Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/25

Rh evil within me that day. But the other woman came to the door that minute, and rested her eyes upon me so that I stood transfixed, afraid to move. She bore in her hands a saucer of milk, and laid it down as near the serpent as she dared, thrusting it slowly forward with a stick, all the time whispering to my wife, ‘Don’t move, don’t speak, for your life.’ The snake uncurled and glided from her foot at the smell of the milk, and the other woman with a blow of the stick broke its back."

"God bless her!" the priest said aloud; "God bless her!"

"Ah, yes!" said the dying man, "she was good, she would have saved me from murder if she could. Once it struck me that she only followed us to protect my wife from me. But it was only for a moment. I would have killed them both if it were so. Do you think it could have been so? You, priest, tell me it was only because she loved me."

But the priest did not answer. He sat with his head upon his breast, his hands clenched.

"From the hot countries," continued the man, "I went to the cold. I took her upon the glaciers of Switzerland, and I vowed in F.C.