring, staring at me as if he see a dreadful
thing. Then I stand up again and strike at him--at his ghost!--as I did
that day in the woods. Again I see him lie in his blood, straight and
white--so large, so handsome, so still! I have shed tears--but what are
tears! Blind with tears I have call out for the devils of hell to take
me with them. I have call on God to give me death. I have prayed, and I
have cursed. Twice I have travelled to the grave where he lies. I have
knelt there and have beg him to tell the truth to God, and say that he
torture me till I kill him. I have beg him to forgive me and to haunt
me no more with his bad face. But never--never--never--have I one quiet
hour until you come, M’sieu’; nor any joy in my heart till I tell you
the black truth--M’sieu’! M’sieu!”

He buried his face between Charley’s feet, and held them with his hands.

Charley laid a hand on the shaggy head as though it were that of a
child. “Be still--be still, Jo,” he said gently.

Since that night of St. Jean Baptiste’s festival, no word of the past,
of the time when Charley turned aside the revanche of justice from a man
called Joseph Nadeau, had been spoken between them. Out of the delirium
of his drunken trance had come Charley’s recognition of the man he knew
now as Jo Portugais. But the recognition had been sent again into the
obscurity whence it came, and had not been mentioned since. To outward
seeming they had gone on as before. As Charley saw the knotted brows,
the staring eyes, the clinched hands, the figure of the woodsman rigid
in its agony of remorse, he said to himself: “What right had I to save
this man’s life? To have paid for his crime would have been easier for
him. I knew he was guilty. Perhaps it was my duty to see that every
condition, to the last shade of the law, was satisfied, but was it
justice to the poor devil himself? There he sits with a load on him that
weighs him down every hour of his life. I called him back; I gave him
life; but I gave him memory and remorse, and the ghosts that haunt
him: the voice in his ear, the touch on his arm, the some one that is
‘waiting--waiting--waiting!’ That is what I did, and that is what
the brother of the Cure did for me. He drew me back. He knew I was
a drunkard, but he drew me back. I might have been a murderer like
Portugais. The world says I was a thief, and a thief I am until I prove
to the world I am innocent--and wreck three lives! How much of Jo’s
guilt is guilt? How much remorse should a man suffer to pay the debt
of a life? If the law is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, how
much hourly remorse and torture, such as Jo’s, should balance the eye or
the tooth or the life? I wonder, now!”

He leaned over, and, helping Jo to his feet, gently forced him down upon
a bench near. “All right, Jo, my friend,” he said. “I understand. We’ll
drink the gall together.”

They sat and looked at each other in silence.

At length Charley leaned over and touched Jo on the shoulder.

“Why did you want to save yourself?” he said.

At that instant there was a knock at the door, and a voice said:
“Monsieur!--Monsieur!”

Jo sprang to his feet with a sharp exclamation, then went heavily to the
door and threw it open.




CHAPTER XXX. ROSALIE WARNS CHARLEY

Charley’s eyes met Rosalie’s with a look the girl had never seen in them
before. It gave a glow to his haggard face.

Rosalie turned to Jo and greeted him with a friendlier manner than was
her wont towards him. The nearer she was to Charley, the farther away
from him, to her mind, was Portugais, and she became magnanimous.

Jo nodded’ awkwardly and left the room. Looking after the departing
figure, Rosalie said: “I know he has been good to you, but--but do you
trust him, Monsieur?”

“Does not everybody in Chaudiere trust him?”

“There is one who does not, though perhaps that’s of no consequence.”

“Why do you not trust him?”

“I don’t know. I never knew him do a bad thing; I never heard of a bad
thing he has done; and--he has been good to you.”

She paused, flushing as she felt the significance of her words, and
continued: “Yet there is--I cannot tell what. I feel something. It is
not reasonable to go upon one’s feelings; but there it is, and so I do
not trust him.”

“It is the way he lives, here in these lonely woods--the mystery around
him.”

A change passed over her. With the first glow of meeting the object of
her visit had receded, though since her last interview with the Seigneur
she had not rested a moment, in her anxiety to warn him of his danger.
“Oh, no,” she said, lifting her eyes frankly to his: “oh, no, Monsieur!
It is not that. There is mystery about you!” She felt her heart beating
hard. It almost choked her, but she kept on bravely. “People say strange
and bad things about you. No one knows”--she trembled under the painful
inquiry of his eyes. Then she gained courage and went on, for she must
make it clear she trusted him, that she took him at his word, before she
told him of the peril before him--“No one knows where you came from...
and it is nobody’s business. Some people do not believe in you. But I
believe in you--I should believe in you if every one doubted; for there
is no feeling in me that says, ‘He has done some wicked thing
that stands-between us.’ It isn’t the same as with Portugais, you
see--naturally, it could not be the same.”

She seemed not to realise that she was telling more of her own heart
than she had ever told. It was a revelation, having its origin in an
honesty which impelled a pure outspokenness to himself. Reserve, of
course, there had been elsewhere, for did not she hold a secret with
him? Had she not hidden things, equivocated else where? Yet it had been
at his wish, to protect the name of a dead man, for the repose of whose
soul masses were now said, with expensive candles burning. For this she
had no repentance; she was without logic where this man’s good was at
stake.

Charley had before him a problem, which he now knew he never could evade
in the future. He could solve it by none of the old intellectual means,
but by the use of new faculties, slowly emerging from the unexplored
fastnesses of his nature.

“Why should you believe in me?” he asked, forcing himself to smile, yet
acutely alive to the fact that a crisis was impending. “You, like all
down there in Chaudiere, know nothing of my past, are not sure that I
haven’t been a hundred times worse than you think poor Jo there. I may
have been anything. You may be harbouring a man the law is tracking
down.”

In all that befell Rosalie Evanturel thereafter, never could come such
another great resolute moment. There was nothing to support her in the
crisis but her own faith. It needed high courage to tell this man who
had first given her dreams, then imagination, hope, and the beauty of
doing for another’s well-being rather than for her own--to tell this man
that he was a suspected criminal. Would he hate her? Would his kindness
turn to anger? Would he despise her for even having dared to name the
suspicion which was bringing hither an austere Abbe and officers of the
law?

“We are harbouring a man the law is tracking down,” she said with an
infinite appeal in her eyes.

He did not quite understand. He thought that perhaps she meant Jo, and
he glanced towards the door; but she kept her eyes on him, and they
told him that she meant himself. He chilled, as though ether were being
poured through his veins.

Did the world know, then, that Charley Steele was alive? Was the law
sending its officers to seize the embezzler, the ruffian who had robbed
widow and orphan?

If it were so.... To go back to the world whence he came, with the
injury he must do to others, and the punishment also that he must
suffer, if he did not tell the truth about Billy! And Chaudiere, which,
in spite of all, was beginning to have a real belief in him--where was
his contempt for the world now!... And Rosalie, who trusted him--this
new element rapidly grew dominant in his thoughts-to be the common
criminal in her eyes!

His paleness gave way to a flush as like her own as could be.

“You mean me?” he asked quietly.

She had thought that his flush meant anger, and she was surprised at the
quiet tone. She nodded assent. “For what crime?” he asked.

“For stealing.”

His heart seemed to stand still. Then, it had come in spite of all it
had come. Here was his resurrection, and the old life to face.

“What did I steal?” he asked with dull apathy. “The gold vessels
from the Catholic Cathedral of Quebec, after--after trying to blow up
Government House with gunpowder.”

His despair passed. His face suddenly lighted. He smiled. It was so
absurd. “Really!” he said. “When was the place blown up?”

“Two days before you came here last year--it was not blown up; an
attempt was made.”

“Ah, I did not know. Why was the attempt made to blow it up?”

“Some Frenchman’s hatred of the English, they say.”

“But I am not French.”

“They do not know. You speak French as perfectly as English--ah,
Monsieur, Monsieur, I believe you are whatever you say.” Pain and appeal
rang from her lips.

“I am only an honest tailor,” he answered gently. He ruled his face to
calmness, for he read the agony in the girl’s face, and troubled as he
was, he wished to show her that he had no fear.

“It is for what you were they will arrest you,” she said helplessly, and
as though he needed to have all made clear to him. “Oh, Monsieur,” she
continued, in a broken voice, “it would shame me so to have you made a
prisoner in Chaudiere--before all these silly people, who turn with the
wind. I should not lift my head--but yes, I should lift my head!” she
added hurriedly. “I should tell them all they lied--every one--the
idiots! The Seigneur--”

“Well, what of the Seigneur-Rosalie?”

Her own name on his lips--the sound of it dimmed her eyes.

“Monsieur Rossignol does not know you. He neither believes nor
disbelieves. He said to me that if you wanted consideration, to command
him, for in Chaudiere he had heard nothing but good of you. If you
stayed, he would see that you had justice--not persecution. I saw him
two hours ago.”

She said the last words shyly, for she was thinking why the Seigneur
had spoken as he did--that he had taken her opinion of Monsieur as
his guide, and she had not scrupled to impress him with her views. The
Seigneur was in danger of becoming prejudiced by his sentiments.

A wave of feeling passed over Charley, a rushing wave of sympathy for
this simple girl, who, out of a blind confidence, risked so much for
him. Risk there certainly was, if she--if she cared for him. It was
cruelty not to reassure her.

Touching his breast, he said gravely: “By this sign here, I am not
guilty of the crime for which they come to seek me, Rosalie. Nor of any
other crime for which the law might punish me--dear, noble friend.”

He did so little to get such rich return. Her eyes leaped up to brighter
degrees of light, her face shone with a joy it had never reflected
before, her blood rushed to her finger-tips. She abruptly sat down in
a chair and buried her face in her hands, trembling. Then, lifting her
head slowly, after a moment she spoke in a tone that told him her faith,
her gratitude--not for reassurance, but for confidence, which is as
water in a thirsty land to a woman.

“Oh, Monsieur, I thank you, I thank you from the depth of my heart; and
my heart is deep indeed, very, very deep--I cannot find what lies lowest
in it! I thank you, because you trust me, because you make it so easy
to--to be your friend; to say ‘I know’ when any one might doubt you.
One has no right to speak for another till--till the other has given
confidence, has said you may. Ah, Monsieur, I am so happy!”

In very abandonment of heart she clasped her hands and came a step
nearer to him, but abruptly stopped still; for, realising her action,
timidity and embarrassment rushed upon her.

Charley understood, and again his impulse was to say what was in his
heart and dare all; but resolution possessed him, and he said quickly:

“Once, Rosalie, you saved me--from death perhaps. Once your hands helped
my pain--here.” He touched his breast. “Your words now, and what you do,
they still help me--here... but in a different way. The trouble is in
my heart, Rosalie. You are glad of my confidence? Well, I will give
you more.... I cannot go back to my old life. To do so would injure
others--some who have never injured me and some who have. That is why.
That is why I do not wish to be taken to Quebec now on a false charge.
That is all I can say. Is it enough?”

She was about to answer, but Jo Portugais entered, exclaiming.
“M’sieu’,” he cried, “men are coming with the Seigneur and Cure.”

Charley nodded at Jo, then turned to Rosalie. “You need not be seen if
you go out by the back way, Mademoiselle.” He held aside the bear-skin
curtain of the door that led into the next room.

There was a frightened look in her face. “Do not fear for me,” he
continued. “It will come right--somehow. You have done more for me than
any one has ever done or ever will do. I will remember till the last
moment of my life. Good-bye.”

He laid a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her from the room.

“God protect you! The Blessed Virgin speak for you! I will pray for
you,” she whispered.




CHAPTER XXXI. CHARLEY STANDS AT BAY

Charley turned quickly to the woodsman. “Listen,” he said, and he told
Jo how things stood.

“You will not hide, M’sieu’? There is time,” Jo asked.

“I will not hide, Jo.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll decide when they come.”

There was silence for a moment, then the sound of voices on the
hill-side.

Charley’s soul rose up in revolt against the danger that faced him--not
against personal peril, but the danger of being dragged back again into
the life he had come from, with all that it involved--the futility of
this charge against him! To be the victim of an error--to go to the bar
of justice with the hand of injustice on his arm!

All at once the love of this new life welled up in him, as a spring of
water overflows its bounds. A voice kept ringing in his ears, “I
will pray for you.” Subconsciously his mind kept saying,
“Rosalie--Rosalie--Rosalie!” There was nothing now that he would not
do to avert his being taken away upon this ridiculous charge. Mistaken
identity? To prove that, he must at once prove himself--who he was,
whence he came. Tell the Cure, and make it a point of honour for his
secret to be kept? But once told, the new life would no longer stand
by itself as the new life, cut off from all contact with the past. Its
success, its possibility, must lie in its absolute separateness, with
obscurity behind--as though he had come out of nothing into this very
room, on that winter morning when memory returned.

It was clear that he must, somehow, evade the issue. He glanced at Jo,
whose eyes, strained and painful, were fixed upon the door. Here was a
man who suffered for his sake.... He took a step forward, as though with
sudden resolve, but there came a knocking, and, pausing, he motioned Jo
to open the door. Then, turning to a shelf, he took something from it
hastily, and kept it in his hand.

Jo roused himself with an effort, and opened to the knocking.

Three people entered: the Seigneur, the Cure, and the Abbe Rossignol, an
ascetic, severe man, with a face of intolerance and inflexibility. Two
constables in plain clothes followed; one stolid, one alert, one
English and one French, both with grim satisfaction in their faces--the
successful exercise of his trade is pleasant to every craftsman. When
they entered, Charley was standing with his back to the fireplace, his
eye-glass adjusted, one hand stroking his beard, the other held behind
his back.

The Cure came forward and shook hands in an eager friendly way.

“My dear Monsieur,” said he, “I hope that you are better.”

“I am quite well, thank you, Monsieur le Cure,” answered Charley. “I
shall get back to work on Monday, I hope.”

“Yes, yes, that is good,” responded the Cure, and seemed confused.
He turned uneasily to the Seigneur. “You have come to see my friend
Portugais,” Charley remarked slowly, almost apologetically. “I will take
my leave.” He made a step forward. The two constables did the same, and
would have laid their hands upon his shoulder but that the Seigneur said
tartly:

“Stand off, Jack-in-boxes!”

The two stood aside, and looked covertly at the Seigneur, whose temper
seemed unusually irascible. Charley’s face showed no surprise, but he
looked inquiringly at the Cure.

“If they wish to be measured for uniforms--or manners--I will see them
at my shop,” he said.

The Seigneur chuckled. Charley stepped again towards the door. The
two constables stood before it. Again he turned inquiringly, this time
towards the Cure. The Cure did not speak.

“It is you we wish to see, tailor,” said the Abbe Rossignol.

Soft-tongued irony leaped to Charley’s lips: “Have I, then, the honour
of including Monsieur among my customers? I cannot recall Monsieur’s
figure. I think I should not have forgotten it.”

It was now the old Charley Steele, with the new body, the new spirit,
but with the old skilful mind, aggravatingly polite, non-intime--the
intolerant face of this father of souls irritated him.

“I never forget a figure which has idiosyncrasy,” he added, with a bland
eye wandering over the priest’s gaunt form. It was his old way to strike
first and heal after--“a kick and a lick,” as old Paddy Wier, whom he
once saved from prison, said of him. It was like bygone years of another
life to appear in defence when the law was tightening round a victim.
The secret spring had been touched, the ancient machinery of his mind
was working almost automatically.

The illusion was considerable, for the Seigneur had taken the only
arm-chair in the room, a little apart, as it were, filling the place of
judge. The priest-brother, cold and inveterate, was like the attorney
for the crown. The Cure was the clerk of the court, who could only echo
the decisions of the Judge. The constables were the machinery of the
Law, and Jo Portugais was the unwilling witness, whose evidence would
be the crux of the case. The prisoner--he himself was prisoner and
prisoner’s counsel.

A good struggle was forward.

He had enraged the Abbe as much as he had delighted the Abbe’s brother;
for nothing gave the Seigneur such pleasure as the discomfiture of the
Abbe Rossignol, chaplain and ordinary to the Archbishop of Quebec. The
genial, sympathetic nature of the Seigneur could not even be patient
with the excessive piety of the churchman, who, in rigid righteousness,
had thrashed him cruelly as a boy. At Charley’s words upon the Abbe’s
figure, gaunt and precise as a swaddled ramrod, he pulled his nose with
a grunt of satisfaction.

The Cure, the peace-maker, intervened. The tailor’s meaning was
sufficiently clear: if they had come to see him personally, then it was
natural for him to wish to know the names and stations of his guests,
and their business. The Seigneur was aware that the tailor did know, and
he enjoyed the ‘sang-froid’ with which he was meeting the situation.

“Monsieur,” said the Cure, in a mollifying voice, “I have ventured
to bring the Seigneur of Chaudiere”--the Seigneur stood up and bowed
gravely--“and his brother, the Abbe Rossignol, who would speak with you
on private business”--he ignored the presence of the constables.

Charley bowed to the Seigneur and the Abbe, then turned inquiringly
towards the two constables. “Friends of my brother the Abbe,” said the
Seigneur maliciously.

“Their names, Monsieur?” asked Charley.

“They have numbers,” answered the Seigneur whimsically--to the Cure’s
pain, for levity seemed improper at such a time.

“Numbers of names are legally suspicious, numbers for names are
suspiciously legal,” rejoined Charley. “You have pierced the disguise
of discourtesy,” said the Seigneur, and, on the instant, he made up
his mind that whatever the tailor might have been, he was deserving of
respect.

“You have private business with me, Monsieur?” asked Charley of the
Abbe.

The Abbe shook his head. “The business is not private, in one sense.
These men have come to charge you with having broken into the cathedral
at Quebec and stolen the gold vessels of the altar; also with having
tried to blow up the Governor’s residence.”

One of the constables handed Charley the warrant. He looked at it with a
curious smile. It was so natural, yet so unnatural, to be thus in touch
with the habits of far-off times.

“On what information is this warrant issued?” he asked.

“That is for the law to show in due course,” said the priest.

“Pardon me; it is for the law to show now. I have a right to know.”

The constables shifted from one foot to the other, looked at each other
meaningly, and instinctively felt their weapons.

“I believe,” said the Seigneur evenly, “that--” The Abbe interrupted.
“He can have information at his trial.”

“Excuse me, but the warrant has my endorsement,” said the Seigneur,
“and, as the justice most concerned, I shall give proper information
to the gentleman under suspicion.” He waved a hand at the Abbe, as at a
fractious child, and turned courteously to Charley.

“Monsieur,” he said, “on the tenth of August last the cathedral at
Quebec was broken into, and the gold altar-vessels were stolen. You are
suspected. The same day an attempt was made to blow up the Governor’s
residence. You are suspected.”

“On what ground, Monsieur?”

“You appeared in this vicinity three days afterwards with an injury to
the head. Now, the incendiary received a severe blow on the head from a
servant of the Governor. You see the connection, Monsieur?”

“Where is the servant of the Governor, Monsieur?”

“Dead, unfortunately. He told the story so often, to so much
hospitality, that he lost his footing on Mountain Street steps--you
remember Mountain Street steps possibly, Monsieur?--and cracked his head
on the last stone.”

There was silence for a moment. If the thing had not been so serious,
Charley must have laughed outright. If he but disclosed his identity,
how easy to dispose of this silly charge! He did not reply at once, but
looked calmly at the Abbe. In the pause, the Seigneur added “I forgot to
add that the man had a brown beard. You have a brown beard, Monsieur.”

“I had not when I arrived here.”

Jo Portugais spoke. “That is true, M’sieu’; and what is more, I know a
newly shaved face when I see it, and M’sieu’s was tanned with the sun.
It is foolish, that!”

“This is not the place for evidence,” said the Abbe sharply.

“Excuse me, Abbe,” said his brother; “if Monsieur wishes to have a
preliminary trial here, he may. He is in my seigneury; he is a tenant of
the Church here--”

“It is a grave offence that an infidel, dropping down here from, who
knows where--that an acknowledged infidel should be a tenant of the
Church!”

“The devil is a tenant of the Almighty, if creation is the Almighty’s,”
 said Charley.

“Satan is a prisoner,” snapped the Abbe.

“With large domains for exercise,” retorted Charley, “and in successful
opposition to the Church. If it is true that the man you charge is an
infidel, how does that warrant suspicion?”

“Other thefts,” answered the Abbe. “A sacred iron cross was stolen from
the door of the church of Chaudiere. I have no doubt that the thief of
the gold vessels of the cathedral was the thief of the iron cross.”

“It is not true,” sullenly broke in Jo Portugais.

“What proof have you?” said the Seigneur. Charley waved a deprecating
hand towards Jo.

“I shall not call Portugais as evidence,” he said.

“You are conducting your own case?” asked the Seigneur, with a grim
smile.

“It is dangerous, I believe.”

“I will take my chances,” answered Charley. “Will you tell me what
object the criminal could have in stealing the gold vessels from the
cathedral?” he added, turning to the Abbe.

“They were gold!”

“And for taking the cross from the door of the church in Chaudiere?”

“It was sacred, and he was an infidel, and hated it.”

“I do not see the logic of the argument. He stole the vessels because
they were valuable, and the iron cross because he was an infidel! Now
how do you know that the suspected criminal was an infidel, Monsieur?”

“It is well known.”

“Has he ever said so?”

“He does not deny it.”

“If you were charged with being an opium-eater, does it follow that
you are one because you do not deny it? There was a Man who was said to
blaspheme, to have all ‘the crafts and assaults of the devil’--was it
His duty to deny it? Suppose you were accused of being a highwayman,
would you be less a highwayman if you denied it? Or would you be less
guilty if you denied it?”

“That is beside the case,” said the priest with acerbity.

“Faith, I think it is the case itself,” said the Seigneur with a
satisfied pull of his nose.

“But do you seriously suggest that only infidels rob churches?” Charley
persisted.

“I am not here to be cross-examined,” answered the Abbe harshly.
“You are charged with robbing the cathedral and trying to blow up the
Governor’s residence. Arrest him!” he added, turning to the constables.

“Stand where you are, men,” sharply threatened the Seigneur. “There
are no lettres de cachet nowadays, Francois,” he added tartly to his
brother.

“If it is the exclusive temptation of an infidel to rob a church, has
infidelity also an inherent penchant for arson? Is it a patent? Why did
the infidel blow up the Governor’s residence?” continued Charley.

“He did not blow it up, he only tried,” interposed the Cure softly.

“I was not aware,” said Charley. “Well, did the man who stole the patens
from the altar--”

“They were chalices,” again interrupted the Cure, with a faint smile.

“Ah, I was not aware!” again rejoined Charley. “I repeat, what reason
had the person who stole the chalices to try to blow up the Governor’s
residence? Is it a sign of infidelity, or--”

“You can answer for that yourself,” angrily interposed the Abbe. The
strain was telling on his nerves.

“It is fair to give reasons for the suspicion,” urged the Seigneur
acidly.

“As I said before, Francois, this is not the fifteenth century.”

“He hated the English government,” said the Abbe. “I do not understand,”
 responded Charley. “Am I then to suppose that the alleged criminal was a
Frenchman as well as an infidel?”

There was silence, and Charley continued. “It is an unusual thing for a
French Abbe to be so concerned for the safety of an English Protestant’s
life and housing... the Governor is a Protestant--eh? That is, indeed, a
zeal almost Christian--or millennial.”

The Abby turned to the Seigneur. “Are you going to interfere longer with
the process of the law?”

“I think Monsieur has not quite finished his argument,” said the
Seigneur, with a twist of the mouth.

“If the man was a Frenchman, why do you suspect the tailor of
Chaudiere?” asked Charley softly. “Of course I understand the reason
behind all: you have heard that the tailor is an infidel; you have
protested to the good Cure here, and the Cure is a man who has a sense
of justice, and will not drive a poor man from his parish by Christian
persecution--without cause. Since certain dates coincide and impulses
urge, you suspect the tailor. Again, according to your mind, a man who
steals holy vessels must needs be an infidel; therefore a tailor in
Chaudiere, suspected of being an infidel, stole the holy chalices. It
might seem a fair case for a grand jury of clericals. But it breaks down
in certain places. Your criminal is a Frenchman; the tailor of Chaudiere
is an Englishman.”

The Abbe’s face was contracted with stubborn annoyance, though he held
his tongue from violence. “Do you deny that you are French?” he asked
tartly.

“I could almost endure the suspicion because of the compliment to my
command of your charming language.”

“Prove that you are an Englishman. No one knows where you came from; no
one knows what you are. You are a fair subject for suspicion, apart from
the evidence shown,” said the Abbe, trying now to be as polite as the
tailor.

“This is a free country. So long as the law is obeyed, one can go where
one wills without question, I take it.”

“There is a law of vagrancy.”

“I am a householder, a tenant of the Church, not a vagrant.”

“Monsieur, you can have your choice of proving these things here or in
Quebec,” said the Abbe, with angry impatience again.

“I may not be compelled to prove anything. It is the privilege of the
law to prove the crime against me.”

“You are a very remarkable tailor,” said the Abbe sarcastically.

“I have not had the honour of making you even a cassock, I think.
Monsieur le Cure, I believe, approves of those I make for him. He has a
good figure, however.”

“You refuse to identify yourself?” asked the Abbe, with asperity.

“I am not aware that you possess any right to ask me to do so.”

The Abbe’s thin lips clipped-to like shears. He turned again towards the
officers.

“It would relieve the situation,” interposed the Seigneur, “if Monsieur
could find it possible to grant the Abbe’s demand.”

Charley bowed to the Seigneur. “I do not know why I should be taken for
a Frenchman or an infidel. I speak French well, I presume, but I spoke
it from the cradle. I speak English with equally good accent,” he added,
with the glimmer of a smile; for there was a kind of exhilaration in the
little contest, even with so much at stake. This miserable, silly charge
had that behind it which might open up a grave, make its dead to walk,
fright folk from their senses, and destroy their peace for ever. Yet
he was cool and thinking clearly. He measured up the Abbe in his mind,
analysed him, found the vulnerable spot in his nature, the avenue to the
one place lighted by a lamp of humanity. He leaned a hand upon the ledge
of the chimney where he stood, and said, in a low voice:

“Monsieur l’Abbe, it is sometimes the misfortune of just men to
be terribly unjust. ‘For conscience sake’ is another name for
prejudice--for those antipathies which, natural to us, are, at the same
time, trap-doors, for our just intentions. You, Monsieur, have a radical
antipathy to those men who are unable to see or to feel what you were
privileged to see and feel from the time of your birth. You know that
you are right. Do you think that those who do not see as you do are
wicked because they were not given what you were given? If you are
right, may they, poor folk! not be the victims of their blindness of
heart--of the darkness born with them, or of the evils that overtake
them? For conscience sake, you would crush out evil. To you an
infidel--so called--is an evil-doer, a peril to the peace of God.
You drive him out from among the faithful. You heard that a tailor
of Chaudiere was an infidel. You did not prove him one, but you, for
conscience sake, are trying to remove him, by fixing on him a crime of
which he may, with slight show of reason, be suspected. But I ask you,
would you have taken the same deep interest in setting the law upon this
suspected man did you not believe him to be an infidel?”

He paused. The Abbe made no reply. The Cure was bending forward eagerly;
the Seigneur sat with his hands over the top of his cane, his chin on
his hands, never taking his eyes from him, save to glance once or twice
at his brother. Jo Portugais was crouched on the bench, watching.

“I do not know what makes an infidel,” Charley went on. “Is it an honest
mind, a decent life, an austerity of living as great as that of any
priest, a neighbourliness that gives and takes in fairness--”

“No, no, no,” interposed the Cure eagerly. “So you have lived here,
Monsieur; I can vouch for that. Charity and a good heart have gone with
you always.”

“Do you mean that a man is an infidel because he cannot say, as Louis
Trudel said to me, ‘Do you believe in God?’ and replies, as I replied,
‘God knows!’ Is that infidelity? If God is God, He alone knows when
the mind or the tongue can answer in the terms of that faith which you
profess. He knows the secret desires of our hearts, and what we believe,
and what we do not believe; He knows better than we ourselves know--if
there is a God. Does a man conjure God, if he does not believe in
God? ‘God knows!’ is not a statement of infidelity. With me it was a
phrase--no more. You ask me to bare my inmost soul. I have not learned
how to confess. You ask me to lay bare my past, to prove my identity.
For conscience sake you ask that, and I for conscience sake say I will
not, Monsieur. You, when you enter your priestly life, put all your past
behind you. It is dead for ever: all its deeds and thoughts and desires,
all its errors--sins. I have entered on a life here which is to me as
much a new life as your priesthood is to you. Shall I not have the right
to say, that may not be disinterred? Have I not the right to say, Hands
off? For the past I am responsible, and for the past I will speak from
the past; but for the deeds of the present I will speak only from the
present. I am not a Frenchman; I did not steal the little cross from the
church door here, nor the golden chalices in Quebec; nor did I seek to
injure the Governor’s residence. I have not been in Quebec for three
years.”

He ceased speaking, and fixed his eyes on the Abbe, who now met his look
fairly.

“In the way of justice, there is nothing hidden that shall not be
revealed, nor secret that shall not be made known,” answered the
Abbe. “Prove that you were not in Quebec on the day the robbery was
committed.” There was silence. The Abbe’s pertinacity was too difficult.
The Seigneur saw the grim look in Charley’s face, and touched the Abbe
on the arm. “Let us walk a little outside. Come, Cure” he added. “It
is right that Monsieur should have a few minutes alone. It is a serious
charge against him, and reflection will be good for us all.”

He motioned the constables from the room. The Abby passed through the
door into the open air, and the Cure and the Seigneur went arm in arm
together, talking earnestly. The Cure turned in the doorway.

“Courage, Monsieur!” he said to Charley, and bowed himself out. Jo
Portugais followed.

One officer took his place at the front door and the other at the back
door, outside.

The Abby, by himself, took to walking backward and forward under the
trees, buried in gloomy reflection. Jo Portugais caught his sleeve.

“Come with me for a moment, M’sieu’,” he said. “It is important.”

The Abby followed him.




CHAPTER XXXII. JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY

Jo Portugais had fastened down a secret with clasps heavier than iron,
and had long stood guard over it. But life is a wheel, and natures move
in circles, passing the same points again and again, the points being
distant or near to the sense as the courses of life have influenced
the nature. Confession was an old principle, a light in the way, a
rest-house for Jo and all his race, by inheritance, by disposition, and
by practice. Again and again Jo had come round to the rest-house
since one direful day, but had not, found his way therein. There were
passwords to give at the door, there was the tale of the journey to tell
to the door-keeper. And this tale he had not been ready to tell. But the
man who knew of the terrible thing he had done, who had saved him from
the consequences of that terrible thing, was in sore trouble, and this
broke down the gloomy guard he had kept over his dread secret. He fought
the matter out with himself, and, the battle ended, he touched the
door-keeper on the arm, beckoned him to a lonely place in the trees, and
knelt down before him.

“What is it you seek?” asked the door-keeper, whose face was set and
forbidding.

“To find peace,” answered the man; yet he was thinking more of another’s
peril than of his own soul. “What have I to do with the peace of your
soul? Yonder is your shepherd and keeper,” said the doorkeeper, pointing
to where two men walked arm in arm under the trees.

“Shall the sinner not choose the keeper of his sins?” said the man
huskily.

“Who has been the keeper all these years? Who has given you peace?”

“I have had no keeper; I have had no peace these many years.”

“How many years?” The Abbe’s voice was low and even, and showed no
feeling, but his eyes were keenly inquiring and intent.

“Seven years.”

“Is the sin that held you back from the comfort of the Church a great
one?”

“The greatest, save one.”

“What would be the greatest?”

“To curse God.”

“The next?”

“To murder.”

The other’s whole manner changed on the instant. He was no longer
the stern Churchman, the inveterate friend of Justice, the prejudiced
priest, rigid in a pious convention, who could neither bend nor break.
The sin of an infidel breaker of the law, that was one thing; the crime
of a son of the Church, which a human soul came to relate in its agony,
that was another. He had a crass sense of justice, but there was in
him a deeper thing still: the revelation of the human soul, the
responsibility of speaking to the heart which has dropped the folds of
secrecy, exposing the skeleton of truth, grim and staring, to the eye of
a secret earthly mentor.

