THE RIGHT OF WAY

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 3. 

XIX. THE SIGN FROM HEAVENXX. THE RETURN OF THE TAILORXXI. THE CURE HAS AN INSPIRATIONXXII. THE WOMAN WHO SAWXXIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELLXXIV. THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAMEXXV. THE COLONEL TELLS HIS STORYXXVI. A SONG, A BOTTLE, AND A GHOSTXXVII. OUT ON THE OLD TRAILXXVIII. THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING

CHAPTER XIX

THE SIGN FROM HEAVEN

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

Damase Evanturel's mind was stirred concerning the loss of the ironcross; the threat made by Filion Lacasse and his companions troubled him. The one person beside the Cure, Jo Portugais, and Louis Trudel, to whomM'sieu' talked much, was the postmaster, who sometimes met him of anevening as he was taking the air. More than once he had walked behindthe wheel-chair and pushed it some distance, making the little crippledman gossip of village matters. 

As the two sat at supper the postmaster was inclined to take a seriousview of M'sieu's position. He railed at Filion Lacasse; he called thesuspicious habitants clodhoppers, who didn't know any better--which wasa tribute to his own superior birth; and at last, carried away by afeverish curiosity, he suggested that Rosalie should go and look throughthe cracks in the shutters of the tailor-shop and find out what was goingon within. This was indignantly rejected by Rosalie, but the more shethought, the more uneasy she became. She ceased to reply to her father'sremarks, and he at last relapsed into gloom, and said that he was tiredand would go to bed. Thereupon she wheeled him inside his bedroom, badehim good-night, and left him to his moodiness, which, however, was soonabsorbed in a deep sleep, for the mind of the little grey postmastercould no more hold trouble or thought than a sieve. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She saw old Louis advance stealthily towards the door of the shop leadinginto the house. In bewilderment, she stood still an instant, then, witha sudden impulse, she ran to the kitchen-door and tried it softly. Itwas not locked. She opened it, entered quickly, and found old Margotstanding in the middle of the room in her night-dress. 

"Oh, Rosalie, Rosalie!" cried the old woman, "something's going tohappen. M'sieu' Trudel has been queer all evening. I peeped in the key-hole of the shop just now, and--"

"Yes, yes, I've seen too. Come!" said Rosalie, and going quickly to thedoor, opened it, and passed through to another room. Here she openedanother door, leading into the hall between the shop and the house. Entering the hall, she saw a glimmer of light above. It was the reddishglow of the iron cross held by old Louis. She crept softly up the stonesteps. She heard a door open very quietly. She hurried now, and came tothe landing. She saw the door of Charley's room open--all the villageknew what room he slept in--and the moonlight was streaming in at thewindow. 

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

As she rushed forward, divining old Louis' purpose, the fiery crossdescended, and a voice cried: "'Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!'"

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

"Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!" cried Rosalie, and, snatching a scarf from herbosom, thrust it in upon the excoriated breast, as Charley, hardlyrealising what had happened, choked back moans of pain. 

"What did he do?" he gasped. 

"The iron cross from the church door!" she answered. "A minute, oneminute, Monsieur!"

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

Rosalie paid no heed to the fallen man. "Oil! flour! Quick!" shecried. "Quick! Quick!" She stepped over the body of the tailor, snatched at Margot's arm, and dragged her into the kitchen. "Quick-oiland flour!"

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

"He tried to kill Monsieur, " cried Rosalie, "burned him on the breastwith the holy cross!"

With oil and flour she hurried back, over the body of the tailor, up thestairs, and into Charley's room. Charley was now out of bed and halfdressed, though choking with pain, and preserving consciousness only by agreat effort. 

"Good Mademoiselle!" he said. 

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

Margot came staggering into the room. 

"I cannot rouse him. I cannot rouse him. He is dead! He is dead!" shewhimpered. 

"He--"

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

"Now not a word of what he did to me, remember. Not one word, or youwill go to jail with him. If you keep quiet, I'll say nothing. Hedidn't know what he was doing. " He turned to Rosalie. "Not a word ofthis, please, " he moaned. "Hide the cross. "

He moved towards the door. Rosalie saw his purpose, and ran out ahead ofhim and down the stairs to where the tailor lay prone on his face, onehand still holding the pincers. The little iron cross lay in a darkcorner. Stooping, she lifted up the tailor's head, then felt his heart. 

"He is not dead, " she cried. "Quick, Margot, some water, " she added, tothe whimpering woman. Margot tottered away, and came again presentlywith the water. 

"I will go for some one to help, " Rosalie said, rising to her feet, asshe saw Charley come slowly down the staircase, his face white withmisery. She ran and took his arm to help him down. 

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

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

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

She nodded. "Yes, yes, M'sieu', I will never speak. " Rosalie wasstanding in the door. "Go quickly, Mademoiselle, " he said. Shedisappeared with the iron cross, and flying across the street, thrust itinside the post-office, then ran to the house of the Notary. 

CHAPTER XX

THE RETURN OF THE TAILOR

Twenty minutes later the tailor was lying in his bed, breathing, butstill unconscious, the Notary, M'sieu', and the doctor of the nextparish, who by chance was in Chaudiere, beside him. Charley's face wasdrawn and haggard with pain, for he had helped to carry old Louis to bed, though every motion of his arms gave him untold agony. In the doorwaystood Rosalie and Margot Patry. 

"Will he live?" asked the Notary. 

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

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

Then she took some fresh flour and oil, and thrust them inside thebedroom door where Charley now sat clinching his hands and fighting downthe pain. Careful as ever of his personal appearance, however, he hadbrushed every speck of flour from his clothes, and buttoned his coat upto the neck. 

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

"Peace be to this house!" said the Cure. He had a few minutes ofwhispered conversation with the doctor, and then turned to Charley. 

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

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

"Had he been ill during the day?"

"He appeared to be feeble, and he seemed moody. "

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

"Rather more than usual, Monsieur. "

The Cure turned towards the door. "You, Mademoiselle Rosalie, how cameyou to know?"

"I was in the kitchen with Margot, who was not well. "

The Cure looked at Margot, who tearfully nodded. "I was ill, " she said, "and Rosalie was here with me. She helped M'sieu' and me. Rosalie is agood girl, and kind to me, " she whimpered. 

The Cure seemed satisfied, and after looking at the sick man for amoment, he came close to Charley. "I am deeply pained at what happenedto-day, " he said courteously. "I know you have had nothing to do withthe beloved little cross. "

The Notary tried to draw near and listen, but the Cure's look held himback. The doctor was busy with his patient. 

"You are only just, Monsieur, " said Charley in response, wishing thatthese kind eyes were fixed anywhere than on his face. 

All at once the Cure laid a hand upon his arm. "You are ill, " he saidanxiously. "You look very ill indeed. See, Vaudrey, " he added to thedoctor, "you have another patient here!"

The friendly, oleaginous doctor came over and peered into Charley's face. "Ill-sure enough!" he said. "Look at this sweat!" he pointed to thedrops of perspiration on Charley's forehead. "Where do you suffer?"

"Severe pains all through my body, " Charley answered simply, for itseemed easier to tell the truth, as near as might be. 

"I must look to you, " said the doctor. "Go and lie down, and I will cometo you. "

Charley bowed, but did not move. Just then two things drew the attentionof all: the tailor showed returning consciousness, and there was noise ofmany voices outside the house and the tramping of feet below-stairs. 

"Go and tell them no one must come up, " said the doctor to the Notary, and the Cure made ready to say the last offices for the dying. 

Presently the noise below-stairs diminished, and the priest's voice rosein the office, vibrating and touching. The two women sank to theirknees, the doctor followed, his eyes still fixed on the dying man. Presently, however, Charley did the same; for something penetrating andreasonable in the devotion touched him. 

All at once Louis Trudel opened his eyes. Staring round with acuteexcitement, his eyes fell on the Cure, then upon Charley. 

"Stop--stop, M'sieu' le Cure!" he cried. "There's other work to do. "He gasped and was convulsed, but the pallor of his face was alive withfire from the distempered eyes. He snatched from his breast the paperCharley had neglected to burn. He thrust it into the Curb's hand. 

"See--see!" he croaked. "He is an infidel--black infidel--from hell!"His voice rose in a kind of shriek, piercing to every corner of thehouse. He pointed at Charley with shaking finger. 

"He wrote it there--on that paper. He doesn't--believe in God. "

His strength failed him, his hand clutched tremblingly at the air. Helaughed, a dry, crackling laugh, and his mouth opened twice or thrice tospeak, but gasping breaths only came forth. With a last effort, however--as the priest, shocked, stretched out his hand and said: "Have done, have done, Trudel!"--he cried, in a voice that quavered shrilly:

"He asked--tailor-man--sign--from--Heaven. Look-look!" He pointedwildly at Charley. "I--gave him--sign of--"

But that was the end. With a shudder the body collapsed in a formlessheap, and the tailor-man was gone to tell of the work he had done for hisfaith on earth. 

CHAPTER XXI

THE CURE HAS AN INSPIRATION

White and malicious faces peered through the doorway. There was an uglymurmur coming up the staircase. Many habitants had heard Louis Trudel'slast words, and had passed them on with vehement exaggeration. 

Chaudiere had been touched in its most superstitious corner. Protestantism was a sin, but atheism was a crime against humanity. The Protestant might be the victim of a mistake, but the atheist was thedeliberate son of darkness, the source of fearful dangers. An atheist intheir midst was like a scorpion in a flower-bed--no one could tell whenand where he would sting. Rough misdemeanours among them had been many, there had once been a murder in the parish, but the undefined horrors ofinfidelity were more shameful than crimes the eye could see. 

To the minds of these excited people the tailor-man's death was due tothe infidel before them. They were ready to do all that might become aCatholic intent to avenge the profaned honour of the Church and thefaith. Bodily harm was the natural form for their passion to take. 

"Bring him out--let us have him!" they cried with fierce gestures, towhich Rosalie Evanturel turned a pained, indignant face. 

As the Curb stood with the paper in his hand, his face set and bitter, Rosalie made a step forward. She meant to tell the truth about LouisTrudel, and show how good this man was, who stood charged with animaginary crime. But she met the warning eye of the man himself, calmand resolute, she saw the suffering in the face, endured with whatcomposure! and she felt instantly that she must obey him, and that--whocould tell?--his plan might be the best in the end. She looked at theCure anxiously. What would he say and do? In the Cure's heart andmind a great struggle was going on. All his inherent prejudice, thehereditary predisposition of centuries, the ingrain hatred of atheism, were alive in him, hardening his mind against the man before him. Hisfirst impulse was to let Charley take his fate at the hands of the peopleof Chaudiere, whatever it might be. But as he looked at the man, as herecalled their first meeting, and remembered the simple, quiet life hehad lived among them--charitable, and unselfish--the barriers of creedand habit fell down, and tears unbidden rushed into his eyes. 

The Cure had, all at once, the one great inspiration of his life--its onebeautiful and supreme imagining. For thus he reasoned swiftly:

Here he was, a priest who had shepherded a flock of the faithful passedon to him by another priest before him, who again had received them froma guardian of the fold--a family of faithful Catholics whose thoughtsnever strayed into forbidden realms. He had done no more than keep themfaithful and prevent them from wandering--counselling, admonishing, baptising, and burying, giving in marriage and blessing, sending them ontheir last great journey with the cachet of Holy Church upon them. Butnever once, never in all his life, had he brought a lost soul into thefold. If he died to-night, he could not say to St. Peter, when hearrived at Heaven's gate: "See, I have saved a soul!" Beforethe Throne he could not say to Him who cried: "Go ye into all the worldand preach the gospel to every creature"--he could not say: "Lord, by Thy grace I found this soul in the wilderness, in the dark and theloneliness, having no God to worship, denial and rebellion in his heart;and behold, I took him to my breast, and taught him in Thy name, and ledhim home to Thy haven, the Church!"

