Slowly the procession passed around the green in front of the church, and through the gate of the whitewashed fence into the little burial ground beyond on the river's bank. They were chanting _In Paradisum_, but Valerie was no longer with the choir, for now, as they passed through the gate, he saw her, a slim figure all in white, hurry across the green toward the _presbytère._
What was this before him! It was not the smell of fields, but the smell of freshly turned earth--a grave. The grave of Théophile Blondin, the man whom he had fought with--and killed. And he was a priest of God, burying Théophile Blondin. What ghastly, hellish travesty! What were those words returning to his memory, coming to him out of the dim past when he was still a boy, and still susceptible to the teachings of the fathers who had sought to guide him into the church--God is not mocked.
"God is not mocked! God is not mocked!"--the words seemed to echo and reverberate around him, they seemed to be thundered in a voice of vengeance. "God is not mocked!"--and he was _blessing_ the grave of Théophile Blondir!
Did these people, gathered, clustered about him, not hear that voice! Why did they not hear it? It was not the _Benedictus_ that was being sung that prevented them from hearing it, for he could scarcely hear the _Benedictus._
Raymond's lips moved. "I am not mocking God," he whispered. "I do not believe in God, but I am not mocking. I am asking only for my life. I am taking only the one chance I have. I did not intend to kill the fool--he killed himself. I am no murderer. I----" He shivered suddenly again, as once in the church he had shivered before. His hands outstretched seemed to be creeping again toward a bare throat that lay exposed upon a bed, the feel of soft, pulsing flesh seemed upon his finger tips. And then a diabolical chortle seemed to rattle in his ears. So murder was quite foreign to him, eh? And he did not believe in God? And he was quite above and apart from all such nonsense? And therein, of course, lay the reason why the tumbling of this dead thing into a grave left him so cool and imperturbable; and why the solemn words of the service had no meaning; and why it was a matter of supreme unconcern to him, provided he was not caught at it, that he took God's words upon his lips, and God's garb upon his shoulders!