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Updated: June 24, 2025
The man who had looked upon the faces of life and death these many years, the man of strange comings and goings, the Bishop who had set him on the way of all this, and who from what he had said in his house in Alden, that day so long ago when all this began, may have foreseen this very thing, the man who had heard Rafe Gadbeau cry out his guilt; that man would understand. He would go to him.
She was certain that he knew what had happened to Jeffrey Whiting. And she was waiting for him to betray himself in some way. When Arsene LaComb rang the bell for Vespers, she waited by the bell ringer to see that Gadbeau came into the church. He took his place among the men, and then Ruth dropped quietly into a pew near the door.
The swollen lips, however, only continued to mumble the words with which they had begun: "Mon Pere, je me 'cuse " Rafe Gadbeau could speak English as well as or better than he could speak French. But there are times when a man reverts to the tongue of his mother. And confession, especially in the face of death, is one of these.
In the red sandstone courthouse of Racquette County the District Attorney of the county was opening the case for the State against Jeffrey Whiting, charged with the murder of Samuel Rogers, who had died by the hand of Rafe Gadbeau that grim morning on the side of Bald Mountain.
He said quickly: "You were with Rafe Gadbeau at his death?" "I was." "What did he say to you?" Jeffrey Whiting leaned forward in his chair, his eyes eager and confident. His heart shouting that here was his deliverance. Here was the hour and the need! The Bishop would speak! The Bishop's eyes fell upon the prisoner for an instant.
They had Rafe Gadbeau, you know he's a kind of a political boss of the French around French Village; and a man named Sayres over on Forked Lake. "Gadbeau had no farm of his own to sell, but he'd been spending money around free, and I knew the railroad must have given it to him outright. I told him what I had found out, about the iron and what the land would be worth if the farmers held on to it.
We don't know! I won't let you say it. "And if you do say it," she argued, "why, I'll have to say it, too." "You?" "Yes, I. Do you remember that night you were in the sugar cabin? I was outside looking through the chinks at Rafe Gadbeau. What was I thinking? What was in my heart? I'll tell you. I was out there stalking like a panther. I wanted just one thing out of all the world. Just one thing!
Some of them must at least have heard news of him, must know in what direction he had gone to fight the fire. But some unnamed dread seemed to take possession of her so that she dared not put her crying question into words. Some one at her elbow, who had heard what the French people were saying, asked: "You're sure that was Gadbeau that crawled out of the fire and died, Miss Lansing?" "Yes.
Gadbeau had not come to injure Jeffrey further. He had merely come to make himself sure that his prisoner was secure. He would not stay long. As she stole around away from the path and the pony she saw a little stream of light shoot out through a chink between the logs of the hut. Gadbeau had made a light. Probably he had brought something for Jeffrey to eat.
One of the voices was certainly Gadbeau's. The other It was! It was! Though it was only a mumble, she knew it was Jeffrey Whiting who tried to speak! She took a step forward, ready to dash into the place, whatever it was. But the caution of the hills made her back away noiselessly into the brush. What could she do? Why? Oh, why had she not brought a rifle? Gadbeau was sure to be armed.
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