Thus it was that the Cure dreamed a dream. He would set his life tosaving this lost soul. He would rescue him from the outer darkness. 

His face suffused, he handed the paper in his hand back to the man whohad written the words upon it. Then he lifted his hand against thepeople at the door and the loud murmuring behind them. 

"Peace--peace!" he said, as though from the altar. "Leave this room ofdeath, I command you. Go at once to your homes. This man"--he pointedto Charley--"is my friend. Who seeks to harm him, would harm me. Gohence and pray. Pray for yourselves, pray for him, and for me; and prayfor the troubled soul of Louis Trudel. Go in peace. "

Soon afterwards the house was empty, save for the Cure, Charley, oldMargot, and the Notary. 

That night Charley sat in the tailor's bedroom, rigid and calm, thoughracked with pain, and watched the candles flickering beside the deadbody. He was thinking of the Cure's last words to the people. 

"I wonder--I wonder, " he said, and through his eyeglass he stared at thecrucifix that threw a shadow on the dead man's face. Morning found himthere. As dawn crept in he rose to his feet. "Whither now?" he said, like one in a dream. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE WOMAN WHO SAW

Up to the moment of her meeting with Charley, Rosalie Evanturel's lifehad been governed by habit, which was lightly coloured by temperament. Since the eventful hour on Vadrome Mountain it had become a life oftemperament, in which habit was involuntary and mechanical. She did herdaily duties with a good heart, but also with a sense superior to thepractical action. This grew from day to day, until, in the tragical dayswherein she had secretly played a great part, she moved as in a dream, but a dream so formal that no one saw any change taking place in her, or associated her with the events happening across the way. 

She had been compelled to answer many questions, for it was known she wasin the tailor's house when Louis Trudel fell down-stairs, but what morewas there to tell than that she had run for the Notary, and sent word tothe Cure, and that she was present when the tailor died, charging M'sieu'with being an infidel? At first she was ill disposed to answer anyquestions, but she soon felt that attitude would only do harm. For thefirst time in her life she was face to face with moral problems--thebeginning of sorrow, of knowledge, and of life. 

In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful theymay be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy meansevasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind. To the primitivemind, with its direct yes and no, there is danger of it becoming atragical problem ere it is realised that truth is various and diverse. Perhaps even with that Mary who hid the matter in her heart--theexquisite tragedy and glory of Christendom--there was a delicate feelingof guilt, the guilt of the hidden though lofty and beautiful thing. 

If secrecy was guilt, then Charley and Rosalie were bound together by abond as strong as death: Rosalie held the key to a series of fateful daysand doings. 

In ordinary course, they might have known each other for five years andnot have come to this sensitive and delicate association. With one greatplunge she had sprung into the river of understanding. In the momentthat she had thrust her scarf into his scorched breast, in that littleupper room, the work of years had been done. 

As long as he lived, that mark must remain on M'sieu's breast--the red, smooth scar of a cross! She had seen the sort of shining scar a bad burnmakes, and at thought of it she flushed, trembled, and turned her headaway, as though some one were watching her. Even in the night sheflushed and buried her face in the pillow when the thought flashedthrough her mind; though when she had soaked the scarf in oil and flourand laid it on the angry wound she had not flushed at all, wasdetermined, quiet, and resourceful. 

That incident had made her from a girl into a woman, from a child of theconvent into a child of the world. She no longer thought and felt as shehad done before. What she did think or feel could not easily have beenset down, for her mind was one tremulous confusion of unusual thoughts, her heart was beset by new feelings, her imagination, suddenly findingitself, was trying its wings helplessly. The past was full of wonder andevent, the present full of surprises. 

There was M'sieu' established already in Louis Trudel's place, havingbeen granted a lease of the house and shop by the Curte, on the part ofthe parish, to which the property had been left; receiving also a gift ofthe furniture and of old Margot, who remained where she had been so manyyears. She could easily see Charley at work--pale and suffering still--for the door was generally open in the sweet April weather, with thebirds singing, and the trees bursting into blossom. Her wilfulimagination traced the cross upon his breast--it almost seemed as if itwere outside upon his clothes, exposed to every eye, a shining thing allfire, not a wound inside, for which old Margot prepared oiled linen now. 

The parish was as perturbed as her own mind, for the mystery of thestolen cross had never been cleared up, and a few still believed thatM'sieu' had taken it. They were of those who kept hinting at dark thingswhich would yet be worked upon the infidel in the tailor's shop. Thesewere they to whom the Curb's beautiful ambition did not appeal. He hadsaid that if the man were an infidel, then they must pray that he bebrought into the fold; but a few were still suspicious, and they said inRosalie's presence: "Where is the little cross? M'sieu' knows. "

He did know. That was the worst of it. The cross was in her possession. Was it not necessary, then, to quiet suspicion for his sake? She hadlocked the relic away in a cupboard in her bedroom, and she carried thekey of it always in her pocket. Every day she went and looked at it, asat some ghostly token. To her it was a symbol, not of supernaturalthings, but of life in its new reality to her. It was M'sieu', it washerself, it was their secret--she chafed inwardly that Margot shouldshare a part of that secret. If it were only between their two selves--between M'sieu' and herself! If Margot--she paused suddenly, for she wasgoing to say, If Margot would only die! She was not wicked enough towish that; yet in the past few weeks she had found herself capable ofthinking things beyond the bounds of any past experience. 

She found a solution at last. She would go to-night secretly and nailthe cross again on the church door, and so stop the chatter of eviltongues. The moon set very early now, and as every one in Chaudiere wassupposed to be in bed by ten o'clock, the chances of not being seen werein her favour. She received the final impetus to her resolution by aquarrelsome and threatening remark of Jo Portugais to some sharp-tonguedgossip in the post-office. She was glad that Jo should defend M'sieu', but she was jealous of his friendship for the tailor. Besides, did therenot appear to be a secret between Jo and M'sieu'? Was it not possiblethat Jo knew where M'sieu' came from, and all about him? Of late Jo hadcome in and gone out of the shop oftener than in the past, had evenbrought her bunches of mosses for her flower-pots, the first buddinglilacs, and some maple-sugar made from the trees on Vadrome Mountain. She remembered that when she was a girl at school, years ago--ten yearsago--Jo Portugais, then scarcely out of his teens, a cheerful, pleasant, quick-tempered lad, had brought her bunches of the mountain-ash berry;that once he had mended the broken runner of her sled; and yet anothertime had sent her a birch-bark valentine at the convent, where it wasconfiscated by the Mother Superior. Since those days he had become adark morose figure, living apart from men, never going to confession, seldom going to Mass, unloving and unlovable. 

There was only one other person in the parish more unloved. That was thewoman called Paulette Dubois, who lived in the little house at the outergate of the Manor. Paulette Dubois had a bad name in the parish--so badthat all women shunned her, and few men noticed her. Yet no one couldsay that at the present time she did not live a careful life, justifying, so far as eye could see, the protection of the Seigneur, M. Rossignol, a man of queer habits and queerer dress, a dabbler in physical science, a devout Catholic, and a constant friend of the Cure. He it was who, when an effort was made to drive Paulette out of the parish, had saidthat she should not go unless she wished; that, having been born inChaudiere, she had a right to live there and die there; and if she hadsinned there, the parish was in some sense to blame. Though he had nolodge-gates, and though the seigneury was but a great wide low-roofedfarmhouse, with an observatory, and a chimney-piece dating from the timeof Louis the Fourteenth, the Seigneur gave Paulette Dubois a little hutat his outer gate, which had been there since the great Count Frontenacvisited Chaudiere. Probably Rosalie spoke to Paulette Dubois more oftenthan did any one else in the parish, but that was because the woman camefor little things at the shop, and asked for letters, and every week sentone--to a man living in Montreal. She sent these letters, but not morethan once in six months did she get a reply, and she had not had one ina whole year. Yet every week she asked, and Rosalie found it hard toanswer her politely, and sometimes showed it. 

So it was that the two disliked each other without good cause, save thatthey were separated by a chasm as wide as a sea. The one disliked theother because she must recognise her; the other chafed because she couldbe recognised by Rosalie officially only. 

The late afternoon of the day in which Rosalie decided to nail the crosson the church door again, Paulette arrived to ask for letters at themoment that the office wicket was closed, and Rosalie had answered thatit was after office hours, and had almost closed the door in her face. As she turned away Jo Portugais came out of the tailor-shop opposite. Hesaw Paulette, and stood still an instant. She did the same. A strangelook passed across the face of each, then they turned and went inopposite directions. 

Never in her life had time gone so slowly with Rosalie. She watched theclock. A dozen times she went to the front door and looked out. Shetried to read--it was no use; she tried to spin-her fingers trembled; shesorted the letters in the office again, and rearranged every letter andparcel and paper in its little pigeonhole--then did it all over again. She took out again the letter Paulette had dropped in the letter-box; itwas addressed in the name of the man at Montreal. She looked at it in akind of awe, as she had ever done the letters of this woman who waswithout the pale. They had a sense of mystery, an air of forbiddenimagination. 

She put the letter back, went to the door again, and looked out. It wasnow time to go. Drawing a hood over her head, she stepped out into thenight. There was a little frost, though spring was well forward, and thesmell of the rich earth and the budding trees was sweet to the sense. The moon had just set, but the stars were shining, and here and therepatches of snow on the hillside and in the fields added to the light. Yet it was not bright enough to see far, and as Rosalie moved down thestreet she did not notice a figure at a little distance behind, walkingon the new-springing grass by the roadside. All was quiet at the tavern;there was no light in the Notary's house--as a rule, he sat up late, reading; and even the fiddle of Maximilian Cour, the baker, was silent. The Cure's windows were dark, and the church with its white tin spirestood up sentinel-like above the village. 

Rosalie had the fateful cross in her hand as she softly opened the gateof the churchyard and approached the great oak doors. Taking a screw-driver and some screws from her pocket, she felt with a finger for theold screw-holes in the door. Then she began her work, looking fearfullyround once or twice at first. Presently, however, because the screwswere larger than the old ones, it became much harder; the task calledforth more strength, and drove all thought of being seen out of her mindfor a space. At last, however, she gave the final turn to the handle, and every screw was in its place, its top level and smooth with the ironof the cross. She stopped and looked round again with an uneasy feeling. She could see no one, hear no one, but she began to tremble, and, overcome, she fell on her knees before the door, and, with her fingers onthe foot of the little cross, prayed passionately; for herself, forMonsieur. 

Suddenly she heard footsteps inside the church. They were coming towardsthe doorway, nearer and nearer. At first she was so struck with terrorthat she could not move. Then with a little cry she sprang to her feet, rushed to the gate, threw it open, ran out into the road, ind wildly ontowards home. She did not stop for at least three hundred yards. Turning and looking back she saw at the church door a pale round light. With another cry she sped on, and did not pause till she reached thehouse. Then, bursting in and locking the door, she hurried to her room, undressed quickly, got into bed without saying her prayers, and buriedher face in the pillow, shivering and overwrought. 

