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He caught both Pierre's hands in his and added: "It is for my wife and child; I have no fear. Adieu, my friend! When you see the good Pere Corraine say to him but no, it is no matter there is One greater!" Once again he caught Pierre hard by the shoulder, then ran to the cliff and swung down the ladder. All at once there shot through Pierre's body an impulse, and his eyes lighted with excitement.
Father Corraine now faced the man, and with a soft exaltation of voice and manner said: "John Bagot, in the name of Christ, I demand twenty years of your life of love and obedience of God. I broke my vow; I perjured my soul; I bought your wife with ten kegs of rum." The tall hunter dropped again to his knees, and caught the priest's hand to kiss it.
"I have never told the story, never not even to Pere Corraine. But I know, I have it here" he put his hand to his forehead, as did Pierre "that you will be silent." Pierre nodded. "She was fine to see. Her eyes were black as beads; and when she laugh it was all music. I was so happy! We lived on the island of the Aux Coudres, far up there at Quebec. It was a wild place.
And once, as she did so, she said: "I've far to go and the pain is bad. Did they take him away?" Father Corraine shook his head. "I do not know of whom you speak," he replied. "When I went to my door this morning I found you lying there.
I brought you in, and, finding no sign of life in you, sent Featherfoot, my Indian, to Fort Cypress for a trooper to come; for I feared that there had been ill done to you, somehow. This border-side is but a rough country. It is not always safe for a woman to travel alone." The girl shuddered. "Father," she said "Father Corraine, I believe you are?"
Mary Callen's tears flowed afresh at first; but soon after the voice ceased she closed her eyes and her sobs stopped, and Father Corraine sat down and became lost in thought as he watched the candle.
Presently a trooper stepped forward and said warmly, yet brusquely, as became his office: "Father Corraine, we meet again!" The priest's face was overswept by many expressions, in which marvel and trouble were uppermost, while joy was in less distinctness. "Surely," he said, "it is Shon McGann." "Shon McGann, and no other.
Then his lips moved dryly. She brought him water. He drank deeply, and a sigh of relief escaped him. "You got here safely," he now said. "I am glad of that though you, too, are hurt." She briefly told him how, and then he said: "Well, I suppose you know all of me now?" "I know what happened in Pipi Valley," she said, timidly and wearily. "Father Corraine told me." "Where is he?"
"There is the law, and my conscience." "The law! the law!" and there was sharp satire in the half-breed's voice. "What has it done in the West? Think, 'mon pere! Do you not know a hundred cases where the law has dealt foully? There was more justice before we had law. Law " And he named over swiftly, scornfully, a score of names and incidents, to which Father Corraine listened intently.
The others set their faces northward, and Father Corraine walked beside Mary Callen's horse, talking quietly of their future life, and speaking, as he would never speak again, of days in that green land of their birth. At length, upon a dividing swell of the prairie, he paused to say farewell.
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