Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/131

Rh ments, and always uncommunicative, and people did not care to tempt his inhospitable tongue. When Pomfrette was so far recovered that he might be left alone, Parpon said to him one evening:

"Pomfrette, you must go to Mass next Sunday."

"I said I wouldn’t go till I was carried there, and I mean it—that’s so," was the morose reply.

"What made you curse like that—so damnable?" asked Parpon furtively.

"That’s my own business. It doesn’t matter to anybody but me."

"And you said the Curé lied—the good M’sieu’ Fabre—him like a saint."

"I said he lied, and I’d say it again, and tell the truth."

"But if you went to Mass, and took your penance, and"

"Yes, I know; they’d forgive me, and I’d get absolution, and they’d all speak to me again, and it would be, ‘Good-day, Luc,’ and ‘Very good, Luc,’ and ‘What a gay heart has Luc, the good fellow!’ Ah, I know. They curse in the heart when the whole world go wrong for them; no one hears. I curse out loud. I’m not a hypocrite, and no one thinks me fit to live. Ack, what is the good!"

Parpon did not respond at once. At last, dropping his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee, as he squatted on the table, he said:

"But if the girl got sorry"

For a time there was no sound save the whirring of the fire in the stove and the hard breathing of the sick man. His eyes were staring hard at Parpon. At last he said, slowly and fiercely:

"What do you know?"