“I came to see him yesterday, and not finding him, I asked at the post-office.” M. Rossignol’s voice lowered. “He told Mrs. Flynn he was going into the hills, so Rosalie says.”
The Cure’s face fell. “He went away also just before the play began. I almost fear that—that we get no nearer. His mind prompts him to do good and not evil, and yet—and yet.... I have dreamed a good dream, Maurice, but I sometimes fear I have dreamed in vain.”
“Wait-wait!”
M. Loisel looked towards the post-office musingly. “I have thought sometimes that what man’s prayers may not accomplish a woman’s love might do. If—but, alas, what do we know of his past! Nothing. What do we know of his future? Nothing. What do we know of the human heart? Nothing—nothing!”
The Seigneur was astounded. The Cure’s meaning was plain. “What do you mean?” he asked, almost gruffly.
“She—Rosalie—has changed—changed.” In his heart he dwelt sorrowfully upon the fact that she had not been to confession to him for many, many months.
“Since her father’s death—since her illness?”
“Since she went to Montreal seven months ago. Even while she was so ill these past weeks, she never asked for me; and when I came... Ah, if it is that her heart has gone out to the man, and his does not respond!”
“A good thing, too!” said the other gloomily. “We don’t know where he came from, and we do know that he is a pagan.”
“Yet there she sits now, hour after hour, day after day—so changed.”