“Yes,” said Raymond softly to himself. “Yes, I think Monsieur Jacques Bourget is the man I came to find.”
He stepped out from the trees, walked noiselessly across to the house, and, reaching the doorway, remained standing quietly upon the threshold. He could hear the man moving about in the cellar below; from the inner room came Mother Blondin's incessant mutterings, mingled with a savage rattling of crockery. Raymond smiled ominously—and then Raymond's face grew stern with well-simulated clerical disapproval.
The man's head, back turned, showed above the level of the floor. Into the doorway from the inner room came Mother Blondin—and halted there, her withered old jaw sagging downward in dumfounded surprise until it displayed her almost toothless gums. The man gained his feet, turned around—and, with a startled oath, dropped the bottle he was carrying. It crashed to the floor, broke, and the contents began to trickle back over the edge of the trapdoor.
“Sacristi!” shouted the man, his face flaring up into an angry red. He thrust his head forward truculently from his shoulders, and glared at Raymond. “Sacré nom de Dieu, it is the saintly priest!” he sneered.
“My son,” said Raymond gravely, “do not blaspheme! And have respect for the Church!”
“Bah!” snarled the man. “Do you think I care for you—or your church!” He looked suddenly at Mother Blondin. “Hah!”—he jumped across the room toward her. “So that is what you meant by not being alone—eh? I did not understand! You would trick me, would you! You would sell me out for the price of a drink—and—ha, ha—to a priest! Well”—he had her now by the shoulders—“I will take a turn at showing you what I will do! Eh—why did you not warn me he was here?” He caught her head, and banged it brutally against the wall. “Eh—why did——”
Raymond, too, was across the room. It was strange! Most strange! He had intended to seek an occasion to quarrel. The occasion was made for him. He had no longer any desire to quarrel—he was possessed of an overwhelming desire to get his fingers around the throat of this cur who banged that straggling, dishevelled gray hair against the wall. He was not quite sure that it was himself who spoke. No, of course, it was not! It was Monsieur le Curé—the good, young Father Aubert. He was between them now, only Mother Blondin had fallen to the floor.
“My son,” he said placidly, “since you will not respect the Church for one reason, I will teach you to respect it for another.” He pointed to old Mother Blcndin, who, more terrified than hurt perhaps, was getting to her knees, moaning and wringing her hands. “You have heard, though I fear you may have forgotten it, of the Mosaic law. An eye for an eye, my son. I intend to do to you exactly what you have done to this woman.”
The man, drawn back, eyed him first in angry bewilderment, and then with profound contempt.
“You'd better get out of here!” he said roughly.