t getting up a
church for the French people who worked in the mills. Perhaps Jack would
like to talk with him.

His face lighted up at the proposal. He asked to have the room tidied
up, and a clean shirt put on him, and the violin laid open in its case
on a table beside the bed, and a few other preparations made for the
visit. Then the visitor came, a tall, friendly, quiet-looking man about
Jacques's age, with a smooth face and a long black cassock. The door was
shut, and they were left alone together.

"I am comforted that you are come, mon pere," said the sick man, "for I
have the heavy heart. There is a secret that I have kept for many years.
Sometimes I had almost forgotten that it must be told at the last; but
now it is the time to speak. I have a sin to confess--a sin of the most
grievous, of the most unpardonable."

The listener soothed him with gracious words; spoke of the mercy that
waits for all the penitent; urged him to open his heart without delay.

"Well, then, mon pere, it is this that makes me fear to die. Long since,
in Canada, before I came to this place, I have killed a man. It was--"

The voice stopped. The little round clock on the window-sill ticked very
distinctly and rapidly, as if it were in a hurry.

"I will speak as short as I can. It was in the camp of 'Poleon Gautier,
on the river St. Maurice. The big Baptiste Lacombe, that crazy boy who
wants always to fight, he mocks me when I play, he snatches my violin,
he goes to break him on the stove. There is a knife in my belt. I
spring to Baptiste. I see no more what it is that I do. I cut him in
the neck--once, twice. The blood flies out. He falls down. He cries, 'I
die.' I grab my violin from the floor, quick; then I run to the woods.
No one can catch me. A blanket, the axe, some food, I get from a
hiding-place down the river. Then I travel, travel, travel through the
woods, how many days I know not, till I come here. No one knows me. I
give myself the name Tremblay. I make the music for them. With my violin
I live. I am happy. I forget. But it all returns to me--now--at the
last. I have murdered. Is there a forgiveness for me, mon pere?"

The priest's face had changed very swiftly at the mention of the camp
on the St. Maurice. As the story went on, he grew strangely excited.
His lips twitched. His hands trembled. At the end he sank on his knees,
close by the bed, and looked into the countenance of the sick man,
searching it as a forester