in
moments of pain and revelation. The priest in his anxiety suffered as
much as the man who did the wicked thing. When the man had finished, the
priest said:

"Is this all?"

"It is the great sin of my life." He shuddered, and continued: "I have
no love of life; I have no fear of death; but there is the man who saved
me years ago, who got me freedom. He has had great sorrow and trouble,
and I would live for his sake--because he has no friend."

"Who is the man?"

The other pointed to where the little house was hidden among the trees.
The priest almost gasped his amazement, but waited.

Thereupon the woodsman told the whole truth concerning the tailor of
Chaudiere.

"To save him, I have confessed my own sin. To you I might tell all in
confession, and the truth about him would be buried for ever. I might
not confess at all unless I confessed my own sin. You will save him,
father?" he asked anxiously.

"I will save him," was the reply of the priest.

"I want to give myself to justice; but he has been ill, and he may be
ill again, and he needs me." He told of the tailor's besetting weakness,
of his struggles against it, of his fall a few days before, and the
cause of it... told all to the man of silence.

"You wish to give yourself to justice?"

"I shall have no peace unless."

There was something martyr-like in the man's attitude. It appealed to
some stern, martyr-like quality in the priest. If the man would win
eternal peace so, then so be it. His grim piety approved. He spoke now
with the authority of divine justice.

"For one year longer go on as you are, then give yourself to
justice--one year from to-day, my son. Is it enough?"

"It is enough."

"Absolvo te!" said the priest.

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE EDGE OF LIFE

Meantime Charley was alone with his problem. The net of circumstances
seemed to have coiled inextricably round him. Once, at a trial in court
in other days, he had said in his ironical way: "One hasn't to fear the
penalties of one's sins, but the damnable accident of discovery."

To try to escape now, or, with the assistance of Jo Portugais, when
en route to Quebec in charge of the constables, and find refuge and
seclusion elsewhere? There was nothing he might ask of Portugais which
he would not do. To escape--and so acknowledge a guilt not his own!
Well, what did it matter! Who mattered? He knew only too well. The Cure
mattered--that good man who had never intruded his piety on hi