urel calling: "Rosalie! Rosalie! Rosalie! Ah, come
quickly--ah, my Rosalie!"

Without a look at the Seigneur, Rosalie rushed into the shop and
opened the front door. Her father was deathly pale, and was trembling
violently.

"Rosalie, my bird," he cried indignantly, "they're saying you stole the
cross from the church door."

He was now wheeled inside the shop, and people gathered round,
looking at him and Rosalie, some covertly, some as friends, some in a
half-frightened way, as though strange things were about to happen.

"Shure, 'tis a lie, or me name's not Mary Flynn--the darlin'!" said the
Seigneur's cook, with blazing face. "Who makes this charge?" roared an
angry voice. No one had seen the Seigneur enter from the little room
beside the shop, and at the sound of the sharp voice the people fell
back, for he was as free with his stick as his tongue.

"I do," said the grocer, to whom Paulette Dubois had told her story.

"Ye shall be tarred and feathered before y'are a day older," said Mary
Flynn.

Rosalie was very pale.

The Seigneur was struck by this and by the strangeness of her look.

"Clear the room," he said to Filion Lacasse, who was now a constable of
the parish.

"Not yet!" said a voice at the doorway. "What is the trouble?" It was
the Cure, who had already heard rumours of the scandal, and had come at
once to Rosalie. M. Evanturel tried to speak, and could not. But Mary
Flynn did, with a face like a piece of scarlet bunting. Having finished
with a flourish, she could scarce keep her hands off the cowardly
grocer.

The Cure turned to Rosalie. "It is absurd," he said. "Forgive me," he
added to the Seigneur. "It is better that Rosalie should answer this
charge. If she gives her word of honour, I will deny communion to
whoever slanders her hereafter."

"She did it," said the grocer stubbornly. "She can't deny it."

"Answer, Rosalie," said the Cure firmly.

"Excuse me; I will answer," said a voice at the door. The tailor of
Chaudiere made his way into the shop, through the fast-gathering crowd.

CHAPTER XLII. A TRIAL AND A VERDICT

"What right have you to answer for mademoiselle?" said the Seigneur,
with a sudden rush of jealousy. Was not he alone the protector of
Rosalie Evanturel? Yet here was mystery, and it was clear the tailor
had something important to say. M. Rossignol offered the Cure a chair,
seated himself on a small bench, and gently drew Rosalie down beside
him.

"I will m