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As he closed the door softly, killing entered his mind and stayed there. "Thou shalt not" had been the first instigation to "Thou shalt." It haunted him as he returned to his room, undressed himself, and went to bed. He could not sleep. "Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!" The challenge had been to himself. He must respond to it.
This stingy, hard, unhappy man how should he know what I am denied! Or does he know? Is it all illusion? If there is a God who receives such devotion, to the exclusion of natural demand and spiritual anxieties, why does not this tailor 'let his light so shine before men that they may see his good works, and glorify his Father which is in heaven? That is it. Therefore, wherefore, tailor-man?
"By the great decree, the man was able to stop the horse, not a half-dozen feet from the ravine. The horse and the insensible driver were spared death death. So, Messieurs, does bravery come from unexpected places see?" The Seigneur, the Cure, and even the Notary clapped their hands, and murmured praises of the tailor-man. But the Colonel did not yet take his seat.
Then he remembered the tale he had heard. He turned away gravely to his brother. "Was it the cross or the woman he went for?" he asked. "Great God do you ask!" the Seigneur said indignantly. "And he deserves her," he muttered under his breath. Charley opened his eyes. "Is she safe?" he asked, starting up. "Unscathed, my son," the Cure said. Was this tailor-man not his son?
But that was the end. With a shudder the body collapsed in a formless heap, and the tailor-man was gone to tell of the work he had done for his faith on earth. White and malicious faces peered through the doorway. There was an ugly murmur coming up the staircase. Many habitants had heard Louis Trudel's last words, and had passed them on with vehement exaggeration.
He laughed, a dry, crackling laugh, and his mouth opened twice or thrice to speak, but gasping breaths only came forth. With a last effort, however- -as the priest, shocked, stretched out his hand and said: "Have done, have done, Trudel!" he cried, in a voice that quavered shrilly: "He asked tailor-man sign from Heaven. Look-look!" He pointed wildly at Charley. "I gave him sign of "
She saw the sleeping man on the bed, and the tailor standing over him. Charley was lying with one arm thrown above his head; the other lay over the side of the bed. As she rushed forward, divining old Louis' purpose, the fiery cross descended, and a voice cried: "'Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!"
The duty lay with him; he must answer this black infidel for the Church, for faith, for God. The more he thought of it, the more Charley's face came before him, with the monocle shining and hard in the eye. The monocle haunted him. That was the infidel's sign. "Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!" What sign should he show? Presently he sat up straight in bed.
The words he had written the night before came to him: "Therefore, wherefore, tailor-man? Therefore, wherefore, God?... Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!" As if in reply to his thoughts there came the sound of singing, and of bells ringing in the parish church. A procession with banners was coming near. It was a holy day, and Chaudiere was mindful of its duties.
Therefore, wherefore, God? Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!" Seated on his bench in the shop, with his eyes ever and anon raised towards the little post-office opposite, he wrote these words. Afterwards he sat and thought till the shadows deepened, and the tailor came in to supper.
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