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354 blood was his and whose name he now must bear, bring pride or shame to him?

A bell was tolling somewhere, as they followed the priest into Father Benitot's small, bare room which had been prepared for their interview. Father Perron went to a desk and took therefrom some notes which he had made. He did not seem, as he looked through these notes, to be refreshing his memory; rather he seemed to be seeking something which the notes did not supply; for he put them back and reclosed the desk.

"What I have," he said, speaking more particularly to Sherrill, "is the terrible, not fully coherent statement of a dying man. It has given me names—also it has given me facts. But isolated. It does not give what came before or what came after; therefore, it does not make plain. I hope that, as Benjamin Corvet's partner, you can furnish what I lack."

"What is it you want to know?" Sherrill asked.

"What were the relations between Benjamin Corvet and Captain Stafford?"

Sherrill thought a moment.

"Corvet," he replied, "was a very able man; he had insight and mental grasp—and he had the fault which sometimes goes with those, a hesitancy of action. Stafford was an able man too, considerably younger than Corvet. We, ship owners of the lakes, have not the world to trade in, Father Perron, as they have upon the sea; if you observe our great shipping lines you will find that they have, it would seem, apportioned among themselves the traffic of the lakes; each line has its own connections and its own ports. But this did not come through agreement, but through conflict; the strong have survived and made a division of