Monsieur le Curé's face grew serious, then again the smile of content spread to the corners of his firm mouth.
"Oh! Nothing very gruesome," he confessed, then after a moment's silence he continued slowly: "Her children needed shoes and warm things for the winter. Marianne stole sixty mètres of nets from the fishing crew at 'The Three Wolves'—she is hopeless, my friend." With a vibrant gesture he straightened up in his chair and flashed his keen eyes to mine. "For ten years I have tried to reform her," he declared. "Bah!"—and he tossed the stump of his cigarette into the blaze.
"You nursed her once through the smallpox," said I, "when no one dared go near her. The mayor told me so. I should think that would have long ago persuaded her to do something for you in return."
"We go where we are needed," he replied simply. "She will promise me nothing. One might as well try to make a faithful parishioner of a gipsy as to change Marianne for the better." He brought his fist down sharply on the broad arm of his chair. "I tell you," he went on tensely, "Marianne is a woman of no morals and no religion—a woman who allows no one to dictate to her save a gendarme with a warrant of arrest. Hardly a winter passes but she goes to jail. She is a confirmed thief, a bad subject," he went on vibrantly. "She can drink as no three sailors can drink—and yet you know as well as I do," he added, lowering his voice, "that there is not a mother in Pont du Sable who is as good to her children as Marianne."
"They are a brave little brood," I replied. "I have heard that the eldest boy and girl Marianne adopted, yet they resemble their mother, with their fair curly hair and blue eyes, as much as do the youngest boys and the little girl."
"Marianne has had many lovers," returned the curé gravely. "There is not one of that brood of hers that has yet been baptized." An expression of pain crossed his face. "I have tried hard; Marianne is impossible."
"Yet you admit she has her qualities."
"Yes, good qualities," he confessed, filling a fresh cigarette paper full of tobacco. "Good qualities," he reiterated. "She has brought up her children to be honest and she keeps them clean. She has never stolen from her own village—it is a point of honour with her. Ah! you do not know Marianne as I know her."
"It seems to me you are growing enthusiastic over our worst vagabond," I laughed.