The footsteps she had heard were those of the Cure and Jo Portugais. TheCure had sent for Jo to do some last work upon a little altar, to be usedthe next day for the first time. The carpenter and the carver in woodwho were responsible for the work had fallen victims to white whiskey onthe very last day of their task, and had been driven from the church bythe Cure, who then sent for Jo. Rosalie had not seen the light at theshrine, as it was on the side of the church farthest from the village. 

Their labour finished, the two came towards the front door, the Cure'slantern in his hand. Opening the door, Jo heard the sound of footstepsand saw a figure flying down the road. As the Cure came outabstractedly, he glanced sorrowfully towards the place where the littlecross was used to be. He gave a wondering cry, and almost dropped thelantern. 

"See, see, Portugais, " he said, "our little cross again!" Jo nodded. "So it seems, Monsieur, " he said. 

At that instant he saw a hood lying on the ground, and as the Cure heldup the lantern, peering at the little cross, he hastily picked it up andthrust it inside his coat. 

"Strange--very strange!" said the Cure. "It must have been done whilewe were inside. It was not there when we entered. "

"We entered by the vestry door, " said Jo. 

"Ah, true-true, " responded the Cure. 

"It comes as it went, " said Jo. "You can't account for some things. "

The Cure turned and looked at Jo curiously. "Are you then sosuperstitious, Jo? Nonsense; it is the work of human hands--very humanhands, " he added sadly. 

"There is nothing to show, " said the Cure, seeing Jo's glance round. 

"As you see, M'sieu' le Cure. "

"Well, it is a mystery which time no doubt will clear up. Meanwhile, letus be thankful to God, " said the Cure. 

They parted, the Cure going through a side-gate into his own garden, Jo passing out of the churchyard-gate through which Rosalie had gone. He looked down the road towards the village. 

"Well!" said a voice in his ear. Paulette Dubois stood before him. 

"It was you, then, " he said, with a glowering look. "What did you wantwith it?"

"What do you want with the hood in your coat there?" She threw her headback with a spiteful laugh. "Whose do you think it is?" he saidquietly. 

"You and the schoolmaster made verses about her once. "

"It was Rosalie Evanturel?" he asked, with aggravating composure. 

"You have the hood-look at it! You saw her running down the road; I sawher come, watched her, and saw her go. She is a thief--pretty Rosalie--thief and postmistress! No doubt she takes letters too. "

"The ones you wait for, and that never come--eh?" Her face darkened withrage and hatred. "I will tell the world she's a thief, " she sneered. 

"Who will believe you?"

"You will. " She was hard and fierce, and looked him in the eyessquarely. "You'll give evidence quick enough, if I ask you. "

"I wouldn't do anything you asked me to-nothing, if it was to save mylife. "

"I'll prove her a thief without you. She can't deny it. "

"If you try it, I'll--" He stopped, husky and shaking. 

"You'll kill me, eh? You killed him, and you didn't hang. Oh no, youwouldn't kill me, Jo, " she added quickly, in a changed voice. "You'vehad enough of that kind of thing. If I'd been you, I'd rather have hung--ah, sure!" She suddenly came close to him. "Do you hate me so bad, Jo?" she said anxiously. "It's eight years--do you hate me so bad asthen?"

"You keep your tongue off Rosalie Evanturel, " he said, and turned on hisheel. 

She caught his arm. "We're both bad, Jo. Can't we be friends?" shesaid eagerly, her voice shaking. 

He did not reply. 

"Don't drive a woman too hard, " she said between her teeth. 

"Threats! Pah!" he rejoined. "What do you think I'm made of?"

"I'll find that out, " she said, and, turning on her heel, ran down theroad towards the Manor House. "What had Rosalie to do with the cross?"Jo said to himself. "This is her hood. " He took it out and looked atit. "It's her hood--but what did she want with the cross?"

He hurried on, and as he neared the post-office he saw the figure of awoman in the road. At first he thought it might be Rosalie, but as hecame nearer he saw it was not. The woman was muttering and crying. Shewandered to and fro bewilderedly. He came up, caught her by the arm, andlooked into her face. 

It was old Margot Patry. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELL

"Oh, M'sieu', I am afraid. "

"Afraid of what, Margot?"

"Of the last moment, M'sieu' le Cure. "

"There will be no last moment to your mind--you will not know it when itcomes, Margot. "

The woman trembled. "I am not sorry to die. But I am afraid; it is solonely, M'sieu' le Cure. "

"God is with us, Margot. "

"When we are born we do not know. It is on the shoulders of others. When we die we know, and we have to answer. "

"Is the answering so hard, Margot?"

The woman shook her head feebly and sadly, but did not speak. 

"You have been a good mother, Margot. " She made no sign. 

"You have been a good neighbour; you have done unto others as you wouldbe done by. "

She scarcely seemed to hear. 

"You have been a good servant--doing your duty in season and out ofseason; honest and just and faithful. "

The woman's fingers twitched on the coverlet, and she moved her headrestlessly. 

The Curb almost smiled, for it seemed as if Margot were finding herselfwanting. Yet none in Chaudiere but knew that she had lived a blamelesslife--faithful, friendly, a loving and devoted mother, whose health hadbeen broken by sleepless attendance at sick-beds by night, while doingher daily work at the house of the late Louis Trudel. 

"I will answer for the way you have done your duty, Margot, " said theCure. "You have been a good daughter of the Church. "

He paused a minute, and in the pause some one rose from a chair by thewindow and looked out on the sunset sky. It was Charley. The womanheard, and turned her eyes towards him. "Do you wish him to go?" askedthe Cure. 

"No, no--oh no, M'sieu'!" she said eagerly. She had asked all day thateither Rosalie or M'sieu' should be in the room with her. It would seemas though she were afraid she had not courage enough to keep the secretof the cross without their presence. Charley had yielded to her request, while he shrank from granting it. Yet, as he said to himself, the womanwas keeping his secret--his and Rosalie's--and she had some right to makedemand. 

When the Cure asked the question of old Margot, he turned expectantly, and with a sense of relief. He thought it strange that the Cure shouldwish him to remain. The Cure, on his part, was well pleased to have himin the influence of a Christian death-bed. A time must come when thelast confidences of the dying woman could be given to no ears but hisown, but meanwhile it was good that M'sieu' should be there. 

"M'sieu' le Cure, " said the dying woman, "must I tell all?"

"All what, Margot?"

"All that is sin?"

"There is no must, Margot. "

"If you should ask me, M'sieu'--"

She paused, and the man at the window turned and looked curiously at her. He saw the problem in the woman's mind: had she the right to die with thesecret of another's crime upon her mind?

"The priest does not ask, Margot: it is you who confess your sins. Thatis between you and God. "

The Cure spoke firmly, for he wanted the man at the window to clearlyunderstand. 

"But if there are the sins of others, and you know, and they trouble yoursoul, M'sieu'?"

"You have nothing to do with the sins of others; it is enough to repentof your own sins. The priest has nothing to do with any sins but thoseconfessed by the sinner to himself. Your own sins are your sole concernto-night, Margot. "

The woman's face seemed to clear a little, and her eyes wandered to theman at the window with less anxiety. Charley was wondering whether, after all, she would have the courage to keep her word, whether spiritualterror would surmount the moral attitude of honour. He was alsowondering how much right he had to put the strain upon the woman in herdesperate hour. "How long did the doctor say I could live?" the womanasked presently. 

"Till morning, perhaps, Margot. "

"I should like to live till sunrise, " she answered, "till afterbreakfast. Rosalie makes good tea, " she added musingly. 

The Cure almost smiled. "There is the Living Bread, my daughter. "

She nodded. "But I should like to see the sunrise and have Rosalie bringme tea, " she persisted. 

"Very well, Margot. We will ask God for that. "

Her mind flew back again to the old question. 

"Is it wrong to keep a secret?" she asked, her face turned away from theman at the window. 

"If it is the secret of a sin, and the sin is your own--yes, Margot. "

"And if the sin is not your own?"

"If you share the sin, and if the secret means injury to others, and awrong is being done, and the law can right that wrong, then you must goto the law, not to your priest. "

The Cure's look was grave, even anxious, for he saw that the old woman'smind was greatly disturbed. But her face cleared now, and stayed so. "It has all been a mix and a muddle, " she answered; "and it hurt my poorhead, M'sieu' le Cure, but now I think I under stand. I am not afraid;I will confess. "

The Cure had made it clear to her that she could carry to her grave thesecret of the little cross and the work it had done, and so keep her wordand still not injure her chances of salvation. She was content. She nolonger needed the helpful presence of M'sieu' or Rosalie. Charleyinstinctively felt what was in her mind, and came towards the bed. 

"I will tell Mademoiselle Rosalie about the tea, " he said to her. 

She looked up at him, almost smiling. "Thank you, good M'sieu', " shesaid. 

"I will confess now, M'sieu' le Cure" she continued. Charley left theroom. 

Towards morning Margot waked out of a brief sleep, and found the Cure andhis sister and others about her bed. 

"Is it near sunrise?" she whispered. 

"It is just sunrise. See; God has been good, " answered the Cure, drawingopen the blind and letting in the first golden rays. 

Rosalie entered the room with a cup of tea, and came towards the bed. 

Old Margot looked at the girl, at the tea, and then at the Cure. 

"Drink the tea for me, Rosalie, " she whispered. Rosalie did as she wasasked. 

She looked round feebly; her eyes were growing filmy. "I never gave--somuch--trouble--before, " she managed to say. "I never had--so much--attention. .. . I can keep--a secret too, " she said, setting her lipsfeebly with pride. "But I--never--had--so much--attention--before; haveI--Rosalie?"

Rosalie did not need to answer, for the woman was gone. The crowninginterest of her life had come all at the last moment, as it were, and shehad gone away almost gladly and with a kind of pride. 

Rosalie also had a hidden pride: the secret was now her very own--hersand M'sieu's. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME

It was St. Jean Baptiste's day, and French Canada was en fete. Everyseigneur, every cure, every doctor, every notary--the chief figures in aparish--and every habitant was bent for a happy holiday, dressed in hisbest clothes, moved in his best spirits, in the sweet summer weather. 

Bells were ringing, flags were flying, every road and lane was filledwith caleches and wagons, and every dog that could draw a cart pulled bigand little people, the old and the blind and the mendicant, the happy andthe sour, to the village, where there were to be sports and speeches, races upon the river, and a review of the militia, arranged by the memberof the Legislature for the Chaudiere-half of the county. French soldiersin English red coats and carrying British flags were straggling along theroads to join the battalion at the volunteers' camp three miles from thetown, and singing:

 "Brigadier, respondez Pandore-- Brigadier, vous avez raison. "

It was not less incongruous and curious when one group presently brokeout into 'God save the Queen', and another into the 'Marseillaise', andanother still into 'Malbrouck s'en va t'en guerre'. At last songs andsoldiers were absorbed in the battalion at the rendezvous, and 1the longdusty march to the village gave a disciplined note to the gaiety of themilitant habitant. 

At high noon Chaudiere was filled to overflowing. There were booths andtents everywhere--all sorts of cheap-jacks vaunted their wares, merry-go-rounds and swings and shooting-galleries filled the usual spaces in theperspective. The Cure, M. Rossignol the Seigneur, and the Notary stoodon the church steps viewing the scene and awaiting the approach of thesoldier-citizens. The Seigneur and the Cure had ceased listening to thebabble of M. Dauphin, who seemed not to know that his audience closed itsears and found refuge in a "Well, well!" or "Think of that!" or anabstracted "You surprise me!"

