THE RIGHT OF WAY

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 5. 

XLI. IT WAS MICHAELMAS DAYXLII. A TRIAL AND A VERDICTXLIII. JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORYXLIV. "WHO WAS KATHLEEN?"XLV. SIX MONTHS GO BYXLVI. THE FORGOTTEN MANXLVII. ONE WAS TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFTXLVIII. "WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING--"XLIX. THE OPEN GATE

CHAPTER XLI

IT WAS MICHAELMAS DAY

Not a cloud in the sky, and, ruling all, a sweet sun, liberal inwarmth and eager in brightness as its distance from the northern worlddecreased. As Mrs. Flynn entered the door of the post-office she sangout to Maximilian Cour, with a buoyant lilt: "Oh, isn't it the fun o' theworld to be alive!"

The tailor over the way heard it, and lifted his head with a smile;Rosalie Evanturel, behind the postal wicket, heard it, and her face swamwith colour. Rosalie busied herself with the letters and papers for amoment before she answered Mrs. Flynn's greeting, for there were ringingin her ears the words she herself had said a few days before: "It is goodto live, isn't it?"

To-day it was so good to live that life seemed an endless being anda tireless happy doing--a gift of labour, an inspiring daytime, anda rejoicing sleep. Exaltation, a painful joy, and a wide embarrassingwonderment possessed her. She met Mrs. Flynn's face at the wicket withshining eyes and a timid smile. 

"Ah, there y'are, darlin'!" said Mrs. Flynn. "And how's the dear fatherto-day?"

"He seems about the same, thank you. "

"Ah, that's foine. Shure, if we could always be 'about the same, ' we'ddo. True for you, darlin', 'tis as you say. If ould Mary Flynn couldbe always "bout the same, ' the clods o' the valley would never cover herbones. But there 'tis--we're here to-day, and away tomorrow. Shure, though, I am not complainin'. Not I--not Mary Flynn. Teddy Flynn usedto say to me, says he: 'Niver born to know distress! Happy as worms in agarden av cucumbers. Seventeen years in this country, Mary, ' says he, 'an' nivir in the pinitintiary yet. ' There y'are. Ah, the birds do besingin' to-day! 'Tis good! 'Tis good, darlin'! You'll not mind MaryFlynn callin' you darlin', though y'are postmistress, an' 'll be morethan that--more than that wan day--or Mary Flynn's a fool. Aye, morethan that y'll be, darlin', and y're eyes like purty brown topazzes andy're cheeks like roses-shure, is there anny lether for Mary Flynn, darlin'?" she hastily added as she saw the Seigneur standing in thedoorway. He had evidently been listening. 

"Ye didn't hear what y're ould fool of a cook was sayin', " she added tothe Seigneur, as Rosalie shook her head and answered: "No letters, Madame--dear. " Rosalie timidly added the dear, for there was somethingso great-hearted in Mrs. Flynn that she longed to clasp her round theneck, longed as she had never done in her life to lay her head upon somemotherly breast and pour out her heart. But it was not to be now. Secrecy was her duty still. 

"Can't ye speak to y're ould fool of a cook, sir?" Mrs. Flynn saidagain, as the Seigneur made way for her to leave the shop. 

"How did you guess?" he said to her in a low voice, his sharp eyespeering into hers. 

"By the looks in y're face these past weeks, and the look in hers, " shewhispered, and went on her way rejoicing. 

"I'll wind thim both round me finger like a wisp o' straw, " she said, going up the road with a light step, despite her weight, till she wasstopped by the malicious grocer-man of the village, whose tongue had beenwagging for hours upon an unwholesome theme. 

Meanwhile, in the post-office, the Seigneur and Rosalie were face toface. 

"It is Michaelmas day, " he said. "May I speak with you, Mademoiselle?"

She looked at the clock. It was on the stroke of noon. The shop alwaysclosed from twelve till half-past twelve. 

"Will you step into the parlour, Monsieur?" she said, and coming roundthe counter, locked the shop-door. She was trembling and confused, andentered the little parlour shyly. Yet her eyes met the Seigneur'sbravely. "Your father, how is he?" he said, offering her a chair. Thesunlight streaming in the window made a sort of pathway of light betweenthem, while they were in the shade. 

"He seems no worse, and to-day he is wheeling himself about. "

"He is stronger, then--that's good. Is there any fear that he must go tothe hospital again?"

She inclined her head. "The doctor says he may have to go any moment. It may be his one chance. The Cure is very kind, and says that, withyour permission, his sister will keep the office here, if--if needed. "

The Seigneur nodded briskly. "Of course, of course. But have you notthought that we might secure another postmistress?"

Her face clouded a little; her heart beat hard. She knew what wascoming. She dreaded it, but it was better to have it over now. 

"We could not live without it, " she said helplessly. 

"What we have saved is not enough. The little my mother had must pay forthe visits to the hospital. I have kept it for that. You see, I needthe place here. "

"But you have thought, just the same. Do you not know the day?" heasked meaningly. 

She was silent. 

"I have come to ask you to marry me--this is Michaelmas day, Rosalie. "

She did not speak. He had hopes from her silence. "If anything happenedto your father, you could not live here alone--but a young girl! Yourfather may be in the hospital for a long time. You cannot afford that. If I were to offer you money, you would refuse. If you marry me, allthat I have is yours to dispose of at your will: to make others happy, to take you now and then from this narrow place, to see what's going onin the world. "

"I am happy here, " she said falteringly. 

"Chaudiere is the finest place in the world, " he replied proudly, and asa matter of fact. "But, for the sake of knowledge, you should see whatthe rest of the world is. It helps you to understand Chaudiere better. I ask you to be my wife, Rosalie. "

She shook her head sorrowfully. 

"You said before, it was not because I am old, not because I am rich, notbecause I am Seigneur, not because I am I, that you refused me. "

She smiled at him now. "That is true, " she said. 

"Then what reason can you have? None, none. 'Pon honour, I believe youare afraid of marriage because it's marriage. By my life, there's naughtto dread. A little giving here and taking there, and it's easy. Andwhen a woman is all that's good, to a man, it can be done without fear ortrembling. Even the Cure would tell you that. "

"Ah, I know, I know, " she said, in a voice half painful, half joyous. "I know that it is so. But, oh, dear Monsieur, I cannot marry you--never--never. "

He hung on bravely. "I want to make life easy and happy for you. I wantthe right to do so. When trouble comes upon you--"

"When it does I will turn to you--ah, yes, I would turn to you withoutfear, dear Monsieur, " she said, and her heart ached within her, for apremonition of sorrow came upon her and filled her eyes, and made herheart like lead within her breast. "I know how true a gentleman youare, " she added. "I could give you everything but that which is lifeto me, which is being, and soul, and the beginning and the end. "

The weight of the revealing hour of her life, its wonder, its agony, itsirrevocability, was upon her. It was giving new meanings to existence-primitive woman, child of nature as she was. All morning she had longedto go out into the woods and bury herself among the ferns and bracken, and laugh and weep for very excess of feeling, downright joy and vaguewoe possessing her at once. She looked the Seigneur in the eyes withconsuming earnestness. 

"Oh, it is not because I am young, " she said, in a low voice, "for I amold--indeed, I am very old. It is because I cannot love you, and nevercan love you in the one great way; and I will not marry without love. Myheart is fixed on that. When I marry, it will be when I love a man somuch that I cannot live without him. If he is so poor that each meal isa miracle, it will make no difference. Oh, can't you see, can't youfeel, what I mean, Monsieur--you who are so wise and learned, and knowthe world so well?"

"Wise and learned!" he said, a little roughly, for his voice was huskywith emotion. "'Pon honour, I think I am a fool! A bewildered fool, that knows no more of woman than my cook knows Sanscrit. Faith, ahundred times less! For Mary Flynn's got an eye to see, and, withouttelling, she knew I had a mind set on you. But Mary Flynn thought morethan that, for she has an idea that you've a mind set on some one, Rosalie. She thought it might be me. "

"A woman is not so easily read as a man, " she replied, half smiling, butwith her eyes turned to the street. A few people were gathering in frontof the house--she wondered why. 

"There is some one else--that is it, Rosalie. There is some one else. You shall tell me who it is. You shall--"

He stopped short, for there was a loud knocking at the shop-door, and thevoice of M. Evanturel calling: "Rosalie! Rosalie! Rosalie! Ah, comequickly--ah, my Rosalie!"

Without a look at the Seigneur, Rosalie rushed into the shop and openedthe front door. Her father was deathly pale, and was tremblingviolently. 

"Rosalie, my bird, " he cried indignantly, "they're saying you stole thecross from the church door. "

He was now wheeled inside the shop, and people gathered round, lookingat him and Rosalie, some covertly, some as friends, some in a half-frightened way, as though strange things were about to happen. 

"Shure, 'tis a lie, or me name's not Mary Flynn--the darlin'!" said theSeigneur's cook, with blazing face. "Who makes this charge?" roared anangry voice. No one had seen the Seigneur enter from the little roombeside the shop, and at the sound of the sharp voice the people fellback, for he was as free with his stick as his tongue. 

"I do, " said the grocer, to whom Paulette Dubois had told her story. 

"Ye shall be tarred and feathered before y'are a day older, " said MaryFlynn. 

Rosalie was very pale. 

The Seigneur was struck by this and by the strangeness of her look. 

"Clear the room, " he said to Filion Lacasse, who was now a constable ofthe parish. 

"Not yet!" said a voice at the doorway. "What is the trouble?" It wasthe Cure, who had already heard rumours of the scandal, and had come atonce to Rosalie. M. Evanturel tried to speak, and could not. But MaryFlynn did, with a face like a piece of scarlet bunting. Having finishedwith a flourish, she could scarce keep her hands off the cowardly grocer. 

The Cure turned to Rosalie. "It is absurd, " he said. "Forgive me, " headded to the Seigneur. "It is better that Rosalie should answer thischarge. If she gives her word of honour, I will deny communion towhoever slanders her hereafter. "

"She did it, " said the grocer stubbornly. "She can't deny it. "

"Answer, Rosalie, " said the Cure firmly. 

"Excuse me; I will answer, " said a voice at the door. The tailor ofChaudiere made his way into the shop, through the fast-gathering crowd. 

