."

"What's a man's?" asked the girl, at that, "how does a man do hard
things?"

"He just does 'em, I should say, and doesn't analyze. He's got to be
at something, you know; it's part of the creed."

"What creed?" demanded Alexina.

"Mr. Jonas's."

"Oh," said Alexina, "yes, I see."

CHAPTER FIVE

Molly, Alexina and Celeste stayed a week at Nancy with the Leroys. It
was a household wherein there was no strain, no tension, though, to be
sure, there was small management. One had a comical comprehension that
Mandy the cook and Tina the wash-woman kept their families off the
gullibility and good faith of their mistress.

Alexina was sent into the sunshine.

"Keep her outdoors," Charlotte commanded Willy; "the child's morbid."

Mr. Jonas drove out with trophies of game as offerings to Mrs.
Garnier. One morning Mr. Henderson came with him in the buckboard,
and Molly and the two men sat in the sunshine on the porch and talked.

"Did he die?" she asked the minister presently.

"Who?"

"The man at the house where you stopped that day?" She asked it as one
driven to know, even while apprehensive of the answer.

Exultation leaped for an instant to the young man's face, a stern joy.
"He died," he told her, "but in the faith at the end."

"In what faith?" Molly asked curiously. She was a child in so many
things.

"The Church," he told her, with reproof in his tone.

The click of Mr. Jonas's incisors upon incisors chopped the air.

But Molly moved a little nearer the minister.

"Yes," she agreed slowly, unwillingly almost; "they all do. Father
Bonot used to say it over and over. They all come back to the Church
to--to die."

She was shivering.

There was a quick, snapped off h'ah from Mr. Jonas.

Mr. Henderson looked bewildered. "I did not know; then, Mrs. Garnier,
you are--"

"I'm a Catholic," said Molly, a little in wonder.

"Romanist?" said the other gently.

But Molly wasn't listening, nor would she have known what the
distinction meant, had she been. It was Mr. Jonas who gave forth
another sound that was almost a snort, and marched off to where King
and Alexina were sitting on the step.

Molly watched him go, then glanced around as if to insure aloofness,
and leaned forward, her fingers pulling at the edge of her
handkerchief.

"You helped him to die, and you're a priest--one sort of a priest--and
I want to tell you--"

"No," said the other, "you do not understand; let me make you se