the devotion touched him.

All at once Louis Trudel opened his eyes. Staring round with acute
excitement, his eyes fell on the Cure, then upon Charley.

"Stop--stop, M'sieu' le Cure!" he cried. "There's other work to do." He
gasped and was convulsed, but the pallor of his face was alive with fire
from the distempered eyes. He snatched from his breast the paper Charley
had neglected to burn. He thrust it into the Curb's hand.

"See--see!" he croaked. "He is an infidel--black infidel--from hell!"
His voice rose in a kind of shriek, piercing to every corner of the
house. He pointed at Charley with shaking finger.

"He wrote it there--on that paper. He doesn't--believe in God."

His strength failed him, his hand clutched tremblingly at the air. He
laughed, a dry, crackling laugh, and his mouth opened twice or thrice
to speak, but gasping breaths only came forth. With a last effort,
however--as the priest, shocked, stretched out his hand and said: "Have
done, have done, Trudel!"--he cried, in a voice that quavered shrilly:

"He asked--tailor-man--sign--from--Heaven. Look-look!" He pointed wildly
at Charley. "I--gave him--sign of--"

But that was the end. With a shudder the body collapsed in a formless
heap, and the tailor-man was gone to tell of the work he had done for
his faith on earth.

CHAPTER XXI. THE CURE HAS AN INSPIRATION

White and malicious faces peered through the doorway. There was an ugly
murmur coming up the staircase. Many habitants had heard Louis Trudel's
last words, and had passed them on with vehement exaggeration.

Chaudiere had been touched in its most superstitious corner.
Protestantism was a sin, but atheism was a crime against humanity. The
Protestant might be the victim of a mistake, but the atheist was the
deliberate son of darkness, the source of fearful dangers. An atheist in
their midst was like a scorpion in a flower-bed--no one could tell when
and where he would sting. Rough misdemeanours among them had been many,
there had once been a murder in the parish, but the undefined horrors of
infidelity were more shameful than crimes the eye could see.

To the minds of these excited people the tailor-man's death was due to
the infidel before them. They were ready to do all that might become
a Catholic intent to avenge the profaned honour of the Church and the
faith. Bodily harm was the natural form for their passion to take.

"Bring him out--let us have him!" they cried with fierce