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diff --git a/6246.txt b/6246.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d8c89f --- /dev/null +++ b/6246.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3048 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Right of Way, by G. Parker, v4 +#73 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Right of Way, Volume 4. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6246] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT OF WAY, PARKER, V3 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE RIGHT OF WAY + +By Gilbert Parker + +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 + + + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A left-handed boy is all right in the world +Damnable propinquity +Hugging the chain of denial to his bosom +I have a good memory for forgetting +Importunity with discretion was his motto +It is good to live, isn't it? +Know how bad are you, and doesn't mind +Strike first and heal after--"a kick and a lick" + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT OF WAY, PARKER, V4 *** + +******** This file should be named 6246.txt or 6246.zip ********* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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