Part 29 (1/2)

You're going to get out of this wretched, unkempt state of melancholia at once. Tanrade has told me much. You know as well as I do, the village is a nest of gossip--that they make a mountain out of a molehill; if I were a pirate chief and had captured this vagabond port, I'd have a few of those wagging tongues taken out and keel-hauled in the bay.”

He started as if in pain, and again turned his haggard eyes to mine.

”I don't believe there's a word of truth in it,” I declared hotly.

”There--_is_,” he returned hoa.r.s.ely, trembling so his voice faltered--”I am--a thief.”

He sat bolt-upright in his chair, staring at me like a man who had suddenly become insane. His declaration was so sudden and amazing, that for some moments I knew not what to reply, then a feeling of pity took possession of me. He was still my friend, whatever he had done. I saw his gaze revert to the crucifix hanging between the steel engravings of two venerable saints, over the mantel back of the stove--a mantel heaped with old shot bags and empty cartridge sh.e.l.ls.

”How the devil did it happen?” I blurted out at length. ”You don't mean to say you stole the money?”

”Spent it,” he replied half inaudibly.

”How spent it? On yourself?”

”No, no! Thank G.o.d--”

”How, then?”

He leaned forward, his head sunk in his hands, his eyes riveted upon mine.

”There is--so--much--dire--need of money,” he said, catching his breath between his words. ”We are all human--all weak in the face of another's misery. It takes a strong heart, a strong mind, a strong body to resist.

There are some temptations too terrible even for a priest. I wish with all my heart that Alice had never given it into my hands.”

I started to speak, but he held up his arms.

”Do not ask me more,” he pleaded--”I cannot tell you--I am ill and weak--my courage is gone.”

”Is there any of the money left?” I ventured quietly, after waiting in vain for him to continue.

”I do not know,” he returned wearily, ”most of it has gone--over there, beneath the papers, in the little drawer,” he said pointing to the corner; ”I kept it there. Yes, there is some left--but I have not dared count it.”

Again there ensued a painful silence, while I racked my brain for a scheme that might still save the situation, bad as it looked. In the state he was in, I had not the heart to worry out of him a fuller confession. Most of the fifteen hundred francs was gone, that was plain enough. What he had done with it I could only conjecture. Had he given it to save another I wondered. Some man or woman whose very life and reputation depended upon it? Had he fallen in love hopelessly and past all reasoning? There is no man that some woman cannot make her slave. It was not many years ago, that a far more saintly priest than he eloped to Belgium with a pretty seamstress of Les Fosses. Then I thought of Germaine!--that little minx, badly in debt--perhaps? No, no, impossible!

She was too clever--too honest for that.

”Have you seen Alice?” I broke our silence with at length.

He shook his head wearily. ”I could not,” he replied, ”I know the bitterness she must feel toward me.”

At that moment Marie knocked at the door. As she entered, I saw that her wrinkled face was drawn, as with lowered eyes she regarded a yellow envelope stamped with the seal of the _Republique Francaise_.

With a trembling hand she laid it beside the cure, and left the room.

The cure started, then he rose nervously to his feet, steadying himself against the table's edge as he tore open the envelope, and glanced at its contents. With a low moan he sank back in his chair.--”Go,” he pleaded huskily, ”I wish to be alone--I have been summoned before the mayor.”

Never before in the history of the whole country about, had a cure been hauled to account. Pont du Sable was buzzing like a beehive over the affair. Along its single thoroughfare, flanked by the stone houses of the fishermen, the gossips cl.u.s.tered in groups. From what I caught in pa.s.sing proved to me again that his reverence had more friends than enemies.