shoulder. "I'll baste you with a stirrup-strap."

"The rest is well known," quickly interposed Charley. "The poor man was
mad. He thought it a pious act to mark an infidel with the cross."

Every eye was fixed upon him. The Cure remembered Louis Trudel's last
words: "Look--look--I gave--him--the sign--of . . . !" Old Margot's
words also kept ringing in his ears. He turned to the Seigneur.
"Monsieur," said he, "we have heard the truth. That act of Louis Trudel
was cruel and murderous. May God forgive him! I will not say that
mademoiselle did well in keeping silent--"

"God bless the darlin'!" cried Mrs. Flynn.

"--but I will say that she meant to do a kind act for a man's mortal
memory--perhaps at the expense of his soul."

"For Monsieur to take his injury in silence, to keep it secret, was
kind," said the Seigneur. "It is what our Cure here might call bearing
his cross manfully."

"Seigneur," said the Cure reproachfully, "Seigneur, it is no subject for
jest."

"Cure, our tailor here has treated it as a jest."

"Let him show his breast, if it's true," said the grocer, who, beneath
his smirking, was a malignant soul.

The Cure turned on him sharply. Seldom had any one seen the Cure roused.