“If it has been hidden all these years, why do you tell it now, my son?”

“It is the only way.”

“Why was it hidden?”

“I have come to confess,” answered the man bitterly. The priest looked
at him anxiously. “You have spoken rightly, my son. I am not here to
ask, but to receive.”

“Forgive me, but it is my crime I would speak of now. I choose this
moment that another should not suffer for what he did not do.”

The priest thought of the man they had left in the little house, and the
crime with which he was charged, and wondered what the sinner before him
was going to say.

“Tell your story, my son, and God give your tongue the very spirit of
truth, that nothing be forgotten and nothing excused.”

There was a fleeting pause, in which the colour left the priest’s
face, and, as he opened the door of his mind--of the Church, secret
and inviolate--he had a pain at his heart; for beneath his arrogant
churchmanship there was a fanatical spirituality of a mediaeval kind.
His sense of responsibility was painful and intense. The same pain
possessed him always, were the sin that of a child or a Borgia.

As he listened to the broken tale, the forest around was vocal, the
chipmunks scampered from tree to tree, the woodpecker’s tap-tap,
tap-tap, went on over their heads, the leaves rustled and gave forth
their divine sweetness, as though man and nature were at peace, and
there were no storms in sky above or soul beneath, or in the waters of
life that are deeper than “the waters under the earth.”

It was only a short time, but to the door-keeper and the wayfarer
it seemed hours, for the human soul travels far and hard and long in
moments of pain and revelation. The priest in his anxiety suffered as
much as the man who did the wicked thing. When the man had finished, the
priest said:

“Is this all?”

“It is the great sin of my life.” He shuddered, and continued: “I have
no love of life; I have no fear of death; but there is the man who saved
me years ago, who got me freedom. He has had great sorrow and trouble,
and I would live for his sake--because he has no friend.”

“Who is the man?”

The other pointed to where the little house was hidden among the trees.
The priest almost gasped his amazement, but waited.

Thereupon the woodsman told the whole truth concerning the tailor of
Chaudiere.

“To save him, I have confessed my own sin. To you I might tell all in
confession, and the truth about him would be buried for ever. I might
not confess at all unless I confessed my own sin. You will save him,
father?” he asked anxiously.

“I will save him,” was the reply of the priest.

“I want to give myself to justice; but he has been ill, and he may be
ill again, and he needs me.” He told of the tailor’s besetting weakness,
of his struggles against it, of his fall a few days before, and the
cause of it... told all to the man of silence.

“You wish to give yourself to justice?”

“I shall have no peace unless.”

There was something martyr-like in the man’s attitude. It appealed to
some stern, martyr-like quality in the priest. If the man would win
eternal peace so, then so be it. His grim piety approved. He spoke now
with the authority of divine justice.

“For one year longer go on as you are, then give yourself to
justice--one year from to-day, my son. Is it enough?”

“It is enough.”

“Absolvo te!” said the priest.




CHAPTER XXXIII. THE EDGE OF LIFE

Meantime Charley was alone with his problem. The net of circumstances
seemed to have coiled inextricably round him. Once, at a trial in court
in other days, he had said in his ironical way: “One hasn’t to fear the
penalties of one’s sins, but the damnable accident of discovery.”

To try to escape now, or, with the assistance of Jo Portugais, when
en route to Quebec in charge of the constables, and find refuge and
seclusion elsewhere? There was nothing he might ask of Portugais which
he would not do. To escape--and so acknowledge a guilt not his own!
Well, what did it matter! Who mattered? He knew only too well. The Cure
mattered--that good man who had never intruded his piety on him; who
had been from the first a discreet friend, a gentleman,--a Christian
gentleman, if there was such a sort of gentleman apart from all others.
Who mattered? The Seigneur, whom he had never seen before, yet who had
showed that day a brusque sympathy, a gruff belief in him? Who mattered?

Above all, Rosalie mattered. To escape, to go from Rosalie’s presence
by a dark way, as it were, like a thief in the night--was that possible?
His escape would work upon her mind. She would first wonder, then doubt,
and then believe at last that he was a common criminal. She was the one
who mattered in that thought of escape escape to some other parish, to
some other province, to some other country--to some other world!

To some other world? He looked at a little bottle he held in the palm of
his hand.

A hand held aside the curtain of the door entering on the next room, and
a girl’s troubled face looked in, but he did not see.

Escape to some other world? And why not, after all? On the day his
memory came back he had resisted the idea in this very room. As the
fatalist he had resisted it then. Now how poor seemed the reasons for
not having ended it all that day! If his appointed time had been come,
the river would have ended him then--that had been his argument. Was
that argument not belief in Somebody or Something which governed his
going or staying? Was it not preordination? Was not fatalism, then,
the cheapest sort of belief in an unchangeable Somebody or Something,
representing purpose and law and will? Attribute to anything power, and
there was God, whatever His qualities, personality, or being.

The little phial of laudanum was in his hand to loosen life into
knowledge. Was it not his duty to eliminate himself, rather than be an
unsolvable quantity in the problem of many lives? It was neither vulgar
nor cowardly to pass quietly from forces making for ruin, and so avert
ruin and secure happiness. To go while yet there was time, and smooth
for ever the way for others by an eternal silence--that seemed well.
Punishment thereafter, the Cure would say. But was it not worth while
being punished, even should the Cure’s fond belief in the noble fable be
true, if one saved others here? Who--God or man--had the right to
take from him the right to destroy himself, not for fear, not through
despair, but for others’ sake? Had he not the right to make restitution
to Kathleen for having given her nothing but himself, whom she had
learned to despise? If he were God, he would say, Do justice and fear
not. And this was justice. Suppose he were in a battle, with all these
things behind him, and put himself, with daring and great results,
in some forlorn hope--to die; and he died, ostensibly a hero for his
country, but, in his heart of hearts, to throw his life away to
save some one he loved, not his country, which profited by his
sacrifice--suppose that were the case, what would the world say?

“He saved others, himself he could not save”--flashed through his mind,
possessed him. He could save others; but it was clear he could not
save himself. It was so simple, so kind, and so decent. And he would
be buried here in quiet, unconsecrated ground, a mystery, a tailor who,
finding he could not mend the garment of life, cast it away, and took on
himself the mantle of eternal obscurity. No reproaches would follow him;
and he would not reproach himself, for Kathleen and Billy and another
would be safe and free to live their lives.

Far, far better for Rosalie! She too would be saved--free from the peril
of his presence. For where could happiness come to her from him? He
might not love her; he might not marry her; and it were well to go now,
while yet love was not a habit, but an awakening, a realisation of life.
His death would settle this sad question for ever. To her he would be a
softening memory as time went on.

The girl who had watched by the curtain stepped softly inside the room
... she divined his purpose. He was so intent he did not hear.

“I will do it,” he said to himself. “It is better to go than to stay. I
have never done a good thing for love of any human being. I will do one
now.”

He turned towards the window through which the sunlight streamed.
Stepping forward into the sun, he uncorked the bottle.

There was a quick step behind him, and the girl’s voice said clearly:

“If you go, I go also.”

He turned swiftly, cold with amazement, the blood emptied from his
heart.

Rosalie stood a little distance from him, her face pale, her hands held
hard to her side.

“I understand all. I could not go outside, I stayed there”--she pointed
to the other room--“and I know why you would die. You would die to save
others.”

“Rosalie!” he protested in a hoarse voice, and could say nothing more.

“You think that I will stay, if you go! No, no, no--I will not. You
taught me how to live, and I will follow you now.”

He saw the strange determination of her look. It startled him; he knew
not what to say. “Your father, Rosalie--”

“My father will be cared for. But who will care for you in the place
where you are going? You will have no friends there. You shall not go
alone. You will need me--in the dark.”

“It is good that I go,” he said. “It would be wicked, it would be
dreadful, for you to go.”

“I go if you go,” she urged. “I will lose my soul to be with you; you
will want me--there!”

There was no mistaking her intention. Footsteps sounded outside. The
others were coming back. To die here before her face? To bring her to
death with him? He was sick with despair.

“Go into the next room quickly,” he said. “No matter what comes, I will
not--on my honour!”

She threw him a look of gratitude, and, as the bearskin curtain dropped
behind her, he put the phial of laudanum in his pocket.

The door opened, and the Abbe Rossignol entered, followed by the
Seigneur, the Cure, and Jo Portugais. Charley faced them calmly, and
waited.

The Abbe’s face was still cold and severe, but his voice was human as he
said quickly: “Monsieur, I have decided to take you at your word. I am
assured you are not the man who committed the crime. You probably have
reasons for not establishing your identity.”

Had Charley been a prisoner in the dock, he could not have had a moment
of deeper amazement--even if after the jury had said Guilty, a piece
of evidence had been handed in, proving innocence, averting the death
sentence. A wave of excitement passed over him, leaving him cold and
still. In the other room a girl put her hand to her mouth to stifle a
cry of joy.

Charley bowed. “You made a mistake, Monsieur--pray do not apologise,” he
said.




CHAPTER XXXIV. IN AMBUSH

Weeks went by. Summer was done, autumn was upon the land. Harvest-home
had gone, and the “fall” ploughing was forward. The smell of the burning
stubble, of decaying plant and fibre, was mingling with the odours of
the orchards and the balsams of the forest. The leafy hill-sides, far
and near, were resplendent in scarlet and saffron and tawny red. Over
the decline of the year flickered the ruined fires of energy.

It had been a prosperous summer in the valley. Harvests had been reaped
such as the country had not known for years--and for years there had
been great harvests. There had not been a death in the parish all
summer, and births had occurred out of all usual proportion.

When Filion Lacasse commented thereon, and mentioned the fact that even
the Notary’s wife had had the gift of twins as the crowning fulness of
the year, Maximilian Cour, who was essentially superstitious, tapped on
the table three times, to prevent a turn in the luck.

The baker was too late, however, for the very next day the Notary was
brought home with a nasty gunshot wound in his leg. He had been lured
into duck-hunting on a lake twenty miles away, in the hills, and had
been accidentally shot on an Indian reservation, called Four Mountains,
where the Church sometimes held a mission and presented a primitive sort
of passion-play. From there he had been brought home by his comrades,
and the doctor from the next parish summoned. The Cure assisted the
doctor at first, but the task was difficult to him. At the instant when
the case was most critical the tailor of Chaudiere set his foot inside
the Notary’s door. A moment later he relieved the Cure and helped to
probe for shot, and care for an ugly wound.

Charley had no knowledge of surgery, but his fingers were skilful, his
eye was true, and he had intuition. The long operation over, the rural
physician and surgeon washed his hands and then studied Charley with
curious admiration.

“Thank you, Monsieur,” he said, as he dried his hands on a towel. “I
couldn’t have done it without you. It’s a pretty good job; and you share
the credit.”

Charley bowed. “It’s a good thing not to halloo till you’re out of the
woods,” he said. “Our friend there has a bad time before him--hein?”

“I take you. It is so.” The man of knives and tinctures pulled his
side-whiskers with smug satisfaction as he looked into a small mirror on
the wall. “Do you chance to know if madame has any cordials or spirits?”
 he added, straightening his waistcoat and adjusting his cravat.

“It is likely,” answered Charley, and moved away to the window looking
upon the street.

The doctor turned in surprise. He was used to being waited on, and he
had expected the tailor to follow the tradition.

“We might--eh?” he said suggestively. “It is usually the custom to
provide refreshment, but the poor woman, madame, has been greatly
occupied with her husband, and--”

“And the twins,” Charley put in drily--“and a house full of work, and
only one old crone in the kitchen to help. Still, I have no doubt she
has thought of the cordials too. Women are the slaves of custom--ah,
here they are, as I said, and--”

He stopped short, for in the doorway, with a tray, stood Rosalie
Evanturel. The surgeon was so intent upon at once fortifying himself
that he did not see the look which passed between Rosalie and the
tailor.

Rosalie had been absent for two months. Her father had been taken
seriously ill the day after the critical episode in the but at Vadrome
Mountain, and she had gone with him to the hospital at Quebec, for an
operation. The Abbe Rossignol had undertaken to see them safely to the
hospital, and Jo Portugais, at his own request, was permitted to go in
attendance upon M. Evanturel.

There had been a hasty leave-taking between Charley and Rosalie, but
it was in the presence of others, and they had never spoken a word
privately together since the day she had said to him that where he went
she would go, in life or out of it.

“You have been gone two months,” Charley said now, after their touch of
hands and voiceless greeting. “Two months yesterday,” she answered.

“At sundown,” he replied, in an even voice.

“The Angelus was ringing,” she answered calmly, though her heart was
leaping and her hands were trembling. The doctor, instantly busy with
the cordial, had not noticed what they said.

“Won’t you join me?” he asked, offering a glass to Charley.

“Spirits do not suit me,” answered Charley. “Matter of constitution,”
 rejoined the doctor, and buttoned up his coat, preparing to depart. He
came close to Charley. “Now, I don’t want to put upon you, Monsieur,” he
said, “but this sick man is valuable in the parish--you take me? Well,
it’s a difficult, delicate case, and I’d be glad if I could rely on you
for a few days. The Cure would do, but you are young, you have a sense
of things--take me? Half the fees are yours if you’ll keep a sharp eye
on him--three times a day, and be with him at night a while. Fever is
the thing I’m afraid of--temperature--this way, please!” He went to the
window, and for a minute engaged Charley in whispered conversation. “You
take me?” he said cheerily at last, as he turned again towards Rosalie.

“Quite, Monsieur,” answered Charley, and drew away, for he caught the
odour of the doctor’s breath, and a cold perspiration broke out over
him. He felt the old desire for drink sweeping through him. “I will do
what I can,” he said.

“Come, my dear,” the doctor said to Rosalie. “We will go and see your
father.”

Charley’s eyes had fastened on the bottles avidly. As Rosalie turned to
bid him good-bye, he said to her, almost hoarsely: “Take the tray back
to Madame Dauphin--please.”

She flashed a glance of inquiry at him. She was puzzled by the fire in
his eyes. With her soul in her face as she lifted the tray, out of the
warm-beating life in her, she said in a low tone:

“It is good to live, isn’t it?”

He nodded and smiled, and the trouble slowly passed from his eyes. The
woman in her had conquered his enemy.




CHAPTER XXXV. THE COMING OF MAXIMILIAN COUR AND ANOTHER

“It is good to live, isn’t it?” In the autumn weather when the air drank
like wine, it seemed so indeed, even to Charley, who worked all day in
his shop, his door wide open to the sunlight, and sat up half the night
with Narcisse Dauphin, sometimes even taking a turn at the cradle of the
twins, while madame sat beside her husband’s bed.

To Charley the answer to Rosalie’s question lay in the fact that his
eyes had never been so keen, his face so alive, or his step so buoyant
as in this week of double duty. His mind was more hopeful than it had
ever been since the day he awoke with memory restored in the silence of
a mountain hut.

He had found the antidote to his great temptation, to the lurking,
relentless habit which had almost killed him the night John Brown
had sung Champagne Charlie from behind the flaring lights. From a
determination to fight his own fight with no material aids, he had never
once used the antidote sent him by the Cure’s brother.

On St. Jean Baptiste’s day his proud will had failed him; intellectual
force, native power of mind, had broken like reeds under the weight of
a cruel temptation. But now a new force had entered into him. As his
fingers were about to reach for the spirit-bottle in the house of the
Notary, and he had, for the first time in his life, made an appeal for
help, a woman’s voice had said, “It is good to live, isn’t it?” and his
hand was stayed. A woman’s look had stilled the strife. Never before in
his life had he relied on a moral or a spiritual impulse in him. What
of these existed in him were in unseen quantities--for which there was
neither multiple nor measure--had been primitive and hereditary, flowing
in him like a feeble tincture diluted to inefficacy.

Rosalie had resolved him back to the original elements. The quiet days
he had spent in Chaudiere, the self-sacrifice he had been compelled to
make, the human sins, such as those of Jo Portugais and Louis Trudel,
with which he had had to do, the simplicity of the life around him--the
uncomplicated lie and the unvarnished truth, the obvious sorrow and the
patent joy, the childish faith, and the rude wickedness so pardonable
because so frankly brutal--had worked upon him. The elemental spirit
of it all had so invaded his nature, breaking through the crust of old
habit to the new man, that, when he fell before his temptation, and his
body became saturated with liquor, the healthy natural being and the
growing natural mind were overpowered by the coarse onslaught, and death
had nearly followed.

It was his first appeal to a force outside himself, to an active
principle unfamiliar to the voluntary working of his nature, and the
answer had been immediate and adequate. Yet what was it? He did not ask;
he had not got beyond the mere experience, and the old questioning habit
was in abeyance. Each new and great emotion has its dominating moment,
its supreme occasion, before taking its place in the modulated moral
mechanism. He was touched with helplessness.

As he sat beside Narcisse Dauphin’s bedside, one evening, the sick man
on his way to recovery, there came to him the text of a sermon he had
once heard John Brown preach: “Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friend.” He had been thinking of Rosalie
and that day at Vadrome Mountain. She would not only have died with him,
but she would have died for him, if need had been. What might he give in
return for what she gave?

The Notary interrupted his thoughts. He had lain watching Charley for a
long time, his brow drawn down with thought. At last he said:

“Monsieur, you have been good to me.” Charley laid a hand on the sick
man’s arm.

“I don’t see that. But if you won’t talk, I’ll believe you think so.”

The Notary shook his head. “I’ve not been talking for an hour, I’ve no
fever, and I want to say some things. When I’ve said them, I’ll feel
better--voila! I want to make the amende honorable. I once thought
you were this and that--I won’t say what I thought you. I said you
interfered--giving advice to people, as you did to Filion Lacasse, and
taking the bread out of my mouth. I said that!”

He paused, raised himself on his elbow, smoothed back his grizzled
hair behind his ears, looked at himself in the mirror opposite with
satisfaction, and added oracularly: “But how prone is the mind of man
to judge amiss! You have put bread into my mouth--no, no, Monsieur, you
shall hear me! As well as doing your own work, you have done my business
since my accident as well as a lawyer could do it; and you’ve given
every penny to my wife.”

“As for the work I’ve done,” answered Charley, “it was nothing--you
notaries have easy times. You may take your turn with my shears and
needle one day.”

With a dash of patronage true to his nature, “You are wonderful for a
tailor,” the Notary rejoined. Charley laughed--seldom, if ever, had he
laughed since coming to Chaudiere. It was, however, a curious fact that
he took a real pleasure in the work he did with his hands. In making
clothes for habitant farmers, and their sons and their sons’ sons, and
jackets for their wives and daughters, he had had the keenest pleasure
of his life.

He had taken his earnings with pride, if not with exultation. He knew
the Notary did not mean that he was wonderful as a tailor, but he
answered to the suggestion.

“You liked that last coat I made for you, then,” he said drily; “I
believe you wore it when you were shot. It was the thing for your
figure, man.”

The Notary looked in the large mirror opposite with sad content. “Ah, it
was a good figure, the first time I went to that hut at Four Mountains!”

“We can’t always be young. You have a waist yet, and your chest-barrel
gives form to a waistcoat. Tut, tut! Think of the twins in the way of
vainglory and hypocrisy.”

“‘Twins’ and ‘hypocrisy’; there you have struck the nail on the head,
tailor. There is the thing I’m going to tell you about.”

After a cautious glance at the door and the window, Dauphin continued in
quick, broken sentences: “It wasn’t an accident at Four Mountains--not
quite. It was Paulette Dubois--you know the woman that lives at the
Seigneur’s gate? Twelve years ago she was a handsome girl. I fell in
love with her, but she left here. There were two other men. There was a
timber-merchant,--and there was a lawyer after. The timber-merchant was
married; the lawyer wasn’t. She lived at first with the timber-merchant.
He was killed--murdered in the woods.”

“What was the timber-merchant’s name?” interrupted Charley in an even
voice.

“Turley--but that doesn’t matter!” continued the Notary. “He was
murdered, and then the lawyer came on the scene. He lived with her for
a year. She had a child by him. One day he sent the child away to a safe
place and told her he was going to turn over a new leaf--he was going
to stand for Parliament, and she must go. She wouldn’t go without
the child. At last he said the child was dead; and showed her the
certificate of death. Then she came back here, and for a while, alas!
she disgraced the parish. But all at once she changed--she got a message
that her child was alive. To her it was like being born again. It was at
this time they were going to drive her from the parish. But the Seigneur
and then the Cure spoke for her, and so did I--at last.”

He paused and plaintively admired himself in the mirror. He was grateful
that he had been clean-shaved that morning, and he was content to catch
the citrine odour of the bergamot upon his hair.

New phases of the most interesting case Charley had ever defended spread
out before him--the case which had given him his friend Jo Portugais,
which had turned his own destiny. Yet he could not quite trace in it the
vital association of this vain Notary now in the confessional mood.

“You behaved very well,” said Charley tentatively.

“Ah, you say that, knowing so little! What will you say when you know
all--ah! That I should take a stand also was important. Neither the
Seigneur nor the Cure was married; I was. I have been long-suffering for
a cause. My marital felicity has been bruised--bruised--but not broken.”

“There are the twins,” said Charley, with a half-closed eye.

“Could woman ask greater proof?” urged the Notary seriously, for the
other’s voice had been so well masked that he did not catch its satire.
“But see my peril, and mark the ground of my interest in this poor
wanton! Yet a woman--a woman-frail creatures, as we know, and to be
pitied, not made more pitiable by the stronger sex.... But, see now!
Why should I have perilled mine own conjugal peace, given ground for
suspicion even--for I am unfortunate, unfortunate in the exterior with
which Dame Nature has honoured me!” Again he looked in the mirror with
sad complacency.

On these words his listener offered no comment, and he continued:

“For this reason I lifted my voice for the poor wanton. It was I who
wrote the letter to her that her child was alive. I did it with high
purpose--I foresaw that she would change her ways if she thought her
child was living. Was I mistaken? No. I am an observer of human nature.
Intellect conquered. ‘Io triumphe’. The poor fly-away changed, led a new
life. Ever since then she has tried to get the man--the lawyer--to tell
her where her child is. He has not done so. He has said the child is
dead--always. When she seemed to give up belief, then would come another
letter to her, telling her the child was living--but not where. So
she would keep on writing to the man, and sometimes she would go away
searching--searching. To what end? Nothing! She had a letter some months
ago, for she had got restless, and a young kinsman of the Seigneur had
come to visit at the seigneury for a week, and took much notice of her.
There was danger. Voila, another letter.”

“From you?”

“Monsieur, of course! Will you keep a secret--on your sacred honour?”

“I can keep a secret without sacred honour.”

“Ah, yes, of course! You have a secret of your own--pardon me, I am
only saying what every one says. Well, this is the secret of the woman
Paulette Dubois. My cousin, Robespierre Dauphin, a notary in Quebec,
is the agent of the lawyer, the father of the child. He pities the poor
woman. But he is bound in professional honour to the lawyer fellow,
not to betray. When visiting Robespierre once I found out the truth-by
accident.

“I told him what I intended. He gave permission to tell the woman her
child was alive; and, if need be for her good, to affirm it over and
over again--no more.”

“And this?” said Charley, pointing to the injured leg, for he now
associated the accident with the secret just disclosed.

“Ah, you apprehend! You have an avocat’s mind--almost. It was at Four
Mountains. Paulette is superstitious; so not long ago she went to live
there alone with an old half-breed woman who has second-sight. Monsieur,
it is a gift unmistakably. For as soon as the hag clapped eyes on me
in the hut, she said: ‘There is the man that wrote you the letters.’
Well--what! Paulette Dubois came down on me like an avalanche--Monsieur,
like an avalanche! She believed the old witch; and there was I lying
with an unconvincing manner”--he sighed--“lying requires practice, alas!
She saw I was lying, and in a rage snatched up my gun. It went off by
accident, and brought me down. Did she relent? Not so. She helped to
bind me up, and the last words she said to me were: ‘You will suffer;
you will have time to think. I am glad. You have kept me on the rack. I
shall only be sorry if you die, for then I shall not be able to torture
you till you tell me where my child is!’ Monsieur, I lied to the last,
lest she should come here and make a noise; but I’m not sure it wouldn’t
have been better to break faith with Robespierre, and tell the poor
wanton where her child is. What would you do, Monsieur? I cannot ask
the Cure or the Seigneur--I have reasons. But you have the head of
a lawyer--almost--and you have no local feelings, no personal
interest--eh?”

“I should tell the truth.”

“Your reasons, Monsieur?”

“Because the lawyer is a scoundrel. Your betrayal of his secret is not a
thousandth part so bad as one lie told to this woman, whose very life is
her child. Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

“Good! What harm can be done? A left-handed boy is all right in the
world. Your wife has twins--then think of the woman, the one ewe lamb of
‘the poor wanton.’ If you do not tell her, you will have her here making
a noise, as you say. I wonder she has not been here on your door-step.”

“I had a letter from her to-day. She is coming-ah, mon dieu!”

“When?”

There was a tap at the window. The Notary started. “Ah, Heaven, here she
is!” he gasped, and drew over to the wall.

A voice came from outside. “Shall I play for you, Dauphin? It is as good
as medicine.”

The Notary recovered himself at once. His volatile nature sprang back to
its pose. He could forget Paulette Dubois for the moment.

“It is Maximilian Cour in the garden,” he said happily. Then he raised
his voice. “Play on, baker; but something for convalescence--the return
of spring, the sweet assonance of memory.”

“A September air, and a gush of spring,” said the baker, trying to crane
his long neck through the window. “Ah, there you are, Dauphin! I shall
give you a sleep to-night like a balmy eve.” He nodded to the tailor.
“M’sieu’, you shall judge if sentiment be dead.

“I have racked my heart to play this time. I have called it, ‘The
Baffled Quest of Love’. I have taken the music of the song of Alsace,
‘Le Jardin d’Amour’, and I have made variations on it, keeping the last
verse of the song in my mind. You know the song, M’sieu’:

       “‘Quand je vais au jardin, Jardin d’amour,
        Je crois entendu des pas,
        Je veux fuir, et n’ose pas.
        Voici la fin du jour...
        Je crains et j’hesite,
        Mon coeur bat plus vite
        En ce sejour...
        Quand je vais an jardin, jardin d’amour.’”

The baker sat down on a stool he had brought, and began to tune his
fiddle. From inside came the voice of the Notary.

“Play ‘The Woods are Green’ first,” he said. “Then the other.”

The Notary possessed the one high-walled garden in the village, and
though folk gathered outside and said that the baker was playing for the
sick man, there was no one in the garden save the fiddler himself.
Once or twice a lad appeared on the top of the wall, looking over, but
vanished at once when he saw Charley’s face at the window. Long ere the
baker had finished, the song was caught up from outside, and before the
last notes of the violin had died away, twenty voices were singing it in
the street, and forty feet marched away with it into the dusk.

Darkness comes quickly in this land of brief twilight. Presently out
of the soft shadowed stillness, broken by the note of a vagrant
whippoorwill, crept out from Maximilian Cour’s old violin the music of
‘The Baffled Quest of Love’.

The baker was not a great musician, but he had a talent, a rare gift of
pathos, and an imagination untrammelled by rigorous rules of harmony and
construction. Whatever there was in his sentimental bosom he poured
into this one achievement of his life. It brought tears to the eyes of
Narcisse Dauphin. It opened a gate of the garden wall, and drew inside a
girl’s face, shining with feeling.

Maximilian Cour spoke for more than himself that night. His philandering
spirit had, at middle age, begotten a desire to house itself in a quiet
place, where the blinds could be drawn close, and the room of life made
ready with all the furniture of love. So he had spoken to his violin,
and it had answered as it had never done before. The soul of the lean
baker touched the heart of a man whose life had been but a baffled
quest, and the spirit of a girl whose love was her sun by day, her moon
by night, and the starlight of her dreams.

From the shade of the window the man the girl loved watched her as she
sank upon the ground and clasped her hands before her in abandonment to
the music. He watched her when the baker, at last, overcome by his
own feelings--and ashamed of them--got up and stole swiftly out of the
garden. He watched her till he saw her drop her face in her hands; then,
opening the door and stealing out, he came and laid a hand upon her
shoulder, and she heard him say:

“Rosalie!”




CHAPTER XXXVI. BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY

Rosalie came to her feet, gasping with pleasure. She had been unhappy
ever since she had returned from Quebec, for though she had sometimes
been brought in contact with Charley in the Notary’s house since the
day of the operation, nothing had passed between them save the necessary
commonplaces of a sick-room, given a little extra colour, perhaps,
by the sense of responsibility which fell upon them both, and by that
importance which hidden sentiment gives to every motion. The twins had
been troublesome and ill, and Madame Dauphin had begged Rosalie to come
in for a couple of hours every evening. Thus the tailor and the girl
who, by every rule of wisdom, should have been kept as far apart as
the poles, were played into each other’s hands by human kindness and
damnable propinquity. The man, manlike, felt no real danger, because
nothing was said--after everything had been said for all time at the hut
on Vadrome Mountain. He had not realised the true situation, because of
late her voice, like his, had been even and her hand cool and steady.
He had not noticed that her eyes were like hungry fires, eating up her
face--eating away its roundness, and leaving a pathetic beauty behind.

It seemed to him that because there was silence--neither the written
word nor the speaking look--that all was well. He was hugging the chain
of denial to his bosom, as though to say, “This way is safety”; he was
hiding his face from the beacon-lights of her eyes, which said: “This
way is home.”

Home? Pictures of home, of a home such as Maximilian Cour painted in
his music, had passed before him now and then since that great day on
Vadrome Mountain. A simple fireside, with frugal but comfortable fare; a
few books; the study of the fields and woods; the daily humble task over
which he could meditate as his hands worked mechanically; the happy face
of a happy woman near--he had thought of home; and he had put it from
him. No matter what the temptation, his must be, perhaps for ever, the
bed and board unshared. He had had his chance in the old days, and
he had thrown it away with insolent indifference, and an unpardonable
contempt for the opinion of the world.

Now, with a blind fatuousness which had nothing to do with his old
intellectual power, but was evidence of a primitive life of feeling, had
vaguely imagined that because there were no clinging hands, or stolen
looks, or any vow or promise, that all might go on as at present--upon
the surface. With a curious absence of his old accuracy of observation
he was treating the immediate past--his and Rosalie’s past--as if it did
not actually exist; as if only the other and farther past was a tragedy,
and this nearer one a dream.

But the film fell from his eyes as Maximilian Cour played his ‘Baffled
Quest’, with its quaint, searching pathos; and as he saw the figure of
the girl alone in the shade of the great rose-bushes, past and present
became one, and the whole man was lost in that one word “Rosalie!” which
called her to her feet with outstretched hands.

The tears sprang to her eyes; her face upturned to his was a mute
appeal, a speechless ‘Viens ici’.

Past, present, future, duty, apprehension, consequences, suddenly fell
away from Charley’s mind like a garment slipping from the shoulders, and
the new man, swept off his feet by the onrush of unused and ungoverned
emotions, caught the girl to his arms with a desperate joy.

“Oh, do you care, then--for me?” wept the girl, and hid her face in his
breast.

A voice came from inside the house: “Monsieur, Monsieur--ah, come, if
you please, tailor!”

The girl drew back quickly, looked up at him for one instant with a
triumphant happy daring, then, suddenly covered with confusion, turned,
ran to the gate, opened it, passed swiftly out, and was swallowed up in
the dusk.




CHAPTER XXXVII. THE CHALLENGE OF PAULETTE DUBOIS

“Monsieur, Monsieur!” came the voice from inside the house, querulously
and anxiously. Charley entered the Notary’s bedroom.

“Monsieur,” said the Notary excitedly, “she is here--Paulette is here.
My wife is asleep, thank God! but old Sophie has just told me that the
woman asks to see me. Ah, Heaven above, what shall I do?”