The Notary talked on with eager gesture and wreathing smile, shaking backhis oiled ringlets as though they trespassed on his smooth, somewhatjaundiced cheeks, until it began to dawn upon him that there was no coinof real applause to be got at this mint. Fortune favoured him at thecritical juncture, for the tailor walked slowly past them, lookingneither to right nor to left, his eyes cast upon the ground, apparentlyoblivious to all round him. Almost opposite the church door, however, Charley was suddenly stopped by Filion Lacasse, who ran out from a groupbefore the tavern, and, standing in front of him with outstretched hand, said loudly:

"M'sieu', it's all right. What you said done it, sure! I'm a thousanddollars richer to-day. You may be an infidel, but you have a head, andyou save me money, and you give away your own, and that's good enough forme, "--he wrung Charley's hand, --"and I don't care who knows it--sacre!"

Charley did not answer him, but calmly withdrew his hand, smiled, raisedhis hat at the lonely cheer the saddler raised, and passed on, scarceconscious of what had happened. Indeed he was indifferent to it, for hehad a matter on his mind this day which bitterly absorbed him. 

But the Notary was not indifferent. "Look there, what do you think ofthat?" he asked querulously. "I am glad to see that Lacasse treatsMonsieur well, " said the Cure. 

"What do you think of that, Monsieur?" repeated the Notary excitedly tothe Seigneur. 

The Seigneur put his large gold-handled glass to his eye and lookedinterestedly after Charley for a moment, then answered: "Well, Dauphin, what?"

"He's been giving Filion Lacasse advice about the old legacy business, and Filion's taken it; and he's got a thousand dollars; and now there'sall that fuss. And four months ago Filion wanted to tar and feather himfor being just what he is to-day--an infidel--an infidel!"

He was going to say something else, but he did not like the look the Cureturned on him, and he broke off short. 

"Do you regret that he gave Lacasse good advice?" asked the Cure. 

"It's taking bread out of other men's mouths. "

"It put bread into Filion's mouth. Did you ever give Lacasse advice?The truth now, Dauphin!" said the Seigneur drily. 

"Yes, Monsieur, and sound advice too, within the law-precedent and codeand every legal fact behind. " The Seigneur was a man of laconic speech. "Tut, tut, Dauphin; precedent and code and legal fact are only good whenthere's brain behind 'em. The tailor yonder has brains. "

"Ah, but what does he know about the law?" answered Dauphin, withacrimonious voice but insinuating manner, for he loved to stand well withthe Seigneur. 

"Enough for the saddler evidently, " sharply rejoined the Seigneur. 

Dauphin was fighting for his life, as it were. His back was to the wall. If this man was to be allowed to advise the habitants of Chaudiere ontheir disputes and "going to law, " where would his own prestige be?His vanity had been deeply wounded. 

"It's guesswork with him. Let him stick to his trade as I stick to mine. That sort of thing only does harm. "

"He puts a thousand dollars into the saddler's pocket: that's a positivegood. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket:that's a negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you hadalready cost Lacasse--how much had you cost him, Dauphin?" continued theSeigneur, with a half-malicious smile. "I've been out of Chaudiere fornear a year; I don't know the record--how much, eh, Dauphin?"

The Notary was too offended to answer. He shook his ringlets backangrily, and a scarlet spot showed on each straw-coloured cheek. 

"Twenty dollars is what Lacasse paid our dear Dauphin, " said the Curebenignly, "and a very proper charge. Lacasse probably gave Monsieurthere quite as much, and Monsieur will give it to the first poor man hemeets, or send it to the first sick person of whom he hears. "

"My own opinion is, he's playing some game here, " said the Notary. 

"We all play games, " said the Seigneur. "His seems to give him hard workand little luxury. Will you bring him to see me at the Manor, my dearCure?" he added. "He will not go. I have asked him. "

"Then I shall visit him at his tailor-shop, " said the Seigneur. "I needa new suit. "

"But you always had your clothes made in Quebec, Monsieur, " said theNotary, still carping. 

"We never had such a tailor, " answered the Seigneur. 

"We'll hear more of him before we're done with him, " obstinately urgedthe Notary. 

"It would give Dauphin the greatest pleasure if our tailor proved to be amurderer or a robber. I suppose you believe that he stole our littlecross here, " the Cure added, turning to the church door, where his eyelingered lovingly on the relic, hanging on a pillar just inside, whitherhe had had it removed. 

"I'm not sure yet he hadn't something to do with it, " was the stubbornresponse. 

"If he did, may it bring him peace at last!" said the Cure piously. "I have set my heart on nailing him to our blessed faith as that crossis fixed to the pillar yonder--'I will fasten him like a nail in a sureplace, ' says the Book. I take it hard that my friend Dauphin will nothelp me on the way. Suppose the man were evil, then the Church shouldtry to snatch him like a brand from the burning. But suppose that in hispast there was no wrong necessary to be hidden in the present--and thisI believe with all my heart; suppose that he was wronged, not wronging:then how much more should the Church strive to win him to the light!Why, man, have you no pride in Holy Church? I am ashamed of you, Dauphin, with your great intelligence, your wide reading. With ourknowledge of the world we should be broader. "

The Seigneur's eyes were turned away, for there was in them at oncehumour and a suspicious moisture. Of all men in the world he mostadmired the Cure, for his utter truth and nobility; but he could nothelp smiling at his enthusiasm--his dear Cure turned evangelist like any"Methody"!--and at the appeal of the Notary on the ground of knowledgeof the world. He was wise enough to count himself an old fogy, aprovincial, and "a simon-pure habitant, " but of the three he only had anyknowledge of life. As men of the world the Cure and the Notary were sadfailures, though they stood for much in Chaudiere. Yet this detractednothing from the fine gentlemanliness of the Cure or the melodramaticcourtesy of the Notary. 

Amused and touched as the Seigneur had been at the Cure's words, heturned now and said: "Always on the weaker side, Cure; always hoping thebest from the worst of us. "

"I am only following an example at my door--you taught us all charity andjustice, " answered M. Loisel, looking meaningly at the Seigneur. Therewas silence a little while, for all three were thinking of the woman ofthe hut, at the gate of the Seigneur's manor. 

On this topic M. Dauphin was not voluble. His original kindness to thewoman had given him many troubled hours at home, for Madame Dauphin hadconstrued his human sympathy into the dark and carnal desires of theheart, and his truthful eloquence had made his case the worse. Amiserable sentimentalist, the Notary was likely to be misunderstood forever, and one or two indiscretions of his extreme youth had been a weaponagainst him through the long years of a blameless married life. 

He heaved a sigh of sympathy with the Cure now. "She has not come backyet?" he said to the Seigneur. "No sign of her. She locked up andstepped out, so my housekeeper says, about the time--"

"The day of old Margot's funeral, " interposed the Notary. "She'd had aletter that day, a letter she'd been waiting for, and abroad she went--alas! the flyaway--from bad to worse, I fear--ah me!"

The Seigneur turned sharply on him. "Who told you she had a letter thatday, for which she had been waiting?" he said. 

"Monsieur Evanturel. "

The Seigneur's face became sterner still. "What business had he to knowthat she received a letter that day?"

"He is postmaster, " innocently replied the Notary. "He is the devil!"said the Seigneur tartly. "I beg your pardon, Cure; but it isEvanturel's business not to know what letters go to and fro in thatoffice. He should be blind and dumb, so far as we all are concerned. "

"Remember that Evanturel is a cripple, " the Cure answered gently. "I amglad, very glad it was not Rosalie. "

"Rosalie has more than usual sense for her sex, " gruffly but kindlyanswered the Seigneur, a look of friendliness in his eyes. "I shall talkto her about her father; I can't trust myself to speak to the man. "

"Rosalie is down there with Madame Dauphin, " said the Notary, pointing. "Shall I ask her to come?"

The Seigneur nodded. He was magistrate and magnate, and he was theguarantor of the post-office, and of Rosalie and her father. His eyesfixed in reverie on Rosalie; he and the Cure passively waited herapproach. 

She came over, pale and a little anxious, but with a courageous look. She had a vague sense of trouble, and she feared it might be the littlecross, that haunting thing of all these months. 

When she came near, the Cure greeted her courteously, and then, takingthe Notary by the arm, led him away. 

The Seigneur and Rosalie being left alone, the girl said: "You wish tospeak with me, Monsieur?"

The Seigneur scrutinised her sharply. Though her colour came and went, her look was frank and fearless. She had had many dark hours since thatfateful month of April. At night, trying to sleep, she had heard theghostly footsteps in the church, which had sent her flying homeward. Then, there was the hood. She had waited on and on, fearing word wouldcome that it had been found in the churchyard, and that she had been seenputting the cross back upon the church door. As day after day passed shehad come at length to realise that, whatever had happened to the hood, she was not suspected. Yet the whole train of circumstances had asupernatural air, for the Cure and Jo Portugais had not made public theirexperience on the eventful night; she had been educated in a land oflegend and superstition, and a deep impression had been made upon hermind, giving to her other new emotions a touch of pathos, of imagination, and adding character to her face. The old Seigneur stroked his chin ashe looked at her. He realised that a change had come upon her, that shehad developed in some surprising way. 

"What has happened--who has happened, Mademoiselle Rosalie?" he asked. He had suddenly made up his mind about that look in her face--he thoughtit the woman in her which answers to the call of man, not perhaps anyparticular man, but man the attractive influence, the complement. 

Her eyes dropped, then raised frankly to his. "I don't know, "--adding, with a quick humour, for he had been very friendly with her, and jokedwith her in his dry way all her life; "do you, Monsieur?"

He pulled his nose with a quick gesture habitual to him, and answeredslowly and meaningly: "The government's a good husband and pays regularwages, Mademoiselle. I'd stick to government. "

"I am not asking for a divorce, Monsieur. "

He pulled his nose again delightedly--so many people were patheticallyin earnest in Chaudiere--even the Cure's humour was too mediaeval andobvious. He had never before thought Rosalie so separate from them all. All at once he had a new interest in her. His cheek flushed a little, his eye kindled, humour relaxed his lips. 

"No other husband would intrude so little, " he rejoined. 

"True, there's little love lost between us, Monsieur. " She feltexhilaration in talking with him, a kind of joy in measuring word againstword; yet a year ago she would have done no more than smile respectfullyand give a demure reply if the Seigneur had spoken to her like this. 

The Seigneur noted the mixed emotions in her face and the delicatealertness of expression. As a man of the world, he was inclined tobelieve that only one kind of experience can bring such looks to awoman's face. He saw in her the awakening of the deeper interests oflife, the tremulous apprehension of nascent emotions and passions which, at some time or other, give beauty and importance to the nature of everyhuman being. It did not occur to him that the tailor--the mysteriousfigure in the parish--might be responsible. He was observant, but notimaginative; he was moved by what he saw, in a quiet, unexplainablemanner. 

"The government is the best sort of husband. From the other sort youwould get more kisses and less ha'pence, " he continued. 

"That might be a satisfactory balance-sheet, Monsieur. "

"Take care, Mademoiselle Rosalie, " he rejoined, half seriously, "that youdon't miss the ha'pence before you get the kisses. "

She turned pale in very fear. What was he going to say? Was the post-office to be taken from them? She came straight to the point. 

