“By God, I'll get you for this!”—the man's voice was guttural with unbridled passion. “I'll get you, you censer-swinging devil! I'll twist your neck with the chain of your own crucifix! Damn you to the pit! You're not through with me!”
“Go!” said Raymond sternly. “Go—and be glad that I have treated you no worse!”
He shut the door in the man's face; and, turning abruptly, walked across the floor to where Mother Blondin, quiet for the moment, gaped at him from the threshold of the other room.
“He will not trouble you any more, Madame Blondin, I imagine,” he said quietly. “See, it is over!” He smiled at her reassuringly—he needed to know now only where the man lived. “I should be sorry to think he was one of my parishioners. Where does he come from?”
“He is a farmer, and he lives in the house on the point a mile and a quarter up the road”—the answer had come automatically; she was listening, without looking at Raymond, to the threats and oaths that Jacques Bourget, as he evidently moved away for his voice kept growing fainter, still bawled from without. And then hate and sullen viciousness was in her face again. Her hair had tumbled to her shoulders and straggled over her forehead. She jabbed at it with both hands, sweeping it from her eyes, and leered at him fiercely. “You dirty spy!” she croaked hoarsely. “I know you—I know all of you priests! You are all alike! Sneaks! Sneaks! Meddlers and sneaks! But you'll get to hell some day—like the rest of us! Ha, ha—to hell! You can't fool the devil! I know you. That's what you sneaked up here for—to spy on me, to find something against me that the police weren't sharp enough to find, so that you could get rid of me, get me out of St. Marleau! I know! They've been trying that for a long time!”
“To turn you over to the police,” said Raymond gently, “would never save you from yourself. I came to talk to you a little about your son—to see if in any way I could help you, or be of comfort to you.”
She stared at him for an instant, wondering and perplexed; and then the snarl was on her lips again.
“You lie! No priest comes here for that! I am an excommuniée.”
“You are a woman in sorrow,” Raymond said simply.
She did not answer him—only drew back into the other room.