The Cure came to Charley. “Monsieur,” said he, “I have no words. When I remember what agonies you suffered in those hours, how bravely you endured them—ah, Monsieur!” he added, with moist eyes, “I shall always feel that—that you are not far from the kingdom of God.”
A silence fell upon them, for the Cure, the Seigneur, and Rosalie, as they looked at Charley, thought of the scar like a red cross on his breast.
It touched Charley with a kind of awe. He smiled painfully. “Shall I give you proof?” he said, making a motion to undo his waistcoat.
“Monsieur!” said the Seigneur reprovingly, and holding out his hand. “Monsieur! We are all gentlemen!”
CHAPTER XLIII. JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY
Walking slowly, head bent, eyes unseeing, Charley was on his way to Vadrome Mountain, with the knowledge that Jo Portugais had returned.
The hunger for companionship was on him: to touch some mind that could understand the deep loneliness which had settled on him since that scene in the postoffice. It was the loneliness of a new and great separation. He had wakened to it to-day.
Once before, in the hut on Vadrome Mountain, he had wakened from a grave, had been born again. Last night had come still another birth, had come, as with Rosalie herself, knowledge, revelation, understanding. To Rosalie the new vision had come with a vague pain of heart, without shame, and with a wonderful happiness. Pain, shame, knowledge, and a happiness that passed suddenly into a despairing sorrow, had come to him.
In finding love he had found conscience, and in finding conscience he was on his way to another great discovery.