"What have I done wrong, Monsieur? I've never kept the mail-stagewaiting; I've never left the mailbag unlocked; I've never been late inopening the wicket; I've never been careless, and no one's evercomplained of a lost letter. "

The Seigneur saw her agitation, and was sorry for her. He came to thepoint as she had done:

"We will have you made postmistress--you alone, Rosalie Evanturel. I'vemade up my mind to that. But you'll promise not to get married--eh?Anyhow, there's no one in the parish for you to marry. You're too well-born and you've been too well educated for a habitant's wife--and theCure or I can't marry you. "

He was not taken back to see her flush deeply, and it pleased him to seethis much life rising to his own touch, this much revelation to give hismind a new interest. He had come to that age when the mind is surprisedto find that the things that once charmed charm less, and the things oncehated are less acutely repulsive. He saw her embarrassment. He did notknow that this was the first time that she had ever thought of marriagesince it ceased to be a dream of girlhood, and, by reason of thinkingmuch on a man, had become a possibility, which, however, she had neverconfessed to herself. Here she was faced by it now in the broad openday: a plain, hard statement, unrelieved by aught save the humour of theshrewd eyes bent upon her. 

She did not answer him at once. "Do you promise not to marry so uselessa thing as man, and to remain true to the government?" he continued. 

"If I wished to marry a man, I should not let the government stand in myway, " she said, in brave confusion. 

"But do you wish to marry any man?" he asked abruptly, even petulantly. 

"I have not asked myself that question, Monsieur, and--should you ask it, unless--" she said, and paused with as pretty and whimsical a glance ofmerriment as could well be. 

He burst out laughing at the swift turn she had given her reply, and atthe double suggestion. Then he suddenly changed. A curious expressionfilled his eyes. A smile, almost beautiful, came to his lips. 

"'Pon my honour, " he said, in a low tone, "you have me caught! And I begto say--I beg to say, " he added, with a flush mounting in his own face, asudden inspiration in his look, "that if you do not think me too old andcrabbed and ugly, and can endure me, I shall be profoundly happy if youwill marry me, Rosalie. "

He stood upright, holding himself very hard, for this idea had shot intohis mind all in an instant, though, unknown to himself, it had beengrowing for years, cherished by many a kind act to her father and by asimple gratitude on her part. He had spoken without feeling theabsurdity of the proposal. He had never married, and he was unpreparedto make any statement on such a theme; but now, having made it somehow, he would stand by it, in spite of any and all criticism. He had knownRosalie since her birth, her education was as good as a convent couldsecure, she was the granddaughter of a notable seigneur, and here shewas, as fine a type of health, beauty and character as man could wish--and he was only fifty! Life was getting lonelier for him every day, and, after all, why should he leave distant relations and the Church hisworldly goods? All this flashed through his mind as he waited for heranswer. Now it seemed to him that he had meant to say this thing formany years. He had seen an awakening in her--he had suddenly beenawakened himself. 

"Monsieur, Monsieur, " she said in a bewildered way, "do not amuseyourself at my expense. "

"Would it be that, then?" he said, with a smile, behind which there wasdetermination and self-will. "I want you to marry me; I do with all myheart. You shall have those ha'pence, and the kisses too, if so be youwill take them--or not, as you will, Rosalie. "

"Monsieur, " she gasped, for something caught her in the throat, and thetears started to her eyes, "ask me to forget that you have ever saidthose words. Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible, it never could bepossible! I am only the postmaster's daughter. "

"You are my wife, if you will but say the word, " he answered, "and I asproud a husband as the land holds!"

"You were always kind to me, Monsieur, " she rejoined, her lips trembling;"won't you be so still?"

"I am too old?" he asked. 

"Oh no, it is not that, " she replied. 

"You have as good manners as my mother had. You need not fear comparisonwith any lady in the land. Have I not known you all your life? I knowthe way you have come, and your birth is as good as mine. "

"Ah, it is not that, Monsieur!"

"I give you my word that I do not come to you because no one else wouldhave me, " he said with a curious simplicity. "I never asked a woman tomarry me--never! You are the first. There was talk once--but it was allfalse. I never meant to ask any one to marry me. But I have the wishnow which I never had in my youth. I thought best of myself always; now, I think--I think better of you than--"

"Oh, Monsieur, I beg of you, no more! I cannot; oh, I cannot--"

"You--but no; I will not ask you, Mademoiselle. If you have some oneelse in your heart, or want some one else there, that is your affair, notmine--undoubtedly. I would have tried to make you happy; you would havehad peace and comfort all your life; you could have trusted me--but thereit is. . . . " He felt all at once that he was unfair to her, that hehad thrust upon her too hard a problem in too troubled an hour. 

"I could trust you with my life, Monsieur Rossignol, " she replied. "AndI love you in a way that a man may be loved to no one's harm or sorrow:it is true that!" She raised her eyes to his simply, trustingly. 

He looked at her steadily for a moment. "If you change your mind--"

She shook her head sadly. 

"Good, then, " he went on, for he thought it wise not to press her now, though he had no intention of taking her no as final. "I'll keep an eyeon you. You'll need me some day soon; I can do things that the Curecan't, perhaps. " His manner changed still more. "Now to business, " hecontinued. "Your father has been talking about letters received and sentfrom the post-office. That is punishable. I am responsible for youboth, and if it is reported, if the woman were to report it--you knowthe letter I mean--there would be trouble. You do not talk. Now I amgoing to ask the government to make you sole postmistress, with fullresponsibility. Then you must govern your father--he hasn't as muchsense as you. "

"Monsieur, we owe you so much! I am deeply grateful, and, whatever youdo for us, you may rely on me to do my duty. "

They could scarcely hear each other speak now, for the soldiers werecoming nearer, and the fife-and-drum bands were screeching, 'Louis theKing was a Soldier'. 

"Then you will keep the government as your husband?" he asked, withforced humour, as he saw the Cure and the Notary approaching. 

"It is less trouble, Seigneur, " she answered, with a smile of relief. 

M. Rossignol turned to the Cure and the Notary. "I have just offeredMademoiselle a husband she might rule in place of a government that rulesher, and she has refused, " he said in the Cure's ear, with a dry laugh. 

"She's a sensible girl, is Rosalie, " said the Cure, not apprehending. 

The soldiers were now opposite the church, and riding at their head wasthe battalion Colonel, also member of the Legislature. 

They all moved down, and Rosalie disappeared in the crowd. As theSeigneur and the Cure greeted the Colonel, the latter said:

"At luncheon I'll tell you one of the bravest things ever seen. Happenedhalf-hour ago at the Red Ravine. Man who did it wore an eye-glass--saidhe was a tailor. "

CHAPTER XXV

THE COLONEL TELLS HIS STORY

The Colonel had lunched very well indeed. He had done justice to everydish set before him; he had made a little speech, congratulating himselfon having such a well-trained body of men to command, and felicitatingChaudiere from many points of view. He was in great good-humour withhimself, and when the Notary asked him--it was at the Manor, with thesoldiers resting on the grass without--about the tale of bravery he hadpromised them, he brought his fist down on the table with great intensitybut little noise, and said:

"Chaudiere may well be proud of it. I shall refer to it in theLegislature on the question of roads and bridges--there ought to be astone fence on that dangerous road by the Red Ravine--Have I yourattention?"

He stood up, for he was an excitable and voluble Colonel, and he lovedoration as a cat does milk. With a knife he drew a picture of the localeon the table cloth. "Here I was riding on my sorrel, all my noblefellows behind, the fife and drums going as at Louisburg--that day!Martial ardour united to manliness and local pride--follow me? Here wewere, Red Ravine left, stump fences and waving fields of grain right. From military point of view, bad position--ravine, stump fence, bravesoldiers in the middle, food for powder--catch it?--see?"

He emptied his glass, drew a long breath, and again began, the carving-knife cutting a rhetorical path before him. "I was engaged upon themilitary problem--demonstration in force, no scouts ahead, no rearguard, ravine on the right, stump fence on the left, red coats, fife-and-drumband, concealed enemy--follow me? Observant mind always sees problemseverywhere--unresting military genius accustoms intelligence to allpossible contingencies--'stand what I mean?"

The Seigneur took a pinch of snuff, and the Cure, whose mind wasbenevolent, listened with the gravest interest. 

"At the juncture when, in my mind's eye, I saw my gallant fellowsenfiladed with a terrible fire, caught in a trap, and I, despairing, spurring on to die at their headhave I your attention?--just at thatmoment there appeared between the ravine and the road ahead a man. Hewore an eye-glass; he seemed an unconcerned spectator of our movements--so does the untrained, unthinking eye look out upon destiny! Not faraway was a wagon, in it a man. Wagon bisecting our course from a cross-road--"

He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notarysaid: "Yes, yes, the concession road. "

"So, Messieurs. There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band;there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet theengine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man driving--catch it? The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at thatinstant strikes up 'The Chevalier Drew his Sabre'. He shies from theroad with a leap, the man falls backwards into the wagon, and the reinsdrop. The horse dashes from the road into the open, and rushes on to theravine. What good now to stop the fifes and drums-follow me? What canwe, an armed force, bandoleered, knapsacked, sworded, rifled, impetuous, brave, what can we do before this tragedy? The man in the wagonsenseless, the flying horse, the ravine, death! How futile the power ofman--'stand what I mean?"

"Why didn't your battalion shoot the horse?" said the Seigneur drily, taking a pinch of snuff. "Monsieur, " said the Colonel, "see the irony, the implacable irony of fate--we had only blank cartridge! But see you, here was this one despised man with an eye-glass, a tailor--takes ninetailors to make a man!--between the ravine and the galloping tragedy. His spirit arrayed itself like an army with banners, prepared to wrestlewith death as Jacob wrestled with his shadow all the night 'sieur leCure!"

The Cure bowed; the Notary shook back his oiled locks in excitement. 

"Awoke a whole man--nine-ninths, as in Adam--in the obscure soul of thetailor, and, rushing forward, he seized the mottled horse by the bridleas he galloped upon the chasm: The horse dragged him on--dragged him on--on--on. We, an army, so to speak, stood and watched the Tailor and theTragedy! All seemed lost, but, by the decree of fate--"

"The will of God, " said the Cure softly. 

"By the great decree, the man was able to stop the horse, not a half-dozen feet from the ravine. The horse and the insensible driver werespared death--death. So, Messieurs, does bravery come from unexpectedplaces--see?"

The Seigneur, the Cure, and even the Notary clapped their hands, andmurmured praises of the tailor-man. But the Colonel did not yet take hisseat. 

"But now, mark the sequel, " he said. "As I galloped over, I saw thetailor look into the wagon, and turn away quickly. He waited by thehorse till I came near, and then walked off without a word. I rode up, and tapped him with my sword upon the shoulder. 'A noble deed, my goodman, ' said I. 'I approve of your conduct, and I will remember it in theLegislature when I address the committee of the whole house on roads andbridges. ' What do you think was his reply to my affable words? When Itapped him approvingly on the shoulder a second time, he screwed his eye-glass in his eye, and, with no emotion, though my own eyes were full oftears, he said, in a tone of affront, 'Look after the man there, constable, ' and pointed to the wagon. Constable--mon Dieu! Grossmanners even for a tailor!"

"I had not thought his manners bad, " said the Cure, as the Colonel satdown, gulped a glass of brandy-andwater, and mopped his forehead. 

"A most remarkable tailor, " said the Seigneur, peering into his snuff-box. 

"And the driver of the mottled horse?" asked the Notary. 

"Knocked senseless. One of my captains soon restored him. He followedus into the village. He is a quack-doctor. I suppose he is now sellingtinctures, pulling teeth, and driving away rheumatics. He gave me hiscard. I told him he should leave one on the tailor. "

With a flourish he threw a professional card upon the table, before theCure. 