“Will you leave it to me?”

“Yes, yes, Monsieur.”

“You will do exactly as I say?”

“Ah, most sure.”

“Very well. Keep still. I will see her first. Trust to me.” He turned
and left the room.

Charley found the woman in the Notary’s office, which, while partly
detached from the house, did duty as sitting-room and library.
When Charley entered, the room was only lighted by two candles,
and Paulette’s face was hidden by a veil, but Charley observed the
tremulousness of the figure and the nervous decision of manner. He had
seen her before several times, and he had always noticed the air, half
bravado, half shrinking, marking her walk and movements, as though two
emotions were fighting in her. She was now dressed in black, save for
one bright red ribbon round her throat, incongruous and garish.

When she saw Charley she started, for she had expected the servant with
a message from the Notary--her own message had been peremptory.

“I wish to see the Notary,” she said defiantly.

“He is not able to come to you.”

“What of that?”

“Did you expect to go to his bedroom?”

“Why not?” She was abrupt to discourtesy.

“You are neither physician, nor relative.”

“I have important business.”

“I transact his business for him, Madame.”

“You are a tailor.”

“I learned that; I am learning to be a notary.”

“My business is private.”

“I transact his private business too--that which his wife cannot do.
Would you prefer his wife to me? It must be either the one or the
other.”

The woman started towards the door in a rage. He stepped between. “You
cannot see the Notary.”

“I’ll see his wife, then--”

“That would only put the fat in the fire. His wife would not listen
to you. She is quick-tempered, and she fancies she has reasons for not
liking you.”

“She’s a fool. I haven’t been always particular, but as for Narcisse
Dauphin--”

“He has been a good friend to you at some expense, the world says.”

The woman struggled with herself. “The world lies!” she said at last.

“But he doesn’t. The village was against you once. That was when the
Notary, with the Seigneur, was for you--it has cost him something ever
since, I’m told. You’ve never thanked him.”

“He has tortured me for years, the oily, smirking, lying--”

“He has been your best friend,” he interrupted. “Please sit down, and
listen to me for a moment.”

She hesitated, then did as he asked.

“He tells me that years ago he was in love with you. Hasn’t he behaved
better than some who said they loved you?”

The woman half started up, her eyes flashing, but met a deprecating
motion of his hand and sat down again.

“He thought that if you knew your child lived, you would think better of
life--and of yourself. He has his good points, the Notary.”

“Why doesn’t he tell me where my child is?”

“The Notary is in bed--you shot him! Don’t you think it is doing you a
good turn not to have you arrested?”

“It was an accident.”

“Oh no, it wasn’t! You couldn’t make a jury believe that. And if you
were in prison, how could you find your child? You see, you have treated
the Notary very badly.”

She was silent, and he added, slowly: “He had good reasons for not
telling you. It wasn’t his own secret, and he hadn’t come by it in a
strictly professional way. Your child was being well cared for, and he
told you simply that it was alive--for your own sake. But he has changed
his mind at last, and--”

The woman sprang from her seat. “He will tell me--he will tell me?”

“I will tell you.”

“Monsieur-Monsieur--ah, my God, but you are kind! How should you
know--what do you know?”

“I give you my word that by to-morrow evening you shall know where your
child is.”

For a moment she was bewildered and overcome, then a look of gratitude,
of luminous hope, covered her face, softening the hardness of its
contour, and she fell on her knees beside the table, dropped her head in
her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

“My little lamb, my little, little lamb-my own dearest!” she sobbed. “I
shall have you again. I shall have you again--all my own!”

He stood and watched her meditatively. He was wondering why it was that
grief like this had never touched him so before. His eyes were moist.
Though he had been many things in his life, he had never been abashed;
but a curious timidity possessed him now.

He leaned over and touched her shoulder with a kindly abruptness, a
friendly awkwardness. “Cheer up,” he said. “You shall have your child,
if Dauphin can help you to it.”

“If he ever tries to take him from me”--she sprang to her feet, her face
in a fury--“I will--”

For an instant her overpowering passion possessed her, and she stood
violent and wilful; then, under his fixed, exacting gaze, her rage
ceased; she became still and grey and quiet.

“I shall know to-morrow evening, Monsieur? Where?” Her voice was weak
and distant.

He thought for a time. “At my house-at nine o’clock,” he answered at
last.

“Monsieur,” she said, in a choking voice, “if I get my child again, I
will bless you to my dying day.”

“No, no; it will be Dauphin you must bless,” he said, and opened the
door for her. As she disappeared into the dusk and silence he adjusted
his eye-glass, and stared musingly after her, though there was nothing
to see save the summer darkness, nothing to hear save the croak of
the frogs in the village pond. He was thinking of the trial of Joseph
Nadeau, and of a woman in the gallery, who laughed.

“Monsieur, Monsieur,” called the voice of the Notary from the bedroom.




CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE CURE AND THE SEIGNEUR VISIT THE TAILOR

It had been a perfect September day. The tailor of Chaudiere had been
busier than usual, for winter was within hail, and careful habitants
were renewing their simple wardrobes. The Seigneur and the Cure arrived
together, each to order the making of a greatcoat of the Irish frieze
which the Seigneur kept in quantity at the Manor. The Seigneur was in
rare spirits. And not without reason; for this was Michaelmas eve, and
tomorrow would be Michaelmas day, and there was a promise to be redeemed
on Michaelmas day! He had high hopes of its redemption according to his
own wishes; for he was a vain Seigneur, and he had had his way in all
things all his life, as everybody knew. Importunity with discretion was
his motto, and he often vowed to the Cure that there was no other motto
for the modern world.

The Cure’s visit to the tailor’s shop on this particular day had unusual
interest, for it concerned his dear ambition, the fondest aspiration of
his life: to bring the infidel tailor (they could not but call a man an
infidel whose soul was negative--the word agnostic had not then become
usual) from the chains of captivity into the freedom of the Church.
The Cure had ever clung to his fond hope; and it was due to his
patient confidence that there were several parishioners who now carried
Charley’s name before the shrine of the blessed Virgin, and to the
little calvaries by the road-side. The wife of Filion Lacasse never
failed to pray for him every day. The thousand dollars gained by the
saddler on the tailor’s advice had made her life happier ever since,
for Filion had become saving and prudent, and had even got her a “hired
girl.” There were at least a half-dozen other women, including Madame
Dauphin, who did the same.

That he might listen again to the good priest on his holy hobby,
inflamed with this passion of missionary zeal, the Seigneur, this
morning, had thrown doubt upon the ultimate success of the Cure’s
efforts.

“My dear Cure” said the Seigneur, “it is true, I think, what the tailor
suggested to my brother--on my soul, I wonder the Abbe gave in, for
a more obstinate fellow I never knew!--that a man is born with the
disbelieving maggot in his brain, or the butterfly of belief, or
whatever it may be called. It’s constitutional--may be criminal, but
constitutional. It seems to me you would stand more chance with the Jew,
Greek, or heretic, than our infidel. He thinks too much--for a tailor,
or for nine tailors, or for one man.”

He pulled his nose, as if he had said a very good thing indeed. They
were walking slowly towards the village during this conversation, and
the Cure, stopping short, brought his stick emphatically down in his
palm several times, as he said:

“Ah, you will not see! You will not understand. With God all things are
possible. Were it the devil himself in human form, I should work and
pray and hope, as my duty is, though he should still remain the devil
to the end. What am I? Nothing. But what the Church has done, the Church
may do. Think of Paul and Augustine, and Constantine!”

“They were classic barbarians to whom religion was but an emotion. This
man has a brain which must be satisfied.”

“I must count him as a soul to be saved through that very intelligence,
as well as through the goodness of his daily life, which, in its
charity, shames us all. He gives all he earns to the sick and needy. He
lives on fare as poor as the poorest of our people eat; he gives up his
hours of sleep to nurse the sick. Dauphin might not have lived but for
him. His heart is good, else these things were impossible. He could not
act them.”

“But that’s just it, Cure. Doesn’t he act them? Isn’t it a whim? What
more likely than that, tired of the flesh-pots of Egypt, he comes here
to live in the desert--for a sensation? We don’t know.”

“We do know. The man has had sorrow and the man has had sin. Yes,
believe me, there is none of us that suffers as this man has suffered.
I have had many, many talks with him. Believe me, Maurice, I speak the
truth. My heart bleeds for him. I think I know the thing that drove him
here amongst us. It is a great temptation, which pursues him here--even
here, where his life is so commendable. I have seen him fighting it. I
have seen his torture, the piteous, ignoble yielding, and the struggle,
with more than mortal energy, to be master of himself.”

“It is--” the Seigneur said, then paused.

“No, no; do not ask me. He has not confessed to me, Maurice-naturally,
nothing like that. But I know. I know and pity--ah, Maurice, I almost
love. You argue, and reason, but I know this, my friend, that something
was left out of this man when he was made, and it is that thing that
we must find, or he will die among us a ruined soul, and his gravestone
will be the monument of our shame. If he can once trust the Church, if
he can once say, ‘Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,’ then his
temptation will vanish, and I shall bring him in--I shall lead him
home.”

For an instant the Seigneur looked at him in amazement, for this was a
Cure he had never known.

“Dear Cure, you are not your old self,” he said gently.

“I am not myself--yes, that is it, Maurice. I am not the old humdrum
Cure you knew. The whole world is my field now. I have sorrowed for sin,
within the bounds of this little Chaudiere. Now I sorrow for unbelief.
Through this man, through much thinking on him, I have come to feel the
woe of all the world. I have come to hear the footsteps of the Master
near. My friend, it is not a legend, not a belief now, it is a presence.
I owe him much, Maurice. In bringing him home, I shall understand what
it all means--the faith that we profess. I shall in truth feel that
it is all real. You see how much I may yet owe to him--to this infidel
tailor. I only hope I have not betrayed him,” he added anxiously. “I
would keep faith with him--ah, yes, indeed!”

“I only remember that you have said the man suffers. That is no
betrayal.”

They entered the village in silence. Presently, however, the sound of
Maximilian Cour’s violin, as they passed the bakery, set the Seigneur’s
tongue wagging again, and it wagged on till they came to the tailor’s
shop.

“Good-day to you, Monsieur,” he said, as they entered.

“Have you a hot goose for me?”

“I have, but I will not press it on you,” replied Charley.

“Should you so take my question--eh?”

“Should you so take my ‘anser’?”

The pun was new to the Seigneur, and he turned to the Cure chuckling.
“Think of that, Cure! He knows the classics.” He laughed till the tears
came into his eyes.

The next few moments Charley was busy measuring the two potentates for
greatcoats. As it was his first work for them, it was necessary for the
Cure to write down the Seigneur’s measurements, as the tailor called
them off, while the Seigneur did the same when the Cure was being
measured. So intent were the three it might have been a conference of
war. The Seigneur ventured a distant but self-conscious smile when
the measurement of his waist was called, for he had by two inches the
advantage of the Cure, though they were the same age, while he was one
inch better in the chest. The Seigneur was proud of his figure, and,
unheeding the passing of fashions, held to the knee-breeches and silk
stockings long after they had disappeared from the province. To the Cure
he had often said that the only time he ever felt heretical was when in
the presence of the gaitered calves of a Protestant dean. He wore his
sleeves tight and his stock high, as in the days when William the Sailor
was king in England, and his long gold-topped Prince Regent cane was the
very acme of dignity.

The measurement done, the three studied the fashion plates--mostly five
years old--as Von Moltke and Bismarck might have studied the field of
Gravelotte. The Seigneur’s remarks were highly critical, till, with a
few hasty strokes on brown paper, Charley sketched in his figure with
a long overcoat in style much the same as his undercoat, stately and
flowing and confined at the waist.

“Admirable, most admirable!” said the Seigneur. “The likeness is
astonishing”--he admired the carriage of his own head in Charley’s swift
lines--“the garment in perfect taste. Form--there is nothing like form
and proportion in life. It is almost a religion.”

“My dear friend!” said the Cure, in amazement.

“I know when I am in the presence of an artist and his work. Louis
Trudel had rule and measure, shears and a needle. Our friend here has
eye and head, sense of form and creative gift. Ah, Cure, Cure, if I were
twenty-five, with the assistance of Monsieur, I would show the bucks in
Fabrique Street how to dress. What style is this called, Monsieur?” he
suddenly asked, pointing to the drawing.

“Style a la Rossignol, Seigneur,” said the tailor.

The Seigneur was flattered out of all reason. He looked across at the
post-office, where he could see Rosalie dimly moving in the shade of the
shop.

“Ah, if I had but ordered this coat sooner!” he said regretfully. He was
thinking that to-morrow was Michaelmas day, when he was to ask Rosalie
for her answer again, and he fancied himself appearing before her in
the gentle cool of the evening, in this coat, lightly thrown back,
disclosing his embroidered waistcoat, seals, and snowy linen. “Monsieur,
I am highly complimented, believe me,” he said. “Observe, Cure, that
this coat is invented for me on the spot.”

The Cure nodded appreciatively. “Wonderful! Wonderful! But do you not
think,” he added, a little wistfully--for, was he not a Frenchman,
susceptible like all his race to the appearance of things?--“do you not
think it might be too fashionable for me?”

“Not a whit--not a whit,” replied the Seigneur generously. “Should not
a Cure look distinguished--be dignified? Consider the length, the line,
the eloquence of design! Ah, Monsieur, once again, you are an artist!
The Cure shall wear it--indeed but he shall! Then I shall look like him,
and perhaps get credit for some of his perfections.”

“And the Cure?” said Charley.

“The Cure?--the Cure? Tiens, a little of my worldliness will do him
good. There are no contrasts in him. He must wear the coat.” He waved
his walking-stick complacently, for he was thinking that the Cure’s less
perfect figure would set off his own well as they walked together. “May
I have the honour to keep this as a souvenir?” he added, picking up the
sketch.

“With pleasure,” answered Charley. “You do not need it?”

“Not at all.”

The Cure looked a little disappointed, and Charley, seeing, immediately
sketched on brown paper the priestly figure in the new-created coat, a
la Rossignol. On this drawing he was a little longer engaged, with the
result that the Cure was reproduced with a singular fidelity--in face,
figure, and expression a personality gentle yet important.

“On my soul, you shall not have it!” said the Seigneur. “But you shall
have me, and I shall have you, lest we both grow vain by looking at
ourselves.” He thrust the sketch of himself into the Cure’s hands, and
carefully rolled up that of his friend.

The Cure was amazed at this gift of the tailor, and delighted with the
picture of himself--his vanity was as that of a child, without guile or
worldliness. He was better pleased, however, to have the drawing of his
friend by him, that vanity might not be too companionable. He thanked
Charley with a beaming face, and then the two friends bowed and moved
towards the door. Suddenly the Cure stopped.

“My dear Maurice,” said he, “we have forgotten the important thing.”

“Think of that--we two old babblers!” said the Seigneur. He nodded for
the Cure to begin. “Monsieur,” said the Cure to Charley, “you maybe
able to help us in a little difficulty. For a long time we have intended
holding a great mission with a kind of religious drama like that
performed at Ober-Ammergau, and called The Passion Play. You know of it,
Monsieur?”

“Very well through reading, Monsieur.”

“Next Easter we propose having a Passion Play in pious imitation of
the famous drama. We will hold it at the Indian reservation of Four
Mountains, thus quickening our own souls and giving a good object-lesson
of the great History to the Indians.”

The Cure paused rather anxiously, but Charley did not speak. His eyes
were fixed inquiringly on the Cure, and he had a sudden suspicion that
some devious means were forward to influence him. He dismissed the
thought, however, for this Cure was simple as man ever was made,
straightforward as the most heretical layman might demand.

The Cure, taking heart, again continued: “Now I possess an authentic
description of the Ober-Ammergau drama, giving details of its
presentation at different periods, and also a book of the play. But
there is no one in the parish who reads German, and it occurred to the
Seigneur and myself that, understanding French so well, by chance you
may understand German also, and would, perhaps, translate the work for
us.”

“I read German easily and speak it fairly,” Charley answered, relieved;
“and you are welcome to my services.”

The Cure’s pale face flushed with pleasure. He took the little German
book from his pocket, and handed it over.

“It is not so very long,” he said; “and we shall all be grateful.” Then
an inspiration came to him; his eyes lighted.

“Monsieur,” he said, “you will notice that there are no illustrations
in the book. It is possible that you might be able to make us a few
drawings--if we do not ask too much? It would aid greatly in the matter
of costume, and you might use my library--I have a fair number of
histories.” The Cure was almost breathless, his heart thumped as he made
the request. After a slight pause he added, hastily: “You are always
doing for others. It is hardly kind to ask you; but we have some months
to spare; there need be no haste.” Charley hastened to relieve the
Cure’s anxiety. “Do not apologise,” he said. “I will do what I can when
I can. But as for drawing, Monsieur, it will be but amateurish.”

“Monsieur,” interposed the Seigneur promptly, “if you’re not an artist,
I’m damned!”

“Maurice!” murmured the Cure reproachfully. “Can’t help it, Cure. I’ve
held it in for an hour. It had to come; so there it is exploded. I see
no damage either, save to my own reputation. Monsieur,” he added to
Charley, “if I had gifts like yours, nothing would hold me. I should put
on more airs than Beauty Steele.”

It was fortunate that, at that instant, Charley’s face was turned away,
or the Seigneur would have seen it go white and startled. Charley did
not dare turn his head for the moment. He could not speak. What did the
Seigneur know of Beauty Steele?

To hide his momentary confusion, he went over to the drawer of a
cupboard in the wall, and placed the book inside. It gave him time
to recover himself. When he turned round again his face was calm, his
manner composed.

“And who, may I ask, is Beauty Steele?” he said. “Faith I do not know,”
 answered the Seigneur, taking a pinch of snuff. “It’s years since I
first read the phrase in a letter a scamp of a relative of mine wrote me
from the West. He had met a man of the name, who had a reputation as a
clever fop, a very handsome fellow. So I thought it a good phrase,
and I’ve used it ever since on occasions. ‘More airs than Beauty
Steele.’--It has a sound; it’s effective, I fancy, Monsieur?”

“Decidedly effective,” answered Charley quietly. He picked up his
shears. “You will excuse me,” he said grimly, “but I must earn my
living. I cannot live on my reputation.”

The Seigneur and the Cure lifted their hats--to the tailor.

“Au revoir, Monsieur,” they both said, and Charley bowed them out.

The two friends turned to each other a little way up the street.
“Something will come of this, Cure,” said the Seigneur. The Cure, whose
face had a look of happiness, pressed his arm in reply.

Inside the tailor-shop, a voice kept saying, “More airs than Beauty
Steele!”




CHAPTER XXXIX. THE SCARLET WOMAN

Since the evening in the garden when she had been drawn into Charley’s
arms, and then fled from them in joyful confusion, Rosalie had been in
a dream. She had not closed her eyes all night, or, if she closed them,
they still saw beautiful things flashing by, to be succeeded by other
beautiful things. It was a roseate world. To her simple nature it was
not so important to be loved as to love. Selfishness was as yet the
minor part of her. She had been giving all her life--to her mother, as
a child; to sisters at the convent who had been kind to her; to the poor
and the sick of the parish; to her father, who was helpless without her;
to the tailor across the way. In each case she had given more than she
had got. A nature overflowing with impulsive affection, it must spend
itself upon others. The maternal instinct was at the very core of her
nature, and care for others was as much a habit as an instinct with her.
She had love to give, and it must be given. It had been poured like
the rain from heaven on the just and the unjust; on animals as on human
beings, and in so far as her nature, in the first spring--the very
April--of its powers, could do.

Till Charley had come to Chaudiere, it had all been the undisciplined
ardour of a girl’s nature. A change had begun in the moment when she had
tearfully thrust the oil and flour in upon his excoriated breast. Later
came real awakening, and a riotous outpouring of herself in sympathy,
in observation, in a reckless kindness which must have done her harm but
that her clear intelligence balanced her actions, and because secrecy in
one thing helped to restrain her in all. Yet with all the fresh overflow
of her spirit, which, assisted by her new position as postmistress, made
her a conspicuous and popular figure in the parish, where officialdom
had rare honour and little labour, she had prejudices almost unworthy
of her, due though they were to radical antipathy. These prejudices,
one against Jo Portugais and the other against Paulette Dubois, she had
never been able entirely to overcome, though she had honestly tried. On
the way to the hospital at Quebec, however, Jo had been so careful of
her father, so respectful when speaking of M’sieu’, so regardful of
her own comfort, that her antagonism to him was lulled. But the strong
prejudice against Paulette Dubois remained, casting a shadow on her
bright spirit.

All this day she had moved about in a mellow dream, very busy, scarcely
thinking. New feelings dominated her, and she was too primitive to
analyse them and too occupied with them to realise acutely the life
about her. Work was an abstraction, resting rather than tiring her.

Many times she had looked across at the tailor-shop, only seeing Charley
once. She did not wish to speak with him now, nor to be near him yet;
she wanted this day for herself only.

So it was that, soon after the Cure and the Seigneur had bade good-bye
to Charley, she left the post-office and went quickly through the
village to a spot by the river, where was a place called the Rest of the
Flaxbeaters. It was an overhanging rock which made a kind of canopy over
a sweet spring, where, in the days when their labours sounded through
the valley, the flaxbeaters from the level below came to eat their meals
and to rest.

This had always been a resort for her in the months when the
flax-beaters did not use it. Since a child she had made the place her
own. To this day it is called Rosalie’s Dell; for are not her sorrows
and joys still told by those who knew and loved her? and is not the
parish still fragrant with her name? Has not her history become a living
legend a thousand times told?

Leaving the village behind her, Rosalie passed down the high-road till
she came to a path that led off through a grove of scattered pines.
There would be yet a half-hour’s sun and then a short twilight, and the
river and the woods and the Rest of the Flax-beaters would be her
own; and she could think of the wonderful thing come upon her. She had
brought with her a book of English poems, and as she went through the
grove she opened it, and in her pretty English repeated over and over to
herself:

     “My heart is thine, and soul and body render
     Faith to thy faith; I give nor hold in thrall:
     Take all, dear love! thou art my life’s defender;
     Speak to my soul! Take life and love; take all!”

She was lifted up by the abandonment of the verse, by the fulness of
her own feelings, which had only needed a touch of beauty to give it
exaltation. The touch had come.

She went on abstractedly to the place where she had trysted with her
thoughts only, these many years, and, sitting down, watched the sun
sink beyond the trees, the shades of evening fall. All that had
happened since Charley came to the parish she went over in her mind.
She remembered the day he had said this, the day he had said that; she
brought back the night--it was etched upon her mind!--when he had said
to her, “You have saved my life, Mademoiselle!” She recalled the time
she put the little cross back on the church-door, the ghostly footsteps
in the church, the light, the lost hood. A shudder ran through her now,
for the mystery of that hood had never been cleared up. But the words on
the page caught her eye again:

     “My heart is thine, and soul and body render
     Faith to thy faith...”

It swallowed up the moment’s agitation. Never till this day, never till
last night, had she dared to say to herself, He loves me. He seemed so
far above her--she never had thought of him as a tailor!--that she had
given and never dared hope to receive, had lived without anticipation
lest there should come despair. Even that day at Vadrome Mountain she
had not thought he meant love, when he had said to her that he would
remember to the last. When he had said that he would die for love’s
sake, he had not meant her, but others--some one else whom he would save
by his death. Kathleen, that name which had haunted her--ah, whoever
Kathleen was, or whatever Kathleen had to do with him or his life, she
had no reason to fear Kathleen now. She had no reason to fear any one;
for had she not heard his words of love as he clasped her in his arms
last night? Had she not fled from that enfolding, because her heart was
so full in the hour of her triumph that she could not bear more, could
not look longer into the eyes to which she had told her love before his
was spoken?

In the midst of her thoughts she heard footsteps. She started up.
Paulette Dubois suddenly appeared in the path below. She had taken the
river-path down from Vadrome Mountain, where she had gone to see Jo
Portugais, who had not yet returned from Quebec. Paulette’s face was
agitated, her manner nervous. For nights she had not slept, and her
approaching meeting with the tailor had made her tremble all day.
Excited as she was, there was a wild sort of beauty in her face, and her
figure was lithe and supple. She dressed always a little garishly, but
now there was only that band of colour round the throat, worn last night
in the talk with Charley.

To both women this meeting was as a personal misfortune, a mutual
affront. Each had a natural antipathy. To Rosalie the invasion of
her beloved retreat was as hateful as though the woman had purposely
intruded.

For a moment they confronted each other without speaking, then Rosalie’s
natural courtesy, her instinctive good-heartedness, overcame her
irritation, and she said quietly:

“Good-evening, Madame.”

“I am not Madame, and you know it,” answered the woman harshly.

“I am sorry. Good-evening, Mademoiselle,” rejoined Rosalie evenly.

“You wanted to insult me. You knew I wasn’t Madame.”

Rosalie shook her head. “How should I know? You have not always lived
in Chaudiere, you have lived in Montreal, and people often call you
Madame.”

“You know better. You know that letters come to me from Montreal
addressed Mademoiselle.”

Rosalie turned as if to go. “I do not recall what letters pass through
the post-office. I have a good memory for forgetting. Good-evening,” she
added, with an excess of courtesy. Paulette read the placid scorn in the
girl’s face; she did not see and would not understand that Rosalie did
not scorn her for what she had ever done, but for something that she
was.

“You think I am the dirt under your feet,” she said, now white, now red,
and mad with anger. “I’m not fit to speak with you--I’m a rag for the
dust pile!”

“I have never thought so,” answered Rosalie. “I have not liked you, but
I am sorry for you, and I never thought those things.”

“You lie!” was the rejoinder; and Rosalie, turning away quickly with
trouble in her face, put her hands to her ears, and, hastening down the
hillside, did not hear the words the woman called after her.

“To-morrow every one shall know you are a thief. Run, run, run! You
can hear what I say, white-face! They shall know about the little cross
to-morrow.”

She followed Rosalie at a distance, her eyes blazing. As fate would have
it, she met on the highroad the least scrupulous man in the parish,
an inveterate gossip, the keeper of the general store, whose only
opposition in business was the post-office shop. He was the centre of
the village tittle-tattle, and worse. With malicious speed Paulette told
him how she had seen Rosalie Evanturel nailing the little cross on the
church door of a certain night. If he wanted proof of what she said, let
him ask Jo Portugais.

Having spat out her revenge, she went on to the village, and through it
to her house, where she prepared to visit the shop of the tailor. Her
sense of retaliation satisfied, Rosalie passed from her mind; her
child only occupied it. In another hour she would know where her child
was--the tailor had promised that she should. Then perhaps she would be
sorry for the accident to the Notary; for it was an accident, in spite
of appearances.

It was dark when Paulette entered the door of the tailor’s house. When
she came out, a half-hour later, with elation in her carriage, and tears
of joy running down her face, she did not look about her; she did not
care whether or not any one saw her: she was possessed with only one
thought--her child! She passed like a swift wind down the street, making
for home and for her departure to the hiding-place of her child.

She had not seen a figure in the shadow of a tree near by as she came
from the tailor’s door. She had not heard a smothered cry behind her.
She was not aware that in unspeakable agony another woman knocked softly
at the door of the tailor’s house, and, not waiting for an answer,
opened it and entered. It was Rosalie Evanturel.




CHAPTER XL. AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

The kitchen was empty, but light fell through the door of the shop
opening upon the little hall between. Rosalie crossed the hall and
stood in the doorway of the shop, a figure of concentrated indignation,
despair, and shame. Leaning on his elbow Charley was bending over a book
in the light of a candle on the bench be side him. He was reading aloud,
translating into English the German text of the narrative the Cure had
given him:

   “And because of this divine interposition, consequent upon their
   faithful prayers and their oblations, they did perform these holy
   scenes from season to season, with solemn proof of piety and godly
   living, so that it seemed the life of the Lord our Shepherd was ever
   present with them, as though, indeed, Ober-Ammergau were Nazareth or
   Jerusalem. And the hearts of all in the land did answer daily to
   that sweet and lively faith, insomuch that even in times of war the
   zeal of the people became an holy zeal, and their warfare noble; so
   that they did accept both victory and defeat with equal humbleness.
   Because there was no war in their hearts, but peace, and they did
   fight to defend and not to acquire, they buried their foe with tears
   and their own with singleness of heart and quiet joy, for that they
   did rest from their labours. In this manner was the great tragedy
   and glory of the world made to the people a present thing,
   transforming them to the body of the Life that hath neither spot nor
   blemish nor...”

Charley had not heard Rosalie enter, nor her footsteps in the hall. But
now there ran through his reading a thread of something not of himself
or of it. He had thrilled to the archaic but clear-hearted style of the
old German chronicler, and the warmth he felt had passed into his voice,
so that it became louder.

As Rosalie listened to his reading, a hundred thoughts rushed through
her mind. Paulette Dubois, the wanton woman, had just left his doorway
secretly, yet there he was, instantly after, calmly reading a pious
book! Her mind was in tumult. She could not reason, she could not rule
her judgment. She only knew that the woman had come from this house,
and hurried guiltily away into the dark. She only knew that the man the
woman had left here was the man she loved--loved more than her life, for
he embodied all her past; all her present--she knew that she could
not live without him; all her future--for where he went she would go,
whatever the fate.

Her judgment had been swept from its moorings. She had been carried on
the wave of her heart’s fever into this room, not daring to think this
or that, not planning this or that, not accusing, not reproaching, not
shaming herself and him by black suspicion, but blindly, madly demanding
to see him, to look into his eyes, to hear his voice, to know him,
whatever he was--man, lover, or devil. She was a child-woman--a child
in her primitive feelings that threw aside all convention, because
there was no wrong in her heart; a woman, because she was possessed by
a jealousy which shamed and angered her, because its very existence
put him on trial, condemned him. Her soul was the sport of emotions and
passions stronger than herself, because the heritage, the instinct, of
all the race of women, the eternal predisposition. At the moment her
will was not sufficient to rule them to obedience. She was in the first
subservience to that power which feeds the streams of human history.

As she now listened to Charley reading, a sudden revulsion of feeling
came over her. Some note in his voice reassured her heart--if it needed
reassuring. The quiet force of his presence stilled the tumult in her,
so that her eyes could see without mist, her heart beat without
agony; but every pulse in her was throbbing, every instinct was alive.
Presently there rushed upon her the words that had rung in her ears and
chimed in her heart at the Rest of the Flax-beaters:

     “Take all, dear love! thou art my life’s defender;
     Speak to my soul! Take life and love; take all.”

Feelings lying beneath the mad conflict of emotion which had sent
her into this room in such unmaidenly fashion--feelings that were her
deepest self-welled up. Her breath came hard and broken.

As Charley read on, a breathing seemed to answer his own. It became
quicker than his own, it pierced the stillness, it filled the room with
feeling, it came calling to him out of the silence. He swung round, and
saw the girl in the doorway.

“Rosalie!” he cried, and sprang to his feet.

With a piteously pathetic cry, she flung herself on her knees beside the
tailor’s bench where he worked every day, and, burying her face in her
arms as they rested on the bench, wept bitterly.

“Rosalie!” he said anxiously, leaning over her. “What is the matter?
What has happened?”

She wept more bitterly still; she made a despairing gesture. His hand
touched her hair; he dropped on a knee beside her.

“Oh, I am so ashamed, ashamed! I have been so wicked,” she murmured.

“Rosalie, what has happened?” he urged gently. His own heart was beating
hard, his own eyes were responding to hers. The new feelings alive in
him, the forces his love had awakened, which, last night, had kept him
sleepless, and had been upon him like a dream all day--they were at
height in him now. He knew not how to command them.

“Rosalie, dearest, tell me all!” he persisted.

“I shall never--I have been--oh--you will never forgive me!” she said
brokenly. “I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t help it. I saw her--the
woman--come from your house, and--”

“Hush! For God’s sake, hush!” he broke in almost harshly. Then a better
understanding came upon him, and it made him gentle with her.