CHAPTER XLII

A TRIAL AND A VERDICT

"What right have you to answer for mademoiselle?" said the Seigneur, with a sudden rush of jealousy. Was not he alone the protector ofRosalie Evanturel? Yet here was mystery, and it was clear the tailor hadsomething important to say. M. Rossignol offered the Cure a chair, seated himself on a small bench, and gently drew Rosalie down beside him. 

"I will make this a court, " said he. "Advance, grocer. "

The grocer came forward smugly. 

"On what information do you make this charge against mademoiselle?"

The grocer volubly related all that Paulette Dubois had said. As hetold his tale the Cure's face was a study, for the night the cross wasrestored came back to him, and the events, so far as he knew them, werein keeping with the grocer's narrative. He looked at Rosalie anxiously. Monsieur Evanturel moaned, for he remembered he had heard Rosalie come invery late that night. Yet he fixed his eyes on her in dog-like faith. 

"Mademoiselle will admit that this is true, I presume, " said Charley. 

Rosalie looked at him intently, as though to read his very heart. It wasclear that he wished her to say yes; and what he wished was law. 

"It is quite true, " answered Rosalie calmly, and all fear passed fromher. 

"But she did not steal the cross, " continued Charley, in a louder voice, that all might hear, for people were gathering fast. 

"If she didn't steal it, why was she putting it back on the church doorin the dark?" said the grocer. "Ah, hould y'r head, ould sand-in-the-sugar!" said Mrs. Flynn, her fingers aching to get into his hair. "Silence!" said the Seigneur severely, and looked inquiringly atRosalie. Rosalie looked at Charley. 

"It is not a question of why mademoiselle put the cross back, " he said. "It is a question of who took the cross away, is it not? Suppose it wasnot a theft. Suppose that the person who took the relic thought to do apious act--for your Church, Monsieur?"

"I do not see, " the Cure answered helplessly. "It was a secret act, therefore suspicious at least. "

"'Let your good gifts be in secret, and your Heavenly Father who seeth insecret will reward you openly, "' answered Charley. "That, I believe, isa principle you teach, Monsieur. "

"At one time Monsieur the tailor was thought to have taken the cross, "said the Seigneur suggestively. "Perhaps Monsieur was secretly doinggood with it?" he added. It vexed him that there should be a secretbetween Rosalie and this man. 

"It had to do with me, not I with it, " he answered evenly. He musttravel wide at first to convince their narrow brains. "Mademoiselle dida kind act when she nailed that cross on the church door again--to makea dead man rest easier in his grave. "

A hush fell upon the crowd. 

Rosalie looked at Charley in surprise; but she saw his meaning presently--that what she did for him must seem to have been done for the deadtailor only. Her heart beat hot with indignation, for she would, ifshe but might, cry her love gladly from the hill-tops of the world. 

Alight began to break upon the Cure's mind. "Will Monsieur speakplainly?" he said. 

"I did not see Louis Trudel take the cross, but I know that he did. "

"Louis Trudel! Louis Trudel!" interposed the Seigneur anxiously. "Whatdoes this mean?"

"Monsieur speaks the truth, " interposed Rosalie. The Cure recalled thedeath-bed of Louis Trudel, and the dying man's strange agitation. Healso recalled old Margot's death, and her wish to confess some one else'swrong-doing. He was convinced that Charley was speaking the truth. 

"It is true, " added Charley slowly; "but you may think none the worse ofhim when you know all. He took the cross for temporary use, and beforehe could replace it he died. "

"How do you know what he meant, or did not mean?" said the Seigneur inperplexity. "Did he take you into his confidence?"

"The very closest, " answered Charley grimly. 

"Yet he looked upon you as an infidel, and said hard things of you on hisdeath-bed, " urged the Cure anxiously. He could not see the end of thetale, and he was troubled for both the dead man and the living. 

"That was why he took me into his confidence. I will explain. I havenot the honour to have the fulness of your Christian faith, Monsieur leCure. I had asked him to show me a sign from heaven, and he showed it bythe little iron cross. "

"I can't make anything of that, " said the Seigneur peevishly. 

Rosalie sprang to her feet. "He will not tell the whole truth, Messieurs, but I will. With that little cross Louis Trudel would havekilled Monsieur, had it not been for me. "

A gasp of excitement went out from those who stood by. 

"But for you, Rosalie?" asked the Cure. 

"But for me. I saw Louis Trudel raise an iron against Monsieur that dayin the shop. It made me nervous--I thought he was mad. So I watched. That night I saw a light in the tailor-shop late. I thought it strange. I went over and peeped through the cracks of the shutters. I saw oldLouis at the fire with the little cross, red-hot. I knew he meanttrouble. I ran into the house. Old Margot was beside herself with fear--she had seen also. I ran through the hall and saw old Louis upstairswith the burning cross. I followed. He went into Monsieur's room. WhenI got to the door"--she paused, trembling, for she saw Charley'sreproving eyes upon her--"I saw him with the cross--with the cross raisedover Monsieur. "

"He meant to threaten me, " interposed Charley quickly. 

"We will have the truth!" said the Seigneur, in a husky voice. 

"The cross came down on Monsieur's bare breast. " The grocer laughedvindictively. 

"Silence!" growled the Seigneur. 

"Silence!" said Filion Lacasse, and dropped his hand on the grocer'sshoulder. "I'll baste you with a stirrup-strap. "

"The rest is well known, " quickly interposed Charley. "The poor man wasmad. He thought it a pious act to mark an infidel with the cross. "

Every eye was fixed upon him. The Cure remembered Louis Trudel's lastwords: "Look--look--I gave--him--the sign--of . . . !" Old Margot'swords also kept ringing in his ears. He turned to the Seigneur. "Monsieur, " said he, "we have heard the truth. That act of Louis Trudelwas cruel and murderous. May God forgive him! I will not say thatmademoiselle did well in keeping silent--"

"God bless the darlin'!" cried Mrs. Flynn. 

"--but I will say that she meant to do a kind act for a man's mortalmemory--perhaps at the expense of his soul. "

"For Monsieur to take his injury in silence, to keep it secret, waskind, " said the Seigneur. "It is what our Cure here might call bearinghis cross manfully. "

"Seigneur, " said the Cure reproachfully, "Seigneur, it is no subject forjest. "

"Cure, our tailor here has treated it as a jest. "

"Let him show his breast, if it's true, " said the grocer, who, beneathhis smirking, was a malignant soul. 

The Cure turned on him sharply. Seldom had any one seen the Cure roused. 

"Who are you, Ba'tiste Maxime, that your base curiosity should besatisfied--you, whose shameless tongue clattered, whose foolish soulrejoiced over the scandal? Must we all wear the facts of our lives--ourjoys, our sorrows, and our sins--for such eyes as yours to read? Bethinkyou of the evil things that you would hide--aye, every one here!" headded loudly. "Know, all of you, what goodness of heart towards a wickedman lay behind the secret these two have kept, that old Margot carried toher grave. When you go to your homes, pray for as much human kindness inyou as a man of no Church or faith can show. For this child"--he turnedto Rosalie-"honour her! Go now--go in peace!"

"One moment, " said the Seigneur. "I fine Ba'tiste Maxime twenty dollarsfor defamation of character. The money to go for the poor. "

"You hear that, ould sand-in-the-sugar!" said Mrs. Flynn. "Will you letme kiss ye, darlin'?" she added to Rosalie, and, waddling over, reachedout her hands. 

Rosalie's eyes were wet as she warmly kissed the old Irishwoman, andthereupon they entered into a friendship which was without end. 

The Seigneur drove the crowd from the shop, and shut the door. 

The Cure came to Charley. "Monsieur, " said he, "I have no words. When I remember what agonies you suffered in those hours, how bravely youendured them--ah, Monsieur!" he added, with moist eyes, "I shall alwaysfeel that--that you are not far from the kingdom of God. "

A silence fell upon them, for the Cure, the Seigneur, and Rosalie, asthey looked at Charley, thought of the scar like a red cross on hisbreast. 

It touched Charley with a kind of awe. He smiled painfully. "Shall Igive you proof?" he said, making a motion to undo his waistcoat. 

"Monsieur!" said the Seigneur reprovingly, and holding out his hand. "Monsieur! We are all gentlemen!"

CHAPTER XLIII

JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY

Walking slowly, head bent, eyes unseeing, Charley was on his way toVadrome Mountain, with the knowledge that Jo Portugais had returned. 

The hunger for companionship was on him: to touch some mind that couldunderstand the deep loneliness which had settled on him since that scenein the postoffice. It was the loneliness of a new and great separation. He had wakened to it to-day. 

Once before, in the hut on Vadrome Mountain, he had wakened from a grave, had been born again. Last night had come still another birth, had come, as with Rosalie herself, knowledge, revelation, understanding. ToRosalie the new vision had come with a vague pain of heart, withoutshame, and with a wonderful happiness. Pain, shame, knowledge, and ahappiness that passed suddenly into a despairing sorrow, had come to him. 

In finding love he had found conscience, and in finding conscience he wason his way to another great discovery. 

Looking to where Jo Portugais' house was set among the pines, Charleyremembered the day--he saw the scene in his mind's eye--when Rosalieentered with the letter addressed "To the sick man at the house of JoPortugais, at Vadrome Mountain, " and he saw again her clear, unsoiledsoul in the deep inquiring eyes. 

"If you but knew"--he turned and looked down at the village below--"if you but knew!" he said, as though to all the world. "I have thesign from heaven--I know it now. To-day I wake to know what life means, and I see--Rosalie! I know now--but how? In taking all she had to give. What does she get in return? Nothing--nothing. Because I love her, because the whole world is nothing beside her, nor life, nor twentylives, if I had them to give, I must say to her now: 'Rosalie, it waslove that brought you to my arms, it is love that says, Thus far and nofarther. Never again--never--never--never!' Yesterday I could have lefther--died or vanished, without real hurt to her. She would have mournedand broken her heart and mended it again; and I should have been only amemory--of mystery, of tenderness. Then, one day she would have married, and no sting from my going would have remained. She would have hadhappiness, and I neither shame nor despair. . . . To-day it is alltoo late. We have drunk too deep-alas! too deep. She cannot marryanother man, for ghosts will not lie for asking, and what is mine may notbe another's. She cannot marry me, for what once was mine is mine stillby ring and by book, and I should always be haunted by a torturingshadow. Kathleen has the right of way, not Rosalie. Ah, Rosalie, I dare not wrong you further. Yet to marry you, even as things are, if that might be! To live on here unrecognised? I am little like myold self, and year after year I should grow less and less like CharleySteele. . . . But, no, it is not possible!"

