Part 30 (1/2)

Alice's ringless white hands were clenched in her lap.

”And I saw, as I gave,” continued the cure, ”the end of pain and of hunger--little by little I gave, hoping somehow to replace it, until I dared give no more.”

He paused, and drew forth from the breast of his soutane a small cotton sack that had once held his gun wads. ”Here is what is left, gentlemen,”

said he, facing the Munic.i.p.al Council; ”I have counted it at last, four hundred and eighty francs, sixty-five centimes.”

There were tears now in Alice's eyes; dark eyes that followed the cure's with a look of tenderness and pain. The mayor sat breathing irritably.

As for the Munic.i.p.al Council, it was evident to Tanrade and myself, that not one of these plain, red-eared citizens was eager to send a priest to jail--it was their custom occasionally to go to ma.s.s.

”Marianne's illness,” continued the cure, ”was an important item. You seemed to consider her case of typhoid as a malady that would cure itself if let alone. Marianne needed care, serious care, strong as she was. The girl, Yvonne, she saved from drowning last year, and her baby, she still shelters among her own children in her hut. They, too, had to be fed; for Marianne was helpless to care for them. There was the little boy, too, of the Gavons--left alone, with a case of measles well developed when I found him, on the draughty floor of a loft; the mother and father had been drunk together for three days at Bar la Rose. And there were others--the Mere Gailliard, who would have been sold out for her rent, and poor old Varnet, the fisherman; he had no home, no money, no friends; he is eighty-four years old. Most of the winter he slept in a hedge under a cast-off sail. I got him a better roof and something for his stomach, Monsieur le Maire.”

He paused again, and drew out a folded paper from his pocket. ”Here is a list of all I can remember I have given to, and the amounts as near as I can recall them,” he declared simply. Again he turned to Alice. ”It is to you, dear friend, I have come to confess,” he continued; ”as for you, gentlemen, my very life, the church I love, all that this village means to me, lies in your hands; I do not beg your mercy. I have sinned and I shall take the consequences--all I ask you to do is to judge fairly the error of my ways.” Monsieur le Cure took his seat.

”It is for you, Madame de Breville, to decide,” said the mayor, after some moments conference with the Council, ”since the amount in question was given by your hand.”

Alice rose--softly she slipped past the Munic.i.p.al Council of Pont du Sable, until she stood looking up into the cure's eyes; then her arms went about his strong neck and she kissed him as tenderly as a sister.

”Child!” I heard him murmur.

”We shall give another concert,” she whispered in his ear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: bell]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The miser--Garron]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MISER--GARRON

We've had a drowning at Pont du Sable. Drownings are not infrequent on this rough Norman coast of France. Only last December five able fishermen went down within plain sight of the dunes in a roaring white sea that gave no quarter. This gale by night became a cyclone; the sea a driving h.e.l.l of water, hail and screaming wind. The barometer dropped to twenty-eight. The wind blew at one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour. Six fis.h.i.+ng boats hailing from Boulogne perished with their crews.

Their women went by train to Calais, still hoping for news, and returned weeping and alone.

At Boulogne the waves burst in spray to a height of forty feet over the breakwater--small wonder that the transatlantic liner due there to take on pa.s.sengers, signalled to her plunging tender already in danger--”Going through--No pa.s.sengers--” and proceeded on her way to New York.

The sea that night killed with a blow.

This latest drowning at Pont du Sable was a tragedy--or rather, the culmination of a series of tragedies.

”Suicide?”

”_Non_--_mon ami_--wait until you hear the whole truth of this plain tale.”

On my return from shooting this morning, Suzette brought me the news.

The whole fis.h.i.+ng village has known it since daylight.