“Ah, Rosalie, you did not think! But--but it was natural you should wish
to see me....”

“But, as soon as I saw you, I knew that--that--” She broke down again
and wept.

“I will tell you about her, Rosalie--” His fingers stroked her hair,
and, bending over her, his face was near her hands.

“No, no, tell me nothing--oh, if you tell me!--”

“She came to hear from me what she ought to have heard from the Notary.
She has had great trouble--the man--her child--and I have helped her,
told her--” His face was so near now that his breath was on her hair.
She suddenly raised her head and clasped his face in her hands.

“I knew--oh, I knew, I knew...!” she wept, and her eyes drank his.

“Rosalie, my life!” he cried, clasping her in his arms.

The love that was in him, new-born and but half understood, poured
itself out in broken words like her own. For him there was no outside
world; no past, no Kathleen, no Billy; no suspicion, or infidelity, or
unfaith; no fear of disaster; no terrors of the future. Life was Now to
him and to her: nothing brooded behind, nothing lay before. The candle
spluttered and burnt low in the socket.




CHAPTER XLI. IT WAS MICHAELMAS DAY

Not a cloud in the sky, and, ruling all, a sweet sun, liberal in
warmth and eager in brightness as its distance from the northern world
decreased. As Mrs. Flynn entered the door of the post-office she sang
out to Maximilian Cour, with a buoyant lilt: “Oh, isn’t it the fun o’
the world to be alive!”

The tailor over the way heard it, and lifted his head with a smile;
Rosalie Evanturel, behind the postal wicket, heard it, and her face swam
with colour. Rosalie busied herself with the letters and papers for a
moment before she answered Mrs. Flynn’s greeting, for there were ringing
in her ears the words she herself had said a few days before: “It is
good to live, isn’t it?”

To-day it was so good to live that life seemed an endless being and
a tireless happy doing--a gift of labour, an inspiring daytime, and
a rejoicing sleep. Exaltation, a painful joy, and a wide embarrassing
wonderment possessed her. She met Mrs. Flynn’s face at the wicket with
shining eyes and a timid smile.

“Ah, there y’are, darlin’!” said Mrs. Flynn. “And how’s the dear father
to-day?”

“He seems about the same, thank you.”

“Ah, that’s foine. Shure, if we could always be ‘about the same,’ we’d
do. True for you, darlin’, ‘tis as you say. If ould Mary Flynn could be
always ‘‘bout the same,’ the clods o’ the valley would never cover her
bones. But there ‘tis--we’re here to-day, and away tomorrow. Shure,
though, I am not complainin’. Not I--not Mary Flynn. Teddy Flynn used
to say to me, says he: ‘Niver born to know distress! Happy as worms in
a garden av cucumbers. Seventeen years in this country, Mary,’ says he,
‘an’ nivir in the pinitintiary yet.’ There y’are. Ah, the birds do be
singin’ to-day! ‘Tis good! ‘Tis good, darlin’! You’ll not mind Mary
Flynn callin’ you darlin’, though y’are postmistress, an’ ‘ll be more
than that--more than that wan day--or Mary Flynn’s a fool. Aye, more
than that y’ll be, darlin’, and y’re eyes like purty brown topazzes
and y’re cheeks like roses-shure, is there anny lether for Mary Flynn,
darlin’?” she hastily added as she saw the Seigneur standing in the
doorway. He had evidently been listening.

“Ye didn’t hear what y’re ould fool of a cook was sayin’,” she added
to the Seigneur, as Rosalie shook her head and answered: “No letters,
Madame--dear.” Rosalie timidly added the dear, for there was something
so great-hearted in Mrs. Flynn that she longed to clasp her round the
neck, longed as she had never done in her life to lay her head upon
some motherly breast and pour out her heart. But it was not to be now.
Secrecy was her duty still.

“Can’t ye speak to y’re ould fool of a cook, sir?” Mrs. Flynn said
again, as the Seigneur made way for her to leave the shop.

“How did you guess?” he said to her in a low voice, his sharp eyes
peering into hers.

“By the looks in y’re face these past weeks, and the look in hers,” she
whispered, and went on her way rejoicing.

“I’ll wind thim both round me finger like a wisp o’ straw,” she said,
going up the road with a light step, despite her weight, till she was
stopped by the malicious grocer-man of the village, whose tongue had
been wagging for hours upon an unwholesome theme.

Meanwhile, in the post-office, the Seigneur and Rosalie were face to
face.

“It is Michaelmas day,” he said. “May I speak with you, Mademoiselle?”

She looked at the clock. It was on the stroke of noon. The shop always
closed from twelve till half-past twelve.

“Will you step into the parlour, Monsieur?” she said, and coming round
the counter, locked the shop-door. She was trembling and confused,
and entered the little parlour shyly. Yet her eyes met the Seigneur’s
bravely. “Your father, how is he?” he said, offering her a chair. The
sunlight streaming in the window made a sort of pathway of light between
them, while they were in the shade.

“He seems no worse, and to-day he is wheeling himself about.”

“He is stronger, then--that’s good. Is there any fear that he must go to
the hospital again?”

She inclined her head. “The doctor says he may have to go any moment. It
may be his one chance. The Cure is very kind, and says that, with your
permission, his sister will keep the office here, if--if needed.”

The Seigneur nodded briskly. “Of course, of course. But have you not
thought that we might secure another postmistress?”

Her face clouded a little; her heart beat hard. She knew what was
coming. She dreaded it, but it was better to have it over now.

“We could not live without it,” she said helplessly.

“What we have saved is not enough. The little my mother had must pay for
the visits to the hospital. I have kept it for that. You see, I need the
place here.”

“But you have thought, just the same. Do you not know the day?” he asked
meaningly.

She was silent.

“I have come to ask you to marry me--this is Michaelmas day, Rosalie.”

She did not speak. He had hopes from her silence. “If anything happened
to your father, you could not live here alone--but a young girl! Your
father may be in the hospital for a long time. You cannot afford that.
If I were to offer you money, you would refuse. If you marry me, all
that I have is yours to dispose of at your will: to make others happy,
to take you now and then from this narrow place, to see what’s going on
in the world.”

“I am happy here,” she said falteringly.

“Chaudiere is the finest place in the world,” he replied proudly, and as
a matter of fact. “But, for the sake of knowledge, you should see what
the rest of the world is. It helps you to understand Chaudiere better. I
ask you to be my wife, Rosalie.”

She shook her head sorrowfully.

“You said before, it was not because I am old, not because I am rich,
not because I am Seigneur, not because I am I, that you refused me.”

She smiled at him now. “That is true,” she said.

“Then what reason can you have? None, none. ‘Pon honour, I believe you
are afraid of marriage because it’s marriage. By my life, there’s naught
to dread. A little giving here and taking there, and it’s easy. And when
a woman is all that’s good, to a man, it can be done without fear or
trembling. Even the Cure would tell you that.”

“Ah, I know, I know,” she said, in a voice half painful, half joyous.
“I know that it is so. But, oh, dear Monsieur, I cannot marry
you--never--never.”

He hung on bravely. “I want to make life easy and happy for you. I want
the right to do so. When trouble comes upon you--”

“When it does I will turn to you--ah, yes, I would turn to you without
fear, dear Monsieur,” she said, and her heart ached within her, for a
premonition of sorrow came upon her and filled her eyes, and made her
heart like lead within her breast. “I know how true a gentleman you
are,” she added. “I could give you everything but that which is life to
me, which is being, and soul, and the beginning and the end.”

The weight of the revealing hour of her life, its wonder, its agony,
its irrevocability, was upon her. It was giving new meanings to
existence-primitive woman, child of nature as she was. All morning she
had longed to go out into the woods and bury herself among the ferns and
bracken, and laugh and weep for very excess of feeling, downright joy
and vague woe possessing her at once. She looked the Seigneur in the
eyes with consuming earnestness.

“Oh, it is not because I am young,” she said, in a low voice, “for I am
old--indeed, I am very old. It is because I cannot love you, and never
can love you in the one great way; and I will not marry without love.
My heart is fixed on that. When I marry, it will be when I love a man so
much that I cannot live without him. If he is so poor that each meal
is a miracle, it will make no difference. Oh, can’t you see, can’t you
feel, what I mean, Monsieur--you who are so wise and learned, and know
the world so well?”

“Wise and learned!” he said, a little roughly, for his voice was husky
with emotion. “‘Pon honour, I think I am a fool! A bewildered fool, that
knows no more of woman than my cook knows Sanscrit. Faith, a hundred
times less! For Mary Flynn’s got an eye to see, and, without telling,
she knew I had a mind set on you. But Mary Flynn thought more than that,
for she has an idea that you’ve a mind set on some one, Rosalie. She
thought it might be me.”

“A woman is not so easily read as a man,” she replied, half smiling, but
with her eyes turned to the street. A few people were gathering in front
of the house--she wondered why.

“There is some one else--that is it, Rosalie. There is some one else.
You shall tell me who it is. You shall--”

He stopped short, for there was a loud knocking at the shop-door, and
the voice of M. Evanturel calling: “Rosalie! Rosalie! Rosalie! Ah, come
quickly--ah, my Rosalie!”

Without a look at the Seigneur, Rosalie rushed into the shop and
opened the front door. Her father was deathly pale, and was trembling
violently.

“Rosalie, my bird,” he cried indignantly, “they’re saying you stole the
cross from the church door.”

He was now wheeled inside the shop, and people gathered round,
looking at him and Rosalie, some covertly, some as friends, some in a
half-frightened way, as though strange things were about to happen.

“Shure, ‘tis a lie, or me name’s not Mary Flynn--the darlin’!” said the
Seigneur’s cook, with blazing face. “Who makes this charge?” roared an
angry voice. No one had seen the Seigneur enter from the little room
beside the shop, and at the sound of the sharp voice the people fell
back, for he was as free with his stick as his tongue.

“I do,” said the grocer, to whom Paulette Dubois had told her story.

“Ye shall be tarred and feathered before y’are a day older,” said Mary
Flynn.

Rosalie was very pale.

The Seigneur was struck by this and by the strangeness of her look.

“Clear the room,” he said to Filion Lacasse, who was now a constable of
the parish.

“Not yet!” said a voice at the doorway. “What is the trouble?” It was
the Cure, who had already heard rumours of the scandal, and had come at
once to Rosalie. M. Evanturel tried to speak, and could not. But Mary
Flynn did, with a face like a piece of scarlet bunting. Having finished
with a flourish, she could scarce keep her hands off the cowardly
grocer.

The Cure turned to Rosalie. “It is absurd,” he said. “Forgive me,” he
added to the Seigneur. “It is better that Rosalie should answer this
charge. If she gives her word of honour, I will deny communion to
whoever slanders her hereafter.”

“She did it,” said the grocer stubbornly. “She can’t deny it.”

“Answer, Rosalie,” said the Cure firmly.

“Excuse me; I will answer,” said a voice at the door. The tailor of
Chaudiere made his way into the shop, through the fast-gathering crowd.




CHAPTER XLII. A TRIAL AND A VERDICT

“What right have you to answer for mademoiselle?” said the Seigneur,
with a sudden rush of jealousy. Was not he alone the protector of
Rosalie Evanturel? Yet here was mystery, and it was clear the tailor
had something important to say. M. Rossignol offered the Cure a chair,
seated himself on a small bench, and gently drew Rosalie down beside
him.

“I will make this a court,” said he. “Advance, grocer.”

The grocer came forward smugly.

“On what information do you make this charge against mademoiselle?”

The grocer volubly related all that Paulette Dubois had said. As he
told his tale the Cure’s face was a study, for the night the cross was
restored came back to him, and the events, so far as he knew them, were
in keeping with the grocer’s narrative. He looked at Rosalie anxiously.
Monsieur Evanturel moaned, for he remembered he had heard Rosalie come
in very late that night. Yet he fixed his eyes on her in dog-like faith.

“Mademoiselle will admit that this is true, I presume,” said Charley.

Rosalie looked at him intently, as though to read his very heart. It was
clear that he wished her to say yes; and what he wished was law.

“It is quite true,” answered Rosalie calmly, and all fear passed from
her.

“But she did not steal the cross,” continued Charley, in a louder voice,
that all might hear, for people were gathering fast.

“If she didn’t steal it, why was she putting it back on the church
door in the dark?” said the grocer. “Ah, hould y’r head, ould
sand-in-the-sugar!” said Mrs. Flynn, her fingers aching to get into his
hair. “Silence!” said the Seigneur severely, and looked inquiringly at
Rosalie. Rosalie looked at Charley.

“It is not a question of why mademoiselle put the cross back,” he said.
“It is a question of who took the cross away, is it not? Suppose it was
not a theft. Suppose that the person who took the relic thought to do a
pious act--for your Church, Monsieur?”

“I do not see,” the Cure answered helplessly. “It was a secret act,
therefore suspicious at least.”

“‘Let your good gifts be in secret, and your Heavenly Father who seeth
in secret will reward you openly,”’ answered Charley. “That, I believe,
is a principle you teach, Monsieur.”

“At one time Monsieur the tailor was thought to have taken the cross,”
 said the Seigneur suggestively. “Perhaps Monsieur was secretly doing
good with it?” he added. It vexed him that there should be a secret
between Rosalie and this man.

“It had to do with me, not I with it,” he answered evenly. He must
travel wide at first to convince their narrow brains. “Mademoiselle did
a kind act when she nailed that cross on the church door again--to make
a dead man rest easier in his grave.”

A hush fell upon the crowd.

Rosalie looked at Charley in surprise; but she saw his meaning
presently--that what she did for him must seem to have been done for the
dead tailor only. Her heart beat hot with indignation, for she would, if
she but might, cry her love gladly from the hill-tops of the world.

Alight began to break upon the Cure’s mind. “Will Monsieur speak
plainly?” he said.

“I did not see Louis Trudel take the cross, but I know that he did.”

“Louis Trudel! Louis Trudel!” interposed the Seigneur anxiously. “What
does this mean?”

“Monsieur speaks the truth,” interposed Rosalie. The Cure recalled the
death-bed of Louis Trudel, and the dying man’s strange agitation. He
also recalled old Margot’s death, and her wish to confess some one
else’s wrong-doing. He was convinced that Charley was speaking the
truth.

“It is true,” added Charley slowly; “but you may think none the worse of
him when you know all. He took the cross for temporary use, and before
he could replace it he died.”

“How do you know what he meant, or did not mean?” said the Seigneur in
perplexity. “Did he take you into his confidence?”

“The very closest,” answered Charley grimly.

“Yet he looked upon you as an infidel, and said hard things of you on
his death-bed,” urged the Cure anxiously. He could not see the end of
the tale, and he was troubled for both the dead man and the living.

“That was why he took me into his confidence. I will explain. I have
not the honour to have the fulness of your Christian faith, Monsieur le
Cure. I had asked him to show me a sign from heaven, and he showed it by
the little iron cross.”

“I can’t make anything of that,” said the Seigneur peevishly.

Rosalie sprang to her feet. “He will not tell the whole truth,
Messieurs, but I will. With that little cross Louis Trudel would have
killed Monsieur, had it not been for me.”

A gasp of excitement went out from those who stood by.

“But for you, Rosalie?” asked the Cure.

“But for me. I saw Louis Trudel raise an iron against Monsieur that day
in the shop. It made me nervous--I thought he was mad. So I watched.
That night I saw a light in the tailor-shop late. I thought it strange.
I went over and peeped through the cracks of the shutters. I saw old
Louis at the fire with the little cross, red-hot. I knew he meant
trouble. I ran into the house. Old Margot was beside herself with
fear--she had seen also. I ran through the hall and saw old Louis
upstairs with the burning cross. I followed. He went into Monsieur’s
room. When I got to the door”--she paused, trembling, for she saw
Charley’s reproving eyes upon her--“I saw him with the cross--with the
cross raised over Monsieur.”

“He meant to threaten me,” interposed Charley quickly.

“We will have the truth!” said the Seigneur, in a husky voice.

“The cross came down on Monsieur’s bare breast.” The grocer laughed
vindictively.

“Silence!” growled the Seigneur.

“Silence!” said Filion Lacasse, and dropped his hand on the grocer’s
shoulder. “I’ll baste you with a stirrup-strap.”

“The rest is well known,” quickly interposed Charley. “The poor man was
mad. He thought it a pious act to mark an infidel with the cross.”

Every eye was fixed upon him. The Cure remembered Louis Trudel’s last
words: “Look--look--I gave--him--the sign--of...!” Old Margot’s words
also kept ringing in his ears. He turned to the Seigneur. “Monsieur,”
 said he, “we have heard the truth. That act of Louis Trudel was cruel
and murderous. May God forgive him! I will not say that mademoiselle did
well in keeping silent--”

“God bless the darlin’!” cried Mrs. Flynn.

“--but I will say that she meant to do a kind act for a man’s mortal
memory--perhaps at the expense of his soul.”

“For Monsieur to take his injury in silence, to keep it secret, was
kind,” said the Seigneur. “It is what our Cure here might call bearing
his cross manfully.”

“Seigneur,” said the Cure reproachfully, “Seigneur, it is no subject for
jest.”

“Cure, our tailor here has treated it as a jest.”

“Let him show his breast, if it’s true,” said the grocer, who, beneath
his smirking, was a malignant soul.

The Cure turned on him sharply. Seldom had any one seen the Cure roused.

“Who are you, Ba’tiste Maxime, that your base curiosity should be
satisfied--you, whose shameless tongue clattered, whose foolish soul
rejoiced over the scandal? Must we all wear the facts of our lives--our
joys, our sorrows, and our sins--for such eyes as yours to read? Bethink
you of the evil things that you would hide--aye, every one here!” he
added loudly. “Know, all of you, what goodness of heart towards a wicked
man lay behind the secret these two have kept, that old Margot carried
to her grave. When you go to your homes, pray for as much human kindness
in you as a man of no Church or faith can show. For this child”--he
turned to Rosalie-“honour her! Go now--go in peace!”

“One moment,” said the Seigneur. “I fine Ba’tiste Maxime twenty dollars
for defamation of character. The money to go for the poor.”

“You hear that, ould sand-in-the-sugar!” said Mrs. Flynn. “Will you let
me kiss ye, darlin’?” she added to Rosalie, and, waddling over, reached
out her hands.

Rosalie’s eyes were wet as she warmly kissed the old Irishwoman, and
thereupon they entered into a friendship which was without end.

The Seigneur drove the crowd from the shop, and shut the door.

The Cure came to Charley. “Monsieur,” said he, “I have no words. When
I remember what agonies you suffered in those hours, how bravely you
endured them--ah, Monsieur!” he added, with moist eyes, “I shall always
feel that--that you are not far from the kingdom of God.”

A silence fell upon them, for the Cure, the Seigneur, and Rosalie, as
they looked at Charley, thought of the scar like a red cross on his
breast.

It touched Charley with a kind of awe. He smiled painfully. “Shall I
give you proof?” he said, making a motion to undo his waistcoat.

“Monsieur!” said the Seigneur reprovingly, and holding out his hand.
“Monsieur! We are all gentlemen!”




CHAPTER XLIII. JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY

Walking slowly, head bent, eyes unseeing, Charley was on his way to
Vadrome Mountain, with the knowledge that Jo Portugais had returned.

The hunger for companionship was on him: to touch some mind that could
understand the deep loneliness which had settled on him since that scene
in the postoffice. It was the loneliness of a new and great separation.
He had wakened to it to-day.

Once before, in the hut on Vadrome Mountain, he had wakened from a
grave, had been born again. Last night had come still another birth, had
come, as with Rosalie herself, knowledge, revelation, understanding.
To Rosalie the new vision had come with a vague pain of heart, without
shame, and with a wonderful happiness. Pain, shame, knowledge, and a
happiness that passed suddenly into a despairing sorrow, had come to
him.

In finding love he had found conscience, and in finding conscience he
was on his way to another great discovery.

Looking to where Jo Portugais’ house was set among the pines, Charley
remembered the day--he saw the scene in his mind’s eye--when Rosalie
entered with the letter addressed “To the sick man at the house of Jo
Portugais, at Vadrome Mountain,” and he saw again her clear, unsoiled
soul in the deep inquiring eyes.

“If you but knew”--he turned and looked down at the village below--“if
you but knew!” he said, as though to all the world. “I have the sign
from heaven--I know it now. To-day I wake to know what life means, and
I see--Rosalie! I know now--but how? In taking all she had to give. What
does she get in return? Nothing--nothing. Because I love her, because
the whole world is nothing beside her, nor life, nor twenty lives, if
I had them to give, I must say to her now: ‘Rosalie, it was love that
brought you to my arms, it is love that says, Thus far and no farther.
Never again--never--never--never!’ Yesterday I could have left her--died
or vanished, without real hurt to her. She would have mourned and broken
her heart and mended it again; and I should have been only a memory--of
mystery, of tenderness. Then, one day she would have married, and no
sting from my going would have remained. She would have had happiness,
and I neither shame nor despair.... To-day it is all too late. We have
drunk too deep-alas! too deep. She cannot marry another man, for ghosts
will not lie for asking, and what is mine may not be another’s. She
cannot marry me, for what once was mine is mine still by ring and by
book, and I should always be haunted by a torturing shadow. Kathleen
has the right of way, not Rosalie. Ah, Rosalie, I dare not wrong you
further. Yet to marry you, even as things are, if that might be! To live
on here unrecognised? I am little like my old self, and year after year
I should grow less and less like Charley Steele.... But, no, it is not
possible!”

He stopped short in his thoughts, and his lips tightened in bitterness.

“God in heaven, what an impasse!” he said aloud.

There was a sudden crackling of twigs as a man rose up from a log by the
wayside ahead of him. It was Jo Portugais, who had seen him coming, and
had waited for him. He had heard Charley’s words.

“Do you call me an impasse, M’sieu’?” Charley grasped Portugais’ hand.

“What has happened, M’sieu’?” Jo asked anxiously. There was a brief
silence, and then Charley told him of the events of the morning.

“You know of the mark-here?” he asked, touching his breast.

Jo nodded. “I saw, when you were ill.”

“Yet you never asked!”

“I studied it out--I knew old Louis Trudel. Also, I saw ma’m’selle nail
the cross to the church door. Two and two together in my mind did it. I
didn’t think Paulette Dubois would tell. I warned her.”

“She quarrelled with mademoiselle. It was revenge.

“She might have been less vindictive. She had had good luck herself
lately.”

“What good luck had she, M’sieu’?”

Charley told Jo the story of the Notary, the woman, and the child.

Jo made no comment. They relapsed into silence. Arriving at the house,
they entered. Jo lighted his pipe, and smoked steadily for a time
without speaking. Buried in thought, Charley stood in the doorway
looking down at the village. At last he turned.

“Where have you been these weeks past, Jo?”

“To Quebec first, M’sieu’.”

Charley looked curiously at Jo, for there was meaning in his tone. “And
where last?”

“To Montreal.”

Charley’s face became paler, his hands suddenly clinched, for he read
the look in Jo’s eyes. He knew that Jo had been looking at people and
places once so familiar; that he had seen--Kathleen.

“Go on. Tell me all,” he said heavily.

Portugais spoke in English. The foreign language seemed to make the
truth less naked and staring to himself. He had a hard story to tell.

“It is not to say why I go to Montreal,” he began. “But I go. I have my
ears open; my eyes, she is not close. No one knows me--I am no account
of. Every one is forgot the man, Joseph Nadeau, who was try for
his life. Perhaps it is every one is forget the lawyer who save his
neck--perhaps? So I stand by the streetside. I say to a man as I look
up at sign-boards,’ ‘Where is that writing “M’sieu’ Charles Steele,” and
all the res’?’ ‘He is dead long ago,’ say the man to me. ‘A good thing
too, for he was the very devil.’ ‘I not understan’,’ I say. ‘I tink that
M’sieu’ Steele is a dam smart man back time.’ ‘He was the smartes’ man
in the country, that Beauty Steele,’ the man say. ‘He bamboozle the jury
hevery time. He cut up bad though.’”

Charley raised his hand with a nervous gesture of misery and impatience.

“‘Where have you been,’ that man say--‘where have you been all these
times not to know ‘bout Charley Steele, hein?’ ‘In the backwoods,’ I
say. ‘What bring you here now?’ he ask. ‘I have a case,’ I say. ‘What
is it?’ he ask. ‘It is a case of a man who is punish for another man,’ I
say. ‘That’s the thing for Charley Steele,’ he laugh. ‘He was great man
to root things out. Can’t fool Charley Steele, we use to say here. But
he die a bad death.’ ‘What was the matter with him?’ I say. ‘He drink
too much, he spend too much, he run after a girl at Cote Dorion, and
the river-drivers do for him one night. They say it was acciden’, but is
there any green on my eye? But he die trump--jus’ like him. He have no
fear of devil or man,’ so the man say. ‘But fear of God?’ I ask. ‘He was
hinfidel,’ he say. ‘That was behin’ all. He was crooked all roun’. He
rob the widow and horphan?’ ‘I think he too smart for that,’ I speak
quick. ‘I suppose it was the drink,’ he say. ‘He loose his grip.’ ‘He
was a smart man, an’ he would make you all sit up, if he come back,’
I hanswer. ‘If he come back!’ The man laugh queer at that. ‘If he
comeback, there would be hell.’ ‘How is that?’ I say. ‘Look across the
street,’ he whisper. ‘That was his wife.’”

Charley choked back a cry in his throat. Jo had no intention of cutting
his story short. He had an end in view.

“I look across the street. There she is--’ Ah, that is a fine woman
to see! I have never seen but one more finer to look at--here in
Chaudiere.’ The man say: ‘She marry first for money, and break her
heart; now she marry for love. If Beauty Steele come back-eh! sacra!
that would be a mess. But he is at the bottom of the St Lawrence--the
courts say so, and the Church say so--and ghosts don’t walk here.’ ‘But
if that Beauty Steele come back alive, what would happen it?’ I speak.
‘His wife is marry, blockhead!’ he say.

“‘But the woman is his,’ I hanswer. ‘Do you think she would go back to a
thief she never love from the man she love?’ he speak back. ‘She is not
marry to the other man,’ I say, ‘if Beauty Steele is...’ ‘He is dead as
a door,’ he swear. ‘You see that?’ he go on, nodding down the street.
‘Well, that is Billy.’ ‘Who is Billy?’ I ask. ‘The brother of her,’ he
say. ‘Charley, he spoil Billy. Billy, he has not been the same since
Charley’s death-he is so ashame of Charley. When he get drunk he talk of
nothing else. We all remember that Charley spoil him, and that make us
sorry for him.’ ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘I think that Billy is a dam smart
man. He is smart as Charley Steele.’ ‘Charley was the smartes’ man in
the country,’ he say again. ‘I’ve got his practice now, but this town
will never be the same without him. Thief or no thief, I wish he is
alive here. By the Lord, I’d get drunk with him!’ He was all right, that
man,” Jo added finally.

Charley’s agitation was hidden. His eyes were fixed on Jo intently.
“That was Larry Rockwell. Go on,” he said, in a hard metallic voice.

“I see--her, the next night again. It is in the white stone house on the
hill. All the windows are open, an’ I can hear her to sing. I not know
that song. It begin, ‘Oft in the stilly night’--like that.”

Charley stiffened. It was the song Kathleen sang for him the night they
became engaged.

“It is a good voice-that. I see her face, for there is a candle on
the piano. I come close and closter to the house. There is big
maple-trees--I am well hid. A man is beside her. He lean hover her an’
put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Sing it again, Kat’leen,’ he say. ‘I
cannot to get enough.’”

“Stop!” said Charley, in a strained, harsh voice. “Not yet, M’sieu’,”
 said Portugais. “It is good for you to hear what I say.”

“‘Come, Kat’leen!’ the man say, an’ he blow hout the candle. I hear them
walk away, an’ the door shut behin’ them. Then I hear anudder voice--ah,
that is a baby--very young baby!”

Charley quickly got to his feet. “Not another word!” he said.

“Yes, yes, but there is one word more, M’sieu’,” said Jo, standing up
and facing him firmly. “You must go back. You are not a thief. The woman
is yours. You throw your life away. What is the man to you--or the man’s
brat of a child? It is all waiting for you. You mus’ go back. You not
steal the money, but that Billy--it is that Billy, I know. You can
forgive your wife, and take her back, or you can say to both, Go! You
can put heverything right and begin again.”

Anger, wild words, seemed about to break from Charley’s lips, but he
conquered himself.

The old life had been brought back to him with painful acuteness and
vividness. The streets of the town, the people in the street, Billy, the
mean scoundrel, who could not leave him alone in the grave of obscurity,
Kathleen--Fairing. The voice of the child--with her voice--was in his
ears. A child! If he had had a child, perhaps----He stopped short in
his thinking, his face all at once flooding with colour. For a moment he
stood looking out of the window down towards the village. He could see
the post-office like a toy house among toy houses. At last he turned to
Jo.

“Never again while I live, speak of this to me: of the past, of going
back, or of--of anything else,” he said. “I cannot go back. I am dead
and shamed. Let the dust of forgetfulness come and cover the past. I’ve
begun life again here, and here I stay, and see it out. I shall work out
the problem here.” He dropped a hand on the other’s shoulder. “Jo,” said
he, “we are both shipwrecks. Let us see how long we can float.”

“M’sieu’, is it worth it?” said Portugais, remembering his confession to
the Abbe, and seeing the end of it all to himself.

“I don’t know, Jo. Let us wait and see how Fate will play us.”

“Or God, M’sieu’?”

“God or Fate--who knows”




CHAPTER XLIV. “WHO WAS KATHLEEN?”

The painful incidents of the morning weighed heavily upon Rosalie, and
she was glad when Madame Dugal came to talk with her father, who was
ailing and irritable, and when Mrs. Flynn drove her away with a kiss on
either cheek, saying: “Don’t come back, darlin’, till there’s roses in
both cheeks, for y’r eyes are ‘atin’ up yer face!”

She had seen Charley take the path to Vadrome Mountain, and to the
Rest of the Flax-beaters she betook herself, in the blind hope that,
returning, he might pass that way. Under the influence of the fresh
air and the quiet of the woods her spirits rose, her pulse beat faster,
though a sense of foreboding and sorrow hovered round her. The two-miles
walk to her beloved retreat seemed a matter of minutes only, so busy
were her thoughts.

Her mind was one luxurious confusion, through which travelled a ghostly
little sprite, who kept tumbling her thoughts about, sneering, smirking,
whispering--“You dare not go to confession--dare not go to confession.
You will never be the same again--never feel the same again--never think
the same again; your dreams are done! You can only love. And what will
this love do for you? What do you expect to happen--you dare not go to
confession!”

Her reply had been the one iteration: “I love him--I love him--I love
him. We shall be together all our lives, till we are old and grey. I
shall watch him at his work, and listen to his voice. I shall read with
him and walk with him, and I shall grow to think like him a little--in
everything except religion. In everything except that. One day he will
come to think like me--to believe in God.”

In the dreamy happiness of these thoughts the colour came to her cheeks,
the roses of light gathered in her eyes. In her tremulous ardour she
scarcely realised how time passed, and her reverie deepened as the
afternoon shadows grew and the sun made to its covert behind the hills.
She was roused by a man’s voice singing, just under the bluff where she
sat. To her this voice represented the battle-call, the home-call, the
life call of the universe. The song it sang was known to her. It was as
old as Rizzio. It had come from old France with Mary, had been merged
into English words and English music, and had voyaged to New France.
There it had been sung by lovers in fair vales, on wide rivers, and in
deep forests:

          “What is not mine I may not hold,
            (Ah, hark the hunter’s horn!),
          And what is thine may not be sold,
            (My love comes through the corn!);
             And none shall buy
             And none shall sell
             What Love works well?”