He stopped short in his thoughts, and his lips tightened in bitterness. 

"God in heaven, what an impasse!" he said aloud. 

There was a sudden crackling of twigs as a man rose up from a log by thewayside ahead of him. It was Jo Portugais, who had seen him coming, andhad waited for him. He had heard Charley's words. 

"Do you call me an impasse, M'sieu'?" Charley grasped Portugais' hand. 

"What has happened, M'sieu'?" Jo asked anxiously. There was a briefsilence, and then Charley told him of the events of the morning. 

"You know of the mark-here?" he asked, touching his breast. 

Jo nodded. "I saw, when you were ill. "

"Yet you never asked!"

"I studied it out--I knew old Louis Trudel. Also, I saw ma'm'selle nailthe cross to the church door. Two and two together in my mind did it. I didn't think Paulette Dubois would tell. I warned her. "

"She quarrelled with mademoiselle. It was revenge. 

"She might have been less vindictive. She had had good luck herselflately. "

"What good luck had she, M'sieu'?"

Charley told Jo the story of the Notary, the woman, and the child. 

Jo made no comment. They relapsed into silence. Arriving at the house, they entered. Jo lighted his pipe, and smoked steadily for a timewithout speaking. Buried in thought, Charley stood in the doorwaylooking down at the village. At last he turned. 

"Where have you been these weeks past, Jo?"

"To Quebec first, M'sieu'. "

Charley looked curiously at Jo, for there was meaning in his tone. "Andwhere last?"

"To Montreal. "

Charley's face became paler, his hands suddenly clinched, for he read thelook in Jo's eyes. He knew that Jo had been looking at people and placesonce so familiar; that he had seen--Kathleen. 

"Go on. Tell me all, " he said heavily. 

Portugais spoke in English. The foreign language seemed to make thetruth less naked and staring to himself. He had a hard story to tell. 

"It is not to say why I go to Montreal, " he began. "But I go. I have myears open; my eyes, she is not close. No one knows me--I am no accountof. Every one is forgot the man, Joseph Nadeau, who was try for hislife. Perhaps it is every one is forget the lawyer who save his neck--perhaps? So I stand by the streetside. I say to a man as I look up atsign-boards, ' 'Where is that writing "M'sieu' Charles Steele, " and allthe res'?' 'He is dead long ago, ' say the man to me. 'A good thing too, for he was the very devil. ' 'I not understan', ' I say. 'I tink thatM'sieu' Steele is a dam smart man back time. ' 'He was the smartes' manin the country, that Beauty Steele, ' the man say. 'He bamboozle the juryhevery time. He cut up bad though. '"

Charley raised his hand with a nervous gesture of misery and impatience. 

"'Where have you been, ' that man say--'where have you been all thesetimes not to know 'bout Charley Steele, hein?' 'In the backwoods, 'I say. 'What bring you here now?' he ask. 'I have a case, ' I say. 'What is it?' he ask. 'It is a case of a man who is punish for anotherman, ' I say. 'That's the thing for Charley Steele, ' he laugh. 'He wasgreat man to root things out. Can't fool Charley Steele, we use to sayhere. But he die a bad death. ' 'What was the matter with him?' I say. 'He drink too much, he spend too much, he run after a girl at CoteDorion, and the river-drivers do for him one night. They say it wasacciden', but is there any green on my eye? But he die trump--jus' likehim. He have no fear of devil or man, ' so the man say. 'But fear ofGod?' I ask. 'He was hinfidel, ' he say. 'That was behin' all. He wascrooked all roun'. He rob the widow and horphan?' 'I think he too smartfor that, ' I speak quick. 'I suppose it was the drink, ' he say. 'Heloose his grip. ' 'He was a smart man, an' he would make you all sit up, if he come back, ' I hanswer. 'If he come back!' The man laugh queer atthat. 'If he comeback, there would be hell. ' 'How is that?' I say. 'Look across the street, ' he whisper. 'That was his wife. '"

Charley choked back a cry in his throat. Jo had no intention of cuttinghis story short. He had an end in view. 

"I look across the street. There she is--' Ah, that is a fine womanto see! I have never seen but one more finer to look at--here inChaudiere. ' The man say: 'She marry first for money, and break her heart;now she marry for love. If Beauty Steele come back-eh! sacra! thatwould be a mess. But he is at the bottom of the St Lawrence--the courtssay so, and the Church say so--and ghosts don't walk here. ' 'But if thatBeauty Steele come back alive, what would happen it?' I speak. 'His wifeis marry, blockhead!' he say. 

"'But the woman is his, ' I hanswer. 'Do you think she would go back to athief she never love from the man she love?' he speak back. 'She is notmarry to the other man, ' I say, 'if Beauty Steele is . . . ' 'He isdead as a door, ' he swear. 'You see that?' he go on, nodding down thestreet. 'Well, that is Billy. ' 'Who is Billy?' I ask. 'The brother ofher, ' he say. 'Charley, he spoil Billy. Billy, he has not been the samesince Charley's death-he is so ashame of Charley. When he get drunk hetalk of nothing else. We all remember that Charley spoil him, and thatmake us sorry for him. ' 'Excuse me, ' I say. 'I think that Billy is adam smart man. He is smart as Charley Steele. ' 'Charley was thesmartes' man in the country, ' he say again. 'I've got his practice now, but this town will never be the same without him. Thief or no thief, I wish he is alive here. By the Lord, I'd get drunk with him!' He wasall right, that man, " Jo added finally. 

Charley's agitation was hidden. His eyes were fixed on Jo intently. "That was Larry Rockwell. Go on, " he said, in a hard metallic voice. 

"I see--her, the next night again. It is in the white stone house on thehill. All the windows are open, an' I can hear her to sing. I not knowthat song. It begin, 'Oft in the stilly night'--like that. "

Charley stiffened. It was the song Kathleen sang for him the night theybecame engaged. 

"It is a good voice-that. I see her face, for there is a candle on thepiano. I come close and closter to the house. There is big maple-trees--I am well hid. A man is beside her. He lean hover her an' put hishand on her shoulder. 'Sing it again, Kat'leen, ' he say. 'I cannot toget enough. '"

"Stop!" said Charley, in a strained, harsh voice. "Not yet, M'sieu', "said Portugais. "It is good for you to hear what I say. "

"'Come, Kat'leen!' the man say, an' he blow hout the candle. I hear themwalk away, an' the door shut behin' them. Then I hear anudder voice--ah, that is a baby--very young baby!"

Charley quickly got to his feet. "Not another word!" he said. 

"Yes, yes, but there is one word more, M'sieu', " said Jo, standing up andfacing him firmly. "You must go back. You are not a thief. The womanis yours. You throw your life away. What is the man to you--or theman's brat of a child? It is all waiting for you. You mus' go back. You not steal the money, but that Billy--it is that Billy, I know. Youcan forgive your wife, and take her back, or you can say to both, Go!You can put heverything right and begin again. "

Anger, wild words, seemed about to break from Charley's lips, but heconquered himself. 

The old life had been brought back to him with painful acuteness andvividness. The streets of the town, the people in the street, Billy, themean scoundrel, who could not leave him alone in the grave of obscurity, Kathleen--Fairing. The voice of the child--with her voice--was in hisears. A child! If he had had a child, perhaps----He stopped short inhis thinking, his face all at once flooding with colour. For a moment hestood looking out of the window down towards the village. He could seethe post-office like a toy house among toy houses. At last he turned toJo. 

"Never again while I live, speak of this to me: of the past, of goingback, or of--of anything else, " he said. "I cannot go back. I am deadand shamed. Let the dust of forgetfulness come and cover the past. I'vebegun life again here, and here I stay, and see it out. I shall work outthe problem here. " He dropped a hand on the other's shoulder. "Jo, "said he, "we are both shipwrecks. Let us see how long we can float. "

"M'sieu', is it worth it?" said Portugais, remembering his confession tothe Abbe, and seeing the end of it all to himself. 

"I don't know, Jo. Let us wait and see how Fate will play us. "

"Or God, M'sieu'?"

"God or Fate--who knows"

CHAPTER XLIV

"WHO WAS KATHLEEN?"

The painful incidents of the morning weighed heavily upon Rosalie, andshe was glad when Madame Dugal came to talk with her father, who wasailing and irritable, and when Mrs. Flynn drove her away with a kiss oneither cheek, saying: "Don't come back, darlin', till there's roses inboth cheeks, for y'r eyes are 'atin' up yer face!"

She had seen Charley take the path to Vadrome Mountain, and to theRest of the Flax-beaters she betook herself, in the blind hope that, returning, he might pass that way. Under the influence of the fresh airand the quiet of the woods her spirits rose, her pulse beat faster, though a sense of foreboding and sorrow hovered round her. The two-mileswalk to her beloved retreat seemed a matter of minutes only, so busy wereher thoughts. 

Her mind was one luxurious confusion, through which travelled a ghostlylittle sprite, who kept tumbling her thoughts about, sneering, smirking, whispering--"You dare not go to confession--dare not go to confession. You will never be the same again--never feel the same again--never thinkthe same again; your dreams are done! You can only love. And what willthis love do for you? What do you expect to happen--you dare not go toconfession!"

Her reply had been the one iteration: "I love him--I love him--I lovehim. We shall be together all our lives, till we are old and grey. I shall watch him at his work, and listen to his voice. I shall readwith him and walk with him, and I shall grow to think like him a little--in everything except religion. In everything except that. One day hewill come to think like me--to believe in God. "

In the dreamy happiness of these thoughts the colour came to her cheeks, the roses of light gathered in her eyes. In her tremulous ardour shescarcely realised how time passed, and her reverie deepened as theafternoon shadows grew and the sun made to its covert behind the hills. She was roused by a man's voice singing, just under the bluff where shesat. To her this voice represented the battle-call, the home-call, thelife call of the universe. The song it sang was known to her. It was asold as Rizzio. It had come from old France with Mary, had been mergedinto English words and English music, and had voyaged to New France. There it had been sung by lovers in fair vales, on wide rivers, and indeep forests:

 "What is not mine I may not hold, (Ah, hark the hunter's horn!), And what is thine may not be sold, (My love comes through the corn!); And none shall buy And none shall sell What Love works well?"

