"No, no, dear Mademoiselle," he said; "I shall be all right presently.
You must get help to carry him up stairs. Bring the Notary; he and I can
carry him up."

"You, Monsieur! You--it would kill you! You are terribly hurt."

"I must help to carry him, else people will be asking questions," he
answered painfully. "He is going to die. It must not be known--you
understand!" His eyes searched the floor until they found the cross.
Rosalie picked it up with the pincers. "It must not be known what he did
to me," Charley said to the muttering and weeping old woman. He caught
her shoulder with his hand, for she seemed scarcely to heed.

She nodded. "Yes, yes, M'sieu', I will never speak." Rosalie was
standing in the door. "Go quickly, Mademoiselle," he said. She
disappeared with the iron cross, and flying across the street, thrust it
inside the post-office, then ran to the house of the Notary.

CHAPTER XX. THE RETURN OF THE TAILOR

Twenty minutes later the tailor was lying in his bed, breathing, but
still unconscious, the Notary, M'sieu', and the doctor of the next
parish, who by chance was in Chaudiere, beside him. Charley's face was
drawn and haggard with pain, for he had helped to carry old Louis to
bed, though every motion of his arms gave him untold agony. In the
doorway stood Rosalie and Margot Patry.

"Will he live?" asked the Notary.

The doctor shook his head. "A few hours, perhaps. He fell downstairs?"

Charley nodded. There was silence for some time, as the doctor went on
with his ministrations, and the Notary sat drumming his fingers on the
little table beside the bed. The two women stole away to the kitchen,
where Rosalie again pressed secrecy on Margot. In the interest of the
cause she had even threatened Margot with a charge of complicity. She
had heard the phrase "accessory before the fact," and she used it now
with good effect.

Then she took some fresh flour and oil, and thrust them inside the
bedroom door where Charley now sat clinching his hands and fighting down
the pain. Careful as ever of his personal appearance, however, he had
brushed every speck of flour from his clothes, and buttoned his coat up
to the neck.

Nearly an hour passed, and then the Cure appeared. When he entered the
sick man's room, Charley followed, and again Rosalie and old Margot came
and stood within the doorway.

"Peace be to this house!" said the Cure. He had a few minutes of
whispered conversation with the doc