Cynthe Cardinal revolted. Her quickened heart could not look at the torture of the other girl. She wanted to run forward and throw herself at the feet of the other girl as she came staggering down from the stand and implore her pardon. She wanted to cry out to her that she must tell! That no man, alive or dead, was worth all this! For Cynthe Cardinal knew that truth bitterly. Instead, she turned and ran like a 249 frightened, wild thing out of the room and up the street.
She had seen the Bishop come direct from the little church to the court. And as she watched his face when he came down from the stand, she knew instinctively that he was going back there. Cynthe understood. Even M’sieur the Bishop who was so wise and strong, he was troubled. He thought much of the young Whiting. He would have business with God.
She slipped noiselessly in at the door of the church and saw the Bishop kneeling there at the end of the pew, bowed and broken.
He was first aware of her when he heard a frightened, hurrying whisper at his elbow. Some one was kneeling in the aisle beside him, saying:
Mon Pere, je me ’cuse.
The ritual would have told him to rise and go to the confessional. But here was a soul that was pouring its secret out to him in a torrential rush of words and sobs that would not wait for ritual. The Bishop listened without raising his head. He had neither the will nor the power to break in upon that cruel story that had been torturing its keeper night and day. He knew that it was true, knew what the end of it would be. But still he must be careful to give no word that would show that he knew what was coming. The French of the hills and of Beaupre was a little too rapid for him but it was easy to follow the thread of the story. 250 When she had finished and was weeping quietly, the Bishop prompted gently.
“And now? my daughter.”
“And now, Mon Pere, must I tell? I would not tell. I loved Rafe Gadbeau. As long as I shall live I shall love him. For his good name I would die. But I cannot see the suffering of that girl, Ruth. Mon Pere, it is too much! I cannot stand it. Yet I cannot go there before men and call my love a murderer. Consider, Mon Pere. There is another way. I, too, am guilty. I wished for the death of that man. I would have killed him myself, for he had made Rafe Gadbeau do many things that he would not have done. He made my love a murderer. I went to keep Rafe Gadbeau from the setting of the fire. But I would have killed that man myself with the gun if I could. So I hated him. When I saw him fall, I clapped my hands in glee. See, Mon Pere, I am guilty. And I called joyfully to my love to run with me and save himself, for he was now free from that man forever. But he ran in the path of the fire because he feared those other men.
“But see, Mon Pere, I am guilty. I will go and tell the court that I am the guilty one. I will say that my hand shot that man. See, I will tell the story. I have told it many times to myself. Such a straight story I shall tell. And they will believe. I will make them believe. And they 251 will not hurt a girl much,” she said, dropping back upon her native shrewdness to strengthen her plea. “The railroad does not care who killed Rogers. They want only to punish the young Whiting. And the court will believe, as I shall tell it.”
“But, my daughter,” said the Bishop, temporising. “It would not be true. We must not lie.”