In the walk back from Vadrome Mountain, a change--a fleeting change--had passed over Charley's mind and mood. The quiet of the woodland, the song of the birds, the tumbling brook, the smell of the rich earth, replenishing its strength from the gorgeous falling leaves, had soothedhim. Thoughts of Rosalie took a new form. Her image possessed him, excluding the future, the perils that surrounded them. He had gonethrough so much within the past twenty-four hours that the capacity forsuffering had almost exhausted itself, and in the reaction endearingthoughts of Rosalie had dominion over him. It was the reassertion ofprimitive man, the demands of the first element. The great problem wasstill in the background. The picture of Kathleen and the other man waspushed into the distance; thoughts of Billy and his infamy were thrustunder foot--how futile to think of them! There was Rosalie to be thoughtof, the to-day and to-morrow of the new life. 

Rosalie was of to-day. How strong and womanly she had been thismorning, the girl whose life had been bounded by this Chaudiere, with ametropolitan convent and hospital as her only glimpses of the busy world. She would fit in anywhere--in the highest places, with her grace, and hernobleness of mind, arcadian, passionate and beautiful. There came uponhim again the feeling of the evening before, when he saw her standing inhis doorway, the night about them, jealous affection, undying love, inher eyes. It quickened his steps imperceptibly. He passed a stream, andglanced down into a dark pool involuntarily. It reflected himselfclearly. He stopped short. "Is this you, Beauty Steele?" he said, andhe caught his brown beard in his hand. "Beauty Steele had brains and noheart. You have heart, and your wits have gone wool-gathering. Nomatter!

 What is not mine I may not hold, (Ah, hark the hunter's horn!)'"

he sang, and came quickly along the stream where the flax-beaters workedin harvest-time, then up the hill, then--Rosalie. 

She started to her feet. "I knew you would come--I knew you would!" shesaid. 

"You have been waiting here for me?" he asked breathless, taking herhand. 

"I felt you would come. I made you, " she added smiling, and, eagerlyanswering the look in his eyes, threw her arms round his neck. In thatmoment's joy a fresh realisation of their fate came upon him with direforce, and a bitter protest went up from his heart, that he and sheshould be sacrificed. 

Yet the impasse was there, and what could remove it--what clear the way?

He looked down at the girl whose head was buried in happy peace on hisshoulder. She clung to him, as though in him was everlasting protectionfrom the sprite that kept whispering: "You dare not go to confession--your dreams are done--you can only love. " But she had no fear now. 

As he looked down at her a swift change passed over him, and, almost forthe first time since he was a little child, his eyes filled with tears. He hastily brushed them away, and drew her down on the seat beside him. He was wondering how he should tell her that they must not meet likethis, that they must be apart. No matter what had happened, no matterwhat love there was, it was better that they should die--that he shoulddie--than that they should meet like this. There was only one end tosecret meetings, and discovery was inevitable. Then, with discovery, shame to her. For he must either marry her--how could he marry her?--or die. For him to die would but increase her misery. 

The time had passed when it could be of any use. It passed that day inthe hut on Vadrome Mountain when she said that if he died, she would diewith him--"Where you are going you will be alone. There will be no oneto care for you, no one but me. " Last night it passed for ever. She hadput her life into his hands; henceforth, there could never be a questionof giving or taking, of withdrawing or advancing, for all wasirrevocable, sealed with the great seal. Yet she must be saved. But how?

She suddenly looked up at him. "I can ask you anything I want now, can'tI?" she said. 

"Anything, Rosalie. "

"You know that when I ask, it is because I want to know what you know, sothat I may feel as you feel. You know that, don't you?

"I know it when you tell me, wonderful Rosalie. " What a revelation itwas, this transmuting power, which could change mortal dross into thecoin of immortal wealth!

"I want to ask you, " she said, "who was Kathleen?" His blood seemed togo cold in his veins, and he sat without answering, shocked and dismayed. What could she know of Kathleen?

"Can't you tell me?" she asked anxiously yet fearfully. He looked sostrange that she thought she had offended him. "Please don't mindtelling me. I should understand everything--everything. Was it some oneyou loved--once?" It was hard for her to say it, but she said itbravely. 

"No. I never loved any one in all the world, Rosalie--not till I lovedyou. "

She gave a happy sigh. "Oh, it is wonderful!" she said. "It iswonderful and good! Did you--did you love me from the very first?"

"I think I did, though I didn't know it from the very first, " he answeredslowly. His heart beat hard, for he could not guess how she should knowof Kathleen. It was absurdly impossible that she should know. "But manyhave loved you!" she said proudly. "They have not shown it, " heanswered grimly; then added quickly, and with aching anxiety: "When didyou hear of--of Kathleen?"

"Oh, you are such a blind huntsman!" she laughed. "Don't you know wheremy little fox was hiding? Why, in the shop, when you held the note-paperup to the light, and looked startled, and bought all the paper we hadthat was water-marked Kathleen. Do you think that was clever of me? Idon't. "

"I think it was very clever, " he said. 

"Then she-Kathleen--doesn't really matter?" she asked eagerly. "Ofcourse she can't, if you don't love her. But does she love you? Did sheever love you?" "Never in her life. "

"So of course it doesn't matter, " she rejoined. "Hush!" she addedrapidly. "I see some one coming in the trees yonder. It may be some onefor me. Father knows I come here sometimes. Go quickly and hide behindthe rocks, please. I'll stay and see who it is. Please go--dearest. "

He kissed her, and, keeping out of sight, got to a place of safety a fewhundred feet away. 

He saw the new-comer run to Rosalie, speak to her, saw Rosalie half turnin his own direction, then go hastily down the hillside with themessenger. 

"It is her father!" he exclaimed, and followed at a distance. At thevillage he learned that M. Evanturel had had another seizure. 

CHAPTER XLV

SIX MONTHS GO BY

Spring again--budding trees and flowing sap; the earth banks removed fromthe houses, and outside windows discarded; the ice tumbling and crunchingin the river; the dormant farmer raising his head to the energy anddelight of April. 

The winter had been long and hard. Never had there been severer frost ordeeper snow, and seldom had big game been so plentiful. In the snug warmstables the cattle munched and chewed the cud; the idle, long-hairedhorses grew as spirited in the keen air as in summer they were sluggishwith hard work; and the farm-hands were abroad in the dark of the earlymornings with lanterns, to feed the stock and take them out to water, singing cheerfully. All morning spread the clamour of the flail and thefanning-mill, the swish of the knife through the turnips and the beets, and the sound of the saw and the axe, as the youngest man of the family, muffled to the nose, sawed the wood into lengths or split the knots. 

Night brought the cutting and stringing of apples, the shelling of theIndian corn, the making of rag carpets. On Saturday came the going tomarket with grain, or pork, or beef, or fowls frozen like stones; thegossip in the market-place. Then again sounded jingling sleigh-bells as, on the return road, the habitant made for home, a glass of white whiskeyinside him, and black-eyed children in the doorway, swarming like bees atthe mouth of a hive. 

This particular winter in Chaudiere had been full of excitement andexpectation. At Easter-time there was to be the great Passion Play, after the manner of that known as The Passion Play of Ober-Ammergau. Notone in a hundred habitants had ever heard of Ober-Ammergau, but they hadall shared in picturesque processions of the Stations of the Cross tosome calvaire; and many had taken part in dramatic scenes arranged fromthe life of Christ. Drama of a crude kind was deep in them; it showed ingesture, speech, and temperament. 

In all the preparations Maximilian Cour was a conspicuous and usefulofficial. Gifted with the dramatic temperament to a degree rare in sohumble a man, he it was who really educated the people of Chaudiere inthe details of the Passion Play to be produced by the good Catholics ofthe parish and the Indians of the reservation. He had gone to the Cureevery day, and the Cure had talked with him, and then had sent him to thetailor, who had, during the past six months, withdrawn more and more fromthe life about him, practically living with shut door. No one venturedin unless on business, or were in need, or wished advice. These he neverturned empty away. 

Besides Portugais, Maximilian Cour was the one man received constantlyby the tailor. With patience and insight Charley taught the baker, bydrawings and careful explanations, the outlines of the representation, and the baker grew proud of the association, though Charley's face usedto haunt him in his sleep. Excitable, eager, there was an elementaladaptability in the baker, as easily leading to Avernus as to Elysium. This appealed to Charley, realising, as he did, that Maximilian Cour wasa reputable citizen by mere accident. The baker's life had run in asentimental groove of religious duty; that same sentimentality would, in other circumstances, have forced him with equal ardour into the broadprimrose path. 

In the evening hours and on Sunday Charley had worked at his drawings forthe scenery and costumes of the Play, and completed his translation ofthe German text, but there had been days when he could not put pen topaper. Life to him now was one aching emptiness--since that day at theRest of the Flax-beaters Rosalie had been absent. On the very morningafter their meeting by the river she had gone away with her father to thegreat hospital at Montreal--not Quebec this time, on the advice of theSeigneur--as the one chance of prolonging his life. There had come butone letter from her since that hour when he saw her in the Seigneur'scoach with her father, moving away in the still autumn air, a piteousappeal in her eyes. The good-bye look she gave him then was with him dayand night. 

She had written him one letter, and he had written one in reply, and nomore. Though he was wholly reckless for himself, for her he was prudentnow--there was nothing else to do. To save her--if he could but save herfrom himself! If he might only put back the clock!

In his letter to her he had simply said that it were wiser not to write, since the acting postmistress, the Cure's sister, would note the exchangeof letters, and this would arouse suspicion. He could not see what wasbest to do, what was right to do. To wait seemed the only thing, and hisone letter ended with the words: Rosalie, my life is lived only in thethought of you. There is no hour but I think of you, no moment but youare with me. The greatest proof of love that man can give, I will giveto you, in the hour fate wills--for us. But now, we must wait--we mustwait, Rosalie. Do not write to me, but know that if I could go to you Iwould go; if I could say to you, Come, I would say it. If the giving ofmy life would save you any pain or sorrow, I would give it. 

