The end came at last. Luc was taken ill. For four days, all alone, he
lay burning with fever and inflammation, and when Parpon found him he was
almost dead. Then began a fight for life again, in which Parpon was the
only physician; for Pomfrette would not allow the Little Chemist or a
doctor near him. Parpon at last gave up hope; but one night, when he
came back from the village, he saw, to his joy, old Mme. Degardy ("Crazy
Joan" she was called) sitting by Pomfrette's bedside. He did not disturb
her, for she had no love for him, and he waited till she had gone. When
he came into the room again he found Pomfrette in a sweet sleep, and a
jug of tincture, with a little tin cup, placed by the bed. Time and
again he had sent for Mme. Degardy, but she would not come. She had
answered that the dear Luc could go to the devil for all of her; he'd
find better company down below than in Pontiac.
But for a whim, perhaps, she had come at last without asking, and as a
consequence Luc returned to the world, a mere bundle of bones.
It was still while he was only a bundle of bones that one Sunday morning,
Parpon, without a word, lifted him up in his arms and carried him out of
the house. Pomfrette did not speak at first: it seemed scarcely worth
while; he was so weak he did not care.
"Where are you going?" he said at last, as they came well into the
village. The bell in St. Saviour's had stopped ringing for Mass, and the
streets were almost empty.
"I'm taking you to Mass," said Parpon, puffing under his load, for
Pomfrette made an ungainly burden. "Hand of a little devil, no!" cried
Pomfrette, startled. "I said I'd never go to Mass again, and I never
will.
"You said you'd never go to Mass till you were carried; so it's all
right."
Once or twice Pomfrette struggled, but Parpon held him tight, saying:
"It's no use; you must come; we've had enough. Besides--"
"Besides what?" asked Pomfrette faintly. "Never mind," answered Parpon.
At a word from Parpon the shrivelled old sexton cleared a way through the
aisle, making a stir, through which the silver bell at Pomfrette's knee
tinkled, in answer, as it were, to the tinkling of the acolyte's bell in
the sanctuary. People turned at the sound, women stopped telling their
beads, some of the choir forgot their chanting. A strange feeling passed
through the church, and reached and startled the Cure as he recited the
Mass. He turned round and saw Parpon laying Pomfrette down at the
chancel steps. His voice shook a little as he intoned the ritual, and as
he raised the sacred elements tears rolled down his cheeks.
From a distant corner of the gallery a deeply veiled woman also looked
down at Pomfrette, and her hand trembled on the desk before her.
At last the Cure came forward to the chancel steps. "What is it,
Parpon?" he asked gravely.
"It is Luc Pomfrette, M'sieu' le Cure." Pomfrette's eyes were closed.
"He swore that he would never come to Mass again," answered the good
priest.
"Till he was carried, M'sieu' le Cure--and I've carried him."
"Did you come of your own free will, and with a repentant heart, Luc
Pomfrette?" asked the Cure.
"I did not know I was coming--no." Pomfrette's brown eyes met the
priest's unflinchingly.
"You have defied God, and yet He has spared your life."
"I'd rather have died," answered the sick man simply.
"Died, and been cast to perdition!"
"I'm used to that; I've had a bad time here in Pontiac."
His thin hands moved restlessly. His leg moved, and the little bell
tinkled--the bell that had been like the bell of a leper these years
past.
"But you live, and you have years yet before you, in the providence of
God. Luc Pomfrette, you blasphemed against your baptism, and horribly
against God himself. Luc"--his voice got softer--"I knew your mother,
and she was almost too weak to hold you when you were baptised, for you
made a great to-do about coming into the world. She had a face like a
saint--so sweet, so patient. You were her only child, and your baptism
was more to her than her marriage even, or any other thing in this world.
The day after your baptism she died. What do you think were her last
words?"
There was a hectic flush on Pomfrette's face, and his eyes were intense
and burning as they looked up fixedly at the Cure.
"I can't think any more," answered Pomfrette slowly. "I've no head."
"What she said is for your heart, not for your head, Luc," rejoined the
Cure gently. "She wandered in her mind, and at the last she raised
herself up in her bed, and lifting her finger like this"--he made the
gesture of benediction--" she said, 'Luc Michele, I baptise you in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' Then
she whispered softly: 'God bless my dear Luc Michee! Holy Mother pray
for him!' These were her last words, and I took you from her arms. What
have you to say, Luc Michee?"
The woman in the gallery was weeping silently behind her thick veil, and
her worn hand clutched the desk in front of her convulsively. Presently
she arose and made her way down the stair, almost unnoticed. Two or
three times Luc tried to speak, but could not. "Lift me up," he said
brokenly, at last.
Parpon and the Little Chemist raised him to his feet, and held him, his
shaking hands resting on their shoulders, his lank body tottering above
and between them.
