and where he would sting. Rough misdemeanours among them had been many,
there had once been a murder in the parish, but the undefined horrors of
infidelity were more shameful than crimes the eye could see.

To the minds of these excited people the tailor-man's death was due to
the infidel before them. They were ready to do all that might become a
Catholic intent to avenge the profaned honour of the Church and the
faith. Bodily harm was the natural form for their passion to take.

"Bring him out--let us have him!" they cried with fierce gestures, to
which Rosalie Evanturel turned a pained, indignant face.

As the Curb stood with the paper in his hand, his face set and bitter,
Rosalie made a step forward. She meant to tell the truth about Louis
Trudel, and show how good this man was, who stood charged with an
imaginary crime. But she met the warning eye of the man himself, calm
and resolute, she saw the suffering in the face, endured with what
composure! and she felt instantly that she must obey him, and that--who
could tell?--his plan might be the best in the end. She looked at the
Cure anxiously. What would he say and do? In the Cure's heart and
mind a great struggle was going on. All his inherent prejudice, the
hereditary predisposition of centuries, the ingrain hatred of atheism,
were alive in him, hardening his mind against the man before him. His
first impulse was to let Charley take his fate at the hands of the people
of Chaudiere, whatever it might be. But as he looked at the man, as he
recalled their first meeting, and remembered the simple, quiet life he
had lived among them--charitable, and unselfish--the barriers of creed
and habit fell down, and tears unbidden rushed into his eyes.

The Cure had, all at once, the one great inspiration of his life--its one