Sitting on his bench at work, it seemed to Charley that sometimes she wasnear him, and more than once he turned quickly round as though she were, in very truth, standing beside him. He thought of her continually, andoften with an unbearable pain. He figured her in his mind as pale anddistressed, and always her eyes had the piteous terror of that last lookas she went away over the hills. 

But the weeks had worn on, then the Seigneur, who had been to Montreal, came back with the news that Rosalie was looking as beautiful as apicture. "Grown a woman in beauty and in stature; comely--comely as alady in a Watteau picture, my dear messieurs!" he had said to the Cure, standing in the tailor's shop. 

Replying, the Cure had said: "She is in good hands, with good people, recommended to me by an abbe there; yet I am not wholly happy about her. When her trouble comes to her"--Charley's needle slipped and pierced hisfinger to the bone--"when her father goes, as he must, I fear, there willbe no familiar face; she will hear no familiar voice. "

"Faith, there you are wrong, my dear Cure" answered the Seigneur;"there'll be a face yonder she likes very well indeed, and a voice she'sfond of too. "

Charley's back was on them at that moment, of which he was glad, for hisface was haggard with anxiety, and it seemed hours before the Cure said:"Whom do you mean, Maurice?" and hours before the Seigneur replied:"Mrs. Flynn, of course. I'm sending her tomorrow. "

Mrs. Flynn had gone, and Charley had, in one sense, been made no happierby that, for it seemed to him that Rosalie would rather that strangers'eyes were on her than the inquisitively friendly eye of Mary Flynn. 

Weeks had grown into months, and no news came--none save that which theCure let fall, or was brought by the irresponsible Notary, who heard allgossip. Only the Cure's scant news were authentic, however, and Charleynever saw the good priest but he had a secret hope of hearing him saythat Rosalie was coming back. Yet when she came back, what would, orcould, he do? There was always the crime for which he or Billy must bepunished. Concerning this crime his heart was growing harder--forRosalie's sake. But there was Kathleen--and Rosalie was now in thecity where she lived, and they might meet! There was one solution--if Kathleen should die! It sickened him that he could think of that witha sense of relief, almost of hope. If Kathleen should die, then he wouldbe free to marry Rosalie--into what? He still could only marry her intothe peril and menace of the law? Again, even if Kathleen did not standin the way, neither the Cure nor any other priest would marry him to herwithout his antecedents being certified. A Protestant minister would, perhaps, but would Rosalie give up her faith? Following him without theblessing of the Church, she would trample under foot every dear traditionof her life, win the scorn of all of her religion, and destroy her ownpeace; for the faith of her fathers was as the breath of her nostrils. What cruelty to her!

But was it, after all, even true that he had but to call and she wouldcome? In truth it well might be that she had learned to despise him;to feel how dastardly he had been to take her love, given in blindsimplicity, bestowed like the song of the bird upon the listening fields--to take the plenteous fulness of her life, and give nothing in returnsave the empty hand, the hopeless hour, the secret sorrow. 

Nothing could quench his misery. The physical part of him craved withoutceasing for something to allay his distress. Again and again he foughthis old enemy with desperate resolve. To fall again, to touch liquoronce more, was to end all for ever. He fought on tenaciously andgloomily, with little of the pride of life, with nothing of the oldstubborn self-will, but with a new-awakened sense. He had foundconscience at last--and more. 

The months went by and still M. Evanturel lingered on, and Rosalie didnot come. The strain became too great at last. In the week precedingEaster, when all the parish was busy at Four Mountains, making costumes, rehearsing, building, putting up seats, cutting down trees, and erectingcrosses and calvaries, Charley disclosed to Jo a new intention. 

In the earlier part of the winter Jo and he had met two or three timesa week, but now Jo had come to help him with his work in the shop--twosilent, devoted companions. They understood each other, and in thatunderstanding were life and death. For never did Jo forget that a yearfrom the day he had confessed his sins he meant to give himself up tojustice. This caused him no sleepless nights. He thought more ofCharley than of himself, and every month now he went to confession, andevery day he said his prayers. He was at his prayers when Charley wentto tell him of his purpose. Charley had often seen Jo on his knees oflate, and he had wondered, but not with the old pagan mind. "Jo, " hesaid, "I am going away--to Montreal. "

"To Montreal!" exclaimed Jo huskily. "You are going back--to stay?"

"Not that. I am going--to see--Rosalie Evanturel. " Jo was troubled butnot dumfounded. It had slowly crept into his mind that Charley loved thegirl, though he had no real ground for suspicion. His will, however, hadbeen so long the slave of the other man's that he had far-off reflectionsof his thoughts. He made no reply in words, but nodded his head. 

"I want you to stay here, Jo. If I don't come back, and--and she does, stand by her, Jo. I can trust you. " "You will come back, M'sieu'--butyou will come back, then?" Jo asked heavily. 

"If I can, Jo--if I can, " he answered. 

Long after he had gone, Jo wandered up and down among the trees on theriver-road, up which Charley had disappeared with Jo's dogs and sled. He kept shaking his head mournfully. 

CHAPTER XLVI

THE FORGOTTEN MAN

It was Easter morning, and the good sunrise of a perfect spring maderadiant the high hill above the town. Rosy-fingered morn touched withmagic colour the masts and scattered sails of the ships upon the greatriver, and spires and towers quivered with rainbow light. The city waswaking cheerfully, though the only active life was in the pealing bellsand on the deep flowing rivers. The streets were empty yet, save for anassiduous priest or the cart of a milkman. Here and there a windowopened and a drowsy head was thrust into the eager air. These saw abearded countryman with his team of six dogs and his little cart goingslowly up the street. It was plain the man had come a long distance--from the mountains in the east or south, no doubt, where horses were few, and dogs, canoes, and oxen the means of transportation. 

As the man moved slowly through the streets, his dogs still gallantlyfull of life after their hard journey, he did not stare about him afterthe manner of countrymen. His movements had intelligence and freedom. He was an unusual figure for a woodsman or river-man--he did not wearear-rings or a waist-sash as did the river-men, and he did not turn inhis toes like a woodsman. Yet he was plainly a man from the farmountains. 

The man with the dogs did not heed the few curious looks turned his way, but held his head down as though walking in familiar places. Now andthen he spoke to his dogs, and once he stopped before a newspaper office, which had a placard bearing these lines:

The Coming Passion Play In the Chaudiere Valley. 

He looked at it mechanically, for, though he was concerned in the PassionPlay and the Chaudiere Valley, it was an abstraction to him at thismoment. His mind was absorbed by other things. 

Though he looked neither to right nor to left, he was deeply affected byall round him. 

At last he came to a certain street, where he and his dogs travelledmore quickly. It opened into a square, where bells were booming inthe steeple of a church. Shops and offices in the street were shut, but a saloon-door was open, and over the doorway was the legend: JeanJolicoeur, Licensed to sell Wine, Beer, and other Spirituous andFermented Liquors. 

Nearly opposite was a lawyer's office, with a new-painted sign. It hadonce read, in plain black letters, Charles Steele, Barrister, etc. ; nowit read, in gold letters and many flourishes of the sign-painter's art, Rockwell and Tremblay, Barristers, Attorneys, etc. 

Here the man looked up with trouble in his eyes. He could see dimly thedesk and the window beside which he had sat for so many years, and on thewall a map of the city glowed with the incoming sun. 

He moved on, passing the saloon with the open door. The landlord, in hisshirt-sleeves, was standing in the doorway. He nodded, then came out tothe edge of the board-walk. 

"Come a long way, M'sieu'?" he asked. 

"Four days' journey, " answered the man gruffly through his beard, lookingthe landlord in the eyes. If this landlord, who in the past had seen himso often and so closely, did not recognise him, surely no one else would. It was, however, a curious recurrence of habit that, as he looked at thelandlord, he instinctively felt for his eye-glass, which he had discardedwhen he left Chaudiere. For an instant there was an involuntary arrestof Jean Jolicoeur's look, as though memory had been roused, but thisswiftly passed, and he said:

"Fine dogs, them! We never get that kind hereabouts now, M'sieu'. Everbeen to the city before?"

"I've never been far from home before, " answered the Forgotten Man. 

"You'd better keep your eyes open, my friend, though you've got a sharppair in your head--sharp as Beauty Steele's almost. There's rascals inthe river-side drinking-places that don't let the left hand know what theright does. "

"My dogs and I never trust anybody, " said the Forgotten Man, as one ofthe dogs snarled at the landlord's touch. "So I can take care of myself, even if I haven't eyes as sharp as Beauty Steele's, whoever he is. "

The landlord laughed. "Beauty's only skin-deep, they say. CharleySteele was a lawyer; his office was over there"--he pointed across thestreet. "He went wrong. He come here too often--that wasn't my fault. He had an eye like a hawk, and you couldn't read it. Now I can read youreye like a book. There's a bit of spring in 'em, M'sieu'. His eyes werehard winter-ice five feet deep and no fishing under--froze to the bed. He had a tongue like a cross-cut saw. He's at the bottom of the St. Lawrence, leaving a bad job behind him. 

"Have a drink--hein?" He jerked a finger backwards to the saloon door. "It's Sunday, but stolen waters are sweet, sure!"

The Forgotten Man shook his head. "I don't drink, thank you. "

"It'd do you good. You're dead beat. You've been travelling hard--eh?"

"I've come a long way, and travelled all night. "

"Going on?"

"I am going back to-morrow. "

"On business?"

Charley nodded--he glanced involuntarily at the sign across the street. 

Jean Jolicoeur saw the look. "Lawyer's business, p'r'aps?"

"A lawyer's business--yes. "

"Ah, if Charley Steele was here!"

"I have as good a lawyer as--"

The landlord laughed scornfully. "They're not made. He'd legislate thedevil out of the Pit. Where are you going to stay, M'sieu'?"

"Somewhere cheap--along the river, " answered the Forgotten Man. 

Jolicoeur's good-natured face became serious. "I'll tell you a place--it's honest. It's the next street, a few hundred yards down, on theleft. There's a wooden fish over the door. It's called The Black Bass--that hotel. Say I sent you. Good luck to you, countryman! Ah, la;la, there's the second bell--I must be getting to Mass!" With a nod heturned and went into the house. 

