"
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.
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