ust man, while the other was ever
closed with blind belief in Heaven.

As Charley stooped to put wood in the fire, the tailor thrust a foot
forward and pushed the piece of paper further under the table.

That night the tailor crept down into the shop, felt for the paper
in the dark, found it, and carried it away to his room. All kinds of
thoughts had raged through his diseased mind. It was a letter, perhaps,
and if a letter, then he would gain some facts about the man's life.
But if it was a letter, why did he burn it? It was said that he never
received a letter and never sent one, therefore it was little likely to
be a letter if not a letter, then what could it be? Perhaps the man
was English and a spy of the English government, for was there not
disaffection in some of the parishes? Perhaps it was a plan of robbery.
To such a state of hallucination did his weakened mind come, that he
forgot the kindly feeling he had had for this stranger who had worked
for him without pay. Suspicion, the bane of sick old age, was hot on
him. He remembered that M'sieu' had put an arm through his when they
went upstairs, and that now increased suspicion. Why should the man have
been so friendly? To lull him into confidence, perhaps, and then to rob
and murder him in his sleep. Thank God, his ready money was well hid,
and the rest was safe in the bank far away! He crept back to his room
with the paper in his hand. It was the last sheet of what Charley had
written, and had been accidentally brushed off on the floor. It was in
French, and, holding the candle close, he slowly deciphered the crabbed,
characteristic handwriting.

His eyes dilated, his yellow cheeks took on spots of unhealthy red, his
hand trembled. Anger seized him, and he mumbled the words over and over
again to himself. Twice or thrice, as the paper lay in one hand, he
struck it with the clinched fist of the other, muttering and distraught.

"This tailor here.... This stingy, hard, unhappy man.... If there is
a God!... Therefore, wherefore, tailor-man?... Therefore, wherefore,
God?... Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!"

Hatred of himself, blasphemy, the profane and hellish humour of--of
the infidel! A Protestant heretic--he was already damned; a robber--you
could put him in jail; a spy--you could shoot him or tar and feather
him; a murderer--you could hang him. But an infide--this was a
deadly poison, a black danger, a being capable of all crimes. An
infidel--"Th