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Père Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor. "He is a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At length he halted before the woman. "Madame Delphine " The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was lifted to his eyes. "Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."
Ursin Lemaitre din kyare nut'n fo' doze creed; he fall in love!" Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to Père Jerome: "But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e kyare fo' dad creed." Père Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter.
"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy. "You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper paragraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship. He is crazy."
A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neat garb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, a silent bow, a new sign in the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane, walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti these were all; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the return of Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and early life.
"It is the right way," he said to Père Jerome, the day we saw him there. "Ursin Lemaìtre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his executor." "He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently. "On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f." Evariste spoke. "Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go crazy."
A few touches only were wanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old man died. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride, of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly with the ends of his fingers. "Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome Go at 'ome." "Wad you goin' mague?" she asked. "Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don put you'se'f sig. I goin' see Ursin. We trah to figs dat aw fo' you." "You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy. "We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!" He offered his hand.
No other window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a great comfort to Père Jerome. Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was thinking of Ursin.
The interior is richer than the exterior, and you may see on some of the pillars remains of sixteenth century paintings. A picture dating from 1681 occupies a position in the chapel of St Ursin in the south aisle; it shows the relic of the saint being brought to Lisieux in 1055.
"Qui ci ca? What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan. "Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie." "Ah, Père Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm, suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God I wizh to God de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!"
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