Outside, two figures were approaching the hut—a man and a woman; yet at first glance the man might easily have been taken for a woman, because of the long black robe which he wore, and because his hair fell loose on his shoulders and his face was clean-shaven.
“Have patience, my daughter,” said the man. “Do not enter till I call you. But stand close to the door, if you will, and hear all.”
So saying he raised his hand as in a kind of benediction, passed to the door, and after tapping very softly, opened it, entered, and closed it behind him-not so quickly, however, but that the woman caught a glimpse of the father and the boy. In her eyes there was the divine look of motherhood.
“Peace be to this house!” said the man gently as he stepped forward from the door.
The father, startled, turned shrinkingly on him, as if he had seen a spirit.
“M’sieu’ le cure!” he said in French, with an accent much poorer than that of the priest, or even of his own son. He had learned French from his wife; he himself was English.
The priest’s quick eye had taken in the lighted candles at the little shrine, even as he saw the painfully changed aspect of the man.
“The wife and child, Bagot?” he asked, looking round. “Ah, the boy!” he added, and going toward the bed, continued, presently, in a low voice: “Dominique is ill?”
Bagot nodded, and then answered: “A wild-cat and then fever, Father Corraine.”
The priest felt the boy’s pulse softly, then with a close personal look he spoke hardly above his breath, yet distinctly too: