CHAPTER IX—UNTIL THE DAWN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raymond shook hands with the little man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The doctor glanced hesitantly toward the bed.

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

Raymond's head was bowed.

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

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

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

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

“Very well,” said Raymond again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raymond shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raymond motioned toward the bed.

“Is there any change?” he asked.

The doctor shook his head.

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

“But,” protested the doctor, “I——”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, that was it—if there were a God! He was reciting now theDe Profundisin a purely mechanical way. “Out of the depths....”

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

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

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

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

“'Christe eleison”

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

“Deliver his soul, O Lord.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Father Aubert!”

It was Valérie, running swiftly toward him from thepresbytère.

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

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

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