The priest’s face was overswept by many expressions, in which marvel and trouble were uppermost, while joy was in less distinctness.
“Surely,” he said, “it is Shon McGann.”
“Shon McGann, and no other.—I that laughed at the law for many a year, though never breaking it beyond repair,—took your advice, Father Corraine, and here I am, holding that law now as my bosom friend at the saddle’s pommel. Corporal Shon McGann, at your service.”
They clasped hands, and the priest said: “You have come at my call from Fort Cypress?”
“Yes. But not these others. They are after a man that’s played ducks and drakes with the statutes—Heaven be merciful to him, I say. For there’s naught I treasure against him; the will of God bein’ in it all, with some doin’ of the Devil, too, maybe.”
Pretty Pierre, standing with ear to the window of the dark room, heard all this, and he pressed his upper lip hard with his forefinger, as if something disturbed him.
Shon continued. “I’m glad I wasn’t sent after him as all these here know; for it’s little I’d like to clap irons on his wrists, or whistle him to come to me with a Winchester or a Navy. So I’m here on my business, and they’re here on theirs. Though we come together it’s because we met each other hereaway. They’ve a thought that, maybe, Pretty Pierre has taken refuge with you. They’ll little like to disturb you, I know. But with dead in your house, and you givin’ the word of truth, which none other could fall from your lips, they’ll go on their way to look elsewhere.”
The priest’s face was pinched, and there was a wrench at his heart. He turned to the others. A trooper stepped forward.
“Father Corraine,” he said, “it is my duty to search your house; but not a foot will I stretch across your threshold if you say no, and give the word that the man is not with you.”
“Corporal McGann,” said the priest, “the woman whom I thought was dead did not die, as you shall see. There is no need for inquiry. But she will go with you to Fort Cypress. As for the other, you say that Father Corraine’s threshold is his own, and at his own command. His home is now a sanctuary—for the afflicted.” He went towards the door. As he did so, Mary Callen, who had been listening inside the room with shaking frame and bursting heart, dropped on her knees beside the table, her head in her arms. The door opened. “See,” said the priest, “a woman who is injured and suffering.”