In the walk back from Vadrome Mountain, a change--a fleeting change--had
passed over Charley’s mind and mood. The quiet of the woodland, the
song of the birds, the tumbling brook, the smell of the rich earth,
replenishing its strength from the gorgeous falling leaves, had soothed
him. Thoughts of Rosalie took a new form. Her image possessed him,
excluding the future, the perils that surrounded them. He had gone
through so much within the past twenty-four hours that the capacity for
suffering had almost exhausted itself, and in the reaction endearing
thoughts of Rosalie had dominion over him. It was the reassertion of
primitive man, the demands of the first element. The great problem was
still in the background. The picture of Kathleen and the other man was
pushed into the distance; thoughts of Billy and his infamy were thrust
under foot--how futile to think of them! There was Rosalie to be thought
of, the to-day and to-morrow of the new life.

Rosalie was of to-day. How strong and womanly she had been this
morning, the girl whose life had been bounded by this Chaudiere, with
a metropolitan convent and hospital as her only glimpses of the busy
world. She would fit in anywhere--in the highest places, with her grace,
and her nobleness of mind, arcadian, passionate and beautiful. There
came upon him again the feeling of the evening before, when he saw
her standing in his doorway, the night about them, jealous affection,
undying love, in her eyes. It quickened his steps imperceptibly. He
passed a stream, and glanced down into a dark pool involuntarily.
It reflected himself clearly. He stopped short. “Is this you, Beauty
Steele?” he said, and he caught his brown beard in his hand. “Beauty
Steele had brains and no heart. You have heart, and your wits have gone
wool-gathering. No matter!

          What is not mine I may not hold,
          (Ah, hark the hunter’s horn!)’”

he sang, and came quickly along the stream where the flax-beaters worked
in harvest-time, then up the hill, then--Rosalie.

She started to her feet. “I knew you would come--I knew you would!” she
said.

“You have been waiting here for me?” he asked breathless, taking her
hand.

“I felt you would come. I made you,” she added smiling, and, eagerly
answering the look in his eyes, threw her arms round his neck. In that
moment’s joy a fresh realisation of their fate came upon him with dire
force, and a bitter protest went up from his heart, that he and she
should be sacrificed.

Yet the impasse was there, and what could remove it--what clear the way?

He looked down at the girl whose head was buried in happy peace on his
shoulder. She clung to him, as though in him was everlasting
protection from the sprite that kept whispering: “You dare not go to
confession--your dreams are done--you can only love.” But she had no
fear now.

As he looked down at her a swift change passed over him, and, almost for
the first time since he was a little child, his eyes filled with tears.
He hastily brushed them away, and drew her down on the seat beside him.
He was wondering how he should tell her that they must not meet like
this, that they must be apart. No matter what had happened, no matter
what love there was, it was better that they should die--that he should
die--than that they should meet like this. There was only one end to
secret meetings, and discovery was inevitable. Then, with discovery,
shame to her. For he must either marry her--how could he marry her?--or
die. For him to die would but increase her misery.

The time had passed when it could be of any use. It passed that day in
the hut on Vadrome Mountain when she said that if he died, she would die
with him--“Where you are going you will be alone. There will be no one
to care for you, no one but me.” Last night it passed for ever. She had
put her life into his hands; henceforth, there could never be a
question of giving or taking, of withdrawing or advancing, for all was
irrevocable, sealed with the great seal. Yet she must be saved. But how?

She suddenly looked up at him. “I can ask you anything I want now, can’t
I?” she said.

“Anything, Rosalie.”

“You know that when I ask, it is because I want to know what you know,
so that I may feel as you feel. You know that, don’t you?

“I know it when you tell me, wonderful Rosalie.” What a revelation it
was, this transmuting power, which could change mortal dross into the
coin of immortal wealth!

“I want to ask you,” she said, “who was Kathleen?” His blood seemed
to go cold in his veins, and he sat without answering, shocked and
dismayed. What could she know of Kathleen?

“Can’t you tell me?” she asked anxiously yet fearfully. He looked
so strange that she thought she had offended him. “Please don’t mind
telling me. I should understand everything--everything. Was it some
one you loved--once?” It was hard for her to say it, but she said it
bravely.

“No. I never loved any one in all the world, Rosalie--not till I loved
you.”

She gave a happy sigh. “Oh, it is wonderful!” she said. “It is wonderful
and good! Did you--did you love me from the very first?”

“I think I did, though I didn’t know it from the very first,” he
answered slowly. His heart beat hard, for he could not guess how she
should know of Kathleen. It was absurdly impossible that she should
know. “But many have loved you!” she said proudly. “They have not shown
it,” he answered grimly; then added quickly, and with aching anxiety:
“When did you hear of--of Kathleen?”

“Oh, you are such a blind huntsman!” she laughed. “Don’t you know where
my little fox was hiding? Why, in the shop, when you held the note-paper
up to the light, and looked startled, and bought all the paper we had
that was water-marked Kathleen. Do you think that was clever of me? I
don’t.”

“I think it was very clever,” he said.

“Then she-Kathleen--doesn’t really matter?” she asked eagerly. “Of
course she can’t, if you don’t love her. But does she love you? Did she
ever love you?” “Never in her life.”

“So of course it doesn’t matter,” she rejoined. “Hush!” she added
rapidly. “I see some one coming in the trees yonder. It may be some one
for me. Father knows I come here sometimes. Go quickly and hide behind
the rocks, please. I’ll stay and see who it is. Please go--dearest.”

He kissed her, and, keeping out of sight, got to a place of safety a few
hundred feet away.

He saw the new-comer run to Rosalie, speak to her, saw Rosalie half
turn in his own direction, then go hastily down the hillside with the
messenger.

“It is her father!” he exclaimed, and followed at a distance. At the
village he learned that M. Evanturel had had another seizure.




CHAPTER XLV. SIX MONTHS GO BY

Spring again--budding trees and flowing sap; the earth banks removed
from the houses, and outside windows discarded; the ice tumbling and
crunching in the river; the dormant farmer raising his head to the
energy and delight of April.

The winter had been long and hard. Never had there been severer frost or
deeper snow, and seldom had big game been so plentiful. In the snug warm
stables the cattle munched and chewed the cud; the idle, long-haired
horses grew as spirited in the keen air as in summer they were sluggish
with hard work; and the farm-hands were abroad in the dark of the early
mornings with lanterns, to feed the stock and take them out to water,
singing cheerfully. All morning spread the clamour of the flail and the
fanning-mill, the swish of the knife through the turnips and the beets,
and the sound of the saw and the axe, as the youngest man of the family,
muffled to the nose, sawed the wood into lengths or split the knots.

Night brought the cutting and stringing of apples, the shelling of the
Indian corn, the making of rag carpets. On Saturday came the going to
market with grain, or pork, or beef, or fowls frozen like stones; the
gossip in the market-place. Then again sounded jingling sleigh-bells as,
on the return road, the habitant made for home, a glass of white whiskey
inside him, and black-eyed children in the doorway, swarming like bees
at the mouth of a hive.

This particular winter in Chaudiere had been full of excitement and
expectation. At Easter-time there was to be the great Passion Play,
after the manner of that known as The Passion Play of Ober-Ammergau. Not
one in a hundred habitants had ever heard of Ober-Ammergau, but they had
all shared in picturesque processions of the Stations of the Cross to
some calvaire; and many had taken part in dramatic scenes arranged from
the life of Christ. Drama of a crude kind was deep in them; it showed in
gesture, speech, and temperament.

In all the preparations Maximilian Cour was a conspicuous and useful
official. Gifted with the dramatic temperament to a degree rare in so
humble a man, he it was who really educated the people of Chaudiere in
the details of the Passion Play to be produced by the good Catholics of
the parish and the Indians of the reservation. He had gone to the Cure
every day, and the Cure had talked with him, and then had sent him to
the tailor, who had, during the past six months, withdrawn more and
more from the life about him, practically living with shut door. No one
ventured in unless on business, or were in need, or wished advice. These
he never turned empty away.

Besides Portugais, Maximilian Cour was the one man received constantly
by the tailor. With patience and insight Charley taught the baker, by
drawings and careful explanations, the outlines of the representation,
and the baker grew proud of the association, though Charley’s face used
to haunt him in his sleep. Excitable, eager, there was an elemental
adaptability in the baker, as easily leading to Avernus as to Elysium.
This appealed to Charley, realising, as he did, that Maximilian Cour
was a reputable citizen by mere accident. The baker’s life had run in a
sentimental groove of religious duty; that same sentimentality would,
in other circumstances, have forced him with equal ardour into the broad
primrose path.

In the evening hours and on Sunday Charley had worked at his drawings
for the scenery and costumes of the Play, and completed his translation
of the German text, but there had been days when he could not put pen to
paper. Life to him now was one aching emptiness--since that day at the
Rest of the Flax-beaters Rosalie had been absent. On the very morning
after their meeting by the river she had gone away with her father to
the great hospital at Montreal--not Quebec this time, on the advice of
the Seigneur--as the one chance of prolonging his life. There had
come but one letter from her since that hour when he saw her in the
Seigneur’s coach with her father, moving away in the still autumn air, a
piteous appeal in her eyes. The good-bye look she gave him then was with
him day and night.

She had written him one letter, and he had written one in reply, and no
more. Though he was wholly reckless for himself, for her he was prudent
now--there was nothing else to do. To save her--if he could but save her
from himself! If he might only put back the clock!

In his letter to her he had simply said that it were wiser not to
write, since the acting postmistress, the Cure’s sister, would note the
exchange of letters, and this would arouse suspicion. He could not
see what was best to do, what was right to do. To wait seemed the only
thing, and his one letter ended with the words: Rosalie, my life is
lived only in the thought of you. There is no hour but I think of you,
no moment but you are with me. The greatest proof of love that man can
give, I will give to you, in the hour fate wills--for us. But now, we
must wait--we must wait, Rosalie. Do not write to me, but know that if I
could go to you I would go; if I could say to you, Come, I would say it.
If the giving of my life would save you any pain or sorrow, I would give
it.

Sitting on his bench at work, it seemed to Charley that sometimes she
was near him, and more than once he turned quickly round as though she
were, in very truth, standing beside him. He thought of her continually,
and often with an unbearable pain. He figured her in his mind as pale
and distressed, and always her eyes had the piteous terror of that last
look as she went away over the hills.

But the weeks had worn on, then the Seigneur, who had been to Montreal,
came back with the news that Rosalie was looking as beautiful as a
picture. “Grown a woman in beauty and in stature; comely--comely as a
lady in a Watteau picture, my dear messieurs!” he had said to the Cure,
standing in the tailor’s shop.

Replying, the Cure had said: “She is in good hands, with good people,
recommended to me by an abbe there; yet I am not wholly happy about her.
When her trouble comes to her”--Charley’s needle slipped and pierced
his finger to the bone--“when her father goes, as he must, I fear, there
will be no familiar face; she will hear no familiar voice.”

“Faith, there you are wrong, my dear Cure” answered the Seigneur;
“there’ll be a face yonder she likes very well indeed, and a voice she’s
fond of too.”

Charley’s back was on them at that moment, of which he was glad, for his
face was haggard with anxiety, and it seemed hours before the Cure said:
“Whom do you mean, Maurice?” and hours before the Seigneur replied:
“Mrs. Flynn, of course. I’m sending her tomorrow.”

Mrs. Flynn had gone, and Charley had, in one sense, been made no happier
by that, for it seemed to him that Rosalie would rather that strangers’
eyes were on her than the inquisitively friendly eye of Mary Flynn.

Weeks had grown into months, and no news came--none save that which the
Cure let fall, or was brought by the irresponsible Notary, who heard all
gossip. Only the Cure’s scant news were authentic, however, and Charley
never saw the good priest but he had a secret hope of hearing him say
that Rosalie was coming back. Yet when she came back, what would, or
could, he do? There was always the crime for which he or Billy must
be punished. Concerning this crime his heart was growing harder--for
Rosalie’s sake. But there was Kathleen--and Rosalie was now in the
city where she lived, and they might meet! There was one solution--if
Kathleen should die! It sickened him that he could think of that with a
sense of relief, almost of hope. If Kathleen should die, then he would
be free to marry Rosalie--into what? He still could only marry her into
the peril and menace of the law? Again, even if Kathleen did not stand
in the way, neither the Cure nor any other priest would marry him to her
without his antecedents being certified. A Protestant minister would,
perhaps, but would Rosalie give up her faith? Following him without
the blessing of the Church, she would trample under foot every dear
tradition of her life, win the scorn of all of her religion, and destroy
her own peace; for the faith of her fathers was as the breath of her
nostrils. What cruelty to her!

But was it, after all, even true that he had but to call and she would
come? In truth it well might be that she had learned to despise him;
to feel how dastardly he had been to take her love, given in blind
simplicity, bestowed like the song of the bird upon the listening
fields--to take the plenteous fulness of her life, and give nothing in
return save the empty hand, the hopeless hour, the secret sorrow.

Nothing could quench his misery. The physical part of him craved without
ceasing for something to allay his distress. Again and again he fought
his old enemy with desperate resolve. To fall again, to touch liquor
once more, was to end all for ever. He fought on tenaciously and
gloomily, with little of the pride of life, with nothing of the
old stubborn self-will, but with a new-awakened sense. He had found
conscience at last--and more.

The months went by and still M. Evanturel lingered on, and Rosalie did
not come. The strain became too great at last. In the week preceding
Easter, when all the parish was busy at Four Mountains, making costumes,
rehearsing, building, putting up seats, cutting down trees, and erecting
crosses and calvaries, Charley disclosed to Jo a new intention.

In the earlier part of the winter Jo and he had met two or three times
a week, but now Jo had come to help him with his work in the shop--two
silent, devoted companions. They understood each other, and in that
understanding were life and death. For never did Jo forget that a year
from the day he had confessed his sins he meant to give himself up to
justice. This caused him no sleepless nights. He thought more of Charley
than of himself, and every month now he went to confession, and every
day he said his prayers. He was at his prayers when Charley went to tell
him of his purpose. Charley had often seen Jo on his knees of late, and
he had wondered, but not with the old pagan mind. “Jo,” he said, “I am
going away--to Montreal.”

“To Montreal!” exclaimed Jo huskily. “You are going back--to stay?”

“Not that. I am going--to see--Rosalie Evanturel.” Jo was troubled but
not dumfounded. It had slowly crept into his mind that Charley loved the
girl, though he had no real ground for suspicion. His will, however,
had been so long the slave of the other man’s that he had far-off
reflections of his thoughts. He made no reply in words, but nodded his
head.

“I want you to stay here, Jo. If I don’t come back, and--and she does,
stand by her, Jo. I can trust you.” “You will come back, M’sieu’--but
you will come back, then?” Jo asked heavily.

“If I can, Jo--if I can,” he answered.

Long after he had gone, Jo wandered up and down among the trees on the
river-road, up which Charley had disappeared with Jo’s dogs and sled. He
kept shaking his head mournfully.




CHAPTER XLVI. THE FORGOTTEN MAN

It was Easter morning, and the good sunrise of a perfect spring made
radiant the high hill above the town. Rosy-fingered morn touched with
magic colour the masts and scattered sails of the ships upon the great
river, and spires and towers quivered with rainbow light. The city was
waking cheerfully, though the only active life was in the pealing bells
and on the deep flowing rivers. The streets were empty yet, save for
an assiduous priest or the cart of a milkman. Here and there a window
opened and a drowsy head was thrust into the eager air. These saw a
bearded countryman with his team of six dogs and his little cart
going slowly up the street. It was plain the man had come a long
distance--from the mountains in the east or south, no doubt, where
horses were few, and dogs, canoes, and oxen the means of transportation.

As the man moved slowly through the streets, his dogs still gallantly
full of life after their hard journey, he did not stare about him after
the manner of countrymen. His movements had intelligence and freedom.
He was an unusual figure for a woodsman or river-man--he did not wear
ear-rings or a waist-sash as did the river-men, and he did not turn
in his toes like a woodsman. Yet he was plainly a man from the far
mountains.

The man with the dogs did not heed the few curious looks turned his way,
but held his head down as though walking in familiar places. Now and
then he spoke to his dogs, and once he stopped before a newspaper
office, which had a placard bearing these lines:

The Coming Passion Play In the Chaudiere Valley.

He looked at it mechanically, for, though he was concerned in the
Passion Play and the Chaudiere Valley, it was an abstraction to him at
this moment. His mind was absorbed by other things.

Though he looked neither to right nor to left, he was deeply affected by
all round him.

At last he came to a certain street, where he and his dogs travelled
more quickly. It opened into a square, where bells were booming in the
steeple of a church. Shops and offices in the street were shut, but
a saloon-door was open, and over the doorway was the legend: Jean
Jolicoeur, Licensed to sell Wine, Beer, and other Spirituous and
Fermented Liquors.

Nearly opposite was a lawyer’s office, with a new-painted sign. It had
once read, in plain black letters, Charles Steele, Barrister, etc.; now
it read, in gold letters and many flourishes of the sign-painter’s art,
Rockwell and Tremblay, Barristers, Attorneys, etc.

Here the man looked up with trouble in his eyes. He could see dimly the
desk and the window beside which he had sat for so many years, and on
the wall a map of the city glowed with the incoming sun.

He moved on, passing the saloon with the open door. The landlord, in his
shirt-sleeves, was standing in the doorway. He nodded, then came out to
the edge of the board-walk.

“Come a long way, M’sieu’?” he asked.

“Four days’ journey,” answered the man gruffly through his beard,
looking the landlord in the eyes. If this landlord, who in the past had
seen him so often and so closely, did not recognise him, surely no one
else would. It was, however, a curious recurrence of habit that, as he
looked at the landlord, he instinctively felt for his eye-glass, which
he had discarded when he left Chaudiere. For an instant there was an
involuntary arrest of Jean Jolicoeur’s look, as though memory had been
roused, but this swiftly passed, and he said:

“Fine dogs, them! We never get that kind hereabouts now, M’sieu’. Ever
been to the city before?”

“I’ve never been far from home before,” answered the Forgotten Man.

“You’d better keep your eyes open, my friend, though you’ve got a sharp
pair in your head--sharp as Beauty Steele’s almost. There’s rascals in
the river-side drinking-places that don’t let the left hand know what
the right does.”

“My dogs and I never trust anybody,” said the Forgotten Man, as one of
the dogs snarled at the landlord’s touch. “So I can take care of myself,
even if I haven’t eyes as sharp as Beauty Steele’s, whoever he is.”

The landlord laughed. “Beauty’s only skin-deep, they say. Charley Steele
was a lawyer; his office was over there”--he pointed across the street.
“He went wrong. He come here too often--that wasn’t my fault. He had an
eye like a hawk, and you couldn’t read it. Now I can read your eye like
a book. There’s a bit of spring in ‘em, M’sieu’. His eyes were hard
winter-ice five feet deep and no fishing under--froze to the bed. He had
a tongue like a cross-cut saw. He’s at the bottom of the St. Lawrence,
leaving a bad job behind him.

“Have a drink--hein?” He jerked a finger backwards to the saloon door.
“It’s Sunday, but stolen waters are sweet, sure!”

The Forgotten Man shook his head. “I don’t drink, thank you.”

“It’d do you good. You’re dead beat. You’ve been travelling hard--eh?”

“I’ve come a long way, and travelled all night.”

“Going on?”

“I am going back to-morrow.”

“On business?”

Charley nodded--he glanced involuntarily at the sign across the street.

Jean Jolicoeur saw the look. “Lawyer’s business, p’r’aps?”

“A lawyer’s business--yes.”

“Ah, if Charley Steele was here!”

“I have as good a lawyer as--”

The landlord laughed scornfully. “They’re not made. He’d legislate the
devil out of the Pit. Where are you going to stay, M’sieu’?”

“Somewhere cheap--along the river,” answered the Forgotten Man.

Jolicoeur’s good-natured face became serious. “I’ll tell you a
place--it’s honest. It’s the next street, a few hundred yards down, on
the left. There’s a wooden fish over the door. It’s called The Black
Bass--that hotel. Say I sent you. Good luck to you, countryman! Ah, la;
la, there’s the second bell--I must be getting to Mass!” With a nod he
turned and went into the house.

The Forgotten Man passed slowly up the street, into the side street, and
followed it till he came to The Black Bass, and turned into the small
stable-yard. A stable-man was stirring. He at once put his dogs into
a little pen set apart for them, saw them fed from the kitchen, and,
betaking himself to a little room behind the bar of the hotel, ordered
breakfast. The place was empty, save for the servant--the household were
at Mass. He looked round the room abstractedly. He was thinking of a
crippled man in a hospital, of a girl from a village in the Chaudiere
Valley. He thought with a shiver of a white house on the hill. He
thought of himself as he had never done before in his life. Passing
along the street, he had realised that he had no moral claim upon
anything or anybody within these precincts of his past life. The place
was a tomb to him.

As he sat in the little back parlour of The Black Bass, eating his
frugal breakfast of eggs and bread and milk, the meaning of it all
slowly dawned upon him. Through his intellect he had known something of
humanity, but he had never known men. He had thought of men in the mass,
and despised them because of their multitudinous duplication, and their
typical weaknesses; but he had never known one man or one woman from the
subtler, surer divination of the heart. His intellect had made servants
and lures of his emotions and his heart, for even his every case in
court had been won by easy and selfish command of all those feelings in
mankind which make possible personal understanding.

In this little back parlour it came to him with sudden force how, long
ago, he had cut himself off from any claim upon his fellows--not only by
his conduct, but by his merciless inhuman intelligence working upon the
merciful human life about him. He never remembered to have had any real
feeling till on that day with Kathleen--the day he died. The bitter
complaint of a woman he had wronged cruelly, by having married her, had
wrung from him his own first wail of life, in the one cry “Kathleen!”

As he sat eating his simple meal his pulses were beating painfully.
Every nerve in his body seemed to pluck at the angry flesh. There
flashed across his mind in sympathetic sensation a picture. It was the
axe-factory on the river, before which he used to stand as a boy, and
watch the men naked to the waist, with huge hairy arms and streaming
faces, toiling in the red glare, the trip-hammers endlessly pounding
upon the glowing metal. In old days it had suggested pictures of gods
and demi-gods toiling in the workshops of the primeval world. So
the whole machinery of being seemed to be toiling in the light of an
awakened conscience, to the making of a man. It seemed to him that all
his life was being crowded into these hours. His past was here--its
posing, its folly, its pitiful uselessness, and its shame. Kathleen and
Billy were here, with all the problems that involved them. Rosalie was
here, with the great, the last problem.

“Nothing matters but that--but Rosalie,” he said to himself as he turned
to look out of the window at the wrangling dogs gnawing bones. “Here she
is in the midst of all I once knew, and I know that I am no more a part
of it than she is. She and Kathleen may have met face to face in
these streets--who can tell! The world is large, but there’s a sort of
whipper-in of Fate, who drives the people wearing the same livery into
one corner in the end. If they met”--he rose and walked hastily up and
down--“what then? I have a feeling that Rosalie would recognise her as
plainly as though the word Kathleen were stitched on her breast.”

There was a clock on the wall. He looked at it. “It will not be safe
to go out until evening. Then I can go to the hospital, and watch her
coming out.” He realised with satisfaction that many people coming from
Mass must pass the inn. There was a chance of his seeing Rosalie, if she
had gone to early Mass. This street lay in her way from the hospital.
“One look--ah, one look!” For this one look he had come. For this, and
to secure that which would save Rosalie from want always, if anything
should happen to him. This too had been greatly on his mind. There was a
way to give her what was his very own, which would rob no one and serve
her well indeed.

Looking at his face in the mirror over the mantel, he said to himself

“I might have had ten thousand friends, yet I have a thousand enemies,
who grin at the memory of the drunken fop down among the eels and the
cat-fish. Every chance was with me then. I come back here, and--and
Jolicoeur tells me the brutal truth. But if I had had ambition”--a wave
of the feeling of the old life passed over him--“if I had had ambition
as I was then, I should have been a monster. It was all so paltry that,
in sheer disgust, I should have kicked every ladder down that helped me
up. I should have sacrificed everything to myself.”

He stopped short and stared, for, in the mirror, he saw a girl passing
through the stable-yard towards the quarrelling dogs in the kennel. He
clapped his hand to his mouth to stop a cry. It was Rosalie.

He did not turn round but looked at her in the mirror, as though it were
the last look he might give on earth.

He could hear her voice speaking to the dogs: “Ah, my friends, ah, my
dears! I know you every one. Jo Portugais is here. I know your bark,
you, Harpy, and you, Lazybones, and you, Cloud and London! I know you
every one. I heard you as I came from Mass, beauty dears. Ah, you know
me, sweethearts? Ah, God bless you for coming! You have come to bring us
home; you have come to fetch us home--father and me.” The paws of one of
the dogs was on her shoulder, and his nose was in her hair.

Charley heard her words, for the window was open, and he listened and
watched now with an infinite relief in his look. Her face was half
turned towards him. It was pale-very pale and sad. It was Rosalie as of
old--thank God, as of old!--but more beautiful in the touching sadness,
the far-off longing, of her look.

“I must go and see your master,” she said to the dogs. “Down--down,
Lazybones!”

There was no time to lose--he must not meet her ere. He went into the
outer hall hastily. The servant was passing through. “If any one
asks for Jo Portugais,” he said, “say that I’ll be back to-morrow
morning--I’m going across the river to-day.”

“Certainly, M’sieu’,” said the girl, and smiled because of the piece of
silver he put in her hand.

As he heard the side door open he stepped through the front doorway into
the street, and disappeared round a corner.




CHAPTER XLVII. ONE WAS TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFT

Rosalie carried to the hospital that afternoon a lighter heart than she
had known for many a day. The sight of Jo Portugais’ dogs had roused
her out of the apathy which had been growing on her in this patient
but hopeless watching beside her father. She had always a smile and a
cheerful word for the poor man. A settled sorrow hung upon her face,
however, taking away its colour, but giving it a sweet gravity which
made her slave more than one young doctor of the hospital, for whom,
however, she showed no more than a friendly frankness, free from
self-consciousness. For hours she would sit in reverie beside her
sleeping father, her heart “over the water to Charley.” As in a trance,
she could see him sitting at his bench, bent over his work, now and
again lifting up his head to look across to the post-office, where
another hand than hers sorted letters now.

Day by day her father weakened and faded away. All that was possible to
medical skill had been done. As the money left by her mother dwindled,
she had no anxiety, for she knew that the life she so tenderly cherished
would not outlast the gold which lengthened out the tenuous chain of
being. This last illness of her father’s had been the salvation of her
mind, the saving of her health. Maybe it had been the saving of her
soul; for at times a curious contempt of life came upon her--she who had
loved it so eagerly and fully. There descended on her then the bitter
conviction that never again would she see the man she loved. Then not
even Mrs. Flynn could call back “the fun o’ the world” to her step and
her tongue and her eye. At first there had been a timid shrinking,
but soon her father and herself were brighter and better for the old
Irishwoman’s presence, and she began to take comfort in Mrs. Flynn.

Mrs. Flynn gave hopefulness to whatever life she touched, and Rosalie,
buoyant and hopeful enough by nature, responded to the living warmth and
the religion of life in the Irishwoman’s heart.

“‘Tis worth the doin’, ivery bit of it, darlin’, the bither an’ the
swate, the hard an’ the aisy, the rough an’ the smooth, the good an’ the
bad,” said Mrs. Flynn to her this very Easter morning. “Even the avil
is worth doin’, if so be ‘twas not mint, an’ the good is in yer heart in
the ind, an’ ye do be turnip’ to the Almoighty, repentin’ an’ glad to
be aloive: provin’ to Him ‘twas worth while makin’ the world an’ you, to
want, an’ worry, an’ work, an’ play, an’ pick the flowers, an’ bleed o’
the thorns, an’ dhrink the sun, an’ ate the dust, an’ be lovin’ all the
way! Ah, that’s it, darlin’,” persisted Mrs. Flynn, “‘tis lovin’ all the
way makes it aisier. There’s manny kinds o’ love. There’s lad an’
lass, there’s maid an’ man. An’ that last is spring, an’ all the birds
singin’, an’ shtorms now an’ thin, an’ siparations, an’ misthrust, an’
God in hivin bein’ that aisy wid ye for bein’ fools an’ children, an’
bringin’ ye thegither in the ind, if so be ye do be lovin’ as man an’
maid should love, wid all yer heart. Thin there’s the love o’ man an’
wife. Shure, that’s the love that lasts, if it shtarts right. Shure,
it doesn’t always shtart wid the sun shinin.’ ‘Will ye marry me?’ says
Teddy Flynn to me. ‘I will,’ says I. ‘Then I’ll come back from Canaday
to futch ye,’ says he, wid a tear in his eye.

“‘For what’s a man in ould Ireland that has a head for annything but
puttaties! There’s land free in Canaday, an’ I’m goin’ to make a home
for ye, Mary,’ says he, wavin’ a piece of paper in the air. ‘Are ye,
thin?’ says I. He goes away that night, an’ the next mornin’ I have a
lether from him, sayin’ he’s shtartin’ that day for Canaday. He hadn’t
the heart to tell me to me face. Fwaht do I do thin? I begs, borrers,
an’ stales, an’ I reached that ship wan minnit before she sailed. There
was no praste aboord, but we was married six weeks afther at Quebec. And
thegither we lived wid ups an’ downs--but no ups an’ downs to the love
of us for twenty years, blessed be God for all His mercies!”

Rosalie had listened with eyes that hungrily watched every expression,
ears that weighed eagerly every inflection; for she was hearing the
story of another’s love, and it did not seem strange to her that a
woman, old, red-faced, and fat, should be telling it.

Yet there were times when she wept till she was exhausted; when all her
girlhood was drowned in the overflow of her eyes; when there was a
sense of irrevocable loss upon her. Then it was, in her fear of soul
and pitiful loneliness, that her lover--the man she would have died
for--seemed to have deserted her. Then it was that a sudden hatred
against him rose up in her--to be swept away as swiftly as it came by
the memory of his broken tale of love, his passionate words: “I have
never loved any one but you in all my life, Rosalie.” And also, there
was that letter from Chaudiere, which said that in the hour when the
greatest proof of his love must be given he would give it. Reading
the letter again, hatred, doubt, even sorrow, passed from her, and her
imagination pictured the hour when, disguise and secrecy ended, he would
step forward before all the world and say: “I take Rosalie Evanturel to
be my wife.” Despite the gusts of emotion that swayed her at times, in
the deepest part of her being she trusted him completely.

When she reached the hospital this Sunday afternoon her step was quick,
her smile bright--though she had not been to confession as was her duty
on Easter day. The impulse towards it had been great, but her secret was
not her own, and the passionate desire to give relief to her full heart
was overborne by thought of the man. Her soul was her own, but this
secret of their love was his as well as hers. She knew that she was the
only just judge between.

Soon after she entered the ward, the chief surgeon said that all that
could be done for her father had now been done, and that as M. Evanturel
constantly asked to be taken back to Chaudiere (he never said to die,
though they knew what was in his mind), he might now make the journey,
partly by river, partly by land. It seemed to the delighted and excited
Rosalie that Jo Portugais had been sent to her as a surprise, and that
his team of dogs was to take her father back.

She sat by her father’s bed this beautiful, wonderful Sunday afternoon,
and talked cheerfully, and laughed a little, and told M. Evanturel of
the dogs, and together they looked out of the window to the far-off
hills, in their golden purple, beyond which, in the valley of the
Chaudiere, was their little home. With her father’s hand in hers the
girl dreamed dreams again, and it seemed to her that she was the very
Rosalie Evanturel of old, whose thoughts were bounded by a river and a
hill, a post-office and a church, a catechism and a few score of books.
Here in the crowded city she had come to be a woman who, bitterly shaken
in soul, knew life’s sufferings; who had, during the past few months,
read with avidity history, poetry, romance, fiction, and the drama,
English and French; for in every one she found something that said: “You
have felt that.” In these long months she had learned more than she had
known or learned in all her previous life.

