“If he didn’t steal the cross, why, he didn’t,” answered the saddler; “but if he did, what’ll you say for yourself, Louis? You call yourself a good Catholic—bah!—when you’ve got a heretic living with you.”
“What’s that to you?” growled the tailor, and reached out a nervous hand towards the iron. “I served at the altar before you were born. Sacre! I’ll make your grave-clothes yet, and be a good Catholic when you’re in the churchyard. Be off with you. Ach,” he sharply added, when Filion did not move, “I’ll cut your hair for you!” He scrambled off the bench with his shears.
Filion Lacasse disappeared with his friends, and the old man settled back on his bench.
Charley, looking up quietly from his work, said “Thank you, Monsieur.”
He did not notice what an evil look was in Louis Trudel’s face as it turned towards him, but Rosalie Evanturel, standing outside, saw it; and she stole back to the post-office ill at ease and wondering.
All that day she watched the tailor’s shop, and even when the door was shut in the evening, her eyes were fastened on the windows.
CHAPTER XIX. THE SIGN FROM HEAVEN
The agitation and curiosity possessing Rosalie all day held her in the evening when the wooden shutters of the tailor’s shop were closed and only a flickering light showed through the cracks. She was restless and uneasy during supper, and gave more than one unmeaning response to the remarks of her crippled father, who, drawn up for supper in his wheel-chair, was more than usually inclined to gossip.
Damase Evanturel’s mind was stirred concerning the loss of the iron cross; the threat made by Filion Lacasse and his companions troubled him. The one person beside the Cure, Jo Portugais, and Louis Trudel, to whom M’sieu’ talked much, was the postmaster, who sometimes met him of an evening as he was taking the air. More than once he had walked behind the wheel-chair and pushed it some distance, making the little crippled man gossip of village matters.