ss only to listen to the
metaphysical gossip of two mild old parsons. In his impatience he lost
the equally elaborate answer of the tall cleric, and when he listened
again it was again Father Brown who was speaking:

"Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star. Look
at those stars. Don't they look as if they were single diamonds and
sapphires? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please.
Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon
is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don't fancy that all
that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason
and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of
pearl, you would still find a notice-board, 'Thou shalt not steal.'"

Valentin was just in the act of rising from his rigid and crouching
attitude and creeping away as softly as might be, felled by the one
great folly of his life. But something in the very silence of the tall
priest made him stop until the latter spoke. When at last he did speak,
he said simply, his head bowed and his hands on his knees:

"Well, I think that other worlds may perhaps rise higher than our
reason. The mystery of heaven is unfathomable, and I for one can only
bow my head."

Then, with brow yet bent and without changing by the faintest shade his
attitude or voice, he added:

"Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, will you? We're all alone
here, and I could pull you to pieces like a straw doll."

The utterly unaltered voice and attitude added a strange violence to
that shocking change of speech. But the guarder of the relic only seemed
to turn his head by the smallest section of the compass. He seemed still
to have a somewhat foolish face turned to the stars. Perhaps he had not
understood. Or, perhaps, he had understood and sat rigid with terror.

"Yes," said the tall priest, in the same low voice and in the same still
posture, "yes, I am Flambeau."

Then, after a pause, he said:

"Come, will you give me that cross?"

"No," said the other, and the monosyllable had an odd sound.

Flambeau suddenly flung off all his pontifical pretensions. The great
robber leaned back in his seat and laughed low but long.

"No," he cried, "you won't give it me, you proud prelate. You won't give
it me, you little celibate simpleton. Shall I tell you why you won't
give it me? Because I've got it already in my own breast-pocket."

The small man from Es