Looking at the congregation, he said slowly: "I'll suffer till I die for
cursing my baptism, and God will twist my neck in purgatory for--"
"Luc," the Cure interrupted, "say that you repent."
"I'm sorry, and I ask you all to forgive me, and I'll confess to the
Cure, and take my penance, and--" he paused, for breathing hurt him.
At that moment the woman in black who had been in the gallery came
quickly forward. Parpon saw her, frowned, and waved her back; but she
came on. At the chancel steps she raised her veil, and a murmur of
recognition and wonder ran through the church. Pomfrette's face was
pitiful to see--drawn, staring.
"Junie!" he said hoarsely.
Her eyes were red with weeping, her face was very pale. "M'sieu' le
Cure" she said, "you must listen to me"--the Cure's face had become
forbidding--"sinner though I am. You want to be just, don't you? Ah,
listen! I was to be married to Luc Pomfrette, but I did not love him--
then. He had loved me for years, and his father and my father wished it
--as you know, M'sieu' le Cure. So after a while I said I would; but I
begged him that he wouldn't say anything about it till he come back from
his next journey on the river. I did not love him enough--then. He left
all his money with me: some to pay for Masses for his father's soul, some
to buy things for--for our home; and the rest to keep till he came back."
"Yes, yes," said Pomfrette, his eyes fixed painfully on her face--"yes,
yes."
"The day after Luc went away John Dicey the Protestant come to me.
I'd always liked him; he could talk as Luc couldn't, and it sounded nice.
I listened and listened. He knew about Luc and about the money and all.
Then he talked to me. I was all wild in the head, and things went round
and round, and oh, how I hated to marry Luc--then! So after he had
talked a long while I said yes, I would go with him and marry him--
a Protestant--for I loved him. I don't know why or how."
Pomfrette trembled so that Parpon and the Little Chemist made him sit
down, and he leaned against their shoulders, while Junie went on:
"I gave him Luc's money to go and give to Parpon here, for I was too
ashamed to go myself. And I wrote a little note to Luc, and sent it with
the money. I believed in John Dicey, of course. He came back, and said
that he had seen Parpon and had done it all right; then we went away to
Montreal and got married. The very first day at Montreal, I found out
that he had Luc's money. It was awful. I went mad, and he got angry and
left me alone, and didn't come back. A week afterwards he was killed,
and I didn't know it for a long time. But I began to work, for I wanted
to pay back Luc's money. It was very slow, and I worked hard. Will it
never be finished, I say. At last Parpon find me, and I tell him all--
all except that John Dicey was dead; and I did not know that. I made him
promise to tell nobody; but he knows all about my life since then. Then
I find out one day that John Dicey is dead, and I get from the gover'ment
a hundred dollars of the money he stole. It was found on him when he was
killed. I work for six months longer, and now I come back--with Luc's
money."
She drew from her pocket a packet of notes, and put it in Luc's hands.
He took it dazedly, then dropped it, and the Little Chemist picked it up;
he had no prescription like that in his pharmacopoeia.
"That's how I've lived," she said, and she handed a letter to the Cure.
It was from a priest in Montreal, setting forth the history of her career
in that city, her repentance for her elopement and the sin of marrying a
Protestant, and her good life. She had wished to do her penance in
Pontiac, and it remained to M'sieu' le Cure; to set it.
The Cure's face relaxed, and a rare gentleness came into it.
He read the letter aloud. Luc once more struggled to his feet, eagerly
listening.
"You did not love Luc?" the Cure asked Junie, meaningly.
"I did not love Luc--then," she answered, a flush going over her face.
"You loved Junie?" the Cure said to Pomfrette. "I could have killed
her, but I've always loved her," answered Luc. Then he raised his voice
excitedly: "I love her, love her, love her--but what's the good! She'd
never 've been happy with me. Look what my love drove her to! What's
the good, at all!"
"She said she did not love you then, Luc Michee," said Parpon,
interrupting. "Luc Michee, you're a fool as well as a sinner.
Speak up, Junie."
"I used to tell him that I didn't love him; I only liked him. I was
honest. Well, I am honest still. I love him now."
A sound of joy broke from Luc's lips, and he stretched out his arms to
her, but the Cure; stopped that. "Not here," he said. "Your sins must
first be considered. For penance--" He paused, looking at the two sad
yet happy beings before him. The deep knowledge of life that was in him
impelled him to continue gently:
"For penance you shall bear the remembrance of each other's sins. And
now to God the Father--" He turned towards the altar, and raised his
hands in the ascription.
As he knelt to pray before he entered the pulpit, he heard the tinkling
of the little bell of honour at the knee of Luc, as Junie and Parpon
helped him from the church.