?' Marcel said that."

"And you replied, Monsieur le Cure?"

"I replied that Nature required you to answer that question for
yourself, and whether bitterly or gladly, it was your duty to take up
your life and live it out. Besides, it was not you alone that had to be
considered. One does not live alone or die alone in this world. There
were your friends to consider."

"And because I had no friends here, you were compelled to think for me!"
answered Charley calmly. "Truth is, it was not a question of my friends,
for what I was during those seven months, or what I am now, can make no
difference to them."

He looked the Cure in the eyes steadily, and as though he would
convey his intentions without words. The Curb understood. The habit of
listening to the revelations of the human heart had given him something
of that clairvoyance which can only be pursued by the primitive mind,
unvexed by complexity.

"It is, then, as though you had not come to life again? It is as though
you had no past, Monsieur?"

"It is that, Monsieur."

Jo suddenly turned and left the room, for he heard a step on the frosty
snow without.

"You will remain here, Monsieur?" said the Cure. "I cannot tell."

The Cure had the bravery of simple souls with a duty to perform. He
fastened his eyes on Charley. "Monsieur, is there any reason why you
should not stay here? I ask it now, man to man--not as a priest of my
people, but as man to man."

Charley did not answer for a moment. He was wondering how he should put
his reply. But his look did not waver, and the Cure saw the honesty of
the gaze. At length he replied: "If you mean, have I committed any crime
which the law may punish?--I answer no, Monsieur. If you mean, have I
robbed or killed, or forged--or wronged a woman as men wrong women? No.
These, I take it, are the things that matter first. For the rest,
you can think of me as badly as you will, or as well, for what I do
henceforth is the only thing that really concerns the world, Monsieur le
Cure."

The Cure came forward and put out his hand with a kindly gesture.
"Monsieur, you have suffered," he said.

"Never, never at all, Monsieur. Never for a moment, until I was dropped
down here like a stone from a sling. I had life by the throat; now it
has me there--that is all."

"You are not a Catholic, Monsieur?" asked the priest, almost pleadingly,
and as though the question had been much on his mind.

"No, Monsieur."

The Cure made no re