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Yet the whole train of circumstances had a supernatural air, for the Cure and Jo Portugais had not made public their experience on the eventful night; she had been educated in a land of legend and superstition, and a deep impression had been made upon her mind, giving to her other new emotions a touch of pathos, of imagination, and adding character to her face.
But to himself he kept saying: "The man was a drunkard he was a drunkard." M. Marcel Loisel did his work with a masterly precision, with the aid of his brother and Portugais. The man under the instruments, not wholly insensible, groaned once or twice. Once or twice, too, his eyes opened with a dumb hunted look, then closed as with an irresistible weariness.
Flynn that there had scarcely been a waking hour when she had not thought of him. "What Portugais knows, he'll not be tellin'," said Mrs. Flynn, after a moment. "An' 'tis no business of ours, is it, darlin'? Shure, there's Jo comin' out of the tailor-shop now!" They both looked out of the window, and saw Jo encounter Filion Lacasse the saddler, and Maximilian Cour the baker.
Before twenty-four hours went round, a dozen people knew it. The evening of the second day, another two thousand dollars was added to the treasure, and the lock was again sealed with the utmost secrecy. Charley and Jo Portugais, the infidel and the murderer, were thus the sentries to the peace of a parish, the bankers of its gifts, the security for the future of the church of Chaudiere.
Misery and anger possessed her, and she fought on with herself through dark hours. Thus five days had gone, until at last a wagon was brought to the door of the tailor-shop, and M'sieu' came out, leaning on the arm of Jo Portugais. There were several people in the street at the time, and they kept whispering that M'sieu' had been at death's door.
I saw him go to Jo Portugais a little while ago. 'Remember! he said I can't make out what he was after. We have enough to remember to-day, for sure." "Good may come of it, perhaps," said M. Loisel, looking sadly out upon the ruins of his church. "See, 'tis the sunrise!" said Mrs. Flynn's voice from the corner, her face towards the eastern window.
He dropped the hot iron on the seam, and sniffed with satisfaction. "Who are you?" said the tailor. "A man who wants work. The Cure knows. It's all right. Shall I stay?" The tailor nodded, and sat down with a colour in his face. From the moment there came to the post-office the letter addressed to "The Sick Man at the House of Jo Portugais at Vadrome Mountain," Rosalie Evanturel dreamed dreams.
Meanwhile the Cure fell upon his knees, and the noise of talk and whispering ceased in the house. But presently there was loud murmuring and shuffling of feet outside again, and Rosalie left the room hurriedly and went below to stop it. She met the men who were bringing the body of Jo Portugais into the shop. Up-stairs the Cure's voice prayed: "Of Thy mercy, O Lord, hear our prayer.
"Come, Jo, clear out, and you shall have your new habitant in a minute," he said. Portugais left the room, and when he came back, Charley was dressed in the suit of grey fulled cloth. It was loose, but comfortable, and save for the refined face on which a beard was growing now and the eye-glass, he might easily have passed for a farmer.
"It's a man. God save us was it murder?" said Jo Portugais, and shuddered. "Was it murder?" The body moved more swiftly than the raft. There was a hand thrust up two hands. "He's alive!" said Jo Portugais, and, hurriedly pulling round his waist a rope tied to a timber, jumped into the water. Three minutes later, on the raft, he was examining a wound in the head of an insensible man.
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