“Glad?”
“Yes—for your sake,” she said. “He has brought you to the verge of illness yourself.” She was looking down again, shuffling the sealed envelopes abstractedly. “And it is not only I who say so—it is all St. Marleau. St. Marleau loves you for it, for your care of him, Monsieur le Curé—but also St. Marlbau thinks more of its curé than it does of one who has taken another's life.”
Raymond did not reply—he was listening now to the footsteps of Monsieur Dupont and the doctor, as they passed by along the hallway outside. Came then a sharp, angry voice raised querulously from the rear room—that was Henri Mentone. Monsieur Dupont's voice snapped in reply; and then the voices merged into a confused buzz and murmur. He glanced quickly at Valérie. She, too, was listening. Her head was turned toward the door, he could not see her face.
He walked slowly across the room to her side by the desk.
“You do not think, mademoiselle,” he asked gravely, “that it is possible the man is telling the truth, that he really cannot remember anything that happened that night—and before?”
She shook her head.
“Every one knows he is guilty,” she said thoughtfully. “The evidence proves it absolutely. Why, then, should one believe him? If there was even a little doubt of his guilt, no matter how little, it might be different, and one might wonder then; but as it is—no.”
“And it is not only you who say so”—he smiled, using her own words—“it is all St. Marleau?”
“Yes, all St. Marleau—and every one else, including Monsieur le Curé, even if he has sacrificed himself for the man,” she smiled in return. Her brows puckered suddenly. “Sometimes I am afraid of him,” she said nervously. “Yesterday I ran from the room. He was in a fury.”
Raymond's face grew grave.