"'For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.'
"Now, Monsieur Picot, the voices are far away. You live in an alien land. Your pleasures, instead of boldly as of old, you take surreptitiously.... One day, you poor renegade, you will die and pass to the only heaven I know of—the long roads and sunlit fields of Picardy.... You haven't an heir by blood in the world. Why not an heir by love? Eh, Pierrett? I knew that you would say, 'Yes.'... I'll suggest it to the old curmudgeon."
"My dears," said he, addressing us, "I know this Monsieur l'Abbé very well. Some day I shall pay him a call and suggest how generous a thing it would be if he were to make his will in your favor. Then, quietly, with exceeding propriety, so as not to offend any member of your family, pass unto his fathers.... I will say, 'Monsieur, He says that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my—"'"
"Dear Jean François," interrupted Nance, a bit horrified, "how disrespectfully you can talk!... I, too, know Monsieur l'Abbé—"
"But I know him much better than you, Nance." And he held his hand for her to be silent.
"I think to-night," said he a moment later, "I shall conclude by telling you the story of Monsieur l'Abbé Jacques Picot, of the little Rue St. Jacques, Paris."