At the village post-office the carriage stopped, and, one of the servants having opened the door, the priest descended and passed into the little bureau. He said nothing about the letter addressed to Sidney Carew, but Christian took for granted that it would be posted. Instead of this, however, the priest wrote a telegram announcing the arrival of the Deux Frères, which he addressed to “Morel et Fils, Merchants, Quimper.”
“Hoel Grall asked me to despatch this,” he said quietly, as he handed the paper to the old postmaster.
After this short halt the carriage made its way rapidly inland. Thus they travelled through the fair Breton country together, these two strangely contrasting men brought together by a chain of circumstances of which the links were the merest coincidences. Christian Vellacott did not appear to chafe against his confinement. He took absolutely no notice of the two men whose duty it was to watch his every movement. The spirit of adventure, which is not quite educated out of us Englishmen yet, was very strong in him, and the rapid movement through an unknown land to an unknown goal was not without its healthy fascination. He lay back in the comfortable carriage and sleepily watched the flying landscape. Withal he noticed by the position of the sun the direction in which he was being taken, and despite many turns and twists he kept his bearings fairly well. The carriage had left the high road soon after crossing the bridge above Audierne, and was now going somewhat heavily over inferior thoroughfares.
The sun had set before Vellacott awoke to find that they were still lumbering on. He had, of course, lost all bearing now, but he soon found that they had been journeying eastward since leaving the coast.
A halt was made for refreshment at a small hillside village which appeared to be mainly inhabited by women, for the men were all sailors. The accommodation was of the poorest, but bread was procurable, and eggs, meat being an unknown luxury in the community.
In the lowering light they journeyed on again, sometimes on the broad post-road, sometimes through cool and sombre forests. Many times when Christian spoke kindly, or performed some little act of consideration, the poor Abbé was on the point of disclosing his own treason. Before his eyes was the vision of that little cabin. He saw again the dancing flame of the paper in his hand, throwing its moving light upon the marble features of that silent witness as the charred fragments fluttered past the still face to the ground. But as the stone is worn by the dropping water, so at last is man's better nature overcome by persistent undermining when the work is carried out by men chosen as possessing “a mind self-possessed and tranquil, delicate in its perceptions, sure in its intuitions, and capable of a wide comprehension of various subjects.” What youthful nature could be strong enough to resist the cunning pressure of influences wielded thus? So René Drucquer carried the secret in his heart until circumstances rendered it unimportant.
Man is, after all, only fallible, and those to whom is given the privilege of accepting or refusing candidates for admission to the great Society of Jesus had made a fatal error in taking René Drucquer. Never was a man more unfitted to do his duty in that station of life in which he was placed. His religious enthusiasm stopped short of fanaticism; his pliability would not bend so low as duplicity. All this the young journalist learnt as he penetrated further into the sensitive depths of his companion's gentle temperament. The priest was of those men to whom love and brotherly affection are as necessary as the air they breathe. His wavering instincts were capable of being hardened into convictions; his natural gifts (and they were many) could be raised into talents; his life, in fact, could have been made a success by one influence—the love of a woman—the one influence that was forbidden: the single human acquirement that must for ever be beyond the priest's reach. This Christian Vellacott felt in a vague, uncertain way. He did not know very much about love and its influence upon a man's character, these questions never having come under his journalistic field of inquiry; but he had lately begun to wonder whether man's life was given to him to be influenced by no other thoughts than those in his own brain—whether there is not in our existence a completing area in the development of character.
Looking at the matter from his own personal point of view—from whence even the best of us look upon most things—he was of the opinion that love stands in the path of the majority of men. This had been his view of the matter for many years; probably it was the reflection of his father's cynically outspoken opinion, and a well-grown idea is hard to uproot.
Brought up, as he had been, by a pleasure-seeking and somewhat cynical man, and passing from his care into the busy and practical journalistic world, it was only natural that he should have acquired a certain hardness of judgment which, though useful in the world, is not an amiable quality. He now felt the presence of a dawning charity towards the actions of his fellow-men. A month earlier he would have despised René Drucquer as a weak and incapable man; now there was in his heart only pity for the young priest.
Soon after darkness had settled over the country the carriage descended into a deep and narrow valley through which ran a rapid river of no great breadth. Here the driver stopped, and the two travellers descended from the vehicle. The priest exchanged a few words in a low voice with one of the servants who had leapt down from the box, and then turning to Vellacott he said in a curt manner—