man dropped
insensible as they caught her from his arms.

As they tore away Charley's coat muffling his face, and opened his
shirt, they stared in awe. The cross which Rosalie had torn from the
pillar, Charley had thrust into his bosom, and there it now lay on the
red scar made by itself in the hands of Louis Trudel.

M. Loisel waved the people back. He raised Charley's head. The Abbe
Rossignol, who had just arrived with the Seigneur, lifted the cross from
the insensible man's breast.

He started when he saw the scar. Then he remembered the tale he had
heard. He turned away gravely to his brother. "Was it the cross or the
woman he went for?" he asked.

"Great God--do you ask!" the Seigneur said indignantly. "And he deserves
her," he muttered under his breath.

Charley opened his eyes. "Is she safe?" he asked, starting up.

"Unscathed, my son," the Cure said.

Was this tailor-man not his son? Had he not thirsted for his soul as a
hart for the water-brooks?

"I am very sorry for you, Monsieur," said Charley.

"It is God's will," was the reply, in a choking voice. "It will be years
before we have another church--many, many years."

The roof gave way with a crash, and the spire shot down into the flaming
debris.

The people groaned.

"It will cost sixty thousand dollars to build it up again," said Filion
Lacasse.

"We have three thousand dollars from the Passion Play," said the Notary.
"That could go towards it."

"We have another two thousand in the bank," said Maximilian Cour.

"But it will take years," said the saddler disconsolately.

Charley looked at the Cure, mournful and broken but calm. He saw the
Seigneur, gloomy and silent, standing apart. He saw the people in
scattered groups, looking more homeless than if they had no homes. Some
groups were silent; others discussed angrily the question, who was the
incendiary--that it had been set on fire seemed certain.

"I said no good would come of the play-acting," said the Seigneur's
groom, and was flung into the ditch by Filion Lacasse.

Presently Charley staggered to his feet, purpose in his face. These
people, from the Cure and Seigneur to the most ignorant habitant, were
hopeless and inert. The pride of their lives was gone.

"Gather the people together," he said to the Notary and Filion Lacasse.
Then he turned to the Cure and the Seigneur.

"With your permission, messieurs," he said, "I will do a harder thing
than I have ever done. I will spe