was not a thing to see--and they both came from the little parish of St.
Francis, and had passed many an hour together.

"Never mind, Grassette," he said gently. "Call me what you will. You've
got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don't want
your life for the life you took."

Grassette's breast heaved. "He put me out of my work, the man I kill.
He pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call--
tete de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head,
and I kill him."

The Governor made a protesting gesture. "I understand. I am glad his
mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in
the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the darkin
purgatory."

The brave old man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer,
Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of his
blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of
recognisable humanity.

"It is done--well, I pay for it," responded Grassette, setting his jaw.
"It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the
Sheriff there the other--so quick, and all."

The Governor looked at him for some moments without speaking. The
Sheriff intervened again officiously.

"His Honour has come to say something important to you," he remarked