The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

“Yes!” whispered Raymond fiercely to himself. “Yes—if only you keep your head!”

What was the matter with him? Had he forgotten! It was what he had been prepared to face that night when he had brought the priest to the presbytère, should the man then have recovered sufficiently to speak. It should be still easier now to make any one believe that the man was wandering in his mind, was not yet lucid or coherent after so long a lapse from consciousness. And the very story that the man would tell must sound like the ravings of a still disordered mind! He, Raymond, would insist that the man be kept very quiet during the day; he, Raymond, would stay beside the other's bed. Was he not the curé! Would they not obey him, show deference to his judgment and his wishes—until night came!

They were close to the presbytère now, close to the little gaping crowd that surrounded the door; and, as though conscious for the first time that she was clinging to his arm, Valérie, in sudden embarrassment at her own eagerness, hurriedly dropped her hand to her side. And, at the act, Raymond looked at her quickly, in an almost startled way. Strange! But then his brain was in turmoil! Strange that extraneous things, things that had nothing to do with the one grim purpose of saving his neck should even for an instant assert themselves! But then they—no, she—had done that before. He remembered now... when they were putting on that bandage.

When that crucifix had tangled up his hands, and she had seemed to stand before him to save him from himself... those dark eyes, that pure, sweet face, the tender, womanly sympathy—the antithesis of himself! And to-night, when night came, when the night he longed for came, when the night that meant his only chance for life came, he—what was this!—this sudden pang of yearning that ignored, with a most curious authority, as though it had the right to ignore, the desperate, almost hopeless peril that was closing down upon him, that seemed to make the coming of the night now a thing he would put off, a thing to regret and to dread, that bade him search for some other way, some other plan that would not necessitate—

“A fool and a pretty face!”—it was the gibe and sneer and prod of that inward monitor. “See all these people who are so reverently making way for you, and eying you with affection and simple humility, see the rest of them coming back from all directions because the murderer is about to tell his story—well, see how they will make way for you, and with what affection and humility they will eye you when you come out of that house again, if all the wits the devil ever gave you are not about you now!”

He spoke to her quietly, controlling his voice:

“You have not told me yet what he said, mademoiselle?”

She shook her head.

“He did not say much—only to ask where he was and for a drink of water.”

He had no time to ask more. They had reached the group before the presbytère now, and the buzz of conversation, the eager, excited exchange of questions and answers was hushed, as, with one accord, men and women made way for their curé. And Raymond, lifting his hand in a kindly, yet authoritative gesture, cautioning patience and order, mounted the steps of the presbytère.