As she sat looking out into the eastern sky she became conscious
of voices, and of a group of people who came slowly down the ward,
sometimes speaking to the sick and crippled. It was not a general
visitors’ day, but one reserved for the few to come and say a kindly
word to the suffering, to bring some flowers and distribute books.
Rosalie had always been absent at this hour before, for she shrank from
strangers; but to-day she had stayed on unthinking. It mattered nothing
to her who came and went. Her heart was over the hills, and the only tie
she had here was with this poor cripple whose hand she held. If she
did not resent the visit of these kindly strangers, she resolutely held
herself apart from the object of their visit with a sense of distance
and cold dignity. If she had given Charley something of herself, she
had in turn taken something from him, something unlike her old self,
delicately non-intime. Knowledge of life had rationalised her emotions
to a definite degree, had given her the pride of self-repression. She
had had need of it in these surroundings, where her beauty drew not
a little dangerous attention, which she had held at arm’s-length--her
great love for one man made her invulnerable.

Now, as the visitors came near, she did not turn towards them, but still
sat, her chin on her hand, looking out across the hills, in resolute
abstraction. She felt her father’s fingers press hers, as if to draw her
attention, for he, weak man, was ever ready to open his hand and heart
to any friendly soul. She took no notice, but held his hand firmly, as
though to say that she had no wish to see.

She was conscious now that they were beside her father’s bed. She hoped
that they would pass. But no, the feet stopped, there was whispering,
and then she heard a voice say, “Rather rude!” then another, “Not
wanted, that’s plain!”--the first a woman’s, the second a man’s. Then
another voice, clear and cold, and well modulated, said to her father:
“They tell me you have been here a long time, and have had much pain.
You will be glad to go, I am sure.”

Something in the voice startled her. Some familiar sound or inflection
struck upon her ear with a far-off note, some lost tone she knew. Of
what, of whom, did this voice remind her? She turned round quickly and
caught two cold blue eyes looking at her. The face was older than her
own, handsome and still, and happy in a placid sort of way. Few gusts of
passion or of pain had passed across that face. The figure was shapely
to the newest fashion, the bonnet was perfect, the hand which held two
books was prettily gloved. Polite charity was written in her manner and
consecrated every motion. On the instant, Rosalie resented this fine
epitome of convention, this dutiful charity-monger, herself the centre
of an admiring quartet. She saw the whispering, she noted the well-bred
disguise of interest, and she met the visitor’s gaze with cold courtesy.
The other read the look in her face, and a slightly pacifying smile
gathered at her lips.

“We are glad to hear that your father is better. He has been ill a long
time?”

Rosalie started again, for the voice perplexed her--rather, not the
voice, but the inflection, the deliberation.

She bowed, and set her lips, but, chancing to glance at her father, she
saw that he was troubled by her manner. Flashing a look of love at him,
she adjusted the pillow under his head, and said to her questioner in a
low voice: “He is better now, thank you.”

Encouraged, the other rejoined: “May I leave one or two books for him
to read--or for you to read to him?” Then added hastily, for she saw a
curious look in Rosalie’s eyes: “We can have mutual friends in books,
though we cannot be friends with each other. Books are the go-betweens
of humanity.”

Rosalie’s heart leapt, she flushed, then grew slightly pale, for it
was not tone or inflection alone that disturbed her now, but words
themselves. A voice from over the hills seemed to say these things to
her. A haunting voice from over the hills had said them to her--these
very words.

“Friends need no go-betweens,” she said quietly, “and enemies should not
use them.”

She heard a voice say, “By Jove!” in a tone of surprise, as though it
were wonderful the girl from Chaudiere should have her wits about her.
So Rosalie interpreted it.

“Have you many friends here?” asked the cold voice, meant to be kindly
and pacific. It was schooled to composure, because it gave advantage in
life’s intercourse, not from any inner urbanity.

“Some need many friends, some but a few. I come from a country where one
only needs a few.”

“Where is your country, I wonder?” said the cold echo of another voice.

Charley had passed out of Kathleen’s life--he was dead to her, his
memory scorned and buried. She loved the man to whom she supposed she
was married; she was only too glad to let the dust of death and time
cover every trace of Charley from her gaze; she would have rooted out
every particle of association: yet his influence on her had been so
great that she had unconsciously absorbed some of his idiosyncrasies--in
the tone of his voice, in his manner of speaking. To-day she had even
repeated phrases he had used.

“Beyond the hills,” said Rosalie, turning away.

“Is it not strange?” said the voice. “That is the title of one of the
books I have just brought--‘Beyond the Hills’. It is by an English
writer. This other book is French. May I leave them?”

Rosalie inclined her head. It would make her own position less dignified
if she refused them. “Books are always welcome to my father,” she said.

There was an instant’s pause, as though the fashionable lady would offer
her hand; but their eyes met, and they only bowed. The lady moved on
with a smile, leaving a perfume of heliotrope behind her.

“Where is your country, I wonder?”--the voice of the lady rang in
Rosalie’s ears. As she sat at the window again, long after the visitors
had disappeared, the words, “I wonder--I wonder--I wonder!” kept beating
in her brain. It was absurd that this woman should remind her of the
tailor of Chaudiere.

Suddenly she was roused by her father’s voice. “This is beautiful--ah,
but beautiful, Rosalie!”

She turned towards him. He was reading the book in his hand--‘Beyond the
Hills’. “Listen,” he said, and he read, in English: “‘Compensation
is the other name for God. How often is it that those whom disease or
accident has robbed of active life find greater inner rejoicing and a
larger spiritual itinerary! It would seem that withdrawal from the ruder
activities gives a clearer seeing. Also for these, so often, is granted
a greater love, which comes of the consecration of other lives to
theirs. And these too have their reward, for they are less encompassed
by the vanities of the world, having the joy of self-sacrifice.’” He
looked at Rosalie with an unnatural brightness in his eyes, and she
smiled at him now and stroked his hand.

“It has been all compensation to me,” he said, after a moment. “You have
been a good daughter to me, Rosalie.”

She shook her head and smiled. “Good fathers think they have good
daughters,” she answered, choking back a sob.

He closed the book and let it lie upon the coverlet. “I will sleep now,”
 he said, and turned on his side. She arranged his pillow, and adjusted
the bedclothes to his comfort.

“Good-night,” he said, as, with a faint hand, he drew her head down and
kissed her. “Good girl! Goodnight!”

She patted his hand. “It is not night yet, father.”

He was already half asleep. “Good-night!” he said again, and fell into a
deep sleep.

She sat down by the window, in her hand the book he had laid down. A
hundred thoughts were busy in her brain--of her father; of the woman who
had just left; of her lover over the hills. The woman’s voice came
to her again--a far-off mockery. She opened the book mechanically and
turned over the pages. Presently her eyes were riveted to a page. On it
was written the word Kathleen.

For a moment she sat transfixed. The word Kathleen and the haunting
voice became one, and her mind ran back to the day when she had said to
Charley: “Who is Kathleen?”

She sprang to her feet. What should she do? Follow the woman? Find out
who and what she was? Go to the young surgeon who had accompanied them,
ask him who she was, and so learn the clue to the mystery concerning her
lover?

In the midst of her confusion she became sharply conscious of two
things: the approach of Mrs. Flynn, and her father’s heavy breathing.
Dropping the book, she leaned over her father’s bed and looked closely
at him. Then she turned to the frightened and anxious Mrs. Flynn.

“Go for the priest,” she said. “He is dying.”

“I’ll send some one. I’m stayin’ here by you, darlin’,” said the old
woman, and hurried to the room of the young surgeon for a messenger.

As the sun went down, the cripple went out upon a long journey alone.




CHAPTER XLVIII. “WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING--”

As Charley walked the bank of the great river by the city where his old
life lay dead, he struggled with the new life which--long or short--must
henceforth belong to the village of the woman he loved.... But as he
fought with himself in the long night-watch it was borne in upon him
that though he had been shown the Promised Land, he might never find
there a habitation and a home. The hymn he had mockingly sung the night
he had been done to death at the Cote Dorion sang in his senses now, an
ever-present mockery:

        “On the other side of Jordan,
        In the sweet fields of Eden,
        Where the tree of life is blooming,
          There is rest for you.
        There is rest for the weary,
        There is rest for the weary,
        There is rest for the weary,
          There is rest for you.”

In the uttermost corner of his intelligence he felt with sure prescience
that, however befalling, the end of all was not far off. In the exercise
of new faculties, which had more to do with the soul than with reason,
he now believed what he could not see, and recognised what was not
proved. Labour of the hand, trouble, sorrow, and perplexity, charity
and humanity, had cleared and simplified his life, had sweetened his
intelligence, and taken the place of ambition. He saw life now through
the lens of personal duty, which required that the thing nearest to
one’s hand should be done first.

But as foreboding pressed upon him there came the thought of what should
come after--to Rosalie. His thoughts took a practical form--her good
was uppermost in his mind. All Rosalie had to live on was her salary as
postmistress, for it was in every one’s knowledge that the little else
she had was being sacrificed to her father’s illness. Suppose, then,
that through illness or accident she lost her position, what could she
do? He might leave her what he had--but what had he? Enough to keep her
for a year or two--no more. All his earnings had gone to the poor and
the suffering of Chaudiere.

There was one way. It had suggested itself to him so often in Chaudiere,
and had been one of the two reasons for bringing him here. There were
his dead mother’s pearls and one thousand dollars in notes behind a
secret panel in the white house on the hill, in this very city where
he was. The pearls were worth over ten thousand dollars--in all, there
would be eleven thousand, enough to secure Rosalie from poverty. What
should Kathleen do with his mother’s pearls, even if they were found by
her? What should she do with his money did she not loathe his memory?
Had not all his debts been paid? These pearls and this money were all
his own.

But to get them. To go now to the white house on the hill; to face that
old life even for an hour, a knocking at the door of a haunted house--he
shrank from the thought. He would have to enter the place like a thief
in the night.

Yet for Rosalie he must take the risk--he must go.




CHAPTER XLIX. THE OPEN GATE

It was a still night, and the moon, delicately bright, gave forth that
radiance which makes spiritual to the eye the coarsest thing. Inside
the white house on the hill all was dark. Sleep had settled on it long
before midnight, for, on the morrow, its master and mistress hoped to
make a journey to the valley of the Chaudiere, where the Passion Play
was being performed by habitants and Indians. The desire to see the
play had become an infatuation in the minds of the two, eager for some
interest to relieve the monotony of a happy life.

But as all slept, a figure in the dress of a habitant moved through the
passages of the house stealthily, yet with an assurance unusual in the
thief or housebreaker. In the darkest passages his step was sure, and
his hand fastened on latch or door-knob with perfect precision. He came
at last into a large hallway flooded by the moon, pale, watchful,
his beard frosted by the light. In the stillness of his tread and the
composed sorrow of his face he seemed like one long dead who “revisits
the glimpses of the moon.”

At last he entered a room the door of which stood wide open. In this
room had been begotten, or had had exercise, whatever of him was worth
approving in the days before he died. It was a place of books and
statues and tapestry, and the dark oak was nobly smutched of Time. This
sombre oaken wall had been handed down through four generations from
the man’s great-grandfather: the breath of generations had steeped it in
human association.

Entering, he turned for an instant with clinched hands to look at
another door across the hall. Behind that door were two people who
despised his memory, who conspired to forget his very name. This house
was the woman’s, for he had given it to her the day he died. But that
she could live there with all the old associations, with memories that,
however bitter, however shaming, had a sort of sacredness, struck
into his soul with a harrowing pain. There she was whom he had
spared--himself; whose happiness had lain in his hands, and he had given
it to her. Yet her very existence robbed himself of happiness, and made
sorrowful a life dearer than his own.

Kathleen lay asleep in that room--he fancied he could hear her
breathing; and, by the hospital on the hill, up beyond the point of
pines, in a little cottage which he could see from the great window, lay
Rosalie with sleepless eyes and wan cheeks, longing for morning and the
stir of life to help her to forget.

For Rosalie he had come to this house once more. For her sake he was
revisiting this torture-chamber, from which he knew he must go again,
blanched and shaken, as a man goes from a tomb where his dead lie
unforgiving.

He shut his teeth, went swiftly across the room, and beside a great
carved oak table touched a hidden spring in the side of it. The spring
snapped; the panel creaked a little and drew back. It seemed to him that
the noise he made must be heard in every part of the house, so sensitive
was his ear, so deep was the silence on which the sounds had broken. He
turned round to the doorway to listen before he put his hand within the
secret place.

There was no sound. He turned his attention to the table. Drawing forth
two packets with a gasp of relief, he put them in his pocket, and, with
extreme care, proceeded to close the panel. By rubbing the edges of the
wood with grease from a candle on the table, he was able to readjust
the panel in silence. But, as the spring came home, he became suddenly
conscious of a presence in the room. A shiver passed through him.
He turned round-softly, quickly. He was in the shadow and near great
window-curtains, and his fingers instinctively clutched them as he saw
a figure in white at the door of the room. Slowly, strangely deliberate,
the figure moved further into the room.

Charley’s breath stopped. He felt his face flush, and a strange weakness
came on him. There before him stood Kathleen.

She was in her night-gown, and she stood still, as though listening;
yet, as Charley looked closer, he realised that it was an unconscious,
passive listening, and that she did not know he was there.

Her mind only was listening. She was asleep. Was it possible that his
very presence in the house had touched some old note of memory,
which, automatically responding, had carried her from her bed in this
somnambulistic trance? That subtle telegraphy between our subconscious
selves which we cannot reduce to a law, yet alarming us at times,
announced to Kathleen’s mind, independent of the waking senses, the
presence once familiar to this house for so many years. In her sleep she
had involuntarily responded to the call of Charley’s approach.

Once, in the past, the night her uncle died, she had walked in her
sleep, and the memory of this flashed upon Charley now. Silently he came
closer to her. The moonlight shone on her face. He could see plainly
she was asleep. His position was painful and perilous. If she waked, the
shock to herself would be great; if she waked and saw him, what disaster
might not occur!

Yet he had no agitation now, only clearness of mind and a curious sense
of confusion that he should see her en dishabille--the old fastidious
sense mingling with the feeling that she was now a stranger to him, and
that, waking, she would fly embarrassed from his presence, as he was
ready to fly from hers. He was about to steal to the door and escape
before she waked, but she turned round, moved through the doorway, and
glided down the hall. He followed silently.

She moved to the staircase, then slowly down it, and through a passage
to a morning-room, where, opening a pair of French windows, she passed
out onto the lawn. He followed, not more than a dozen paces behind her.
His safety lay in getting outside, where he could easily hide among the
bushes, should someone else appear and an alarm be raised.

She crossed the lawn swiftly, a white, ghostlike figure. In the middle
of the lawn she stopped short once as if in doubt what to do--as a
thought-reader pauses in his search for the mental scent again, ere he
rushes upon the object of his search with the certainty of instinct.

Presently she moved on, going directly towards a gate that opened out
on the cliff above the river. In Charley’s day this gate had been often
used, for it gave upon four steep wooden steps leading to a narrow shelf
of rock below. From the edge of this cliff a rope-ladder dropped fifty
feet to the river. For years he had used this rope-ladder to get down to
his boat, and often, when they were first married, Kathleen used to
come and watch him descend, and sometimes, just at the very first, would
descend also. As he stole into the grounds this evening he had noticed,
however, that the rope-ladder was gone, and that new steps were being
built. He had also mechanically observed that the gate was open.

For an instant he watched her slowly moving towards the gate. At first
he did not realise the situation. Suddenly her danger flashed upon him.
Passing through the gateway, she must fall over the cliff.

Her life was in his hands.

He could rush forward swiftly and close the gate, then, raising an
alarm, get away before he was seen; or--he could escape now.

What had he to do with her? A weird, painful suggestion crept into his
brain: he was not responsible for her, and he was responsible for
a woman up there by the hospital, whose home was the valley of the
Chaudiere!

If Kathleen were gone, what barrier would there be between him and
Rosalie? What had he to do with this strange disposition of events?
Kathleen was never absent from her church twice on Sundays; she was
devoted to work of all sorts for the church on week-days--where was
her intervening personal Providence? If Providence permitted her to
die?--well, she had had two years of happiness with the man she loved,
at some expense to himself--was it not fair that Rosalie should have
her share? Had he the right to call upon Rosalie for constant
self-sacrifice, when, by shutting his eyes now, by being dead to
Kathleen and her need, as he was dead to the world he once knew, the way
would be clear to marry Rosalie?

Dead--he was dead to the world and to Kathleen! Should his ghost
interpose between her and the death now within two-score feet of her?
Who could know? It was grim, it was awful, but was it not a wild kind
of justice? Who could blame? It was the old Charley Steele, the Charley
Steele of the court-room, who argued back humanity and the inherent
rightness of things.

But it was only a moment’s pause. The thoughts flashed by like the
lightning impressions of a dream, and a voice said in his ear, the voice
of the new Charley with a conscience:

“Save her--save her!”

Even as he was conscious of another presence on the lawn, he rushed
forward noiselessly. Stealing between Kathleen and the gate-she was
within five feet of it he closed and locked it. Then, with a quick
glance at her sleeping face-it was engraven on his memory ever
after like a dead face in a coffin--he ran along the fence among the
shrubbery. A man not fifty feet away called to him.

“Hush--she is asleep!” Charley whispered, and disappeared.

It was Fairing himself who saw this deed which saved Kathleen’s life.
Awaking, and not finding her, he had glanced towards the window, and
had seen her on the lawn. He had rushed down to her, in time to see her
saved by a strange bearded man in habitant dress. His one glance at the
man’s face, as it turned towards him, produced an extraordinary
effect upon his mind, not soon to be dispelled--a haunting, ghostlike
apparition, which kept reminding him of something or somebody, he could
not tell what or whom. The whispering voice and the breathless words,
“Hush--she is asleep!” repeated themselves over and over again in his
brain, as, taking Kathleen’s hand, he led her, unresisting, and still
sleeping, back to her room. In agitated thankfulness he resolved not to
speak of the event to Kathleen, or to any one else, lest it should come
to her ears and frighten her.

He would, however, keep a sharp lookout for the man who had saved her
life, and would reward him duly. The face of the bearded habitant came
between him and his sleep.

Meanwhile this disturber of a woman’s dreams and a man’s sleep was
hurrying to an inn in the town by the waterside, where he met another
habitant with a team of dogs--Jo Portugais. Jo had not been able to bear
the misery of suspense and anxiety, and had come seeking him. There was
little speech between them.

“You have not been found out, M’sieu’?” was Jo’s anxious question.

“No, no, but I have had a bad night, Jo. Get the dogs together.”

A little later, as Charley made ready to go back to Chaudiere, Jo said:

“You look as if you’d had a black dream, M’sieu’.” With the river
rustling by, and the trees stirring in the first breath of dawn, Charley
told Jo what had happened.

For a moment the murderer did not speak or stir, for a struggle was
going on in his breast also; then he stooped quickly, caught his
companion’s hand, and kissed it.

“I could not have done it, M’sieu’,” he said hoarsely. They parted,
Jo to remain behind as they had agreed, to be near Rosalie if needed;
Charley to return to the valley of the Chaudiere.




CHAPTER L. THE PASSION PLAY AT CHAUDIERE

For the first time in its history Chaudiere was becoming notable in the
eyes of the outside world.

“We’ll have more girth after this,” said Filion Lacasse the saddler
to the wife of the Notary, as, in front of the post-office, they stood
watching a little cavalcade of habitants going up the road towards Four
Mountains to rehearse the Passion Play.

“If Dauphin’s advice had been taken long ago, we’d have had a hotel at
Four Mountains, and the city folk would be coming here for the summer,”
 said Madame Dauphin, with a superior air.

“Pish!” said a voice behind them. It was the Seigneur’s groom, with a
straw in his mouth. He had a gloomy mind.

“There isn’t a house but has two or three boarders. I’ve got three,”
 said Filion Lacasse. “They come tomorrow.”

“We’ll have ten at the Manor. But no good will come of it,” said the
groom.

“No good! Look at the infidel tailor!” said Madame Dauphin. “He
translated all the writing. He drew all the dresses, and made a hundred
pictures--there they are at the Cure’s house.”

“He should have played Judas,” said the groom malevolently. “That’d be
right for him.”

“Perhaps you don’t like the Passion Play,” said Madame Dauphin
disdainfully.

“We ain’t through with it yet,” said the death’s-head groom.

“It is a pious and holy mission,” said Madame Dauphin. “Even that Jo
Portugais worked night and day till he went away to Montreal, and he
always goes to Mass now. He’s to take Pontius Pilate when he comes
back. Then look at Virginie Morrissette, that put her brother’s eyes out
quarrelling--she’s to play Mary Magdalene.”

“I could fit the parts better,” said the groom.

“Of course. You’d have played St. John,” said the saddler--“or, maybe,
Christus himself!”

“I’d have Paulette Dubois play Mary the sinner.”

“Magdalene repented, and knelt at the foot of the cross. She was sorry
and sinned no more,” said the Notary’s wife in querulous reprimand.

“Well, Paulette does all that,” said the stolid, dark-visaged groom.

Filion Lacasse’s ears pricked up. “How do you know--she hasn’t come
back?”

“Hasn’t she, though! And with her child too--last night.”

“Her child!” Madame Dauphin was scandalised and amazed.

The groom nodded. “And doesn’t care who knows it. Seven years old, and
as fine a child as ever was!”

“Narcisse--Narcisse!” called Madame Dauphin to her husband, who was
coming up the street. She hastily repeated the groom’s news to him.

The Notary stuck his hand between the buttons of his waistcoat. “Well,
well, my dear Madame,” he said consequentially, “it is quite true.”

“What do you know about it--whose child is it?” she asked, with curdling
scorn.

“‘Sh-’sh!” said the Notary. Then, with an oratorical wave of his free
hand: “The Church opens her arms to all--even to her who sinned much
because she loved much, who, through woful years, searched the world for
her child and found it not--hidden away, as it was, by the duplicity
of sinful man”--and so on through tangled sentences, setting forth in
broken terms Paulette Dubois’s life.

“How do you know all about it?” asked the saddler. “I’ve known it for
years,” said the Notary grandly--stoutly too, for he would freely risk
his wife’s anger that the vain-glory of the moment might be enlarged.

“And you keep it even from madame!” said the saddler, with a smile too
broad to be sarcastic. “Tiens! if I did that, my wife’d pick my eyes out
with a bradawl.”

“It was a professional secret,” said the Notary, with a desperate
resolve to hold his position.

“I’m going home, Dauphin--are you coming?” questioned his wife, with an
air.

“You will remain, and hear what I’ve got to say. This Paulette
Dubois--she should play Mary Magdalene, for--”

“Look--look, what’s that?” said the saddler. He pointed to a wagon
coming slowly up the road. In front of it a team of dogs drew a cart.
It carried some thing covered with black. “It’s a funeral! There’s the
coffin. It’s on Jo Portugais’ little cart,” added Filion Lacasse.

“Ah, God be merciful, it’s Rosalie Evanturel and Mrs. Flynn! And M’sieu’
Evanturel in the coffin!” said Madame Dauphin, running to the door of
the postoffice to call the Cure’s sister.

“There’ll be use enough for the baker’s Dead March now,” remarked M.
Dauphin sadly, buttoning up his coat, taking off his hat, and going
forward to greet Rosalie. As he did so, Charley appeared in the doorway
of his shop.

“Look, Monsieur,” said the Notary. “This is the way Rosalie Evanturel
comes home with her father.”

“I will go for the Cure” Charley answered, turning white. He leaned
against the doorway for a moment to steady himself, then hurried up the
street. He did not dare meet Rosalie, or go near her yet. For her sake
it was better not.

“That tailor infidel has a heart. His eyes were leaking,” said the
Notary to Filion Lacasse, and went on to meet the mournful cavalcade.




CHAPTER LI. FACE TO FACE

“If I could only understand!”--this was Rosalie’s constant cry in these
weeks wherein she lay ill and prostrate after her father’s burial. Once
and once only had she met Charley alone, though she knew that he was
keeping watch over her. She had first seen him the day her father was
buried, standing apart from the people, his face sorrowful, his eyes
heavy, his figure bowed.

The occasion of their meeting alone was the first night of her return,
when the Notary and Charley had kept watch beside her father’s body.

She had gone into the little hallway, and had looked into the room of
death. The Notary was sound asleep in his arm-chair, but Charley sat
silent and moveless, his eyes gazing straight before him. She murmured
his name, and though it was only to herself, not even a whisper, he got
up quickly and came to the hall, where she stood grief-stricken, yet
with a smile of welcome, of forgiveness, of confidence. As she put out
her hand to him, and his swallowed it, she could not but say to him--so
contrary is the heart of woman, so does she demand a Yes by asserting a
No, and hunger for the eternal assurance--she could not but say:

“You do not love me--now.”

It was but a whisper, so faint and breathless that only the heart of
love could hear it. There was no answer in words, for some one was
stirring beyond Rosalie in the dark, and a great figure heaved through
the kitchen doorway, but his hand crushed hers in his own; his heart
said to her, “My love is an undying light; it will not change for time
or tears”--the words they had read together in a little snuff-coloured
book on the counter in the shop one summer day a year ago. The words
flashed into his mind, and they were carried to hers. Her fingers
pressed his, and then Charley said, over her shoulder, to the
approaching Mrs. Flynn: “Do not let her come again, Madame. She should
get some sleep,” and he put her hand in Mrs. Flynn’s. “Be good to her,
as you know how, Mrs. Flynn,” he added gently.

He had won the heart of Mrs. Flynn that moment, and it may be she had a
conviction or an inspiration, for she said, in a softer voice than she
was wont to use to any one save Rosalie:

“I’ll do by her as you’d do by your own, sir,” and tenderly drew Rosalie
to her own room.

Such had been their first meeting after her return. Afterwards she was
taken ill, and the torture of his heart drove him out into the night,
to walk the road and creep round her house like a sentinel, Mrs. Flynn’s
words ringing in his ears to reproach him--“I’ll do by her as you would
do by your own, sir.” Night after night it was the same, and Rosalie
heard his footsteps and listened and was less sorrowful, because she
knew that she was ever in his thoughts. But one day Mrs. Flynn came to
him in his shop.

“She’s wantin’ a word with ye on business,” she said, and gestured
towards the little house across the way. “‘Tis few words ye do be
shpakin’ to annybody, but if y’ have kind words to shpake and good
things to say, y’ naidn’t be bitin’ yer tongue,” she added in response
to his nod, and left him.

Charley looked after her with a troubled face. On the instant it seemed
to him that Mrs. Flynn knew all. But his second thought told him that
it was only an instinct on her part that there was something between
them--the beginning of love, maybe.

In another half-hour he was beside Rosalie’s chair. “Perhaps you are
angry,” she said, as he came towards her where she sat in the great
arm-chair. She did not give him time to answer, but hurried on. “I
wanted to tell you that I have heard you every night outside, and that I
have been glad, and sorry too--so sorry for us both.”

“Rosalie! Rosalie” he said hoarsely, and dropped on a knee beside her
chair, and took her hand and kissed it. He did not dare do more.

“I wanted to say to you,” she said, dropping a hand on his shoulder,
“that I do not blame you for anything--not for anything. Yet I want you
to be sorry too. I want you to feel as sorry for me as I feel sorry for
you.”

“I am the worst man and you the best woman in the world.”

She leaned over him with tears in her eyes. “Hush!” she said. “I want to
help you--Charles. You are wise. You know ten thousand things more than
I; but I know one thing you do not understand.”

“You know and do whatever is good,” he said brokenly.

“Oh, no, no, no! But I know one thing, because I have been taught, and
because it was born with me. Perhaps much was habit with me in the past,
but now I know that one thing is true. It is God.”

She paused. “I have learned so much since--since then.”

He looked up with a groan, and put a finger on her lips. “You are
feeling bitterly sorry for me,” she said. “But you must let me
speak--that is all I ask. It is all love asks. I cannot bear that you
should not share my thoughts. That is the thing that has hurt--hurt so
all these months, these long hard months, when I could not see you, and
did not know why I could not. Don’t shake so, please! Hear me to the
end, and we shall both be the better after. I felt it all so cruelly,
because I did not--and I do not--understand. I rebelled, but not against
you. I rebelled against myself, against what you called Fate. Fate
is one’s self, what one brings on one’s self. But I had faith in
you--always--always, even when I thought I hated you.”

“Ah, hate me! Hate me! It is your loving that cuts me to the quick,” he
said. “You have the magnanimity of God.”

Her eyes leapt up. “‘Of God’--you believe in God!” she said eagerly.
“God is God to you? He is the one thing that has come out of all this
to me.” She reached out her hand and took her Bible from a table.
“Read that to yourself,” she said, and, opening the Book, pointed to a
passage. He read it:

   And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in
   the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the
   presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

   And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art
   thou?

   And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid,
   because I was naked; and I hid myself.

   And He said, Who told thee that thou wart naked? Hast thou eaten of
   the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Closing the Book, Charley said: “I understand--I see.”

“Will you say a prayer with me?” she urged. “It is all I ask. It is the
only--the only thing I want to hurt you, because it may make you happier
in the end. What keeps us apart, I do not know. But if you will say one
prayer with me, I will keep on trusting, I will never complain, and I
will wait--wait.”

He kissed both her hands, but the look in his eyes was that of a man
being broken on the wheel. She slipped to the floor, her rosary in her
fingers. “Let us pray,” she said simply, and in a voice as clear as a
child’s, but with the anguish of a woman’s struggling heart behind.

He did not move. She looked at him, caught his hands in both of hers,
and cried: “But you will not deny me this! Haven’t I the right to ask
it? Haven’t I a right to ask of you a thousand times as much?”

“You have the right to ask all that is mine to give life, honour, my
body in pieces inch by inch, the last that I can call my own. But,
Rosalie, this is not mine to give! How can I pray, unless I believe!”

“You do--oh, you do believe in God,” she cried passionately.

“Rosalie--my life,” he urged, hoarse misery in his voice, “the only
thing I have to give you is the bare soul of a truthful man--I am that
now at least. You have made me so. If I deceived the whole world, if I
was as the thief upon the cross, I should still be truthful to you. You
open your heart to me--let me open mine to you, to see it as it is.
Once my soul was like a watch, cased and carried in the pocket of life,
uncertain, untrue, because it was a soul made, not born. I must look at
the hands to know the time, and because it varied, because the working
did not answer to the absolute, I said: ‘The soul is a lie.’ You--you
have changed all that, Rosalie. My soul now is like a dial to the sun.
But the clouds are there above, and I do not know what time it is in
life. When the clouds break--if they ever break--and the sun shines, the
dial will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--”

He paused, confused, for he had repeated the words of a witness taking
the oath in court.

“‘So help me God!”’ she finished the oath for him. Then, with a sudden
change of manner, she came to her feet with a spring. She did not quite
understand. She was, however, dimly conscious of the power she had over
his chivalrous mind: the power of the weak over the strong--the tyranny
of the defended over the defender. She was a woman tortured beyond
bearing; and she was fighting for her very life, mad with anguish as she
struggled.

“I do not understand you,” she cried, with flashing eyes. “One minute
you say you do not believe in anything, and the next you say, ‘So help
me God!’”

“Ah, no, you said that, Rosalie,” he interposed gently.

“You said I was as magnanimous as God. You were laughing at me then,
mocking me, whose only fault is that I loved and trusted you. In the
wickedness of your heart you robbed me of happiness, you--”

“Don’t--don’t! Rosalie! Rosalie!” he exclaimed in shrinking protest.

That she had spoken to him as her deepest heart abhorred only increased
her agitated denunciation. “Yes, yes, in your mad selfishness, you did
not care for the poor girl who forgot all, lost all, and now--”
 She stopped short at the sight of his white, awe stricken face. His
eye-glass seemed like a frost of death over an eye that looked upon
some shocking scene of woe. Yet he appeared not to see, for his fingers
fumbled on his waistcoat for the monocle--fumbled--vaguely, helplessly.
It was the realisation of a soul cast into the outer darkness. Her
abrupt silence came upon him like the last engulfing wave to a drowning
man--the final assurance of the end, in which there is quiet and the
deadly smother.

