Hector blurted out:
“Why—what for? Because you said that a raw English girl nursing a dying sheep-dog on a mountain in Peakshire reminded you of the Maid of Orleans and Our Blessed Lady!”
“And if I did?”
“But was she not English?... A Protestant?... a heretic?”
“Many of the Saints were heretics—until Our Lord called them,” said de Moulny, with that fanatical spark burning in his blue eye. “But He had chosen them before He called. They bore the seal of His choice.”
“Perhaps you are right. No doubt you know best. It is you who are to be——” Hector broke off.
“You were going to finish: ‘It is you who are to be a priest, not me...!’” de Moulny said, with the veins in his heavy forehead swelling, and a twitching muscle jerking down his pouting underlip.
“I forget what I was going to say,” declared Hector mendaciously, and piled Ossa upon Pelion by begging de Moulny to go on with his story. “It interested hugely,” he said, even as he struggled to repress the threatening yawn.
“What is there to tell?” grumbled de Moulny ungraciously. “She was there, that is all—with that dog that had been hurt. A pony she had ridden was grazing at the back of the shed, its bridle tied to the pommel of the saddle. Bertham approached her and saluted her; he knew her, it seems, and presented me. She spoke only of the dog—looked at nothing but the dog! She could not bear to leave it, in case it should be put to death by the master it could serve no more....”
Hector interrupted, for de Moulny’s voice had begun to sound as though he were talking in his sleep: