The morning journals? Certainly;
an hour's perusal is worthy the attention of the elegant "flaneur."
Ah! another murder. He enjoys the details.
Pere Francois enters the colonel's rooms, with grave air. While
Vimont frets over his cigar, in the courtyard, the story of Marie
Berard is partly told.
She will not live through the night. At her bedside, Sisters of
Charity twain, tell the beads and watch the flickering pulse of the
poor lost girl. The police have done their perfunctory work. They
are only owls frightened by sunlight. Fools! Skilful fools! She knows
nothing of her assailant. Her feeble motions indicate ignorance.
She must have rest and quiet. The saddened Pere Francois can not
disguise from Woods that he suspects much. Much more than the
police can dream in their theories.
What is it? Hopes, fears, the rude story of a strange life, and upon
it all is the awful seal of the confessional. For, Marie Berard has
unfolded partly, her own life-story. Joe Woods clasps the padre's
hands.
"You know which of these children is a million-heiress, and which
a pauper?"
The padre's eyes are blazing. He is mute. "Let us trust to God.
Wait, my friend," says Pere Francois solemnly. Before that manly
voice, the miner hushes his passionate eagerness.
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