Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/218

 could not reveal the secrets of the confessional; but neither could he prevent what he had heard in confession affecting his attitude towards this man and his story. He looked the priest full in the face and asked, solemnly, almost sternly:

"Do you fully and absolutely credit this tale?"

Without a shadow of hesitation or delay, the priest answered:

"I do, absolutely and fully. In the story I bring you I have not a doubt that you have heard the truth, so far as it goes. You know how the death of the man you thought murdered actually occurred."

To Trafford's mind there was left no ground for doubt.

"I accept your story," he said, "as the story of what actually occurred. Where is the man who told it to you?"

The priest smiled and raised his hand in a sweep of the northern horizon:

"I cannot track the wilderness. If you want him, you must ask the woods to give him up."

"There is a lad in the gang at the first rapids,"