“Now--I know-the truth!” he said, in a curious even tone, different
from any she had ever heard from him. It was the old Charley Steele who
spoke, the Charley Steele in whom the intellect was supreme once more.
The judicial spirit, the inveterate intelligence which put justice
before all, was alive in him, almost rejoicing in its regained
governance. The new Charley was as dead as the old had been of late, and
this clarifying moment left the grim impression behind that the old law
was not obsolete. He felt that in the abandonment of her indignation she
had mercilessly told the truth; and the irreducible quality of mind in
him which in the old days made for justice, approved. There was a new
element now, however--that conscience which never possessed him fully
until the day he saw Rosalie go travelling over the hills with her
crippled father. That picture of the girl against the twilight, her
figure silhouetted in the clear air, had come to him in sleeping and
waking dreams, the type and sign of an everlasting melancholy. As he
looked at her blindly now, he saw, not herself, but that melancholy
figure. Out of the distance his own voice said again:

“Now--I know-the truth!”

She had struck with a violence she did not intend, which, she knew, must
rend her own heart in the future, which put in the dice-box the last
hopes she had. But she could not have helped it--she could not have
stayed the words, though a suspended sword were to fall with the
saying. It was the cry of tradition and religion, and every home-bred,
convent-nurtured habit, the instinct of heredity, the wail of woman, for
whom destiny, or man, or nature, has arranged the disproportionate share
of life’s penalties. It was the impotent rebellion against the first
curse, that man in his punishment should earn his bread by the sweat of
his brow--which he might do with joy--while the woman must work out her
ordained sentence “in sorrow all the days of her life.”

In her bitter words was the inherent revolt of the race of woman. But
now she suddenly felt that she had flung him an infinite distance from
her; that she had struck at the thing she most cherished--his belief
that she loved him; that even if she had told the truth--and she felt
she had not--it was not the truth she wished him most to feel.

For an instant she stood looking at him, shocked and confounded, then
her changeless love rushed back on her, the maternal and protective
spirit welled up, and with a passionate cry she threw herself in the
chair again in very weakness, with outstretched hands, saying:

“Forgive me--oh, forgive me! I did not mean it--oh, forgive your
Rosalie!”

Stooping over her, he answered:

“It is good for me to know the whole truth. What hurts you may give me
will pass--for life must end, and my life cannot be long enough to pay
the price of the hurts I have given you. I could bear a thousand--one
for every hour--if they could bring back the light to your eye, the joy
to your heart. Could prayer, do you think, make me sorrier than I am? I
have hurt what I would have spared from hurt at the cost of my life--and
all the lives in all the world!” he added fiercely.

“Forgive me--oh, forgive your Rosalie!” she pleaded. “I did not know
what I was saying--I was mad.”

“It was all so sane and true,” he said, like one who, on the brink of
death, finds a satisfaction in speaking the perfect truth. “I am glad to
hear the truth--I have been such a liar.”

She looked up startled, her tears blinding her. “You have not deceived
me?” she asked bitterly. “Oh, you have not deceived me--you have loved
me, have you not?” It was that which mattered, that only. Moveless and
eager, she looked--looked at him, waiting, as it were, for sentence.

“I never lied to you, Rosalie--never!” he answered, and he touched her
hand.

She gave a moan of relief at his words. “Oh, then, oh, then... “ she
said, in a low voice, and the tears in her eyes dried away.

“I meant that until I knew you, I kept deceiving myself and others all
my life--”

“But without knowing it?” she said eagerly.

“Perhaps, without quite knowing it.”

“Until you knew me?” she asked, in quick, quivering tones.

“Till I knew you,” he answered.

“Then I have done you good--not ill?” she asked, with painful
breathlessness.

“The only good there may be in me is you, and you only,” he said, and
he choked something rising in his throat, seeing the greatness of her
heart, her dear desire to have entered into his life to his own good. He
would have said that there was no good in him at all, but that he wished
to comfort her.

A little cry of joy broke from her lips. “Oh, that--that!” she cried,
with happy tears. “Won’t you kiss me now?” she added softly.

He clasped her in his arms, and though his eyes were dry, his heart wept
tears of blood.




CHAPTER LII. THE COMING OF BILLY

Chaudiere had made--and lost--a reputation. The Passion Play in the
valley had become known to a whole country--to the Cure’s and the
Seigneur’s unavailing regret. They had meant to revive the great story
for their own people and the Indians--a homely, beautiful object-lesson,
in an Eden--like innocence and quiet and repose; but behold the world
had invaded them! The vanity of the Notary had undone them. He had
written to the great papers of the province, telling of the advent of
the play, and pilgrimages had been organised, and excursions had been
made to the spot, where a simple people had achieved a crude but noble
picture of the life and death of the Hero of Christendom. The Cure
viewed with consternation the invasion of their quiet. It was no longer
his own Chaudiere; and when, on a Sunday, his dear people were jostled
from the church to make room for strangers, his gentle eloquence seemed
to forsake him, he spoke haltingly, and his intoning of the Mass lacked
the old soothing simplicity.

“Ah, my dear Seigneur!” he said, on the Sunday before the playing was to
end, “we have overshot the mark.”

The Seigneur nodded and turned his head away. “There is an English play
which says, ‘I have shot mine arrow o’er the house and hurt my brother.’
That’s it--that’s it! We began with religion, and we end with greed, and
pride, and notoriety.”

“What do we want of fame! The price is too high, Maurice. Fame is not
good for the hearts and minds of simple folk.”

“It will soon be over.”

“I dread a sordid reaction.”

The Seigneur stood thinking for a moment. “I have an idea,” he said at
last. “Let us have these last days to ourselves. The mission ends next
Saturday at five o’clock. We will announce that all strangers must leave
the valley by Wednesday night. Then, during those last three days, while
yet the influence of the play is on them, you can lead your own people
back to the old quiet feelings.”

“My dear Maurice--it is worthy of you! It is the way. We will announce
it to-day. And see now.... For those three days we will change the
principals; lest those who have taken the parts so long have lost the
pious awe which should be upon them. We will put new people in their
places. I will announce it at vespers presently. I have in my mind who
should play the Christ, and St. John, and St. Peter--the men are not
hard to find; but for Mary the Mother and Mary Magdalene--”

The eyes of the two men suddenly met, a look of understanding passed
between them.

“Will she do it?” said the Seigneur.

The Cure nodded. “Paulette Dubois has heard the word, ‘Go and sin no
more’; she will obey.”

Walking through the village as they talked, the Cure shrank back
painfully several times, for voices of strangers, singing festive songs,
rolled out upon the road. “Who can they be?” he said distressfully.

Without a word the Seigneur went to the door of the inn whence the
sounds proceeded, and, without knocking, entered. A moment afterwards
the voices stopped, but broke out again, quieted, then once more broke
out, and presently the Seigneur issued from the door, white with anger,
three strangers behind him. All were intoxicated.

One was violent. It was Billy Wantage, whom the years had not improved.
He had arrived that day with two companions--an excursion of curiosity
as an excuse for a “spree.”

“What’s the matter with you, old stick-in-the-mud?” he shouted. “Mass is
over, isn’t it? Can’t we have a little guzzle between prayers?”

By this time a crowd had gathered, among them Filion Lacasse. At a
motion from the Seigneur, and a whisper that went round quickly, a dozen
habitants swiftly sprang on the three men, pinioned their arms, and
carrying them bodily to the pump by the tavern, held them under it, one
by one, till each was soaked and sober. Then their horses and wagon were
brought, and they were given five minutes to leave the village.

With a devilish look in his eye, and drenched and furious, Billy
was disposed to resist the command, but the faces around him were
determined, and, muttering curses, the three drove away towards the next
parish.




CHAPTER LIII. THE SEIGNEUR AND THE CURE HAVE A SUSPICION

Presently the Seigneur and the Cure stood before the door of the
tailor-shop. The Cure was about to knock, when the Seigneur laid a hand
upon his arm.

“There is no use; he has been gone several days,” he said.

“Gone--gone!” said the Cure.

“I came to see him yesterday, and not finding him, I asked at the
post-office.” M. Rossignol’s voice lowered. “He told Mrs. Flynn he was
going into the hills, so Rosalie says.”

The Cure’s face fell. “He went away also just before the play began. I
almost fear that--that we get no nearer. His mind prompts him to do good
and not evil, and yet--and yet.... I have dreamed a good dream, Maurice,
but I sometimes fear I have dreamed in vain.”

“Wait-wait!”

M. Loisel looked towards the post-office musingly. “I have thought
sometimes that what man’s prayers may not accomplish a woman’s love
might do. If--but, alas, what do we know of his past! Nothing. What
do we know of his future? Nothing. What do we know of the human heart?
Nothing--nothing!”

The Seigneur was astounded. The Cure’s meaning was plain. “What do you
mean?” he asked, almost gruffly.

“She--Rosalie--has changed--changed.” In his heart he dwelt sorrowfully
upon the fact that she had not been to confession to him for many, many
months.

“Since her father’s death--since her illness?”

“Since she went to Montreal seven months ago. Even while she was so ill
these past weeks, she never asked for me; and when I came... Ah, if it
is that her heart has gone out to the man, and his does not respond!”

“A good thing, too!” said the other gloomily. “We don’t know where he
came from, and we do know that he is a pagan.”

“Yet there she sits now, hour after hour, day after day--so changed.”

“She has lost her father,” urged M. Rossignol anxiously.

“I know the grief of children--this is not such a grief. There is
something more. But I cannot ask. If she were a sinner--but she is
without fault. Have we not watched her grow up here, mirthful, brave,
pure-souled--”

“Fitted for any station,” interposed the Seigneur huskily. Presently
he laid a hand upon the Cure’s arm. “Shall I ask her again?” he said,
breathing hard. “Do you think she has found out her mistake?”

The Cure was so taken aback that at first he could not speak. When
he realised, however, he could scarce suppress a smile at the other’s
simple vanity. But he mastered himself, and said: “It is not that,
Maurice. It is not you.”

“How did you know I had asked her?” asked his friend querulously.

“You have just told me.”

M. Rossignol felt a kind of reproval in the Cure’s tone. It made him
a little nervous. “I’m an old fool, but she needed some one,” he
protested. “At least I am a gentleman, and she would not be thrown
away.”

“Dear Maurice!” said the Cure, and linked his arm in the other’s. “In
all respects save one, it would have been to her advantage. But youth is
the only comrade for youth. All else is evasion of life’s laws.”

The Seigneur pressed his arm. “I thought you less worldly-wise than
myself; I find you more,” he said.

“Not worldly-wise. Life is deeper than the world or worldly wisdom.
Come, we will both go and see Rosalie.”

M. Rossignol suddenly stopped at the post-office door, and half turned
towards the tailor-shop. “He is young. Suppose that he drew her love his
way, but gave her nothing in return, and--”

“If it were so”--the Cure paused, and his face darkened--“if it were so,
he should leave her forever; and so my dream would end.”

“And Rosalie?”

“Rosalie would forget. To remember, youth must see and touch and be
near, else it wears itself out in excess of feeling. Youth feels more
deeply than age, but it must bear daily witness.”

“Upon my honour, Cure, you shall write your little philosophies for the
world,” said M. Rossignol, and then knocked at the door.

“I will go in alone, Maurice,” the Cure urged. “Good-you are right,”
 answered the other. “I will go write the proclamation denying strangers
the valley after Wednesday. I will enforce it, too,” he added, with
vigour, and, turning, walked up the street, as Mrs. Flynn admitted the
Cure to the post-office.

A half-hour later M. Loisel again appeared at the post-office door, a
pale, beautiful face at his shoulder.

He had not been brave enough to say what was on his mind. But as he bade
her good-bye, he plucked up needful courage.

“Forgive me, Rosalie,” he said, “but I have sometimes thought that you
have more griefs than one. I have thought”--he paused, then went on
bravely--“that there might be--there might be unwelcomed love, or love
deceived.”

A mist came before her eyes, but she quietly and firmly answered: “I
have never been deceived in love, Monsieur Loisel.”

“There, there!” he hurriedly and gently rejoined. “Do not be hurt, my
child. I only want to help you.” A moment afterwards he was gone.

As the door closed behind him, she drew herself proudly up.

“I have never been deceived,” she said aloud. “I love him--love
him--love him.”




CHAPTER LIV. M. ROSSIGNOL SLIPS THE LEASH

It was the last day of the Passion Play, and the great dramatic mission
was drawing to a close. The confidence of the Cure and the Seigneur was
restored. The prohibition against strangers had had its effect, and for
three whole days the valley had been at rest again. Apparently there was
not a stranger within its borders, save the Seigneur’s brother, the Abbe
Rossignol, who had come to see the moving spectacle.

The Abbe, on his arrival, had made inquiries concerning the tailor of
Chaudiere and Jo Portugais, as persistently about the one as the other.
Their secrets had been kept inviolate by him.

It was disconcerting to hear the tales people told of the tailor’s
charity and wisdom. It was all dangerous, for what was, accidentally,
no evil in this particular instance, might be the greatest disaster
in another case. Principle was at stake. He heard in stern silence the
Cure’s happy statement that Jo Portugais had returned to the bosom of
the Church, and attended Mass regularly.

“So it may be, my dear Abbe,” said M. Loisel, “that the friendship
between him and our ‘infidel’ has been the means of helping Portugais. I
hope their friendship will go on unbroken for years and years.”

“I have no idea that it will,” said the Abbe grimly. “That rope of
friendship may snap untimely.”

“Upon my soul, you croak like a raven!” testily broke in M. Rossignol,
who was present. “I didn’t know there was so much in common between you
and my surly-jowled groom. He gets his pleasure out of croaking. ‘Wait,
wait, you’ll see--you’ll see! Death, death, death--every man must die!
The devil has you by the hair--death--death--death!’ Bah! I’m heartily
sick of croakers. I suppose, like my grunting groom, you’ll say about
the Passion Play, ‘No good will come of it--wait--wait--wait!’ Bah!”

“It may not be an unmixed good,” answered the ascetic.

“Well, and is there any such thing on earth as an unmixed good? The
play yesterday was worth a thousand sermons. It was meant to serve Holy
Church, and it will serve it. Was there ever anything more real--and
touching--than Paulette Dubois as Mary Magdalene yesterday?”

“I do not approve of such reality. For that woman to play the part is to
destroy the impersonality of the scene.”

“You would demand that the Christus should be a good man, and the St.
John blameless--why shouldn’t the Magdalene be a repentant woman?”

“It might impress the people more, if the best woman in your parish were
to play the part. The fall of virtue, the ruin of innocence, would be
vividly brought home. It does good to make the innocent feel the
terror and shame of sin. That is the price the good pay for the fall of
man--sorrow and shame for those who sin.” The Seigneur, rising quickly
from the table, and kicking his chair back, said angrily: “Damn
your theories!” Then, seeing the frozen look on his brother’s face,
continued, more excitedly: “Yes, damn, damn, damn your theories! You
always took the crass view. I beg your pardon, Cure--I beg your pardon.”

He then went to the window, threw it open, and called to his groom.

“Hi, there, coffin-face,” he said, “bring round the horses--the quietest
one in the stable for my brother--you hear? He can’t ride,” he added
maliciously.

This was his fiercest stroke, for the Abbe’s secret vanity was the
belief that he looked well on a horse, and rode handsomely.




CHAPTER LV. ROSALIE PLAYS A PART

From a tree upon a little hill rang out a bell--a deep-toned bell,
bought by the parish years before for the missions held at this very
spot. Every day it rang for an instant at the beginning of each of the
five acts. It also tolled slowly when the curtain rose upon the scene of
the Crucifixion. In this act no one spoke save the abased Magdalene, who
knelt at the foot of the cross, and on whose hair red drops fell when
the Roman soldier pierced the side of the figure on the cross. This had
been the Cure’s idea. The Magdalene should speak for mankind, for the
continuing world. She should speak for the broken and contrite heart in
all ages, should be the first-fruits of the sacrifice, a flower of the
desert earth, bedewed by the blood of the Prince of Peace.

So, in the long nights of the late winter and early spring, the Cure had
thought and thought upon what the woman should say from the foot of the
cross. At last he put into her mouth that which told the whole story of
redemption and deliverance, so far as his heart could conceive it--the
prayer for all sorts and conditions of men and the general thanksgiving
of humanity.

During the last three days Paulette Dubois had taken the part of Mary
Magdalene. As Jo Portugais had confessed to the Abbe that notable day in
the woods at Vadrome Mountain, so she had confessed to the Cure after
so many years of agony--and the one confession fitted into the other: Jo
had once loved her, she had treated him vilely, then a man had wronged
her, and Jo had avenged her--this was the tale in brief. She it was who
laughed in the gallery of the court-room the day that Joseph Nadeau was
acquitted.

It had pained and shocked the Cure more than any he had ever heard, but
he urged for her no penalty as Portugais had set for himself with the
austere approval of the Abbe. Paulette’s presence as the Magdalene had
had a deep effect upon the people, so that she shared with Mary the
Mother the painfully real interest of the vast audience.

Five times had the bell rung out in the perfect spring air, upon which
the balm of the forest and the refreshment of the ardent sun were
poured. The quick anger of M. Rossignol had passed away long before the
Cure, the Abbe, and himself had reached the lake and the great plateau.
Between the acts the two brothers walked up and down together, at peace
once more, and there was a suspicious moisture in the Seigneur’s eyes.
The demeanour of the people had been so humble and rapt that the place
and the plateau and the valley seemed alone in creation with the lofty
drama of the ages.

The Cure’s eyes shone when he saw on a little knoll in the trees, apart
from the worshippers and spectators, Charley and Jo Portugais. His cup
of content was now full. He had felt convinced that if the tailor had
but been within these bounds during the past three days, a work were
begun which should end only at the altar of their parish church. To-day
the play became to him the engine of God for the saving of a man’s soul.
Not long before the last great tableau was to appear he went to his own
little tent near the hut where the actors prepared to go upon the stage.
As he entered, some one came quickly forward from the shadow of the
trees and touched him on the arm.

“Rosalie!” he cried in amazement, for she wore the costume of Mary
Magdalene.

“It is I, not Paulette, who will appear,” she said, a deep light in her
eyes.

“You, Rosalie?” he asked dumfounded. “You are distrait. Trouble and
sorrow have put this in your mind. You must not do it.”

“Yes, I am going there,” she said, pointing towards the great stage.
“Paulette has given me these to wear”--she touched the robe--“and I only
ask your blessing now. Oh, believe, believe me, I can speak for those
who are innocent and those who are guilty; for those who pray and those
who cannot pray; for those who confess and those who dare not! I can
speak the words out of my heart with gladness and agony, Monsieur,” she
urged, in a voice vibrating with feeling.

A luminous look came into the Cure’s face. A thought leapt up in his
heart. Who could tell!--this pure girl, speaking for the whole sinful,
unbelieving, and believing world, might be the one last conquering
argument to the man.

He could not read the agony of spirit which had driven Rosalie to
this--to confess through the words of Mary Magdalene her own woe, to say
it out to all the world, and to receive, as did Paulette Dubois, every
day after the curtain came down, absolution and blessing. She longed for
the old remembered peace.

The Cure could not read the struggle between her love for a man and the
ineradicable habit of her soul; but he raised his hand, made the sacred
gesture over leer, and said: “Go, my child, and God be with you.”

He could not see her for tears as she hurried away to where Paulette
Dubois awaited her--the two at peace now. At the hands of the lately
despised and injurious woman Rosalie was made ready to play the part
in the last act, none knowing save the few who appeared in the final
tableau, and they at the last moment only.

The bell began to toll.

A thousand people fell upon their knees, and with fascinated yet abashed
and awe-struck eyes saw the great tableau of Christendom: the three
crosses against the evening sky, the Figure in the centre, the Roman
populace, the trembling Jews, the pathetic groups of disciples. A cloud
passed across the sky, the illusion grew, and hearts quivered in piteous
sympathy. There was no music now--not a sound save the sob of some
overwrought woman. The woe of an oppressed world absorbed them. Even the
stolid Indians, as Roman soldiers, shrank awe-stricken from the sacred
tragedy. Now the eyes of all were upon the central Figure, then they
shifted for a moment to John the Beloved, standing with the Mother.

“Pauvre Mere! Pauvre Christ!” said a weeping woman aloud.

A Roman soldier raised a spear and pierced the side of the Hero of the
World. Blood flowed, and hundreds gasped. Then there was silence--a
strange hush as of a prelude to some great event.

“It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” said the
Figure.

The hush was broken by such a sound as one hears in a forest when a
wind quivers over the earth, flutters the leaves, and then sinks
away--neither having come nor gone, but only lived and died.

Again there was silence, and then all eyes were fixed upon the figure at
the foot of the cross-Mary the Magdalene.

Day after day they had seen this figure rise, come forward a step, and
speak the epilogue to this moving miracle-drama. For the last three days
Paulette Dubois had turned a sorrowful face upon them, and with one
hand upraised had spoken the prayer, the prophecy, the thanksgiving, the
appeal of humanity and the ages. They looked to see the same figure now,
and waited. But as the Magdalene turned, there was a great stir in the
multitude, for the face bent upon them was that of Rosalie Evanturel.
Awe and wonder moved the people.

Apart from the crowd, under a clump of trees, knelt a woodsman from
Vadrome Mountain, and the tailor of Chaudiere stood beside him.

When Charley, touched by the heavy scene, saw the figure of the
Magdalene rise, he felt a curious thrill of fascination. When she
turned, and he saw the face of Rosalie, the blood rushed to his face;
then his heart seemed to stand still. Pain and shame travelled to the
farthest recesses of his nature. Jo Portugais rose to his feet with a
startled exclamation.

Rosalie began to speak. “This is the day of which the hours shall never
cease--in it there shall be no night. He whom ye have crucified hath
saved you from the wrath to come. He hath saved others, Himself He
would not save. Even for such as I, who have secretly opened, who have
secretly entered, the doors of sin--”

With a gasp of horror and a mad desire to take her away from the sight
of this gaping, fascinated crowd, Charley made to rush forward, but Jo
Portugais held him back.

“Be still. You will ruin her, M’sieu’!” said Jo.

“--even for such as I am,” the beautiful voice went on, “hath He died.
And in the ages to come, women such as I, and all women who sorrow, and
all men who err and are deceived, and all the helpless world, will
know that this was the Friend of the human soul.” Not a gesture, not a
movement, only that slight, pathetic figure, with pale, agonised face,
and eyes that looked--looked--looked beyond them, over their heads to
the darkening east, the clouded light of evening behind her. Her voice
rang out now valiant and clear, now searching and piteous, yet reaching
to where the farthermost person knelt, and was lost upon the lake and in
the spreading trees.

“What ye have done may never be undone; what He hath said shall never
be unsaid. His is the Word which shall unite all languages, when ye that
are Romans shall be no more Romans, and ye that are Jews shall still be
Jews, reproached and alone. No longer shall men faint in the glare--the
shadow of the Cross shall screen them. No more shall woman bear her
black sorrows, alone; the Light of the World shall cheer her.”

As she spoke, the cloud drew back from the sunset, and the saffron glow
behind lighted the cross, and shone upon her hair, casting her face in
a gracious shadow. Her voice rose higher. “I, the Magdalene, am the
first-fruits of this sacrifice: from the foot of the cross I come. I
have sinned more than all. I have shamed all women. But I have confessed
my sin, and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Her voice now became lower, but clear and even, pathetically exulting:

“O world, forgive, as He hath forgiven you! Fall, dark curtain, and hide
this pain, and rise again upon forgiven sin and a redeemed people!”

She stood still, with her eyes upraised, and the curtain came slowly
down.

For a long time no one in all the gathered multitude stirred. Far over
under the trees a man sat upon the ground, his head upon his arms, and
his arms upon his knees, in a misery unmeasurable. Beside him stood a
woodsman, who knew of no word to say that might comfort him.

A girl, in the garb of the Magdalene, entered the tent of the Cure, and,
speaking no word, knelt and received absolution of her sins.




CHAPTER LVI. MRS. FLYNN SPEAKS

CHARLEY left Jo Portugais behind, and went home alone. He watched at a
window till he saw Rosalie return. As she passed quickly down the street
with Mrs. Flynn to her own door, he observed that her face was happier
than he had seen it for many a day. Her step was lighter, there was a
freedom in her air, a sense of confidence in her carriage.

She bore herself as one who had done a thing which relaxed a painful
tension. There was a curious glow in her eyes and face, and this became
deeper as, showing himself at the door, she saw him, smiled, and stood
still. He came across the street and took her hand.

“You have been away,” she said softly. “For a few days,” he answered.

“Far?”

“At Vadrome Mountain.”

“You have missed these last days of the Passion Play,” she said, a
shadow in her eyes.

“I was present to-day,” he answered.

She turned away her head quickly, for the look in his eyes told her more
than any words could have done, and Mrs. Flynn said:

“‘Tis a day for everlastin’ mimory, sir. For the part she played this
day, the darlin’, only such as she could play! ‘Tis the innocent takin’
the shame o’ the guilty, and the tears do be comin’ to me eyes. ‘Tis
not ould Widdy Flynn’s eyes alone that’s wet this day, but hearts do be
weepin’ for the love o’ God.”

Rosalie suddenly opened the door, and, without another look at Charley,
entered the house.

“‘Tis one in a million!” said Mrs. Flynn, in a confidential tone, for
she had a fixed idea that Rosalie loved Charley and that he loved her,
and that the only thing that stood in the way of their marriage was
religion. From the first Charley had conquered Mrs. Flynn. That he was a
tailor was a pity and a shame, but love was love, and the man had a head
on him and a heart in him; and love was love! So Mrs. Flynn said:

“‘Tis one that a man that’s a man should do annything for, was it havin’
the heart cut out uv him, or givin’ the last drop uv his blood. Shure,
for such as her, murder, or false witness, or givin’ up the last wish or
thought a man hugged to his boosom, would be as aisy as aisy.”

Charley laughed to himself, her purpose was so obvious, but his heart
went out to her, for she was a friend, and, whatever came to him,
Rosalie would not be alone.

“I believe every word of yours,” he said, shaking her hand, “and we’ll
see, you and I, that no man marries her who isn’t ready to do what you
say.”

“Would you do it yourself--if it was you?” she asked, flushing for her
boldness.

“I would,” he answered.

“Then do it,” she said, and fled inside the house and shut the door.

“Mrs. Flynn--good Mrs. Flynn!” he said, and went back sadly to his
house, and shut himself up with his thoughts. When night drew on he went
to bed, but he could not sleep. He got up after a time, and taking pen
and paper, wrote for a long time. Having finished, he took what he had
written, and placing it with the two packets-of money and pearls--which
he had brought from his old home, he addressed it to the Cure, and going
to the safe in the wall of the shop, placed them inside and locked the
door.

Then he went to bed, and slept soundly--the deep sleep of the just.




CHAPTER LVII. A BURNING FIERY FURNACE

Every man within the limits of the parish was in his bed, save one. He
was a stranger who, once before, had visited Chaudiere for one brief
day, when he had been saved from death at the Red Ravine, and had fled
the village that night because, as he thought, he had heard the voice of
his old friend’s ghost in the trees. Since that time he had travelled
in many parishes, healing where he could, entertaining where he might,
earning money as the charlatan. He was now on his way back through the
parishes to Montreal, and his route lay through Chaudiere. He had
hoped to reach Chaudiere before nightfall--he remembered with fear the
incident from which he had fled many months before; but his horse had
broken its leg on a corduroy bridge, a few miles out from the parish in
the hills, and darkness came upon him before he could hide his wagon
in the woods and proceed afoot to Chaudiere. He had shot his horse, and
rolled it into the swift torrent beneath the bridge.

Travelling the lonely road, he drank freely from the whiskey-horn he
carried, to keep his spirits up, so that by the time he came to the
outskirts of Chaudiere he was in a state of intoxication, and reeled
impudently along with the “Dutch courage” the liquor had given
him. Arrived at the first cluster of houses in the place, he paused
uncertain. Should he knock here or go on to the tavern? He shivered at
thought of the tavern, for it was near it he had heard Charley Steele’s
voice calling to him out of the trees. If he knocked here, would the
people admit him in his present state?--he had sense enough to know that
he was very drunk. As he shook his head in owlish gravity, he saw the
church on the hill not far away. He chuckled to himself. The carpet in
the chancel and the hassocks at the altar would make a good bed. No fear
of Charley’s ghost coming inside the church--it wouldn’t be that kind of
a ghost. As he travelled the intervening space, shrugging his shoulders,
staggering serenely, he told himself in confidence that he would leave
the church at dawn, go to the tavern, purchase a horse as soon as might
be, and get back to his wagon.

The church door was unlocked, and he entered and made his way to the
chancel, found surplices in the vestry and put a hassock inside one for
a pillow. Then he sat down and drew the loose rug of the chancel-floor
over him, and took another drink from the whiskey horn. Lighting his
pipe, he smoked for a while, but grew drowsy, and his pipe fell into his
lap. With eyes nearly shut he struck another match, made to light his
pipe again, but threw the match away, still burning. As he did so
the pipe dropped again from his mouth, and he fell back on the
hassock-pillow he had made.

The lighted match fell on a surplice which had dropped from his arms
as he came from the vestry, and set it afire. In five minutes the whole
chancel was burning, and the sleeping man waked in the midst of smoke
and flame. He staggered to his feet with a terror-stricken cry, stumbled
down the aisle, through the front door, and out into the night. Reaching
the road, he turned his face again to the hill where his wagon lay hid.
If he could reach that, he would be safe; nobody would suspect him.
He clutched the whiskey-horn tight and broke into a run. As he passed
beyond the village his excited imagination heard Charley Steele’s ghost
calling after him. He ran harder. The voice kept calling from Chaudiere.

Not Charley’s voice, but the voices of many people in Chaudiere were
calling. Some wakeful person had seen the glare in the church windows
and had given the alarm, and now there rang through the streets the
call-“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Charley and Jo were among the last to wake, for both had slept soundly,
but Jo was roused by a handful of gravel thrown at his window and a
warning cry, and a few moments later he and Charley were in the street
with a hurrying crowd. Over all the village was a red glare, lighting up
the sky, burnishing the trees. The church was a mass of flames.

Charley was as pale as the rest of the crowd; for he thought of the
Cure, he thought of this people to whom their church meant more than
home and vastly more than friend and fortune. His heart was with them
all: not because it was their church that was burning, but because it
was something dear to them.

Reaching the hill, he saw the Cure coming from the vestry of the burning
church, bearing some vessels of the altar. Depositing them in the arms
of his weeping sister, he turned again towards the door. People clung to
him, and would not let him go.

“See, it is all inflames,” they cried. “Your cassock is singed. You
shall not go.”

At that moment Charley and Portugais came up. A hurried question to the
Cure from Charley, a key handed over, a nod from Jo, and before the Cure
could prevent them the two men had rushed through the smoke and flame
into the vestry, Portugais holding Charley’s hand.

The crowd outside waited in a terrible anxiety. The timbers of the
chancel portion of the building seemed about to fall, and still the two
men did not appear. The people called; the Cure clinched his hands at
his side--he was too fearful even to pray.

But now the two men appeared, loaded with the few treasures of the
church. They were scorched and singed, and the beards of both were
burned, but, stumbling and exhausted, they brought their loads to the
eager arms of the waiting habitants.

Then from the other end of the church came a cry: “The little cross--the
little iron cross!” Then another cry: “Rosalie Evanturel! Rosalie
Evanturel!” Some one came running to the Cure.

“Rosalie Evanturel has gone inside for the little cross on the pillar.
She is in the flames; the door has fallen in. She can’t get out again.”

With a hoarse cry, Charley darted back inside the vestry door. A cry of
horror went up.

It was only a minute and a half, but it seemed like years, and then a
man in flames appeared in the fiery porch--and not alone. He carried
a girl in his arms. He wavered even at the threshold with the timbers
swaying overhead, but, with a last effort, he plunged forward through
the furnace, and was caught by eager hands on the margin of endurable
heat. The two were smothered in quilts brought from the Cure’s house,
and carried swiftly to the cool safety of the grass and trees beyond.
The woman had fainted in the flame of the church; the man dropped
insensible as they caught her from his arms.

