The Goodness of St. Rocque, and Other Stories

								

"Don't want any priest; you 're always after some snivelling old
woman's fuss.  You and Mrs. Murphy go on with your church; it won't
make YOU any better."
She shivered under this parting shot, and crept back into the shop.
Still the priest came next day.
She followed him in to the bedside and knelt timidly.
"Tony," she whispered, "here's Father Leblanc."
Tony was too languid to curse out loud; he only expressed his hate in a
toss of the black beard and shaggy mane.
"Tony," she said nervously, "won't you do it now?  It won't take long,
and it will be better for you when you go--Oh, Tony, don't--don't
laugh. Please, Tony, here's the priest."
But the Titan roared aloud: "No; get out.  Think I'm a-going to give
you a chance to grab my money now? Let me die and go to hell in peace."
Father Leblanc knelt meekly and prayed, and the woman's weak pleadings
continued,--
"Tony, I've been true and good and faithful to you.  Don't die and
leave me no better than before.  Tony, I do want to be a good woman
once, a real-for-true married woman.  Tony, here's the priest; say
yes."  And she wrung her ringless hands.
"You want my money," said Tony, slowly, "and you sha'n't have it, not a
cent; John shall have it."
Father Leblanc shrank away like a fading spectre.  He came next day and
next day, only to see re-enacted the same piteous scene,--the woman
pleading to be made a wife ere death hushed Tony's blasphemies, the man
chuckling in pain-racked glee at the prospect of her bereaved misery.
Not all the prayers of Father Leblanc nor the wailings of Mrs. Murphy
could alter the determination of the will beneath the shock of hair; he
gloated in his physical weakness at the tenacious grasp on his
mentality.
"Tony," she wailed on the last day, her voice rising to a shriek in its
eagerness, "tell them I'm your wife; it'll be the same.  Only say it,
Tony, before you die!"
He raised his head, and turned stiff eyes and gibbering mouth on her;
then, with one chill finger pointing at John, fell back dully and
heavily.
They buried him with many honours by the Society of Italia's Sons.
John took possession of the shop when they returned home, and found the
money hidden in the chimney corner.
As for Tony's wife, since she was not his wife after all, they sent her
forth in the world penniless, her worn fingers clutching her bundle of
clothes in nervous agitation, as though they regretted the time lost
from knitting.

THE FISHERMAN OF PASS CHRISTIAN
The swift breezes on the beach at Pass Christian meet and conflict as
though each strove for the mastery of the air.  The land-breeze blows
down through the pines, resinous, fragrant, cold, bringing breath-like
memories of dim, dark woods shaded by myriad pine-needles.  The breeze
from the Gulf is warm and soft and languorous, blowing up from the
south with its suggestion of tropical warmth and passion.  It is strong
and masterful, and tossed Annette's hair and whipped her skirts about