him: the voice in his ear, the touch on his arm, the some one that is
'waiting--waiting--waiting!' That is what I did, and that is what
the brother of the Cure did for me. He drew me back. He knew I was
a drunkard, but he drew me back. I might have been a murderer like
Portugais. The world says I was a thief, and a thief I am until I prove
to the world I am innocent--and wreck three lives! How much of Jo's
guilt is guilt? How much remorse should a man suffer to pay the debt
of a life? If the law is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, how
much hourly remorse and torture, such as Jo's, should balance the eye or
the tooth or the life? I wonder, now!"

He leaned over, and, helping Jo to his feet, gently forced him down upon
a bench near. "All right, Jo, my friend," he said. "I understand. We'll
drink the gall together."

They sat and looked at each other in silence.

At length Charley leaned over and touched Jo on the shoulder.

"Why did you want to save yourself?" he said.

At that instant there was a knock at the door, and a voice said:
"Monsieur!--Monsieur!"

Jo sprang to his feet with a sharp exclamation, then went heavily to the
door and threw it open.

CHAPTER XXX. ROSALIE WARNS CHARLEY

Charley's eyes met Rosalie's with a look the girl had never seen in them
before. It gave a glow to his haggard face.

Rosalie turned to Jo and greeted him with a friendlier manner than was
her wont towards him. The nearer she was to Charley, the farther away
from him, to her mind, was Portugais, and she became magnanimous.

Jo nodded' awkwardly and left the room. Looking after the departing
figure, Rosalie said: "I know he has been good to you, but--but do you
trust him, Monsieur?"

"Does not everybody in Chaudiere trust him?"

"There is one who does not, though perhaps that's of no consequence."

"Why do you not trust him?"

"I don't know. I never knew him do a bad thing; I never heard of a bad
thing he has done; and--he has been good to you."

She paused, flushing as she felt the significance of her words, and
continued: "Yet there is--I cannot tell what. I feel something. It is
not reasonable to go upon one's feelings; but there it is, and so I do
not trust him."

"It is the way he lives, here in these lonely woods--the mystery around
him."

A change passed over her. With the first glow of meeting the object of
her visit had receded, though since her last interview with the Seigneur
she had not