The Forgotten Man passed slowly up the street, into the side street, and followed it till he came to The Black Bass, and turned into the smallstable-yard. A stable-man was stirring. He at once put his dogs intoa little pen set apart for them, saw them fed from the kitchen, and, betaking himself to a little room behind the bar of the hotel, orderedbreakfast. The place was empty, save for the servant--the household wereat Mass. He looked round the room abstractedly. He was thinking of acrippled man in a hospital, of a girl from a village in the ChaudiereValley. He thought with a shiver of a white house on the hill. Hethought of himself as he had never done before in his life. Passingalong the street, he had realised that he had no moral claim uponanything or anybody within these precincts of his past life. The placewas a tomb to him. 

As he sat in the little back parlour of The Black Bass, eating his frugalbreakfast of eggs and bread and milk, the meaning of it all slowly dawnedupon him. Through his intellect he had known something of humanity, buthe had never known men. He had thought of men in the mass, and despisedthem because of their multitudinous duplication, and their typicalweaknesses; but he had never known one man or one woman from the subtler, surer divination of the heart. His intellect had made servants and luresof his emotions and his heart, for even his every case in court had beenwon by easy and selfish command of all those feelings in mankind whichmake possible personal understanding. 

In this little back parlour it came to him with sudden force how, longago, he had cut himself off from any claim upon his fellows--not only byhis conduct, but by his merciless inhuman intelligence working upon themerciful human life about him. He never remembered to have had any realfeeling till on that day with Kathleen--the day he died. The bittercomplaint of a woman he had wronged cruelly, by having married her, hadwrung from him his own first wail of life, in the one cry "Kathleen!"

As he sat eating his simple meal his pulses were beating painfully. Every nerve in his body seemed to pluck at the angry flesh. Thereflashed across his mind in sympathetic sensation a picture. It was theaxe-factory on the river, before which he used to stand as a boy, andwatch the men naked to the waist, with huge hairy arms and streamingfaces, toiling in the red glare, the trip-hammers endlessly pounding uponthe glowing metal. In old days it had suggested pictures of gods anddemi-gods toiling in the workshops of the primeval world. So the wholemachinery of being seemed to be toiling in the light of an awakenedconscience, to the making of a man. It seemed to him that all his lifewas being crowded into these hours. His past was here--its posing, itsfolly, its pitiful uselessness, and its shame. Kathleen and Billy werehere, with all the problems that involved them. Rosalie was here, withthe great, the last problem. 

"Nothing matters but that--but Rosalie, " he said to himself as he turnedto look out of the window at the wrangling dogs gnawing bones. "Here sheis in the midst of all I once knew, and I know that I am no more a partof it than she is. She and Kathleen may have met face to face in thesestreets--who can tell! The world is large, but there's a sort ofwhipper-in of Fate, who drives the people wearing the same livery intoone corner in the end. If they met"--he rose and walked hastily up anddown--"what then? I have a feeling that Rosalie would recognise her asplainly as though the word Kathleen were stitched on her breast. "

There was a clock on the wall. He looked at it. "It will not be safe togo out until evening. Then I can go to the hospital, and watch hercoming out. " He realised with satisfaction that many people coming fromMass must pass the inn. There was a chance of his seeing Rosalie, if shehad gone to early Mass. This street lay in her way from the hospital. "One look--ah, one look!" For this one look he had come. For this, andto secure that which would save Rosalie from want always, if anythingshould happen to him. This too had been greatly on his mind. There wasa way to give her what was his very own, which would rob no one and serveher well indeed. 

Looking at his face in the mirror over the mantel, he said to himself

"I might have had ten thousand friends, yet I have a thousand enemies, who grin at the memory of the drunken fop down among the eels and thecat-fish. Every chance was with me then. I come back here, and--andJolicoeur tells me the brutal truth. But if I had had ambition"--a waveof the feeling of the old life passed over him--"if I had had ambition asI was then, I should have been a monster. It was all so paltry that, insheer disgust, I should have kicked every ladder down that helped me up. I should have sacrificed everything to myself. "

He stopped short and stared, for, in the mirror, he saw a girl passingthrough the stable-yard towards the quarrelling dogs in the kennel. Heclapped his hand to his mouth to stop a cry. It was Rosalie. 

He did not turn round but looked at her in the mirror, as though it werethe last look he might give on earth. 

He could hear her voice speaking to the dogs: "Ah, my friends, ah, mydears! I know you every one. Jo Portugais is here. I know your bark, you, Harpy, and you, Lazybones, and you, Cloud and London! I know youevery one. I heard you as I came from Mass, beauty dears. Ah, you knowme, sweethearts? Ah, God bless you for coming! You have come to bringus home; you have come to fetch us home--father and me. " The paws of oneof the dogs was on her shoulder, and his nose was in her hair. 

Charley heard her words, for the window was open, and he listened andwatched now with an infinite relief in his look. Her face was halfturned towards him. It was pale-very pale and sad. It was Rosalie as ofold--thank God, as of old!--but more beautiful in the touching sadness, the far-off longing, of her look. 

"I must go and see your master, " she said to the dogs. "Down--down, Lazybones!"

There was no time to lose--he must not meet her ere. He went into theouter hall hastily. The servant was passing through. "If any one asksfor Jo Portugais, " he said, "say that I'll be back to-morrow morning--I'mgoing across the river to-day. "

"Certainly, M'sieu', " said the girl, and smiled because of the piece ofsilver he put in her hand. 

As he heard the side door open he stepped through the front doorway intothe street, and disappeared round a corner. 

CHAPTER XLVII

ONE WAS TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFT

Rosalie carried to the hospital that afternoon a lighter heart than shehad known for many a day. The sight of Jo Portugais' dogs had roused herout of the apathy which had been growing on her in this patient buthopeless watching beside her father. She had always a smile and acheerful word for the poor man. A settled sorrow hung upon her face, however, taking away its colour, but giving it a sweet gravity which madeher slave more than one young doctor of the hospital, for whom, however, she showed no more than a friendly frankness, free from self-consciousness. For hours she would sit in reverie beside her sleepingfather, her heart "over the water to Charley. " As in a trance, she couldsee him sitting at his bench, bent over his work, now and again liftingup his head to look across to the post-office, where another hand thanhers sorted letters now. 

Day by day her father weakened and faded away. All that was possible tomedical skill had been done. As the money left by her mother dwindled, she had no anxiety, for she knew that the life she so tenderly cherishedwould not outlast the gold which lengthened out the tenuous chain ofbeing. This last illness of her father's had been the salvation of hermind, the saving of her health. Maybe it had been the saving of hersoul; for at times a curious contempt of life came upon her--she who hadloved it so eagerly and fully. There descended on her then the bitterconviction that never again would she see the man she loved. Then noteven Mrs. Flynn could call back "the fun o' the world" to her step andher tongue and her eye. At first there had been a timid shrinking, butsoon her father and herself were brighter and better for the oldIrishwoman's presence, and she began to take comfort in Mrs. Flynn. 

Mrs. Flynn gave hopefulness to whatever life she touched, and Rosalie, buoyant and hopeful enough by nature, responded to the living warmth andthe religion of life in the Irishwoman's heart. 

"'Tis worth the doin', ivery bit of it, darlin', the bither an' theswate, the hard an' the aisy, the rough an' the smooth, the good an' thebad, " said Mrs. Flynn to her this very Easter morning. "Even the avil isworth doin', if so be 'twas not mint, an' the good is in yer heart in theind, an' ye do be turnip' to the Almoighty, repentin' an' glad to bealoive: provin' to Him 'twas worth while makin' the world an' you, towant, an' worry, an' work, an' play, an' pick the flowers, an' bleed o'the thorns, an' dhrink the sun, an' ate the dust, an' be lovin' all theway! Ah, that's it, darlin', " persisted Mrs. Flynn, "'tis lovin' all theway makes it aisier. There's manny kinds o' love. There's lad an' lass, there's maid an' man. An' that last is spring, an' all the birdssingin', an' shtorms now an' thin, an' siparations, an' misthrust, an'God in hivin bein' that aisy wid ye for bein' fools an' children, an'bringin' ye thegither in the ind, if so be ye do be lovin' as man an'maid should love, wid all yer heart. Thin there's the love o' man an'wife. Shure, that's the love that lasts, if it shtarts right. Shure, it doesn't always shtart wid the sun shinin. ' 'Will ye marry me?' saysTeddy Flynn to me. 'I will, ' says I. 'Then I'll come back from Canadayto futch ye, ' says he, wid a tear in his eye. 

"'For what's a man in ould Ireland that has a head for annything butputtaties! There's land free in Canaday, an' I'm goin' to make a homefor ye, Mary, ' says he, wavin' a piece of paper in the air. 'Are ye, thin?' says I. He goes away that night, an' the next mornin' I have alether from him, sayin' he's shtartin' that day for Canaday. He hadn'tthe heart to tell me to me face. Fwaht do I do thin? I begs, borrers, an' stales, an' I reached that ship wan minnit before she sailed. Therewas no praste aboord, but we was married six weeks afther at Quebec. Andthegither we lived wid ups an' downs--but no ups an' downs to the love ofus for twenty years, blessed be God for all His mercies!"

Rosalie had listened with eyes that hungrily watched every expression, ears that weighed eagerly every inflection; for she was hearing the storyof another's love, and it did not seem strange to her that a woman, old, red-faced, and fat, should be telling it. 

Yet there were times when she wept till she was exhausted; when all hergirlhood was drowned in the overflow of her eyes; when there was a senseof irrevocable loss upon her. Then it was, in her fear of soul andpitiful loneliness, that her lover--the man she would have died for--seemed to have deserted her. Then it was that a sudden hatred againsthim rose up in her--to be swept away as swiftly as it came by the memoryof his broken tale of love, his passionate words: "I have never loved anyone but you in all my life, Rosalie. " And also, there was that letterfrom Chaudiere, which said that in the hour when the greatest proof ofhis love must be given he would give it. Reading the letter again, hatred, doubt, even sorrow, passed from her, and her imagination picturedthe hour when, disguise and secrecy ended, he would step forward beforeall the world and say: "I take Rosalie Evanturel to be my wife. " Despitethe gusts of emotion that swayed her at times, in the deepest part of herbeing she trusted him completely. 

When she reached the hospital this Sunday afternoon her step was quick, her smile bright--though she had not been to confession as was her dutyon Easter day. The impulse towards it had been great, but her secret wasnot her own, and the passionate desire to give relief to her full heartwas overborne by thought of the man. Her soul was her own, but thissecret of their love was his as well as hers. She knew that she was theonly just judge between. 

