“It is his duty, mademoiselle. The village is peaceful enough now that the men are away at the fisheries. You have nothing to fear.”
She glanced round the room with a hunted look in her eyes.
“Oh,” she said, “I cannot keep it up any longer. You must have guessed--you who are so quick--that my brother is a great criminal. He has ruined thousands of people. He was escaping with the money he had stolen when the steamer was wrecked.”
The cure did not say whether this news surprised him or not, but walked to the window and looked thoughtfully out to sea. The windows were dull and spray-ridden.
“Ah!” the girl cried, “you must not judge hastily. You cannot know his temptation.”
“I will not judge at all, mademoiselle. No man may judge of another's temptation. But--he can restore the money.”
She had approached the other window, and stood beside the little priest looking out over the grey sea.
“It was surely my duty to come here and help him, whatever he had done.”
“But he says you can give him up if you like.”
She glanced at him and caught her breath. The priest shook his head.
“Why not? Because you are too charitable?” she whispered; and again he shook his head. “Then, why not?” she persisted with a strange pertinacity.
“Because he is your brother, mademoiselle.”
And they stood for some moments looking out over the sea, through the rime-covered windows, in a breathless silence. The cure spoke at length.
“You must get him removed to Havre,” he said, in his cheery way, “as soon as possible. There he can take a steamer to America. I will impress upon the doctor the necessity of an early departure.”
It was not lately, but many years ago, that the Ocean Waif was wrecked in a summer storm. And any who penetrate to Yport to-day will probably see in the sunlight on the sea-wall a cheery little cure, who taps his snuff-box, while he exchanges jokes with the idlers there. Yport has slowly crept into the ken of the traveller, and every summer sees English tourists pass that way. They are not popular with the rough natives, who, after all, are of the same ancestry as ourselves; but the little cure is quick and kind with information or assistance to all who seek it. When the English tongue is spoken he draws near and listens--snuff-box in hand; when the travellers speak in French his eyes travel out to sea with a queer look, as if the accent aroused some memory.