As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was
turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he
just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him
to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole patois,
saying, with some timid haste:

"Good-morning, Pere--Pere Jerome; Pere Jerome, we thank the good God for
that sermon."

"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had
noticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was a
beautiful figure, but the slight effort of Pere Jerome's kind eyes to
see through the veil was vain. He would presently have passed on, but
the one who had spoken before said:

"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."

"Yes; I am going this way to see a sick person."

The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and
timidity.

"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good
God," she said.

Pere Jerome smiled:

"God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it,
just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have
added that he loved to do it, quite as much.

It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get
courage to ask it.

"You have a little boy?" asked the priest.

"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Then
she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness
asked:

"Pere Jerome, what was the name of that man?"

"His name?" said the priest. "You wish to know his name?"

"Yes, Monsieur" (or _Miche_, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful
story." The speaker's companion looked another way.

"His name," said Father Jerome,--"some say one name and some another.
Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him? And
do you go to my church, Madame----?"

"No, Miche; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"--she
choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this
mark of confidence--"is Madame Delphine--Delphine Carraze."

CHAPTER VI.

A CRY OF DISTRESS.

Pere Jerome's smile and exclamation, as some days later he entered his
parlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative of
hearty greeting rather than surprise.

"Madame Delphine!"

Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for though
another Sunday had not yet c