The Cure picked it up and read:

 JOHN BROWN, B. A. , M. D. , Healer of Ailments that Defy the Ordinary Skill of Ordinary Medical Men. Rheumatism, Sciatica, Headache, Toothache, Asthma, Ague, Pleurisy, Gout, and all Chronic Diseases Yield Instantly to the Power of his Medicines. 

 Dr. Brown will publicly treat the most stubborn cases, laying himself open to the derision of mankind if he does not instantly give relief and benefit. His whole career has been a blessing to his fellows, and his journey now through this country, fresh from his studies in the Orient, is to introduce his remedies to a suffering world, for the conquest of malady, not for personal profit. 

 JOHN BROWN, B. A. , M. D. , Specialist in Chronic Diseases and General Practitioner. 

CHAPTER XXVI

A SONG, A BOTTLE, AND A GHOST

All day John Brown, ex-clergyman and quack-doctor, harangued the peopleof Chaudiere from his gaily-painted wagon. He had the perfect gift ofthe charlatan, and he had discovered his metier. Inclined to thepicturesque by nature, melodramatic and empirical, his earlier career hadbeen the due fruit of habit and education. As a dabbler in mines he hadbeen out of his element. He lacked the necessary reticence, and arsenichad not availed him, though it had tempted Billy Wantage to forgery; andbecause Billy hid himself behind the dismal opportunity of silence, hadruined the name of a dead man called Charley Steele. Since Charley'sdeath John Brown had never seen Billy: he had left the town one wofulday an hour after Billy had told him of the discovery Charley had made. From a far corner of the country he had read the story of Charley'sdeath; of the futile trial of the river-drivers afterwards, ending inacquittal, and the subsequent discovery of the theft of the widows' andorphans' trust-moneys. 

On this St. Jean Baptiste's day he was thinking of anything andeverything else but Charley Steele. Nothing could have been a betteradvertisement for him than the perilous incident at the Red Ravine. Falling backwards when the horse suddenly bolted, his head had struck themedicine-chest, and he had lain insensible till brought back toconsciousness by the good offices of the voluble Colonel. He had not, therefore, seen Charley. It was like him that his sense of gratitudeto the unknown tailor should be presently lost in exploiting the interesthe created in the parish. His piebald horse, his white "plug" hat, hisgaily painted wagon, his flamboyant manner, and, above all, themarvellous tale of his escape from death, were more exciting to thepeople of Chaudiere than the militia, the dancing-bears, the shooting-galleries, or the boat-races. He could sing extremely well--had he nottrained his own choir when he was a parson? had not Billy approved hiscomic songs?--and these comic songs, now sandwiched between his curesand his sales, created much laughter. He cured headaches, toothaches, rheumatism, and all sorts of local ailments "with despatch. "He miraculously juggled away pains by what he called his Pain Paint, and he stopped a cough by a laugh and a dose of his Golden Pectoral. In the exuberance of trade, which steadily increased till sundown, he gave no thought to the tailor, to whom, however, he had sent by amessenger a two-dollar bill and two bottles of Pain Paint, with thelordly announcement that he would call in the evening and "present hiscompliments and his thanks. " The messenger left the Pain Paint on thedoor-step of the tailor-shop, and the two dollars he promptly spent atthe Trois Couronnes. 

Rosalie Evanturel rescued the bottles from the doorstep and awaitedCharley's return to his shop, that she might take them over to him, andso have an excuse to speak with him; for to-day her heart and mind werefull of him. He had done a brave thing for the medicine-man, and hadthen fled from public gaze as a brave man should. There was no one tocompare with him. Not even the Cure was his superior in ability, andcertainly he was a greater man--though seemingly only a tailor--than M. Rossignol. M. Rossignol--she flushed. Who could have believed that theSeigneur would say those words to her this morning--to her, RosalieEvanturel, who hadn't five hundred dollars to her name? That she shouldbe asked to be Madame Rossignol! Confusion mingled with her simplepride, and she ran out into the street, to where her father sat listeningto the medicine-man singing, in doubtful French:

 "I am a waterman bold, Oh, I'm a waterman bold: But for my lass I have great fear, Yes, in the isles I have great fear, For she is young, and I am old, And she is bien gentille!"

It was night now. The militia had departed, their Colonel roaringcommands at them out of a little red drill-book; the older people hadgone to their homes, but festive youth hovered round the booths andsideshows, the majority enjoying themselves at some expense in themedicine-man's encampment. 

As Rosalie ran towards the crowd she turned a wistful glance to thetailor-shop. Not a sign of life there! She imagined M'sieu' to be atVadrome Mountain, until, glancing round the crowd at the quack-doctor'swagon, she saw Jo Portugais gloomily watching the travelling tinker ofhuman bodies. Evidently M'sieu' was not at Vadrome Mountain. 

He was not far from her. At the side of the road, under a huge maple-tree with wide-spreading branches, Charley stood and watched John Brownperforming behind the flaring oil-lights stuck on poles round his wagon, his hat now on, now off; now singing a comic song in English---'I foundY' in de Honeysuckle Paitch;' now a French chanson--'En Revenant de St. Alban;' now treating a stiff neck or a bent back, or giving momentaryhelp to the palsy of an old man, or again making a speech. 

Charley was in touch again with the old life, but in a kind of fantasyonly--a staring, high-coloured dream. This man--John Brown--had gonedown before his old ironical questioning, had been, indirectly, the meansof disgracing his name. A step forward to that wagon, a word uttered, a look, and he would have to face again the life he had put by for ever, would have to meet a hard problem and settle it--to what misery andtragedy, who might say? Under this tree he was M. Mallard, the infideltailor, whose life was slowly entering into the life of this place calledChaudiere, slowly being acted upon by habit, which, automaticallyrepeated, at length becomes character. Out in that red light, beforethat garish wagon, he would be Charley Steele, barrister, 'flaneur', andfop, who, according to the world, had misused a wife, misled her brother, robbed widows and orphans, squandered a fortune, become drunkard andwastrel, and at last had lost his life in a disorderly tavern at the CoteDorion. This man before him had contributed to his disgrace; but once hehad contributed to John Brown's disgrace; and to-day he had saved JohnBrown's life. They were even. 

All the night before, all this morning, he had fought a fierce battlewith his past--with a raging thirst. The old appetite had swept over himfiercely. All day he had moved in a fevered conflict, which had liftedhim away from the small movements of everyday life into a region whereonly were himself and one strong foe, who tirelessly strove with him. In his old life he had never had a struggle of any sort. His emotionshad been cloaked, his soul masked, there had been a film before his eyes, he had worn an armour of selfishness on a life which had no deepproblems, because it had no deep feelings--a life never rising to theintellectual prowess for which it was fitted, save when under thestimulus of liquor. 

From the moment he had waked from a long seven months' sleep in the huton Vadrome Mountain, new deep feelings had come to him as he facedproblems of life. Fighting had begun from that hour--a fighting whichwas putting his nature through bitter mortal exercises, yet, too, givinghim a sense of being he had never known. He had now the sweetness ofearning daily bread by the work of his hands; of giving to the poor, theneedy, and the afflicted; of knowing for the first time in his life thathe was not alone in the world. Out of the grey dawn of life a woman'svoice had called to him; the look of her face had said to him: "Viensici! Viens ici!"--"Come to me! Come to me!"

But with that call there was the answer of his soul, the desolating cryof the dispossessed Lear-" Never--never--never--never--never!"

He had not questioned himself concerning Rosalie--had dared not to do so. But now, as he stood under the great tree, within hand-touch of the oldlife, in imminent danger of being thrust back into it, the question ofRosalie came upon him with all the force of months of feeling behind it. Thus did he argue with himself:

"Do I love her? And if I love her, what is to be done? Marry her, witha wife living? Marry her while charged with a wretched crime? Wouldthat be love? But suppose I never were discovered, and we might livehere for ever, I as 'Monsieur Mallard, ' in peace and quiet all the daysof our life? Would that be love? . . . Could there be love with avital secret, like, a cloud between, out of which, at any hour, mightspring discovery? Could I build our life upon a silence which must be alie? Would I not have to face the question, Does any one know cause orjust impediment why this woman should not be married to this man? TellRosalie all, and let the law separate myself and Kathleen? That wouldmean Billy's ruin and imprisonment, and Kathleen's shame, and it mightnot bring Rosalir. She is a Catholic, and her Church would not listen toit. Would I have the right to bring trouble into her life? To wrong onewoman should seem enough for one lifetime!"

At that instant Rosalie, who had been on the outskirts of the crowd, moved into his line of vision. The glare from the lights fell on herface as she stood by her father's chair, looking curiously at the quack-doctor who, having sold many bottles of his medicines, noy picked up aguitar and began singing an old dialect chanson of Saintonge:

 "Voici, the day has come When Rosette leaves her home! With fear she walks in the sun, For Raoul is ninety year, And she not twenty-one. La petit' Rosette, She is not twenty-one. 

 "He takes her by the hand, And to the church they go; By parents 'twas well meant, But is Rosette content? 'Tis gold and ninety year She walks in the sun with fear, La petit' Rosette, Not twenty-one as yet!"

Charley's eyes, which had watched her these months past, noted thedeepening colour of the face, the glow in the eyes, the glances of keenbut agitated interest towards the singer. He could not translate herlooks; and she, on her part, had she been compelled to do so, could onlyhave set down a confusion of sensations. 

In Rosette she saw herself, Rosalie Evanturel; in the man "de quatre-vingt-dix ans, " who was to marry this Rosette of Saintonge, she saw M. Rossignol. Disconcerting pictures of a possible life with the Seigneurflitted before her mind. She beheld herself, young, fresh-cheeked, withlife beating high and all the impulses of youth panting to use, sittingat the head of the seigneury table. She saw herself in the great pew atMass, stiff with dignity, old in the way of manorial pride--all laughterdead in her, all spring-time joy overshadowed by the grave decorum of theManor, all the imagination of her dreaming spirit chilled by the presenceof age, however kindly and quaint and cheerful. 

She shuddered, and dropped her eyes upon the ground, as, to the laughterand giggling of old and young gathered round the wagon, the medicine-mansang:

 "He takes her by the hand, And to her chamber fair--"

Then, suddenly turning, she vanished into the night, followed by thefeeble inquiry of her father's eyes, the anxious look in Charley's. 

Charley could not read her tale. He had, however, a hot impulse tofollow and ask her if she would vanish from the scene if the medicine-manshould sing of Rosette and a man of thirty, not ninety, years. The fighthe had had all day with his craving for drink had made him feverish, andall his emotions--unregulated, under the command of his will only--werein high temperature. A reckless feeling seized him. He would go toRosalie, look into her eyes, and tell her that he loved her, no matterwhat the penalty of fate. He had never loved a human being, and thesudden impulse to cry out in the new language was driving him to followthe girl whose spirit for ever called to him. 

