He replaced his cap, drew it low
over his face, and continued his way.
“Home, did I say?” he muttered presently. “Have I still a home to come to? Gaston most likely is gone, fallen like the best blood of La Vendée in God’s and the king’s cause. And Marie!”
A sudden flush suffused the bronzed cheek. The pilgrim walked on with a quicker step, and was soon at the gate of the presbytery.
“Ah! here it is, just as I left it—the little wicket that opened so often with a ready welcome. A good omen to begin with!”
He pushed it and walked on. The door of the dwelling-house stood ajar; winter and summer it was never shut; he pushed it open, and knocked gently at a door on the left.
“Come in!” said M. le Curé.
And François Léonval entered and stood face to face with the only father he had known on earth. Nearly four years had passed since they had parted, and the old priest who had baptized him, and taught him, and wept with him beside his mother’s grave, was just the same as when he had left him, benign, cheerful, a trifle more bowed perhaps and a good deal whiter, but the same in everything else—nothing was changed within. He looked up promptly, closed his book, and then, with a glance where “charity that thinketh no evil” deprecated a certain vague mistrust, he said:
“What can I do for you, my boy?”
“Monsieur le Curé! mon père! Is this the welcome you give me?”