-"that
she and her daughter are of more value than many sparrows; that God's
priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her to fix her trust in the
great Husband of the Church and she shall yet see her child receiving
the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; I shall, in a few minutes,
be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall find her, either there or
wherever she is. Go; they shall not oppress you. Adieu!"

A moment or two later he was in the street himself.

CHAPTER XIV.

BY AN OATH.

Pere Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight,
had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start
again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked,
so suddenly as to startle him:

"_Miche, commin ye pelle la rie ici_?--how do they call this street
here?"

It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than
by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized
the woman to whom he replied in her own _patois_:

"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"

She almost leaped from the ground.

"Oh, Pere Jerome! _mo pas conne_,--I dunno. You know w'ere's dad 'ouse
of Miche Jean Tomkin? _Mo courri 'ci, mo courri la,--mo pas capabe li
trouve_. I go (run) here--there--I cannot find it," she gesticulated.

"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean
Thompson, Madame Delphine?"

"I _'blige'_ to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away,
one foot planted forward with an air of excited pre-occupation; "I godd
some' to tell 'im wad I _'blige'_ to tell 'im!"

"Madame Delphine"--

"Oh! Pere Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de
'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"

Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.

"What are you going to tell him?" asked the priest.

"Oh, Pere Jerome,"--in the Creole _patois_ again,--"I am going to put an
end to all this trouble--only I pray you do not ask me about it now;
every minute is precious!"

He could not withstand her look of entreaty.

"Come," he said, and they went.

* * * * *

Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the
Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Each
had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the magnolias,
--his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly shaded
garden, his broad