"I will call if I need you"--Raymond was conscious that he was speaking, but that the words came only in a queer, automatic kind of a way.
She poked her head around the door for a sort of anxious, pitying, quick-flung glance at the bed; then looked questioningly at Raymond.
"_Ah, le pauvre! Le pauvre misérable!_" she whispered. "Good-night, Monsieur le Curé. Do not fail to call if you want us."
The door closed. As once before in a night of vigil, in that far-north shack, Raymond stretched out his hand before him to study it. It was not steady now--it trembled and shook. He looked at the trunk--and then a low, hollow laugh was on his lips. A fool and a child he was, and his nerves must be near the breaking point. Was there anything strange, was there anything surprising in the fact that Monsieur le Curé should be discovered in the act of opening Monsieur le Curé's trunk! And it had brought a panic upon him--and his hand was shaking like an old man's. He was in a pretty state, when coolness was the only thing that stood between him and--the gallows! Damn that cursed moaning from the bed! Would it never cease!
For a time he stood there without moving; and then, his composure regained, the square jaw clamped defiantly against his weakness, he drew up a chair, and, sitting down, began to rummage through the trunk.
"François Aubert--eh?" he muttered, as he picked up a prayerbook and found the fly-leaf autographed. "So my name is François! Well, that is something!" He opened another book, and, on the fly-leaf again, read an inscription. "'To my young friend'--eh? and from the Bishop! The Bishop of Montigny, is it? Well, that also is something! I am then personally acquainted with this Monsignor Montigny! I will remember that! And--ha, these!--with any luck, I shall find what I want here."
He took up a package of letters, ran them over quickly--and frowned in disappointment. They were all addressed in a woman's hand. He was not interested in that. It was the correspondence from Father Allard that he wanted. He was about to return the letters to the trunk and resume his search, when he noticed that the topmost envelope bore the St. Marleau postmark. He opened it hurriedly--and his frown changed to a nod of satisfaction. It was, after all, what he wanted. Father Allard was blessed with the services of a secretary, that was the secret--Father Allard's signature was affixed at the bottom of the neatly written page.