“Knock,” whispered Father Paul to Gabriel, “and then wait here with me.”

The door was opened.  On a lovely moonlight night Francois Sarzeau had stood on that threshold, years since, with a bleeding body in his arms.  On a lovely moonlight night he now stood there again, confronting the very man whose life he had attempted, and knowing him not.

Father Paul advanced a few paces, so that the moonlight fell fuller on his features, and removed his hat.

Francois Sarzeau looked, started, moved one step back, then stood motionless and perfectly silent, while all traces of expression of any kind suddenly vanished from his face.  Then the calm, clear tones of the priest stole gently on the dead silence.  “I bring a message of peace and forgiveness from a guest of former years,” he said; and pointed, as he spoke, to the place where he had been wounded in the neck.

For one moment, Gabriel saw his father trembling violently from head to foot—­then his limbs steadied again—­stiffened suddenly, as if struck by catalepsy.  His lips parted, but without quivering; his eyes glared, but without moving in the orbits.  The lovely moonlight itself looked ghastly and horrible, shining on the supernatural panic deformity of that face!  Gabriel turned away his head in terror.  He heard the voice of Father Paul saying to him:  “Wait here till I come back.”

Then there was an instant of silence again—­then a low groaning sound that seemed to articulate the name of God; a sound unlike his father’s voice, unlike any human voice he had ever heard—­and then the noise of a closing door.  He looked up, and saw that he was standing alone before the cottage.

Once, after an interval, he approached the window.

He just saw through it the hand of the priest holding on high the ivory crucifix; but stopped not to see more, for he heard such words, such sounds, as drove him back to his former place.  There he stayed, until the noise of something falling heavily within the cottage struck on his ear.  Again he advanced toward the door; heard Father Paul praying; listened for several minutes; then heard a moaning voice, now joining itself to the voice of the priest, now choked in sobs and bitter wailing.  Once more he went back out of hearing, and stirred not again from his place.  He waited a long and a weary time there—­so long that one of the scouts on the lookout came toward him, evidently suspicious of the delay in the priest’s return.  He waved the man back, and then looked again toward the door.  At last he saw it open—­saw Father Paul approach him, leading Francois Sarzeau by the hand.

The fisherman never raised his downcast eyes to his son’s face; tears trickled silently over his cheeks; he followed the hand that led him, as a little child might have followed it, listened anxiously and humbly at the priest’s side to every word that he spoke.