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But a detective, a man named Rogers, found the knife and traced it to Rafe Gadbeau. He did not arrest him. No, he kept the knife, saying that some day he would call upon Rafe Gadbeau for the price of his silence. "Last summer this man Rogers came into the woods looking for some one to help get the people to sell their land. He saw Rafe Gadbeau. He showed him the knife.
I was guilty of it that instant when Rafe Gadbeau fired. I am guilty now. I will always be guilty. Rafe Gadbeau could say a few words to you and turn over into the next world, free. I cannot," he ended, with a sort of grim finality as though he saw again before him that wall against which he had come the night before. "You mean " the Bishop began slowly.
And when he came over the top of the hill, from where he could look down upon the grave of Rafe Gadbeau there under the Gaunt Rocks, the conviction pointed out to him just one enduring fact. It said: "There is the grave of Rafe Gadbeau; as long as memory lives to say anything about that grave it will say: a murderer was buried here." Then he fought no more with the conviction.
He knew that Rafe Gadbeau had made confession to the Bishop. He had wanted to ask the Bishop this morning, if there was not some way. He had not dared. Now he dared. The Bishop stood waiting for his further questions. There might be some way or some help, thought Dardis; maybe some word had dropped which was not a part of the real confession.
The face of the newcomer was burned and swollen beyond any knowing. But in the tall, loose-jointed figure Ruth easily recognised Rafe Gadbeau. The man swayed drunkenly in the Bishop's arms for a moment, then crumpled down inert. The Bishop knelt, loosening the shirt at the neck and holding the head of what he was quick to fear was a dying man.
Once Cynthe Cardinal had been very near to hating this girl, for she had seen Rafe Gadbeau leave herself at a dance, one afternoon a very long time ago, and spend the greater part of the afternoon talking gaily to Ruth Lansing. Now Rafe Gadbeau was gone. There was nothing left of him whom Cynthe Cardinal had loved but a memory.
He was as guilty as Rafe Gadbeau. Provocation? Yes, he had had provocation, bitter, blinding provocation. But so had Rafe Gadbeau: and he had never thought of Rafe Gadbeau as anything but guilty of murder. He turned on his heel and walked down the Run with swift, swinging strides, fighting this conviction that was settling upon him.
Thereafter the Judge gave her the most rigid attention. "Rafe Gadbeau came and sat down on the steps at my feet. I saw that he was troubled. 'What is it, mon Rafe? I asked. He groaned and said one bad word. Then he told me that he had just had a message from Rogers to meet him at the head of the rail with three men and six horses.
He told him that whatever he laid upon him to do, that he must do. He made him lie to the people. He made him attack the young Whiting. He made him do many things that he would not do, for Rafe Gadbeau was not a bad man, only foolish sometimes. And Rafe Gadbeau was sore under the yoke of fear that this man had put upon him.
There's a couple of men over there that are shaky. I've had to keep after them or they'd be listening to Rafe Gadbeau and letting their land go." "But," Ruth exclaimed, "now when they know, can't they see what is to their own interest! Are they blind?" "I know," said Jeffrey dully. "But you know how it is with those people. Their land is hard to work. It is poor land.