“It is that, Monsieur.”
Jo suddenly turned and left the room, for he heard a step on the frosty snow without.
“You will remain here, Monsieur?” said the Cure. “I cannot tell.”
The Cure had the bravery of simple souls with a duty to perform. He fastened his eyes on Charley. “Monsieur, is there any reason why you should not stay here? I ask it now, man to man—not as a priest of my people, but as man to man.”
Charley did not answer for a moment. He was wondering how he should put his reply. But his look did not waver, and the Cure saw the honesty of the gaze. At length he replied: “If you mean, have I committed any crime which the law may punish?—I answer no, Monsieur. If you mean, have I robbed or killed, or forged—or wronged a woman as men wrong women? No. These, I take it, are the things that matter first. For the rest, you can think of me as badly as you will, or as well, for what I do henceforth is the only thing that really concerns the world, Monsieur le Cure.”
The Cure came forward and put out his hand with a kindly gesture. “Monsieur, you have suffered,” he said.
“Never, never at all, Monsieur. Never for a moment, until I was dropped down here like a stone from a sling. I had life by the throat; now it has me there—that is all.”
“You are not a Catholic, Monsieur?” asked the priest, almost pleadingly, and as though the question had been much on his mind.
“No, Monsieur.”
The Cure made no rejoinder. If he was not a Catholic, what matter what he was? If he was not a Catholic, were he Buddhist, pagan, or Protestant, the position for them personally was the same. “I am very sorry,” he said gently. “I might have helped you had you been a Catholic.”