Soon after she entered the ward, the chief surgeon said that all thatcould be done for her father had now been done, and that as M. Evanturelconstantly asked to be taken back to Chaudiere (he never said to die, though they knew what was in his mind), he might now make the journey, partly by river, partly by land. It seemed to the delighted and excitedRosalie that Jo Portugais had been sent to her as a surprise, and thathis team of dogs was to take her father back. 

She sat by her father's bed this beautiful, wonderful Sunday afternoon, and talked cheerfully, and laughed a little, and told M. Evanturel of thedogs, and together they looked out of the window to the far-off hills, intheir golden purple, beyond which, in the valley of the Chaudiere, wastheir little home. With her father's hand in hers the girl dreameddreams again, and it seemed to her that she was the very RosalieEvanturel of old, whose thoughts were bounded by a river and a hill, a post-office and a church, a catechism and a few score of books. Herein the crowded city she had come to be a woman who, bitterly shaken insoul, knew life's sufferings; who had, during the past few months, readwith avidity history, poetry, romance, fiction, and the drama, Englishand French; for in every one she found something that said: "You havefelt that. " In these long months she had learned more than she had knownor learned in all her previous life. 

As she sat looking out into the eastern sky she became conscious ofvoices, and of a group of people who came slowly down the ward, sometimesspeaking to the sick and crippled. It was not a general visitors' day, but one reserved for the few to come and say a kindly word to thesuffering, to bring some flowers and distribute books. Rosalie hadalways been absent at this hour before, for she shrank from strangers;but to-day she had stayed on unthinking. It mattered nothing to her whocame and went. Her heart was over the hills, and the only tie she hadhere was with this poor cripple whose hand she held. If she did notresent the visit of these kindly strangers, she resolutely held herselfapart from the object of their visit with a sense of distance and colddignity. If she had given Charley something of herself, she had in turntaken something from him, something unlike her old self, delicately non-intime. Knowledge of life had rationalised her emotions to a definitedegree, had given her the pride of self-repression. She had had need ofit in these surroundings, where her beauty drew not a little dangerousattention, which she had held at arm's-length--her great love for one manmade her invulnerable. 

Now, as the visitors came near, she did not turn towards them, but stillsat, her chin on her hand, looking out across the hills, in resoluteabstraction. She felt her father's fingers press hers, as if to draw herattention, for he, weak man, was ever ready to open his hand and heart toany friendly soul. She took no notice, but held his hand firmly, asthough to say that she had no wish to see. 

She was conscious now that they were beside her father's bed. She hopedthat they would pass. But no, the feet stopped, there was whispering, and then she heard a voice say, "Rather rude!" then another, "Notwanted, that's plain!"--the first a woman's, the second a man's. Thenanother voice, clear and cold, and well modulated, said to her father:"They tell me you have been here a long time, and have had much pain. You will be glad to go, I am sure. "

Something in the voice startled her. Some familiar sound or inflectionstruck upon her ear with a far-off note, some lost tone she knew. Ofwhat, of whom, did this voice remind her? She turned round quickly andcaught two cold blue eyes looking at her. The face was older than herown, handsome and still, and happy in a placid sort of way. Few gusts ofpassion or of pain had passed across that face. The figure was shapelyto the newest fashion, the bonnet was perfect, the hand which held twobooks was prettily gloved. Polite charity was written in her manner andconsecrated every motion. On the instant, Rosalie resented this fineepitome of convention, this dutiful charity-monger, herself the centre ofan admiring quartet. She saw the whispering, she noted the well-breddisguise of interest, and she met the visitor's gaze with cold courtesy. The other read the look in her face, and a slightly pacifying smilegathered at her lips. 

"We are glad to hear that your father is better. He has been ill a longtime?"

Rosalie started again, for the voice perplexed her--rather, not thevoice, but the inflection, the deliberation. 

She bowed, and set her lips, but, chancing to glance at her father, shesaw that he was troubled by her manner. Flashing a look of love at him, she adjusted the pillow under his head, and said to her questioner in alow voice: "He is better now, thank you. "

Encouraged, the other rejoined: "May I leave one or two books for him toread--or for you to read to him?" Then added hastily, for she saw acurious look in Rosalie's eyes: "We can have mutual friends in books, though we cannot be friends with each other. Books are the go-betweensof humanity. "

Rosalie's heart leapt, she flushed, then grew slightly pale, forit was not tone or inflection alone that disturbed her now, but wordsthemselves. A voice from over the hills seemed to say these things toher. A haunting voice from over the hills had said them to her--thesevery words. 

"Friends need no go-betweens, " she said quietly, "and enemies should notuse them. "

She heard a voice say, "By Jove!" in a tone of surprise, as though itwere wonderful the girl from Chaudiere should have her wits about her. So Rosalie interpreted it. 

"Have you many friends here?" asked the cold voice, meant to be kindlyand pacific. It was schooled to composure, because it gave advantage inlife's intercourse, not from any inner urbanity. 

"Some need many friends, some but a few. I come from a country where oneonly needs a few. "

"Where is your country, I wonder?" said the cold echo of another voice. 

Charley had passed out of Kathleen's life--he was dead to her, his memoryscorned and buried. She loved the man to whom she supposed she wasmarried; she was only too glad to let the dust of death and time coverevery trace of Charley from her gaze; she would have rooted out everyparticle of association: yet his influence on her had been so great thatshe had unconsciously absorbed some of his idiosyncrasies--in the tone ofhis voice, in his manner of speaking. To-day she had even repeatedphrases he had used. 

"Beyond the hills, " said Rosalie, turning away. 

"Is it not strange?" said the voice. "That is the title of one of thebooks I have just brought--'Beyond the Hills'. It is by an Englishwriter. This other book is French. May I leave them?"

Rosalie inclined her head. It would. Make her own position lessdignified if she refused them. "Books are always welcome to my father, "she said. 

There was an instant's pause, as though the fashionable lady would offerher hand; but their eyes met, and they only bowed. The lady moved onwith a smile, leaving a perfume of heliotrope behind her. 

"Where is your country, I wonder?"--the voice of the lady rang inRosalie's ears. As she sat at the window again, long after the visitorshad disappeared, the words, "I wonder--I wonder--I wonder!" kept beatingin her brain. It was absurd that this woman should remind her of thetailor of Chaudiere. 

Suddenly she was roused by her father's voice. "This is beautiful--ah, but beautiful, Rosalie!"

She turned towards him. He was reading the book in his hand--'Beyond theHills'. "Listen, " he said, and he read, in English: "'Compensation isthe other name for God. How often is it that those whom disease oraccident has robbed of active life find greater inner rejoicing and alarger spiritual itinerary! It would seem that withdrawal from the ruderactivities gives a clearer seeing. Also for these, so often, is granteda greater love, which comes of the consecration of other lives to theirs. And these too have their reward, for they are less encompassed by thevanities of the world, having the joy of self-sacrifice. '" He looked atRosalie with an unnatural brightness in his eyes, and she smiled at himnow and stroked his hand. 

"It has been all compensation to me, " he said, after a moment. "You havebeen a good daughter to me, Rosalie. "

She shook her head and smiled. "Good fathers think they have gooddaughters, " she answered, choking back a sob. 

He closed the book and let it lie upon the coverlet. "I will sleep now, "he said, and turned on his side. She arranged his pillow, and adjustedthe bedclothes to his comfort. 

"Good-night, " he said, as, with a faint hand, he drew her head down andkissed her. "Good girl! Goodnight!"

She patted his hand. "It is not night yet, father. "

He was already half asleep. "Good-night!" he said again, and fell intoa deep sleep. 

She sat down by the window, in her hand the book he had laid down. Ahundred thoughts were busy in her brain--of her father; of the woman whohad just left; of her lover over the hills. The woman's voice came toher again--a far-off mockery. She opened the book mechanically andturned over the pages. Presently her eyes were riveted to a page. On it was written the word Kathleen. 

For a moment she sat transfixed. The word Kathleen and the hauntingvoice became one, and her mind ran back to the day when she had said toCharley: "Who is Kathleen?"

She sprang to her feet. What should she do? Follow the woman? Find outwho and what she was? Go to the young surgeon who had accompanied them, ask him who she was, and so learn the clue to the mystery concerning herlover?

In the midst of her confusion she became sharply conscious of two things:the approach of Mrs. Flynn, and her father's heavy breathing. Droppingthe book, she leaned over her father's bed and looked closely at him. Then she turned to the frightened and anxious Mrs. Flynn. 

"Go for the priest, " she said. "He is dying. "

"I'll send some one. I'm stayin' here by you, darlin', " said the oldwoman, and hurried to the room of the young surgeon for a messenger. 

As the sun went down, the cripple went out upon a long journey alone. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

"WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING--"

As Charley walked the bank of the great river by the city where his oldlife lay dead, he struggled with the new life which--long or short--musthenceforth belong to the village of the woman he loved. . . . But ashe fought with himself in the long night-watch it was borne in upon himthat though he had been shown the Promised Land, he might never findthere a habitation and a home. The hymn he had mockingly sung the nighthe had been done to death at the Cote Dorion sang in his senses now, anever-present mockery:

 "On the other side of Jordan, In the sweet fields of Eden, Where the tree of life is blooming, There is rest for you. There is rest for the weary, There is rest for the weary, There is rest for the weary, There is rest for you. "

In the uttermost corner of his intelligence he felt with sure presciencethat, however befalling, the end of all was not far off. In the exerciseof new faculties, which had more to do with the soul than with reason, henow believed what he could not see, and recognised what was not proved. Labour of the hand, trouble, sorrow, and perplexity, charity andhumanity, had cleared and simplified his life, had sweetened hisintelligence, and taken the place of ambition. He saw life now throughthe lens of personal duty, which required that the thing nearest to one'shand should be done first. 

But as foreboding pressed upon him there came the thought of what shouldcome after--to Rosalie. His thoughts took a practical form--her good wasuppermost in his mind. All Rosalie had to live on was her salary aspostmistress, for it was in every one's knowledge that the little elseshe had was being sacrificed to her father's illness. Suppose, then, that through illness or accident she lost her position, what could shedo? He might leave her what he had--but what had he? Enough to keep herfor a year or two--no more. All his earnings had gone to the poor andthe suffering of Chaudiere. 

