He paused. The Abbe made no reply. The Cure was bending forward
eagerly; the Seigneur sat with his hands over the top of his cane, his
chin on his hands, never taking his eyes from him, save to glance once or
twice at his brother. Jo Portugais was crouched on the bench, watching.

"I do not know what makes an infidel," Charley went on. "Is it an honest
mind, a decent life, an austerity of living as great as that of any
priest, a neighbourliness that gives and takes in fairness--"

"No, no, no," interposed the Cure eagerly. "So you have lived here,
Monsieur; I can vouch for that. Charity and a good heart have gone with
you always."

"Do you mean that a man is an infidel because he cannot say, as Louis
Trudel said to me, 'Do you believe in God?' and replies, as I replied,
'God knows!' Is that infidelity? If God is God, He alone knows when the
mind or the tongue can answer in the terms of that faith which you
profess. He knows the secret desires of our hearts, and what we believe,
and what we do not believe; He knows better than we ourselves know--if
there is a God. Does a man conjure God, if he does not believe in God?
'God knows!' is not a statement of infidelity. With me it was a phrase
--no more. You ask me to bare my inmost soul. I have not learned how
to confess. You ask me to lay bare my past, to prove my identity. For
conscience sake you ask that, and I for conscience sake say I will not,
Monsieur. You, when you enter your priestly life, put all your past
behind you. It is dead for ever: all its deeds and thoughts and desires,
all its errors--sins. I have entered on a life here which is to me as
much a new life as your priesthood is to you. Shall I not have the right
to say, that may not be disinterred? Have I not the right to say, Hands