ow what he is."

"I know he is not evil."

The priest looked at her, wondering.

"You know--how?"

"My instinct," she said, coming a step nearer, and putting her hand,
too, on the gate near his. "Why should we desert him?"

"Desert him, Madame!"

Father Roubier's voice sounded amazed.

"Yes. You say he needs prayers. I know it. Father, are not the first
prayers, the truest, those that go most swiftly to Heaven--acts?"

The priest did not reply for a moment. He looked at her and seemed to be
thinking deeply.

"Why did you send Monsieur Androvsky to me this afternoon?" he said at
last abruptly.

"I knew you were a good man, and I fancied if you became friends you
might help him."

His face softened.

"A good man," he said. "Ah!" He shook his head sadly, with a sound that
was like a little pathetic laugh. "I--a good man! And I allow an almost
invincible personal feeling to conquer my inward sense of right! Madame,
come into the garden for a moment."

He opened the gate, she passed in, and he led her round the house to the
enclosure at the back, where they could talk in greater privacy. Then he
continued:

"You are right, Madame. I am here to try to do God's work, and sometimes
it is better to act for a human being, perhaps, even than to pray for
him. I will tell you that I feel an almost invincible repugnance to
Monsieur Androvsky, a repugnance that is almost stronger than my will
to hold it in check." He shivered slightly. "But, with God's help, I'll
conquer that. If he stays on here I'll try to be his friend. I'll do all
I can. If he is unhappy, far away from good, perhaps--I say it humbly,
Madame, I assure you--I might help him. But"--and here his face and
manner changed, became firmer, more dominating--"you are not a priest,
and--"

"No, only a woman," she said, interrupting him.

Something in her voice arrested him. There was a long silence in which
they paced slowly up and down on the sand between the palm trees. The
twilight was dying into night. Already the tomtoms were throbbing in the
street of the dancers, and the shriek of the distant pipes was faintly
heard. At last the priest spoke again.

"Madame," he said, "when you came to me this afternoon there was
something that you could not tell me."

"Yes."

"Had it anything to do with Monsieur Androvsky?"

"I meant to ask you to advise me about myself."

"My advice to you was and is--be strong but not too foolhardy."

"Believe me I wil