An hour after, as the three sat there, the door of the other room opened,
and Pretty Pierre came out silently, and was about to pass from the hut;
but the priest put a hand on his arm, and said:
"'Where do you go, Pierre?"
Pierre shrugged his shoulder slightly:
"I do not know. 'Mon Dieu!'--that I have put this upon you!--you that
never spoke but the truth."
"You have made my sin of no avail," the priest replied; and he motioned
towards Shon McGann, who was now risen to his feet, Mary clinging to his
arm. "Father Corraine," said Shon, "it is my duty to arrest this man;
but I cannot do it, would not do it, if he came and offered his arms for
the steel. I'll take the wrong of this now, sir, and such shame as there
is in that falsehood on my shoulders. And she here and I, and this man
too, I doubt not, will carry your sin--as you call it--to our graves,
without shame."
Father Corraine shook his head sadly, and made no reply, for his soul was
heavy. He motioned them all to sit down. And they sat there by the
light of a flickering candle, with the door bolted and a cassock hung
across the window, lest by any chance this uncommon thing should be seen.
But the priest remained in a shadowed corner, with a little book in his
hand, and he was long on his knees. And when morning came they had
neither slept nor changed the fashion of their watch, save for a moment
now and then, when Pierre suffered from the pain of his wound, and
silently passed up and down the little room.
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