That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Grassette. He went out upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the woman had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed by the sea. And here, at last, he was waiting for the day when he must settle a bill for a human life taken in passion and rage.
His big frame seemed out of place in the small cell, and the watcher sitting near him, to whom he had not addressed a word nor replied to a question since the watching began, seemed an insignificant factor in the scene. Never had a prisoner been more self-contained, or rejected more completely all those ministrations of humanity which relieve the horrible isolation of the condemned cell. Grassette’s isolation was complete. He lived in a dream, did what little there was to do in a dark abstraction, and sat hour after hour, as he was sitting now, piercing, with a brain at once benumbed to all outer things and afire with inward things, those realms of memory which are infinite in a life of forty years.
“Sacre!” he muttered at last, and a shiver seemed to pass through him from head to foot; then an ugly and evil oath fell from his lips, which made his watcher shrink back appalled, for he also was a Catholic, and had been chosen of purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence on this revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him the offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the priest straight in the face and had said in broken English, “Non, I pay my bill. Nom de diable, I will say my own Mass, light my own candle, go my own way. I have too much.”
Now, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a rattling noise at the door, the grinding of a key in the lock, the shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door. Then the door opened and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by a white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure—the Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk with him—Grassette started. His face, which had never whitened in all the dismal and terrorising doings of the capture and the trial and sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned a little pale, for it seemed as if this old man had stepped out of the visions which had just passed before his eyes.
“His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henri Robitaille, has come to speak with you.... Stand up,” the Sheriff added sharply, as Grassette kept his seat.
Grassette’s face flushed with anger, for the prison had not broken his spirits; then he got up slowly. “I not stand up for you,” he growled at the Sheriff; “I stand up for him.” He jerked his head towards Sir Henri Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, with Michelin, had believed in him in those far-off days which he had just been seeing over again, and all his boyhood and young manhood was rushing back on him. But now it was the Governor who turned pale, seeing who the criminal was.
“Jacques Grassette!” he cried in consternation and emotion, for under another name the murderer had been tried and sentenced, nor had his identity been established—the case was so clear, the defence had been perfunctory, and Quebec was very far away.
“M’sieu’!” was the respectful response, and Grassette’s fingers twitched.
“It was my sister’s son you killed, Grassette,” said the Governor in a low, strained voice.
“Nom de Dieu!” said Grassette hoarsely.