He made a step forward to follow her, but stopped short, recalled tocaution and his danger by the voice of the medicine-man:

"I had a friend once--good fellow, bad fellow, cleverest chap I everknew. Tremendous fop--ladies loved him--cheeks like roses--tongue likesulphuric acid. Beautiful to look at. Clothes like a fashion-plate--gotany fashion-plates in Chaudiere? 'who's your tailor?'" he added, in theslang of the hour, with a loud laugh, then stopped suddenly and took offhis hat. "I forgot, " he added, with upturned eyes and a dramaticseriousness, "your tailor saved my life to-day-henceforth I am the friendof all tailors. Well, to continue. My friend that was--I call him myfriend, though he ruined me and ruined others, --didn't mean to, but hedid just the same, --he came to a bad end. But he was a great man whilehe lived. And what I'm coming to is this, the song he used to sing when, in youthful exuberance, we went on the war-path like our young friendover there"--he pointed to a young habitant farmer, who was trying hardto preserve equilibrium--"Brown's Golden Pectoral will cure that cough, my friend!" he added, as the young man, gloomily ashamed of the laughterof the crowd, hiccoughed and turned away to the tree under which CharleySteele stood. "Well, " he went on, "I was going to say that my friend'sname was Charley, and the song he used to sing when the roosters wakedthe morn was called 'Champagne Charlie. ' He was called 'ChampagneCharlie'--till he came to a bad end. "

He twanged his guitar, cleared his throat, winked at Maximilian Cour thebaker, and began:

 "The way I gained my title's by a hobby which I've got Of never letting others pay, however long the shot; Whoever drinks at my expense is treated all the same; Whoever calls himself my friend, I make him drink champagne. Some epicures like Burgundy, Hock, Claret, and Moselle, But Moet's vintage only satisfies this champagne swell. What matter if I go to bed and head is muddled thick, A bottle in the morning sets me right then very quick. Champagne Charlie is my name; Champagne Charlie is my name. Who's the man with the heart so young, Who's the man with the ginger tongue? Champagne Charlie is his name!"

Under the tree, Charley Steele listened to this jaunty epitaph on his oldself. At the first words of the coarse song there rushed on him thedreaded thirst. He felt his veins beating with desire, with anger, disgust, and shame; for there was John Brown, to the applause of thecrowd, imitating his old manner, his voice, his very look. He startedforward, but the drunken young habitant lurched sideways under the treeand collapsed upon the ground, a bottle of whiskey falling out of hispocket and rolling almost to his own feet. 

 "Champagne Charlie is my name, "

sang the medicine-man. All Charley's old life surged up in him as dykedwater suddenly bursts bounds and spreads destruction. He had anuncontrollable impulse. As a starving animal snatches at the first foodoffered it, he stooped, with a rattle in his throat, seized the bottle, uncorked it, put it to his lips, and drank--drank--drank. 

Then he turned and plunged away into the trees. The sound of the songfollowed him. It came to him, the last refrain, sung loudly to thelaughter of the crowd, in imitation of his own voice as it used to be--it had been a different voice during this past year. He turned withheadlong intention, and, as the last notes of the song and the applausethat followed it, died away, threw back his head and sang out of thedarkness:

 "Champagne Charlie is my name--"

With a shrill laugh, like the half-mad cry of an outcast soul, he flungaway farther into the trees. 

There was a sudden silence. The crowd turned with half-apprehensivelaughter to the trees. Upon John Brown the effect was startling. Hisface blanched, his eyes grew large with terror, his mouth opened inhelpless agitation. Charley Steele was lying under the waters of thegreat river, his bones rotting there for a year, yet here was his voicecoming out of the night, in response to his own grotesque imitation ofthe dead man. Seeing his agitation, women turned pale, men felt theirflesh creep, imagination gave a thrilling coldness to the air. For amoment the silence was unbroken. Then John Brown stretched out his handand said, in a hoarse whisper:

"It was his voice--Charley's voice, and he's been dead a year!"

Within half-an-hour, in utter collapse and fright, he was being driven tothe next parish by two young habitants whom he paid to accompany him. 

CHAPTER XXVII

OUT ON THE OLD TRAIL

There was one person in the crowd surrounding the medicine-man's wagonwho had none of that superstitious thrill which had scattered thehabitants into little awe-stricken groups, and then by twos and threes totheir homes; none of that fear which had reduced the quack-doctor to suchnervous collapse that he would not spend the night in the village. JoPortugais had recognised the voice--that of Charley Steele the lawyer whohad saved him from hanging years ago. It was little like the voice ofM'sieu'! There was that in it which frightened him. He waited until hehad seen the quackdoctor start for the next parish, then he went slowlydown the street. There were people still about, so he walked on towardsthe river. When he returned, the street was empty. Keeping in theshadow of the trees, he went to Charley's house. There was a light in awindow. He went to the back door and tried it. It was not locked, and, without knocking, he stepped inside the kitchen. Here was no light, andhe passed into the hallway and on to a little room opening from thetailorshop. He knocked; then, not waiting for response, opened the doorand entered. 

Charley was standing before a mirror, holding a pair of scissors. Heturned abruptly, and said forbiddingly: "I am at my toilet!"

Then, turning again to the mirror, with a shrug of the shoulders, heraised the shears to his beard. Before he could use them, Jo's hand wason his arm. 

"Stop that, M'sieu'!" he said huskily. 

Charley had drunk nearly a whole bottle of cheap whiskey within an hour. He was intoxicated, but, as had ever been the case with him, his brainwas working clearly, his hand was steady; he was in that wide dream ofclear-seeing and clear-knowing which, in old days, had given him glimpsesof the real life from which, in the egotism of the non-intime, he hadbeen shut out. Looking at Jo now, he was possessed by a composedintoxication like that in which he had moved during that last night atthe Cote Dorion. 

But now, with the baleful crust of egotism gone, with every nerve oflife exposed, with conscience struggling to its feet from the torpor ofthirty-odd vacant years, he was as two men in one, with different livesand different souls, yet as inseparable in their misery as those poorvictims of Gallic tyranny, chained back to back and thrown into theSeine. 

Jo's words, insistent and eager, suddenly roused in him some old memory, which stayed his hand. 

"Why should I stop?" he asked quietly, and smiling that smile which hadinfuriated the river-drivers at the Cote Dorion. 

"Are you going back, M'sieu?"

"Back where?" Charley's eyes were fixed on Jo with a penetratingintensity, heightened to a strange abstraction, as though he saw not Joalone, but something great distances beyond. 

Jo did not answer this question directly. "Some one came to-day--he isgone; some one may come to-morrow--and stay, " he said meaningly. 

Charley went over to the fire and sat down on a bench, opening andshutting the scissors mechanically. Jo was in the light, and Charley'seyes again studied him hard. 

His memory was industriously feeling its way into the baffling distance. 

"What if some one did come-and stay?" he urged quietly. 

"You might be recognised without the beard. "

"What difference would it make?" Charley's memory was creeping close tothe hidden door. It was feeling-feeling for the latch. 

"You know best, M'sieu'. "

"But what do you know?" Charley's face now had a strained look, and hetouched his lips with his tongue. "What John Brown knows, M'sieu'. "

There flashed across Charley's mind the fatal newspaper he had read onthe day he awakened to memory again in the but on Vadrome Mountain. Heremembered that he had put it in the fire. But Jo might have read itbefore it was spread upon the bench-put it there of purpose for him toread. Yet what reason could Jo have for being silent, for hiding hissecret?

There was silence for a space, in which Charley's eyes were like unmovingsparks of steel. He did not see Jo's face--it was in a mist--he wassearching, searching, searching. All at once he felt the latch of thehidden door under his finger; he saw a court-room, a judge and jury, andhundreds of excited faces, himself standing in the midst. He saw twelvemen file slowly into the room and take their seats-all save one, whostood still in his place and said: "Not guilty, your Honour!" He saw theprisoner leave the box and step down a free man. He saw himself comingout into the staring summer day. He watched the prisoner come to him andtouch his arm, and say: "Thank you, M'sieu'. You have saved my life. "He saw himself turn to this man:

He roused from his trance, he staggered to his feet, the shears rattledto the floor. Lurching forward, he caught Jo Portugais by the throat, and said, as he had said outside the court-room years ago:

"Get out of my sight. You're as guilty as hell!"

His grip tightened--tightened on Jo's throat. Jo did not move, thoughhis face grew black. Then, suddenly, the hands relaxed, a bluishpaleness swept over the face, and Charley fell sidewise to the floorbefore Jo could catch him. 

All night, alone, the murderer struggled with death over the body of thelawyer who had saved his life. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SEIGNEUR GIVES A WARNING

Rosalie had watched a shut door for five days--a door from which, formonths past, had come all the light and glow of her life. It framed afigure which had come to represent to her all that meant hope and souland conscience-and love. The morning after St. Jean Baptiste's day shehad awaited the opening door, but it had remained closed. Ensuedwatchful hours, and then from Jo Portugais she had learned that M'sieu'had been ill and near to death. She had been told the weird story of themedicine-man and the ghostly voice, and, without reason, she took theincident as a warning, and associated it with the man across the way. She was come of a superstitious race, and she herself had heard and seenthings of which she never had been able to speak--the footsteps in thechurch the night she had screwed the little cross to the door again; thetiny round white light by the door of the church; the hood which hadvanished into the unknown. One mystery fed another. It seemed to her asif some dreadful event were forward; and all day she kept her eyes fixedon the tailor's door. 

Dead--if M'sieu' should die! If M'sieu' should die--it needed all herwill to prevent herself from going over and taking things in her ownhands, being his nurse, his handmaid, his slave. Duty--to thegovernment, to her father? Her heart cried out that her duty lay whereall her life was eddying to one centre. What would the world say? Shewas not concerned for that, save for him. What, then, would M'sieu' say?That gave her pause. The Seigneur's words the day before had driven herback upon a tide of emotions which carried her far out upon that seawhere reason and life's conventions are derelicts, where Love sails withreckless courage down the shoreless main. 

"If I could only be near him!" she kept saying to herself. "It is myright. I would give my life, my soul for his. I was with him beforewhen his life was in danger. It was my hand that saved him. It was mylove that tended him. It was my soul that kept his secret. It was myfaith that spoke for him. It was my heart that ached for him. It is myheart that aches for him now as none other in all the world can. No oneon earth could care as I care. Who could there be?" Something whisperedin her ear, "Kathleen!" The name haunted her, as the little cross haddone. Misery and anger possessed her, and she fought on with herselfthrough dark hours. 

Thus five days had gone, until at last a wagon was brought to the door ofthe tailor-shop, and M'sieu' came out, leaning on the arm of JoPortugais. There were several people in the street at the time, and theykept whispering that M'sieu' had been at death's door. He was pale andhaggard, with dark hollows under the eyes. Just as he got into the wagonthe Cure came up. They shook hands. The Cure looked him earnestly inthe face, his lips moved, but no one could have told what he said. Asthe wagon started, Charley looked across to the post-office. Rosalie wasstanding a little back from the door, but she stepped forward now. Theireyes met. Her heart beat faster, for there was a look in his eyes shehad never seen before--a look of human helplessness, of deep anxiety. Itwas meant for her--for herself alone. She could not trust herself to goand speak to him. She felt that she must burst into tears. So, with alook of pity and pain, she watched the wagon go down the street. 

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!--the Seigneur's gold-headed cane rattled on thefront door of the tailor-shop. It was plain to be seen his business wasurgent. 

Madame Dauphin came hurrying from the postoffice, followed by MaximilianCour and Filion Lacasse. "Ah, M'sieu', the tailor will not answer. There's no use knocking--not a bit, M'sieu' Rossignol, " said Madame. 

The Seigneur turned querulously upon the Notary's wife, yet with a glintof hard humour in his eye. He had no love for Madame Dauphin. Hethought she took unfair advantages of M. Dauphin, whom also he did notlove, but whose temperament did him credit. 

"How should Madame know whether or no the gentleman will answer? DoesMadame share the gentleman's confidence, perhaps?" he remarked. 

Madame did not reply at once. She turned on the saddler and the baker. "I hope you'll learn a lesson, " she cried triumphantly. "I've alwayssaid the tailor was quite the gentleman; and now you see how your betterscall him. No, M'sieu', the gentleman will not answer, " she added to theSeigneur. 

"He is in bed yet, Madame?"

"His bed is empty there, M'sieu', " she said, impressively, and pointing. 

"I suppose I should trust you in this matter; I suppose you should know. But, Dauphin--what does Dauphin say?"

The saddler laughed outright. Maximilian Cour suddenly blushed insympathy with Madame Dauphin, who now saw the drift of the Seigneur'sremarks, and was sensibly agitated, as the Seigneur had meant her to be. Had she not turned Dauphin's human sympathies into a crime? Had not theNotary supported the Seigneur in his friendly offices to Paulette Dubois;and had not Madame troubled her husband's life because of it? Madamebridled up now--with discretion, for it was not her cue to offend theSeigneur. 

"All the village knows his bed's empty there, M'sieu', " she said, withtightening lips. 

"I am subtracted from the total, then?" he asked drily. 

"You have been away for the last five days--"

"Come, now, how did you know that?"

"Everybody knows it. You went away with the Colonel and the soldiers onSt. Jean Baptiste's day. Since then M'sieu' the tailor has been ill. Ishould think Mrs. Flynn would have told you that, M'sieu'. "

"H'm! Would you? Well, Mrs. Flynn has been away too--and you didn'tknow that! What is the matter with Monsieur Mallard?"

"Some kind of fever. On St. Jean Baptiste's day he was taken ill, andthat animal Portugais took care of him all night--I wonder how M'sieu'can have the creature about! That St. Jean Baptiste's night was an awfulnight. Have you heard of what happened, M'sieu'? Ghost or no ghost--"

"Come, come, I want to know about the tailor, not of ghosts, " impatientlyinterrupted the Seigneur. "Tiens! M'sieu', the tailor was ill for threedays here, and he would let no one except the Cure and Jo Portugais nearhim. I went myself to clean up and make some broth, but that toad of aPortugais shut the door in my face. The Cure told us to go home andleave M'sieu' with Portugais. He must be very sick to have that blacksheep about him--and no doctor either. "

The saddler spoke up now. "I took him a bottle of good brandy and somebuttermilk-pop and seed cake--I would give him a saddle if he had ahorse--he got my thousand dollars for me! Well, he took them, but whatdo you think? He sent them right off to the shantyman, Gugon, who has abroken leg. Infidel or no, I'm on his side for sure. And God blesses acheerful giver, I'm told. "

It was the baker's chance, and he took it. "I played 'The Heart BowedDown'-it is English-under his window, two nights ago, and he sent wordfor me to come and play it again in the kitchen. Ah, that is a goodsong, 'The Heart Bowed Down. '"

"You'd be a better baker if you fiddled less, " said Madame Dauphin, annoyed at being dropped out of the conversation. 

"The soul must be fed, Madame, " rejoined the baker, with asperity. 

"Where is the tailor now?" said the Seigneur shortly. "At Portugais'son Vadrome Mountain. They say he looked like a ghost when he went. Rosalie Evanturel saw him, but she has no tongue in her head thismorning, " added Madame. 

The Seigneur moved away. "Good-bye to you--I am obliged to you, Madame. Good-bye, Lacasse. Come and fiddle to me some night, Cour. "

He bowed to the obsequious three, and then bent his steps towards thepost-office. They seemed about to follow him, but he stopped them with alook. The men raised their bonnets-rouges, the woman bowed low, and theSeigneur entered the post-office door. 

From the shadows of the office Rosalie had watched the little groupbefore the door of the tailor-shop. She saw the Seigneur coming acrossthe street. Suddenly she flushed deeply, for there came to her mind thesong the quack-doctor sang:

 "Voila, the day has come When Rosette leaves her home! With fear she walks in the sun, For Raoul is ninety year, And she not twenty-one. "

As M. Rossignol's figure darkened the doorway, she pretended to be busybehind the wicket, and not to see him. He was not sure, but he thoughtit quite possible that she had seen him coming, and he put herembarrassment down to shyness. Naturally the poor child was not giventhe chance every day to receive an offer of marriage from a seigneur. He had made up his mind that she would be sure to accept him if he askedher a second time. 

"Ah, Ma'm'selle Rosalie, " he said gaily, "what have you to say that youshould not come before a magistrate at once?"

"Nothing, if Monsieur Rossignol is to be the magistrate, " she replied, with forced lightness. 

"Good!" He looked at her quizzically through his gold-handled glass. "I can't frighten you, I see. Well, you must wait a little; you shall besworn in postmistress in three days. " His voice lowered, became moreserious. "Tell me, " he said, "do you know what is the matter with thegentleman across the way?" Turning, he looked across to the tailor-shop, as though he expected "the gentleman" to appear, and he did not see herturn pale. When his look fell on her again, she was self-controlled. 

"I do not know, Monsieur. "

"You have been opposite him here these months past--did you ever seeanything not--not as it should be?"

"With him, Monsieur? Never. "

"It is as though the infidel behaved like a good Catholic and aChristian?"

"There are good Catholics in Chaudiere who do not behave likeChristians. "

"What would you say, for instance, about his past?"

"What should I say about his past, Monsieur? What should I know?"

"You should know more than any one else in Chaudiere. The secrets of hisbreast might well be bared to you. "

She started and crimsoned. Before her eyes there came a mist obscuringthe Seigneur, and for an instant shutting out the world. The secrets ofhis breast--what did he mean? Did he know that on Monsieur's breast wasthe red scar which . . . 

M. Rossignol's voice seemed coming from an infinite distance, and as itcame, the mist slowly passed from her eyes. 

"You will know, Mademoiselle Rosalie, " he was saying, "that while Isuggested that the secrets of his breast might well be bared to you, Imeant that as an honest lady and faithful postmistress they were not. Itwas my awkward joke--a stupid gambolling by an old man who ought to knowbetter. "

She did not answer, and he continued:

"You know that you are trusted. Pray accept my apologies. "

She was herself again. "Monsieur, " she said quietly; "I know nothing ofhis past. I want to know nothing. It does not seem to me that it is mybusiness. The world is free for a man to come and go in, if he keeps thelaw and does no ill--is it not? But, in any case, I know nothing. Sinceyou have said so much, I shall say this, and betray no 'secrets of hisbreast'--that he has received no letter through this office since the dayhe first came from Vadrome Mountain. "

The Seigneur smiled. "A wonderful tailor! How does he carry on businesswithout writing letters?"

"There was a large stock of everything left by Louis Trudel, and not longago a commercial traveller was here with everything. "

"You think he has nothing to hide, then?"

"Have not we all something to hide--with or without shame?" she askedsimply. 

"You have more sense than any woman in Chaudiere, Mademoiselle. "

She shook her head, yet she raised her eyes gratefully to him. 

"I put faith in what you say, " he continued. "Now listen. My brother, the Abbe, chaplain to the Archbishop, is coming here. He has heard of'the infidel' of our parish. He is narrow and intolerant--the Abbe. Heis going to stir up trouble against the tailor. We are a peaceful peoplehere, and like to be left alone. We are going on very well as we are. So I wanted to talk to Monsieur to-day. I must make up my own mind howto act. The tailor-shop is the property of the Church. An infideloccupies it, so it is said; the Abbe does not like that. I believe thereare other curious suspicions about Monsieur: that he is a robber, orincendiary, or something of the sort. The Abbe may take a stand, and theCure's position will be difficult. What is more, my brother has friendshere, fanatics like himself. He has been writing to them. They are mencapable of doing unpleasant things--the Abbe certainly is. It is fair towarn the tailor. Shall I leave it to you? Do not frighten him. Butthere is no doubt he should be warned--fair play, fair play! I hearnothing but good of him from those whose opinions I value. But, you see, every man's history in this parish and in every parish of the province isknown. This man, for us, has no history. The Cure even admits there aresome grounds for calling him an infidel, but, as you know, he would keepthe man here, not drive him out from among us. I have not told the Cureabout the Abbe yet. I wished first to talk with you. The Abbe may comeat any moment. I have been away, and only find his letters to-day. "

"You wish me to tell Monsieur?" interrupted Rosalie, unable to holdsilence any longer. More than once during the Seigneur's disclosure shehad felt that she must cry out and fiercely repel the base insinuationsagainst the man she loved. 

"You would do it with discretion. You are friendly with him, are younot?--you talk with him now and then?"

She inclined her head. "Very well, Monsieur. I will go to VadromeMountain to-morrow, " she said quietly. Anger, apprehension, indignation, possessed her, but she held herself firmly. The Seigneur was doing afriendly thing; and, in any case, she could have no quarrel with him. There was danger to the man she loved, however, and every faculty wasalive. 

"That's right. He shall have his chance to evade the Abbe if he wishes, "answered M. Rossignol. 

There was silence for a moment, in which she was scarcely conscious ofhis presence; then he leaned over the counter towards her, and spoke in alow voice. 

"What I said the other day I meant. I do not change my mind--I am tooold for that. Yet I'm young enough to know that you may change yours. "

"I cannot change, Monsieur, " she said tremblingly. 

"But you will change. I knew your mother well, I know how anxious shewas for your future. I told her once that I should keep an eye on youalways. Her father was my father's good friend. I knew you when youwere in the cradle--a little brown-haired babe. I watched you till youwent to the convent. I saw you come back to take up the duties whichyour mother laid down, alas!--"

"Monsieur--!" she said choking, and with a troubled little gesture. 

"You must let me speak, Rosalie. We got your father this post-office. It is a poor living, but it keeps a roof over your head. You have neverfailed us you have always fulfilled our hopes. But the best years ofyour life are going, and your education and your nature have not theirchance. Oh, I've not watched you all these years for nothing. I nevermeant to ask you to marry me. It came to me, though, all at once, andI know that it has been in my mind all these years--far back in my mind. I don't ask you for my own sake alone. Your father may grow very ill--who can tell what may happen!"

"I should be postmistress still, " she said sadly. 

"As a young girl you could not have the responsibility here alone. Andyou should not waste your life it is a fine, full spirit; let the lean, the poor-spirited, go singly. You should be mated. You can't marry anyof the young farmers of Chaudiere. 'Tis impossible. I can give youenough for any woman's needs--the world may be yours to see and use toyour heart's content. I can give, too"--he drew himself up proudly--"the unused emotions of a lifetime. " This struck him as a very fine andimportant thing to say. 

"Ah, Monsieur, that is not enough, " she responded. "What more can youwant?"

She looked up with a tearful smile. "I will tell you one day, Monsieur. "

"What day?"

"I have not picked it out in the calendar. "

"Fix the day, and I will wait till then. I will not open my mouth againtill then. "

"Michaelmas day, then, Monsieur, " she answered mechanically and athaphazard, but with an urged gaiety, for a great depression was on her. 

"Good. Till Michaelmas day, then!" He pulled his long nose, laughingsilently. . . . "I leave the tailor in your hands. Give every manhis chance, I say. The Abbe is a hard man, but our hearts are soft--eh, eh, very soft!" He raised his hat and turned to the door. 

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Always hoping the best from the worst of usHave not we all something to hide--with or without shame?In all secrets there is a kind of guiltPathetically in earnestThings that once charmed charm less