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Then, bursting in and locking the door, she hurried to her room, undressed quickly, got into bed without saying her prayers, and buried her face in the pillow, shivering and overwrought. The footsteps she had heard were those of the Cure and Jo Portugais. The Cure had sent for Jo to do some last work upon a little altar, to be used the next day for the first time.
Walking slowly, head bent, eyes unseeing, Charley was on his way to Vadrome Mountain, with the knowledge that Jo Portugais had returned. The hunger for companionship was on him: to touch some mind that could understand the deep loneliness which had settled on him since that scene in the postoffice. It was the loneliness of a new and great separation. He had wakened to it to-day.
A girl, in the garb of the Magdalene, entered the tent of the Cure, and, speaking no word, knelt and received absolution of her sins. CHARLEY left Jo Portugais behind, and went home alone. He watched at a window till he saw Rosalie return. As she passed quickly down the street with Mrs. Flynn to her own door, he observed that her face was happier than he had seen it for many a day.
He was the centre of the village tittle-tattle, and worse. With malicious speed Paulette told him how she had seen Rosalie Evanturel nailing the little cross on the church door of a certain night. If he wanted proof of what she said, let him ask Jo Portugais. Having spat out her revenge, she went on to the village, and through it to her house, where she prepared to visit the shop of the tailor.
Charley waved a deprecating hand towards Jo. "I shall not call Portugais as evidence," he said. "You are conducting your own case?" asked the Seigneur, with a grim smile. "It is dangerous, I believe." "I will take my chances," answered Charley. "Will you tell me what object the criminal could have in stealing the gold vessels from the cathedral?" he added, turning to the Abbe. "They were gold!"
He was not disappointed, for he heard Charley say: "One person in the witness-box at a time, Madame. Till Jo Portugais is cross-examined and steps down, I don't see what I can do!" "But you are a Protestant!" said the woman snappishly.
His head did not throb now, and he drew himself up slowly on his elbow-then, after a moment, lifted himself to a sitting posture. "What is your name, my friend?" he said. "Jo Portugais, M'sieu'," Jo answered, and brought a candle and put it on the table, then lifted the tin-plate from over the bowl of savoury soup. Never before had Charley Steele sat down to such a breakfast.
Well, why not? he reflected, for Jones' prejudices were few and far between. Besides, he added: Les Portugais sont toujours gais. But he had other things to think about and he dismissed the incident, which, in less than a week, he had occasion to recall.
Her soul was her own, but this secret of their love was his as well as hers. She knew that she was the only just judge between. It seemed to the delighted and excited Rosalie that Jo Portugais had been sent to her as a surprise, and that his team of dogs was to take her father back.
"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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