must be
kept even if I have to go in person to the Governor, that, in case of
public avowal, his life should be spared. His intellect is plainly
defective. If Miss Teller, Mr. Heathcote, and the lawyers unite in an
appeal for him, I think it will be granted.

"It has been, Anne, very hard, fearfully hard, to bring him to the
desired point; more than once I have lost heart. Yet never have I used
the lever of real menace, and I wish you to know that I have not. At
last, thanks be to the eternal God, patience has conquered. Urged by the
superstition which consumes him, he consented to repeat to the local
officials, in my presence and under my protection, the confession he had
made to me, and to give up the watch and rings, which have lain all this
time buried in the earth behind his cabin, he fearing to uncover them
until a second crop of grass should be green upon his victim's grave,
lest she should appear and take them from him! He did this in order to
be delivered in this world and the next, and he will be delivered; for
his crime was a brute one, like that of the wolf who slays the lamb.

"I shall see you before long, my dear child; but you will find me worn
and old. This has been the hardest toil of my whole life."

* * * * *

Pere Michaux did not add that his fatigue of body and mind was
heightened by a painful injury received at the hands of the poor wretch
he was trying to help. Unexpectedly one morning Croom had attacked him
with a billet of wood, striking from behind, and without cause, save
that he coveted the priest's fishing-tackle, and, in addition, something
in the attitude of the defenseless white-haired old man at that moment
tempted him, as a lasso-thrower is tempted by a convenient chance
position of cattle. The blow, owing to a fortunate movement of Pere
Michaux at the same instant, was not mortal, but it disabled the old
man's shoulder and arm. And perceiving this, Croom had fled. But what
had won his brute heart was the peaceful appearance of the priest at his
cabin door early the next morning, where the fisherman had made all
ready for flight, and his friendly salutation. "Of course I knew it was
all an accident, Croom," he said; "that you did not mean it. And I have
come out to ask if you have not something you can recommend to apply to
the bruise. You people who live in the woods have better balms than
those made in towns; and besides, I would rather ask _your_ hel