The Right of Way Part 22

"If you try it, I'll--" He stopped, husky and shaking.

"You'll kill me, eh? You killed him, and you didn't hang. Oh no, you wouldn't kill me, Jo," she added quickly, in a changed voice. "You've had enough of that kind of thing. If I'd been you, I'd rather have hung--ah, sure!" She suddenly came close to him. "Do you hate me so bad, Jo?" she said anxiously. "It's eight years--do you hate me so bad as then?"

"You keep your tongue off Rosalie Evanturel," he said, and turned on his heel.

She caught his arm. "We're both bad, Jo. Can't we be friends?" she said eagerly, her voice shaking.

He did not reply.

"Don't drive a woman too hard," she said between her teeth.

"Threats! Pah!" he rejoined. "What do you think I'm made of?"

"I'll find that out," she said, and, turning on her heel, ran down the road towards the Manor House. "What had Rosalie to do with the cross?"

Jo said to himself. "This is her hood." He took it out and looked at it.

"It's her hood--but what did she want with the cross?"

He hurried on, and as he neared the post-office he saw the figure of a woman in the road. At first he thought it might be Rosalie, but as he came nearer he saw it was not. The woman was muttering and crying. She wandered to and fro bewilderedly. He came up, caught her by the arm, and looked into her face.

It was old Margot Patry.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT TELL. "Oh, M'sieu', I am afraid."

"Afraid of what, Margot?"

"Of the last moment, M'sieu' le Cure."

"There will be no last moment to your mind--you will not know it when it comes, Margot."

The woman trembled. "I am not sorry to die. But I am afraid; it is so lonely, M'sieu' le Cure."

"G.o.d is with us, Margot."

"When we are born we do not know. It is on the shoulders of others. When we die we know, and we have to answer."

"Is the answering so hard, Margot?"

The woman shook her head feebly and sadly, but did not speak.

"You have been a good mother, Margot." She made no sign.

"You have been a good neighbour; you have done unto others as you would be done by."

She scarcely seemed to hear.

"You have been a good servant--doing your duty in season and out of season; honest and just and faithful."

The woman's fingers twitched on the coverlet, and she moved her head restlessly.

The Curb almost smiled, for it seemed as if Margot were finding herself wanting. Yet none in Chaudiere but knew that she had lived a blameless life--faithful, friendly, a loving and devoted mother, whose health had been broken by sleepless attendance at sick-beds by night, while doing her daily work at the house of the late Louis Trudel.

"I will answer for the way you have done your duty, Margot," said the Cure. "You have been a good daughter of the Church."

He paused a minute, and in the pause some one rose from a chair by the window and looked out on the sunset sky. It was Charley. The woman heard, and turned her eyes towards him. "Do you wish him to go?" asked the Cure.

"No, no--oh no, M'sieu'!" she said eagerly. She had asked all day that either Rosalie or M'sieu' should be in the room with her. It would seem as though she were afraid she had not courage enough to keep the secret of the cross without their presence. Charley had yielded to her request, while he shrank from granting it. Yet, as he said to himself, the woman was keeping his secret--his and Rosalie's--and she had some right to make demand.

When the Cure asked the question of old Margot, he turned expectantly, and with a sense of relief. He thought it strange that the Cure should wish him to remain. The Cure, on his part, was well pleased to have him in the influence of a Christian death-bed. A time must come when the last confidences of the dying woman could be given to no ears but his own, but meanwhile it was good that M'sieu' should be there.

"M'sieu' le Cure," said the dying woman, "must I tell all?"

"All what, Margot?"

"All that is sin?"

"There is no must, Margot."

"If you should ask me, M'sieu'--"

She paused, and the man at the window turned and looked curiously at her. He saw the problem in the woman's mind: had she the right to die with the secret of another's crime upon her mind?

"The priest does not ask, Margot: it is you who confess your sins. That is between you and G.o.d."

The Cure spoke firmly, for he wanted the man at the window to clearly understand.

"But if there are the sins of others, and you know, and they trouble your soul, M'sieu'?"

"You have nothing to do with the sins of others; it is enough to repent of your own sins. The priest has nothing to do with any sins but those confessed by the sinner to himself. Your own sins are your sole concern to-night, Margot."

The woman's face seemed to clear a little, and her eyes wandered to the man at the window with less anxiety. Charley was wondering whether, after all, she would have the courage to keep her word, whether spiritual terror would surmount the moral att.i.tude of honour. He was also wondering how much right he had to put the strain upon the woman in her desperate hour. "How long did the doctor say I could live?" the woman asked presently.

"Till morning, perhaps, Margot."

"I should like to live till sunrise," she answered, "till after breakfast. Rosalie makes good tea," she added musingly.

The Cure almost smiled. "There is the Living Bread, my daughter."

She nodded. "But I should like to see the sunrise and have Rosalie bring me tea," she persisted.

"Very well, Margot. We will ask G.o.d for that."

Her mind flew back again to the old question.

"Is it wrong to keep a secret?" she asked, her face turned away from the man at the window.