Here he was, a priest who had shepherded a flock of the faithful passed on to him by another priest before him, who again had received them from a guardian of the fold—a family of faithful Catholics whose thoughts never strayed into forbidden realms. He had done no more than keep them faithful and prevent them from wandering—counselling, admonishing, baptising, and burying, giving in marriage and blessing, sending them on their last great journey with the cachet of Holy Church upon them. But never once, never in all his life, had he brought a lost soul into the fold. If he died to-night, he could not say to St. Peter, when he arrived at Heaven’s gate: “See, I have saved a soul!” Before the Throne he could not say to Him who cried: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”—he could not say: “Lord, by Thy grace I found this soul in the wilderness, in the dark and the loneliness, having no God to worship, denial and rebellion in his heart; and behold, I took him to my breast, and taught him in Thy name, and led him home to Thy haven, the Church!”
Thus it was that the Cure dreamed a dream. He would set his life to saving this lost soul. He would rescue him from the outer darkness.
His face suffused, he handed the paper in his hand back to the man who had written the words upon it. Then he lifted his hand against the people at the door and the loud murmuring behind them.
“Peace—peace!” he said, as though from the altar. “Leave this room of death, I command you. Go at once to your homes. This man”—he pointed to Charley—“is my friend. Who seeks to harm him, would harm me. Go hence and pray. Pray for yourselves, pray for him, and for me; and pray for the troubled soul of Louis Trudel. Go in peace.”
Soon afterwards the house was empty, save for the Cure, Charley, old Margot, and the Notary.
That night Charley sat in the tailor’s bedroom, rigid and calm, though racked with pain, and watched the candles flickering beside the dead body. He was thinking of the Cure’s last words to the people.
“I wonder—I wonder,” he said, and through his eyeglass he stared at the crucifix that threw a shadow on the dead man’s face. Morning found him there. As dawn crept in he rose to his feet. “Whither now?” he said, like one in a dream.
CHAPTER XXII. THE WOMAN WHO SAW
Up to the moment of her meeting with Charley, Rosalie Evanturel’s life had been governed by habit, which was lightly coloured by temperament. Since the eventful hour on Vadrome Mountain it had become a life of temperament, in which habit was involuntary and mechanical. She did her daily duties with a good heart, but also with a sense superior to the practical action. This grew from day to day, until, in the tragical days wherein she had secretly played a great part, she moved as in a dream, but a dream so formal that no one saw any change taking place in her, or associated her with the events happening across the way.