"I had not seen Philip for a long time, and it was with difficulty that
I recognized him. Burned and fevered by brandy, his beard gray, his
hands trembling, he was more than an old man--he was a ruin.
"'Well,' I said to him, 'the boy has drawn a bad number.'
"'What of it?' he replied, with an angry look. 'Are you going to worry
me about that, too, like Catherine and Camille? The boy will do as
others have done: he will serve his country. I know what worries them,
both my wife and son. If I were dead he would not have to go. But, so
much the worse for them, I am still solid at my post, and Camille is not
the son of a widow.'
"The son of a widow! Ah, monsieur le curé, why did he use that unhappy
phrase? The evil thought came to me at once, and it never quitted me all
the morning that I worked at the wretch's side. I imagined all that she
was about to suffer--poor Catherine!--when she no longer had her son to
care for and protect her, and she must be alone with the miserable
drunkard, now completely brutalized, ugly, and capable of anything. A
neighboring clock struck eleven, and the workmen all descended to lunch.
We remained until the last, Philip and I, but in stepping on the ladder
to descend, he turned to me with a leer, and said, in his hoarse,
dissipated voice:
"'You see, steady as a sailor; Camille is not nearly the son of a
widow.'
"The blood mounted to my head. I was beside myself. I seized with both
hands the rounds of the ladder to which Philip clung shouting 'Help!'
and with a single effort I toppled it over.
"He was instantly killed--by an accident, they said--and now Camille is
the son of a widow and need not go.
"That is what I have done, monsieur le curé, and what I want to tell to
you and to the good God. I repent, I ask pardon, of course; but I must
not see Catherine in her black dress, happy on the arm of her son, or I
could not regret my crime. To prevent that I will emigrate--I will lose
myself in America. As to my penance--see, monsieur le curé, here is the
little cross of gold that Catherine refused when she told me that she
was in love with Philip. I have always kept it, in memory of the only
happy days that I ever knew in my life. Take it and sell it. Give the
money to the poor."
* * * * *
Jack rose absolved by the Abbé Faber.
One thing is certain, and that is that the priest never sold the little
cross of gold. After having paid its price into the Treasury of the
Church, he hung the jewel, as an _ex-voto_, on the altar of the chapel
of the Virgin, where he often went to pray for the poor mason.
[Illustration]