There was one way. It had suggested itself to him so often in Chaudiere, and had been one of the two reasons for bringing him here. There werehis dead mother's pearls and one thousand dollars in notes behind asecret panel in the white house on the hill, in this very city where hewas. The pearls were worth over ten thousand dollars--in all, therewould be eleven thousand, enough to secure Rosalie from poverty. Whatshould Kathleen do with his mother's pearls, even if they were found byher? What should she do with his money did she not loathe his memory?Had not all his debts been paid? These pearls and this money were allhis own. 

But to get them. To go now to the white house on the hill; to face thatold life even for an hour, a knocking at the door of a haunted house--heshrank from the thought. He would have to enter the place like a thiefin the night. 

Yet for Rosalie he must take the risk--he must go. 

CHAPTER XLIX

THE OPEN GATE

It was a still night, and the moon, delicately bright, gave forth thatradiance which makes spiritual to the eye the coarsest thing. Inside thewhite house on the hill all was dark. Sleep had settled on it longbefore midnight, for, on the morrow, its master and mistress hoped tomake a journey to the valley of the Chaudiere, where the Passion Play wasbeing performed by habitants and Indians. The desire to see the play hadbecome an infatuation in the minds of the two, eager for some interest torelieve the monotony of a happy life. 

But as all slept, a figure in the dress of a habitant moved through thepassages of the house stealthily, yet with an assurance unusual in thethief or housebreaker. In the darkest passages his step was sure, andhis hand fastened on latch or door-knob with perfect precision. He cameat last into a large hallway flooded by the moon, pale, watchful, hisbeard frosted by the light. In the stillness of his tread and thecomposed sorrow of his face he seemed like one long dead who "revisitsthe glimpses of the moon. "

At last he entered a room the door of which stood wide open. In thisroom had been begotten, or had had exercise, whatever of him was worthapproving in the days before he died. It was a place of books andstatues and tapestry, and the dark oak was nobly smutched of Time. Thissombre oaken wall had been handed down through four generations from theman's great-grandfather: the breath of generations had steeped it inhuman association. 

Entering, he turned for an instant with clinched hands to look at anotherdoor across the hall. Behind that door were two people who despised hismemory, who conspired to forget his very name. This house was thewoman's, for he had given it to her the day he died. But that she couldlive there with all the old associations, with memories that, howeverbitter, however shaming, had a sort of sacredness, struck into his soulwith a harrowing pain. There she was whom he had spared--himself; whosehappiness had lain in his hands, and he had given it to her. Yet hervery existence robbed himself of happiness, and made sorrowful a lifedearer than his own. 

Kathleen lay asleep in that room--he fancied he could hear her breathing;and, by the hospital on the hill, up beyond the point of pines, in alittle cottage which he could see from the great window, lay Rosalie withsleepless eyes and wan cheeks, longing for morning and the stir of lifeto help her to forget. 

For Rosalie he had come to this house once more. For her sake he wasrevisiting this torture-chamber, from which he knew he must go again, blanched and shaken, as a man goes from a tomb where his dead lieunforgiving. 

He shut his teeth, went swiftly across the room, and beside a greatcarved oak table touched a hidden spring in the side of it. The springsnapped; the panel creaked a little and drew back. It seemed to him thatthe noise he made must be heard in every part of the house, so sensitivewas his ear, so deep was the silence on which the sounds had broken. Heturned round to the doorway to listen before he put his hand within thesecret place. 

There was no sound. He turned his attention to the table. Drawing forthtwo packets with a gasp of relief, he put them in his pocket, and, withextreme care, proceeded to close the panel. By rubbing the edges of thewood with grease from a candle on the table, he was able to readjust thepanel in silence. But, as the spring came home, he became suddenlyconscious of a presence in the room. A shiver passed through him. Heturned round-softly, quickly. He was in the shadow and near greatwindow-curtains, and his fingers instinctively clutched them as he saw afigure in white at the door of the room. Slowly, strangely deliberate, the figure moved further into the room. 

Charley's breath stopped. He felt his face flush, and a strange weaknesscame on him. There before him stood Kathleen. 

She was in her night-gown, and she stood still, as though listening; yet, as Charley looked closer, he realised that it was an unconscious, passivelistening, and that she did not know he was there. 

Her mind only was listening. She was asleep. Was it possible that hisvery presence in the house had touched some old note of memory, which, automatically responding, had carried her from her bed in thissomnambulistic trance? That subtle telegraphy between our subconsciousselves which we cannot reduce to a law, yet alarming us at times, announced to Kathleen's mind, independent of the waking senses, thepresence once familiar to this house for so many years. In her sleepshe had involuntarily responded to the call of Charley's approach. 

Once, in the past, the night her uncle died, she had walked in her sleep, and the memory of this flashed upon Charley now. Silently he came closerto her. The moonlight shone on her face. He could see plainly she wasasleep. His position was painful and perilous. If she waked, the shockto herself would be great; if she waked and saw him, what disaster mightnot occur!

Yet he had no agitation now, only clearness of mind and a curious senseof confusion that he should see her en dishabille--the old fastidioussense mingling with the feeling that she was now a stranger to him, andthat, waking, she would fly embarrassed from his presence, as he wasready to fly from hers. He was about to steal to the door and escapebefore she waked, but she turned round, moved through the doorway, andglided down the hall. He followed silently. 

She moved to the staircase, then slowly down it, and through a passage toa morning-room, where, opening a pair of French windows, she passed outonto the lawn. He followed, not more than a dozen paces behind her. His safety lay in getting outside, where he could easily hide among thebushes, should someone else appear and an alarm be raised. 

She crossed the lawn swiftly, a white, ghostlike figure. In the middleof the lawn she stopped short once as if in doubt what to do--as athought-reader pauses in his search for the mental scent again, ere herushes upon the object of his search with the certainty of instinct. 

Presently she moved on, going directly towards a gate that opened out onthe cliff above the river. In Charley's day this gate had been oftenused, for it gave upon four steep wooden steps leading to a narrow shelfof rock below. From the edge of this cliff a rope-ladder dropped fiftyfeet to the river. For years he had used this rope-ladder to get down tohis boat, and often, when they were first married, Kathleen used to comeand watch him descend, and sometimes, just at the very first, woulddescend also. As he stole into the grounds this evening he had noticed, however, that the rope-ladder was gone, and that new steps were beingbuilt. He had also mechanically observed that the gate was open. 

For an instant he watched her slowly moving towards the gate. At firsthe did not realise the situation. Suddenly her danger flashed upon him. Passing through the gateway, she must fall over the cliff. 

Her life was in his hands. 

He could rush forward swiftly and close the gate, then, raising an alarm, get away before he was seen; or--he could escape now. 

What had he to do with her? A weird, painful suggestion crept into hisbrain: he was not responsible for her, and he was responsible for a womanup there by the hospital, whose home was the valley of the Chaudiere!

If Kathleen were gone, what barrier would there be between him andRosalie? What had he to do with this strange disposition of events?Kathleen was never absent from her church twice on Sundays; she wasdevoted to work of all sorts for the church on week-days--where was herintervening personal Providence? If Providence permitted her to die?--well, she had had two years of happiness with the man she loved, at someexpense to himself--was it not fair that Rosalie should have her share?Had he the right to call upon Rosalie for constant self-sacrifice, when, by shutting his eyes now, by being dead to Kathleen and her need, as hewas dead to the world he once knew, the way would be clear to marryRosalie?

Dead--he was dead to the world and to Kathleen! Should his ghostinterpose between her and the death now within two-score feet of her?Who could know? It was grim, it was awful, but was it not a wild kind ofjustice? Who could blame? It was the old Charley Steele, the CharleySteele of the court-room, who argued back humanity and the inherentrightness of things. 

But it was only a moment's pause. The thoughts flashed by like thelightning impressions of a dream, and a voice said in his ear, the voiceof the new Charley with a conscience:

"Save her--save her!"

Even as he was conscious of another presence on the lawn, he rushedforward noiselessly. Stealing between Kathleen and the gate-she waswithin five feet of it he closed and locked it. Then, with a quickglance at her sleeping face-it was engraven on his memory ever after likea dead face in a coffin--he ran along the fence among the shrubbery. Aman not fifty feet away called to him. 

"Hush--she is asleep!" Charley whispered, and disappeared. 

It was Fairing himself who saw this deed which saved Kathleen's life. Awaking, and not finding her, he had glanced towards the window, and hadseen her on the lawn. He had rushed down to her, in time to see hersaved by a strange bearded man in habitant dress. His one glance at theman's face, as it turned towards him, produced an extraordinary effectupon his mind, not soon to be dispelled--a haunting, ghostlikeapparition, which kept reminding him of something or somebody, he couldnot tell what or whom. The whispering voice and the breathless words, "Hush--she is asleep!" repeated themselves over and over again in hisbrain, as, taking Kathleen's hand, he led her, unresisting, and stillsleeping, back to her room. In agitated thankfulness he resolved not tospeak of the event to Kathleen, or to any one else, lest it should cometo her ears and frighten her. 

He would, however, keep a sharp lookout for the man who had saved herlife, and would reward him duly. The face of the bearded habitant camebetween him and his sleep. 

Meanwhile this disturber of a woman's dreams and a man's sleep washurrying to an inn in the town by the waterside, where he met anotherhabitant with a team of dogs--Jo Portugais. Jo had not been able to bearthe misery of suspense and anxiety, and had come seeking him. There waslittle speech between them. 

"You have not been found out, M'sieu'?" was Jo's anxious question. 

"No, no, but I have had a bad night, Jo. Get the dogs together. "

A little later, as Charley made ready to go back to Chaudiere, Jo said:

"You look as if you'd had a black dream, M'sieu'. " With the riverrustling by, and the trees stirring in the first breath of dawn, Charleytold Jo what had happened. 

For a moment the murderer did not speak or stir, for a struggle was goingon in his breast also; then he stooped quickly, caught his companion'shand, and kissed it. 

"I could not have done it, M'sieu', " he said hoarsely. They parted, Joto remain behind as they had agreed, to be near Rosalie if needed;Charley to return to the valley of the Chaudiere. 

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Good fathers think they have good daughtersShure, if we could always be 'about the same, ' we'd do