set his life to
saving this lost soul. He would rescue him from the outer darkness.

His face suffused, he handed the paper in his hand back to the man
who had written the words upon it. Then he lifted his hand against the
people at the door and the loud murmuring behind them.

"Peace--peace!" he said, as though from the altar. "Leave this room of
death, I command you. Go at once to your homes. This man"--he pointed to
Charley--"is my friend. Who seeks to harm him, would harm me. Go hence
and pray. Pray for yourselves, pray for him, and for me; and pray for
the troubled soul of Louis Trudel. Go in peace."

Soon afterwards the house was empty, save for the Cure, Charley, old
Margot, and the Notary.

That night Charley sat in the tailor's bedroom, rigid and calm, though
racked with pain, and watched the candles flickering beside the dead
body. He was thinking of the Cure's last words to the people.

"I wonder--I wonder," he said, and through his eyeglass he stared at the
crucifix that threw a shadow on the dead man's face. Morning found him
there. As dawn crept in he rose to his feet. "Whither now?" he said,
like one in a dream.

CHAPTER XXII. THE WOMAN WHO SAW

Up to the moment of her meeting with Charley, Rosalie Evanturel's life
had been governed by habit, which was lightly coloured by temperament.
Since the eventful hour on Vadrome Mountain it had become a life of
temperament, in which habit was involuntary and mechanical. She did her
daily duties with a good heart, but also with a sense superior to the
practical action. This grew from day to day, until, in the tragical days
wherein she had secretly played a great part, she moved as in a dream,
but a dream so formal that no one saw any change taking place in her, or
associated her with the events happening across the way.

She had been compelled to answer many questions, for it was known she
was in the tailor's house when Louis Trudel fell down-stairs, but what
more was there to tell than that she had run for the Notary, and
sent word to the Cure, and that she was present when the tailor died,
charging M'sieu' with being an infidel? At first she was ill disposed
to answer any questions, but she soon felt that attitude would only do
harm. For the first time in her life she was face to face with moral
problems--the beginning of sorrow, of knowledge, and of life.

In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful
they may be, or for wha