As they tore away Charley’s coat muffling his face, and opened his
shirt, they stared in awe. The cross which Rosalie had torn from the
pillar, Charley had thrust into his bosom, and there it now lay on the
red scar made by itself in the hands of Louis Trudel.

M. Loisel waved the people back. He raised Charley’s head. The Abbe
Rossignol, who had just arrived with the Seigneur, lifted the cross from
the insensible man’s breast.

He started when he saw the scar. Then he remembered the tale he had
heard. He turned away gravely to his brother. “Was it the cross or the
woman he went for?” he asked.

“Great God--do you ask!” the Seigneur said indignantly. “And he deserves
her,” he muttered under his breath.

Charley opened his eyes. “Is she safe?” he asked, starting up.

“Unscathed, my son,” the Cure said.

Was this tailor-man not his son? Had he not thirsted for his soul as a
hart for the water-brooks?

“I am very sorry for you, Monsieur,” said Charley.

“It is God’s will,” was the reply, in a choking voice. “It will be years
before we have another church--many, many years.”

The roof gave way with a crash, and the spire shot down into the flaming
debris.

The people groaned.

“It will cost sixty thousand dollars to build it up again,” said Filion
Lacasse.

“We have three thousand dollars from the Passion Play,” said the Notary.
“That could go towards it.”

“We have another two thousand in the bank,” said Maximilian Cour.

“But it will take years,” said the saddler disconsolately.

Charley looked at the Cure, mournful and broken but calm. He saw the
Seigneur, gloomy and silent, standing apart. He saw the people in
scattered groups, looking more homeless than if they had no homes. Some
groups were silent; others discussed angrily the question, who was the
incendiary--that it had been set on fire seemed certain.

“I said no good would come of the play-acting,” said the Seigneur’s
groom, and was flung into the ditch by Filion Lacasse.

Presently Charley staggered to his feet, purpose in his face. These
people, from the Cure and Seigneur to the most ignorant habitant, were
hopeless and inert. The pride of their lives was gone.

“Gather the people together,” he said to the Notary and Filion Lacasse.
Then he turned to the Cure and the Seigneur.

“With your permission, messieurs,” he said, “I will do a harder thing
than I have ever done. I will speak to them all.”

Wondering, M. Loisel added his voice to the Notary’s, and the word went
round. Slowly they all made their way to a spot the Cure indicated.

Charley stood on the embankment above the road, the notables of the
parish round him.

Rosalie had been taken to the Cure’s house. In that wild moment in the
church when she had fallen insensible in Charley’s arms, a new feeling
had sprung up in her. She loved him in every fibre, but she had a
strange instinct, a prescience, that she was lying on his breast for
the last time. She had wound her arms round his neck, and, as his lips
closed on hers, she had cried: “We shall die together--together.”

As she lay in the Cure’s house, she thought only of that moment.

“What are they cheering for?” she asked, as a great noise came to her
through the window.

“Run and see,” said the Cure’s sister to Mrs. Flynn, and the fat woman
hurried away.

Rosalie raised herself so that she could look out of the window. “I can
see him,” she cried.

“See whom?” asked the Cure’s sister.

“Monsieur,” she answered, with a changed voice. “He is speaking. They
are cheering him.”

Ten minutes later, the Cure and the Notary entered the room. M. Loisel
came forward to Rosalie, and took her hands in his.

“You should not have done it,” he said.

“I wanted to do something,” she replied. “To get the cross for you
seemed the only payment I could make for all your goodness to me.”

“It nearly cost you your life--and the life of another,” he said,
shaking his head reproachfully.

Cheering came again from the burning church. “Why do they cheer?” she
asked.

“Why do they cheer? Because the man we have feared, Monsieur Mallard--”

“I never feared him,” said Rosalie, scarcely above her breath.

“Because he has taught them the way to a new church again--and at once,
at once, my child.”

“A remarkable man!” said Narcisse Dauphin. “There never was such a
speech. Never in any courtroom was there such an appeal.”

“What did he do?” asked Mademoiselle Loisel, her hand in Rosalie’s.

“Everything,” answered the Cure. “There he stood in his tattered
clothes, the beard burnt to his chin, his hands scorched, his eyes
bloodshot, and he spoke--”

“‘With the tongues of men and of angels,’” said M. Dauphin
enthusiastically.

The Cure frowned and continued: “‘You look on yonder burning walls,’ he
said, ‘and wonder when they will rise again on this hill made sacred
by the burial of your beloved, by the christening of your children, the
marriages which have given you happy homes, and the sacraments which
are to you the laws of your lives. You give one-twentieth of your income
yearly towards your church--then give one-fortieth of all you possess
today, and your church will be begun in a month. Before a year goes
round you will come again to this venerable spot and enter another
church here. Your vows, your memories, and your hopes will be purged
by fire. All that you possess will be consecrated by your free-will
offerings.’--Ah, if I could but remember what came afterwards! It was
all eloquence, and generous and noble thought.”

“He spoke of you,” said the Notary--“he spoke the truth; and the people
cheered. He said that the man outside the walls could sometimes tell
the besieged the way relief would come. Never again shall I hear such a
speech.”

“What are they going to do?” asked Rosalie, and withdrew her trembling
hand from that of Madame Dugal.

“This very day, at my office, they will bring their offerings, and we
will begin at once,” answered M. Dauphin. “There is no man in Chaudiere
but will take the stocking from the hole, the bag from the chest, the
credit from the bank, the grain from the barn for the market, or make
the note of hand to contribute one-fortieth of all he is worth for the
rebuilding of the church.”

“Notes of hand are not money,” said the Cure’s sister, the practical
sense ever uppermost.

“They shall all be money--hard cash,” said the Notary. “The Seigneur is
going to open a sort of bank, and take up the notes of hand, and give
bank-bills in return. To-day I go with his steward to Quebec to get the
money.”

“What does the Abbe Rossignol say?” said the Cure’s sister.

“Our church and parish are our own,” interposed the Cure proudly. “We do
our duty and fear no abbe.”

“Voila!” said M. Dauphin, “he never can keep hands off. I saw him go to
Jo Portugais a little while ago. ‘Remember!’ he said--I can’t make out
what he was after. We have enough to remember to-day, for sure.”

“Good may come of it, perhaps,” said M. Loisel, looking sadly out upon
the ruins of his church.

“See, ‘tis the sunrise!” said Mrs. Flynn’s voice from the corner, her
face towards the eastern window.




CHAPTER LVIII. WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL.

In four days ten thousand dollars in notes and gold had been brought to
the office of the Notary by the faithful people of Chaudiere. All day
in turn M. Loisel and M. Rossignol sat in the office and received that
which represented one-fortieth of the value of each man’s goods, estate,
and wealth--the fortieth value of a woodsawyer’s cottage, or a widow’s
garden. They did it impartially for all, as the Cure and three of the
best-to-do habitants had done for the Seigneur, whose four thousand
dollars had been paid in first of all.

Charley had been confined to his room for three days, because of his
injuries and a feverish cold he had caught, and the habitants did not
disturb his quiet. But Mrs. Flynn took him broth made by Rosalie’s
hands, and Rosalie fought with her desire to go to him and nurse him.
She was not, however, the Rosalie of the old impulse and impetuous
resolve--the arrow had gone too deep; she waited till she could see
his face again and look into his eyes. Not apathy, but a sense of the
inevitable was upon her, and pale and fragile, but with a calm spirit,
she waited for she knew not what.

She felt that the day of fate was closing down. She must hold herself
ready for the hour when he would need her most. At first, when the
conviction had come to her that the end of all was near, she had
revolted. She had had impulse to go to him at all hazards, to say to
him: “Come away--anywhere, anywhere!” But that had given place to the
deeper thing in her, and something of Charley’s spirit of stoic waiting
had come upon her.

She watched the people going to the Notary’s office with their tributes
and free-will offerings, and they seemed like people in a play--these
days she lived no life which was theirs. It was a dream, unimportant and
temporary. She was feeling what was behind all life, and permanent.
It could not last, but there it was; and she could not return to the
transitory till this cloud of fate was lifted. She was much too young to
suffer so, but the young ever suffer most.

On the fourth day she saw Charley. He came from his shop and went to the
Notary’s office. At first she was startled, for he was clean-shaven--the
fire had burned his beard to the skin. She saw a different man, far
removed from this life about them both--individual, singular. He was
pale, and his eye-glass, with the cleanshaven face, gave an impression
of refined separateness. She did not know that the same look was in both
their faces. She watched him till he entered the Notary’s shop, then she
was called away to her duties.

Charley had come to give his one-fortieth with the rest. When he entered
the Notary’s office, the Seigneur and M. Dauphin stood up to greet him.
They congratulated him on his recovery, while feeling also that the
change in his personal appearance somehow affected their relations.
A crowd gathered round the door of the shop. When Charley made his
offering, with a statement of his goods and income, the Seigneur and
Notary did not know what to do. They were disposed to decline it, for
since Monsieur was no Catholic, it was not his duty to help. At this
moment of delicate anxiety M. Loisel entered. With a swift bright flush
to his cheek he saw the difficulty, and at once accepted freely.

“God bless you,” he said, as he took the money, and Charley left. “It
shall build the doorway of my church.”

Later in the day the Cure sent for Charley. There were grave matters
to consider, and his counsel was greatly needed. They had all come to
depend on the soundness of his judgment. It had never gone astray in
Chaudiere, they said. They owed to him this extraordinary scheme, which
would be an example to all modern Christianity. They told him so. He
said nothing in reply.

In an hour he had planned for them a scheme for the consideration of
contractors; had drawn, with the help of M. Loisel, an architect’s
rough plan of the new church, and, his old professional instincts keenly
alive, had lucidly suggested the terms and safeguards of the contracts.

Then came the question of the money contributed. The day before, M.
Dauphin and the Seigneur’s steward had arrived in safety from Quebec
with twenty thousand dollars in bank-bills. These M. Rossignol had
exchanged for the notes of hand of such of the habitants as had not
ready cash to give. All of this twenty thousand dollars had been paid
over. They had now thirty thousand dollars in cash, besides three
thousand which the Cure had at his house, the proceeds of the Passion
Play. It was proposed to send this large sum to the bank in Quebec in
another two days, when the whole contributions should be complete.

As to the safety of the money, the timid M. Dauphin did not care to take
responsibility. Strangers were still arriving, ignorant of the fact that
the Passion Play had ceased, and some of them must be aware that this
large sum of money was in the parish--no doubt also knew that it was in
his house. It was therefore better, he urged, that M. Rossignol or the
Cure should take charge of it. M. Loisel urged that secrecy as to the
resting-place of the money was important. It was better that it should
be deposited in the most unlikely place, and with some unofficial person
who might not be supposed to have it in charge.

“I have it!” said the Seigneur. “The money shall be placed in old Louis
Trudel’s safe in the wall of the tailor-shop.”

It was so arranged, after Charley’s protests of unwillingness, and
counter-appeals from the others. That evening at sundown thirty-three
thousand dollars was deposited in the safe in the old stone wall of the
tailorshop, and the lock was sealed with the parish seal.

But the Notary’s wife had wormed the secret from her husband, and she
found it hard to keep. She told it to Maximilian Cour, and he kept it.
She told it to her cousin, the wife of Filion Lacasse, and she did not
keep it. Before twenty-four hours went round, a dozen people knew it.

The evening of the second day, another two thousand dollars was added
to the treasure, and the lock was again sealed--with the utmost secrecy.
Charley and Jo Portugais, the infidel and the murderer, were thus
the sentries to the peace of a parish, the bankers of its gifts, the
security for the future of the church of Chaudiere. Their weapons of
defence were two old pistols belonging to the Seigneur.

“Money is the master of the unexpected,” the Seigneur had said as he
handed them over. He chuckled for hours afterwards as he thought of his
epigram. That night, as he turned over in bed for the third time, as was
his custom before going to sleep, another epigram came to him--“Money is
the only fox hunted night and day.” He kept repeating it over and over
again with vain pride.

The truth of M. Rossignol’s aphorisms had been demonstrated several days
before. On his return from Quebec with the twenty thousand dollars
of the Seigneur’s money, M. Dauphin had dwelt with great pride on
the discretion and energy he and the steward had shown; had told
dramatically of the skill which had enabled them to make a journey of
such importance so secretly and safely; had covered himself with blushes
for his own coolness and intrepidity. Fortune had, however, favoured his
reputation and his intrepidity, for he had been pursued from the hour he
and his companion left Quebec. A taste for the picturesque had impelled
him to arrange for two relays of horses, and this fact saved him and the
twenty thousand dollars he carried. Two hours after he had left Quebec,
four determined men had got upon his trail, and had only been prevented
from overtaking him by the freshness of the horses which his dramatic
foresight had provided.

The leader of these four pursuers was Billy Wantage, who had come to
know of the curious action of the Seigneur of Chaudiere from an intimate
friend, a clerk in the bank. Billy’s fortunes were now in a bad way,
and, in desperate straits for money, he had planned this bold attempt
at the highwayman’s art with two gamblers, to whom he owed money, and a
certain notorious horse-trader of whom he had made a companion of late.
Having escaped punishment for a crime once before, through Charley’s
supposed death, the immunity nerved him to this later and more dangerous
enterprise. The four rode as hard as their horses would permit, but M.
Dauphin and his companion kept always an hour or more ahead, and, from
the high hills overlooking the village, Billy and his friends saw the
two enter it safely in the light of evening.

His three friends urged Billy to turn back, since they were out of
provisions and had no shelter. It was unwise to go to a tavern or a
farmer’s house, where they must certainly be suspected. Billy, however,
determined to make an effort to find the banking-place of the money, and
refused to turn back without a trial. He therefore proposed that they
should separate, going different directions, secure accommodation for
the night, rest the following day, and meet the next night at a point
indicated. This was agreed upon, and they separated.

When the four met again, Billy had nothing to communicate, as he had
been taken ill during the night before, and had been unable to go
secretly into Chaudiere village. They separated once more. When they met
the next night Billy was accompanied by an old confederate. As he was
entering Chaudiere the previous evening, he had met John Brown, with his
painted wagon and a new mottled horse. John Brown had news of importance
to give; for, in the stable-yard of the village tavern, he had heard one
habitant confide to another that the money for the new church was kept
in the safe of the tailor-shop. John Brown was as ready to share in
Billy’s second enterprise as he had been to incite him to his first
crime.

So it was that as the Seigneur made his epigram and gloated over it,
the five men, with horses at a convenient distance, armed to the teeth,
broke stealthily into Charley’s house.

They entered silently through the kitchen window, and made their way
into the little hall. Two stood guard at the foot of the stairs, and
three crept into the shop.

This night Jo Portugais was sleeping up-stairs, while Charley lay
upon the bench in the tailor-shop. Charley heard the door open, heard
unfamiliar steps, seized his pistol, and, springing up, with his back to
the safe, called out loudly to Jo. As he dimly saw men rush at him,
he fired. The bullet reached its mark, and one man fell dead. At that
moment a dark-lantern was turned full on Charley, and a pistol was fired
pointblank at him.

As he fell, shot through the breast, the man who had fired dropped
the lantern with a shriek of terror. He had seen the ghost of his
brother-in-law-Charley Steele.

With a quaking cry of warning to the others, Billy bolted from the
house, followed by his companions, two of whom were struggling with Jo
Portugais on the stairway. These now also broke and ran.

Jo rushed into the shop, and saw, as he thought, Charley lying dead--saw
the robber dead upon the floor. His master and friend gone, the
conviction seized him that his own time had come. He would give himself
to justice now--but to God’s justice, not to man’s. The robbers were
four to one, and he would avenge his master’s death and give his own
life to do it! It was all the thought of a second. He rushed out after
the robbers, shouting as he ran, to awake the villagers. He heard the
marauders ahead of him, and, fleet of foot, rushed on. Reaching them
as they mounted, he fired, and brought down his man--a shivering
quack-doctor, who, like his leader, had seen a sight in the tailor-shop
that struck terror to his soul. Two of the others then fired at Jo, who
had caught a horse by the head. He fell without a sound, and lay upon
his face--he did not hear the hoofs of the escaping horses nor any
other sound. He had fallen without a pang beside the quackdoctor, whose
medicines would never again quicken a pulse in his own body or any
other.

Behind, in the village, frightened people flocked about the tailor-shop.
Within, Mrs. Flynn and the Notary crudely but tenderly bound up the
dreadful wound in Charley’s side, while Rosalie pillowed his head on her
bosom.

With a strange quietness Rosalie gave orders to the Notary and Mrs.
Flynn. There was a light in her eyes--an unnatural light--of strength
and presence of mind. Her hand was steady, and as gently as a mother
with a child she wiped the moist forehead, and poured a little brandy
between the set teeth.

“Stand back--give him air,” she said, in a voice of authority to those
who crowded round.

People fell back in awe, for, amid tears and excitement and fear, this
girl had a strange convincing calm. By the time Charley’s wound was
stopped, messengers were on the way to the Cure and the Seigneur.
By Rosalie’s instructions the dead body of the robber was removed,
Charley’s bed up-stairs was prepared for him, a fire was lighted, and
twenty hands were ready to do accurately her will. Now and again she
felt his pulse, and she watched his face intently. In her bitter sorrow
her heart had a sort of thankfulness, for his head was on her breast,
he was in her arms. It had been given her once more to come first to
his rescue, and with one wild cry, unheard by any one, to call out his
beloved name.

The world of Chaudiere, roused by the shooting, had then burst in upon
them; but that one moment had been hers, no matter what came after. She
had no illusions--she knew that the end was near: the end of all for him
and for them both.

The Cure entered and hurried forward. There was the seal of the parish
intact on the door of the safe, but at what cost!

“He has given his life for the church,” he said, then commanded all to
leave, save those needed to carry the wounded man up-stairs.

Still it was Rosalie that directed the removal. She held his hand; she
saw that he was carefully laid down; she raised his head to a proper
height; she moistened his lips and fanned him. Meanwhile the Cure fell
upon his knees, and the noise of talk and whispering ceased in the
house.

But presently there was loud murmuring and shuffling of feet outside
again, and Rosalie left the room hurriedly and went below to stop it.
She met the men who were bringing the body of Jo Portugais into the
shop.

Up-stairs the Cure’s voice prayed: “Of Thy mercy, O Lord, hear our
prayer. Grant that he be brought into Thy Church ere his last hour come.
Forgive, O Lord--”

Charley stirred and opened his eyes. He saw the Cure bowed in prayer; he
heard the trembling voice. He touched the white head with his hand.




CHAPTER LIX. IN WHICH CHARLEY MEETS A STRANGER

The Cure came to his feet with a joyful cry. “Monsieur--my son,” he
said, bending over him.

“Is it all over?” Charley asked calmly, almost cheerfully. Death now was
the only solution of life’s problems, and he welcomed it from the void.

The Cure went to the door and locked it. The deepest desire of his life
must here be uttered, his great aspiration be realised.

“My son,” he said, as he came softly to the bedside again, “you have
given to us all you had--your charity, your wisdom, your skill. You have
“--it was hard, but the man’s wound was mortal, and it must be said “you
have consecrated our new church with your blood. You have given all to
us; we will give all to you--”

There was a soft knocking at the door. He went and opened it a very
little. “He is conscious, Rosalie,” he whispered. “Wait--wait--one
moment.”

Then came the Seigneur’s voice saying that Jo was gone, and that all the
robbers had escaped, save the two disposed of by Charley and Jo.

The Cure turned to the bed once more. “What did he say about Jo?”
 Charley asked.

“He is dead, my son, and the quack-doctor also. The others have
escaped.”

Charley turned his face away. “Au revoir, Jo,” he said into the great
distance.

Then there was silence for a moment, while outside the door a girl
prayed, with an old woman’s arm around her.

The Cure leaned over Charley again. “Shall not the sacraments of the
Church comfort you in your last hours?” he said. “It is the way, the
truth, and the life. It is the Voice that says: ‘Peace’ to the vexed
mind. Human intellect is vanity; only the soul survives. Will you not
hear the Voice? Will you not give us who love and honour you the right
to make you ours for ever? Will you not come to the bosom of that Church
for which you have given all?”

“Tell them so,” Charley said, and he motioned towards the window, under
which the people were gathered.

With a glad exclamation the Cure hastened to the window, and, in a voice
of sorrowful exultation, spoke to the people below.

Charley reckoned swiftly with his fate. What was there now to do? If his
wound was not mortal, what tragedy might now come! For Billy’s hand--the
hand of Kathleen’s brother--had brought him low. If the robbers and
murderers were captured, he must be dragged into the old life, and
to what an issue--all the old problems carried into more terrible
conditions. And Rosalie--in his half-consciousness he had felt her near
him; he felt her near him now. Rosalie--in any case, what could there
be for her? Nothing. He had heard the Cure whisper her name at the door.
She was outside-praying for him. He stretched out a hand as though he
saw her, and his lips framed her name. In his weakness and fading life
he had no anguish in the thought of her. Life and Love were growing
distant though he loved her as few love and live. She would be removed
from want by him--there were the pearls and the money in the safe with
the money of the Church; there was the letter to the Cure, his last
testament, leaving all to her. He, sleeping, would fear no foe; she,
awake in the living world, would hold him in dear remembrance. Death
were the better thing for all. Then Kathleen in her happiness would
be at peace; and even Billy might go unmolested, for, who was there to
recognise Billy, now that Portugais was dead?

He heard the Cure’s voice at the window--“Oh, my dear people, God has
given him to us at last. I go now to prepare him for his long journey,
to--”

Charley realised and shuddered. Receive the sacraments of the Church?
Be made ready by the priest for his going hence--end all the soul’s
interrogations, with the solving of his own mortal problems? Say “I
believe,” confess his sins, and, receiving absolution, lie down in
peace.

He suddenly raised himself on his elbow, flinging his body over. The
bandage of his wound was displaced, and blood gushed out upon the white
clothes of the bed. “Rosalie!” he gasped. “Rosalie, my love!
God keep...”

As he sank back he heard the priest’s anguished voice above him, calling
for help. He smiled.

“Rosalie--” he whispered. The priest ran and unlocked the door, and
Rosalie entered, followed by the Seigneur and Mrs. Flynn.

“Quick! Quick!” said the priest. “The bandage slipped.”

The bandage slipped--or was it slipped? Who knows!

Blind with agony, and as in a direful dream, Rosalie made her way to the
bed. The sight of his ensanguined body roused her, and, murmuring his
name--continually murmuring his name--she assisted Mrs. Flynn to bind
up the wound again. Standing where she stood when she had stayed Louis
Trudel’s arm long ago, with an infinite tenderness she touched the
scar-the scar of the cross--on his breast. Terrible as was her grief,
her heart had its comfort in the thought--who could rob her of that for
ever?--that he would die a martyr. It did not matter now who knew the
story of her love. It could not do him harm. She was ready to proclaim
it to all the world. And those who watched knew that they were in the
presence of a great human love.

The priest made ready to receive the unconscious man into the Church.
Had Charley not said, “Tell them so?” Was it not now his duty to say the
sacred offices over a son of the Church in his last bitter hour? So it
was done while he lay unconscious.

For hours he lay still, and then the fevered blood, poisoned by
the bullet which had brought him down, made him delirious, gave him
hallucinations--open-eyed illusions. All the time Rosalie knelt at the
foot of the bed, her piteous tearless eyes for ever fixed on his face.

Towards evening, with an unnatural strength, he sat up in bed.

“See,” he whispered, “that woman in the corner there. She has come
to take me, but I will not go.” Fantasy after fantasy possessed
him-fantasy, strangely mixed with facts of his own past. Now it was
Kathleen, now Billy, now Jo Portugais, now John Brown, now Suzon
Charlemagne at the Cote Dorion, again Jo Portugais. In strange, touching
sentences he spoke to them, as though they were present before him. At
length he stopped abruptly, and gazed straight before him--over the head
of Rosalie into the distance.

“See,” he said, pointing, “who is that? Who? I can’t see his face--it
is covered. So tall-so white! He is opening his arms to me. He is
coming--closer--closer. Who is it?”

“It is Death, my son,” said the priest in his ear, with a pitying
gentleness.

The Cure’s voice seemed to calm the agitated sense, to bring it back to
the outer precincts of understanding. There was an awe-struck silence
as the dying man fumbled, fumbled, over his breast, found his eye-glass,
and, with a last feeble effort, raised it to his eye, shining now with
an unearthly fire. The old interrogation of the soul, the elemental
habit outlived all else in him. The idiosyncrasy of the mind
automatically expressed itself.

“I beg--your--pardon,” he whispered to the imagined figure, and the
light died out of his eyes, “have I--ever--been--introduced--to you?”

“At the hour of your birth, my son,” said the priest, as a sobbing cry
came from the foot of the bed.

But Charley did not hear. His ears were for ever closed to the voices of
life and time.




CHAPTER LX. THE HAND AT THE DOOR

The eve of the day of the memorable funeral two belated visitors to the
Passion Play arrived in the village, unknowing that it had ended, and of
the tragedy which had set a whole valley mourning; unconscious that they
shared in the bitter fortunes of the tailor-man, of whom men and women
spoke with tears. Affected by the gloom of the place, the two visitors
at once prepared for their return journey, but the manner of the
tailorman’s death arrested their sympathies, touched the humanity in
them. The woman was much impressed.

They asked to see the body of the man. They were taken to the door of
the tailor-shop, while their horses were being brought round. Within
the house itself they were met by an old Irishwoman, who, in response to
their wish “to see the brave man’s body,” showed them into a room where
a man lay dead with a bullet through his heart. It was the body of
Jo Portugais, whose master and friend lay in another room across the
hallway. The lady turned back in disappointment--the dead man was little
like a hero.

The Irishwoman had meant to deceive her, for at this moment a girl who
loved the tailor was kneeling beside his body, and, if possible, Mrs.
Flynn would have no curious eyes look upon that scene.

When the visitors came into the hall again, the man said: “There was
another; Kathleen--a woodsman.” But standing by the nearly closed door,
behind which lay the dead tailor of Chaudiere--they could see the
holy candles flickering within--Kathleen whispered “We’ve seen the
tailor--that’s enough. It’s only the woodsman there. I prefer not, Tom.”

With his fingers at the latch, the man hesitated, even as Mrs. Flynn
stepped apprehensively forward; then, shrugging a shoulder, he responded
to Kathleen’s hand on his arm. They went down the stairs together, and
out to their carriage.

As they drove away, Kathleen said: “It’s strange that men who do such
fine things should look so commonplace.”

“The other one might have been more uncommon,” he replied.

“I wonder!” she said, with a sigh of relief, as they passed the bounds
of the village. Then she caught herself flushing, for she suddenly
realised that the exclamation was one so often on the lips of a dead,
disgraced man whose name she once had borne.

If the door of the little room upstairs had opened to the fingers of the
man beside her, the tailor of Chaudiere, though dead, would have been
dearly avenged.




CHAPTER LXI. THE CURE SPEAKS

The Cure stood with his back to the ruins of the church, at his feet two
newly made graves, and all round, with wistful faces, crowds of reverent
habitants. A benignant sorrow made his voice in perfect temper with
the pensive striving of this latest day of spring. At the close of his
address he said:

“I owe you much, my people. I owe him more, for it was given him, who
knew not God, to teach us how to know Him better. For his past, it is
not given you to know. It is hidden in the bosom of the Church. Sinner
he once was, criminal never, as one can testify who knows all”--he
turned to the Abbe Rossignol, who stood beside him, grave and
compassionate--“and his sins were forgiven him. He is the one sheaf
which you and I may carry home rejoicing from the pagan world of
unbelief. What he had in life he gave to us, and in death he leaves
to our church all that he has not left to a woman he loved--to Rosalie
Evanturel.”

There was a gasping murmur among the people, but they stilled again, and
strained to hear.

“He leaves her a little fortune, and to us all else he had. Let us
pray for his soul, and let us comfort her who, loving deeply, reaped no
harvest of love.

“The law may never reach his ruthless murderers, for there is none to
recognise their faces; and were they ten times punished, how should
it avail us now! Let us always remember that, in his grave, our friend
bears on his breast the little iron cross we held so dear. That is
all we could give--our dearest treasure. I pray God that, scarring his
breast in life, it may heal all his woes in death, and be a saving image
on his bosom in the Presence at the last.”

He raised his hands in benediction.




EPILOGUE

Never again was there a Passion Play in the Chaudiere Valley.
Spring-times and harvests and long winters came and went, and a blessing
seemed to be upon the valley, for men prospered, and no untoward things
befel the people. So it was for twenty years, wherein there had been
going and coming in quiet. Some had gone upon short mortal journeys and
had come back, some upon long immortal voyages, and had never returned.
Of the last were the Seigneur and a woman once a Magdalene; but in a
house beside a beautiful church, with a noble doorway, lived the Cure,
M. Loisel, aged and serene. There never was a day, come rain or shine,
in which he was not visited by a beautiful woman, whose life was one
with the people of the valley.

There was no sorrow in the parish which the lady did not share, with the
help of an old Irishwoman called Mrs. Flynn. Was there sickness in the
parish, her hand smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain. Was there
trouble anywhere, her face brought light to the door way. Did any suffer
ill-repute, her word helped to restore the ruined name. They did not
know that she forgave so much in all the world, because she thought she
had so much in herself to forgive.

She was ever called “Madame Rosalie,” and she cherished the name, and
gave commands that when her grave came to be made near to a certain
other grave, Madame Rosalie should be carved upon the stone.
Cheerfulness and serenity were ever with her, undisturbed by wish to
probe the mystery of the life which had once absorbed her own. She never
sought to know whence the man came; it was sufficient to know whither
he had gone, and that he had been hers for a brief dream of life. It
was better to have lived the one short thrilling hour with all its pain,
than never to have known what she knew or felt what she had felt. The
mystery deepened her romance, and she was even glad that the ruffians
who slew him were never brought to justice. To her mind they were but
part of the mystic machinery of fate.

For her the years had given many compensations, and so she told the
Cure, one midsummer day, when she brought to visit him the orphaned
son of Paulette Dubois, graduated from his college in France and making
ready to go to the far East.

“I have had more than I deserve--a thousand times,” she said.

The Cure smiled, and laid a gentle hand upon her own. “It is right for
you to think so,” he said, “but after a long life, I am ready to say
that, one way or another, we earn all the real happiness we have. I mean
the real happiness--the moments, my child. I once had a moment full of
happiness.”

“May I ask?” she said.

“When my heart first went out to him”--he turned his face towards the
churchyard.

“He was a great man,” she said proudly.

The Cure looked at her benignly: she was a woman, and she had loved
the man. He had, however, come to a stage of life where greatness alone
seemed of little moment. He forbore to answer her, but he pressed her
hand.


     ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

     A left-handed boy is all right in the world
     Always hoping the best from the worst of us
     Damnable propinquity
     Good fathers think they have good daughters
     Have not we all something to hide--with or without shame?
     He has wheeled his nuptial bed into the street
     He left his fellow-citizens very much alone
     He had had acquaintances, but never friendships, and never loves
     Hugging the chain of denial to his bosom
     I have a good memory for forgetting
     I am only myself when I am drunk
     I should remember to forget it
     Importunity with discretion was his motto
     In all secrets there is a kind of guilt
     Is the habit of good living mere habit and mere acting
     It is good to live, isn’t it?
     Know how bad are you, and doesn’t mind
     Liquor makes me human
     Nervous legs at a gallop
     Pathetically in earnest
     Shure, if we could always be ‘about the same,’ we’d do
     So say your prayers, believe all you can, don’t ask questions
     Strike first and heal after--“a kick and a lick”
      Suspicion, the bane of sick old age
     Things that once charmed charm less
     Was not civilisation a mistake
     Who knows!
     Youth is the only comrade for youth
     Youth is the only comrade for youth








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