“The truth!” echoed Francois.  “What truth?”

He stopped, his eyes fell, then turned toward the corpse.  For a few minutes he stood steadily contemplating it; breathing quickly, and drawing his hand several times across his forehead.  Then he faced his son once more.  In that short interval he had become in outward appearance a changed man; expression, voice, and manner, all were altered.

“Heaven forgive me!” he went on, “but I could almost laugh at myself, at this solemn moment, for having spoken and acted just now so much like a fool!  Denied his words, did he?  Poor old man! they say sense often comes back to light-headed people just before death; and he is a proof of it.  The fact is, Gabriel, my own wits must have been a little shaken—­and no wonder—­by what I went through last night, and what I have come home to this morning.  As if you, or anybody, could ever really give serious credit to the wandering speeches of a dying old man! (Where is Perrine?  Why did you send her away?) I don’t wonder at your still looking a little startled, and feeling low in your mind, and all that—­for you’ve had a trying night of it, trying in every way.  He must have been a good deal shaken in his wits last night, between fears about himself and fears about me. (To think of my being angry with you, Gabriel, for being a little alarmed—­very naturally—­by an old man’s queer fancies!) Come out, Perrine—­come out of the bedroom whenever you are tired of it:  you must learn sooner or later to look at death calmly.  Shake hands, Gabriel; and let us make it up, and say no more about what has passed.  You won’t?  Still angry with me for what I said to you just now?  Ah! you’ll think better about it by the time I return.  Come out, Perrine; we’ve no secrets here.”

“Where are you going to?” asked Gabriel, as he saw his father hastily open the door.

“To tell the priest that one of his congregation is dead, and to have the death registered,” answered Francois.  “These are my duties, and must be performed before I take any rest.”

He went out hurriedly as he said these words.  Gabriel almost trembled at himself when he found that he breathed more freely, that he felt less horribly oppressed both in mind and body, the moment his father’s back was turned.  Fearful as thought was now, it was still a change for the better to be capable of thinking at all.  Was the behavior of his father compatible with innocence?  Could the old man’s confused denial of his own words in the morning, and in the presence of his son, be set for one instant against the circumstantial confession that he had made during the night alone with his grandson?  These were the terrible questions which Gabriel now asked himself, and which he shrank involuntarily from answering.  And yet that doubt, the solution of which would, one way or the other, irrevocably affect the whole future of his life, must sooner or later be solved at any hazard!