“Mais, Colonel Hall, dites!  How can I arrange not to lose this pearl among artists?”

At the name, for he had not understood the title before, pronounced as it was in French, the boy fell back in horrified recognition.  “Oh! you are Colonel Gideon Hall!”

“Aye, lad, who else?” The old soldier swung himself up to the saddle, groaning, “Oh, damn that wet ground!  I fear I cannot sit the nag home.”

“But then you are the enemy of God—­the chosen one of Beelzebub——­”

“Do they call me that in polite and pious Hillsboro?”

The Frenchman broke in, impatient of this incomprehensible talk.  “See, boy, you—­Everett—­I go back to France now soon.  I lie next Friday night at Woodburn.  If you come to me there we will go together to France—­to Paris—­you will be the great artist——­”

He was silenced by a gesture from the colonel, who now sat very straight on his horse and beckoned to Nathaniel.  The boy came timorously.  “You have heard lies about me, Everett.  Be man enough to trust your own heart.”  He broke into a half-sad little laugh at Nathaniel’s face of fascinated repulsion.

“You can laugh now,” whispered the boy, close at his knee, “but when you come to die?  Why, even my father trembles at the thought of death.  Oh, if I could but believe you!”

“Faugh!  To fear death when one has done his best!”

He had turned his horse’s head, but Nathaniel called after him, bringing out the awful words with an effort.  “But they say—­that you do not believe in God.”

The colonel laughed again.  “Why, lad, I’m the only man in this damn town who does.”  He put his horse into a trot and left Nathaniel under the birch-trees, the sun high over his head, the bag of salt forgotten at his feet.

IV

A little before sundown the next day the minister strode into his house, caught up his Bible, and called to his wife, “Deborah, the Lord hath answered me in my trouble.  Call Nathaniel and bring him after me to the house of Gideon Hall.”

Mistress Everett fell back, her hand at her heart, “To that house?”

“Aye, even there.  He lieth at the point of death.  So are the wicked brought into desolation.  Yesterday, as he rode in the wood, his horse cast him down so that it is thought he may not live till dark.  I am sent for by his pious sisters to wrestle with him in prayer.  Oh, Deborah, now is the time to strike the last blow for the salvation of our son.  Let him see how the devil carries off the transgressor into the fires of hell, or let him see how, at the last, the proudest must make confession of his wicked unbelief——­”

He hurled himself through the door like a javelin, while his wife turned to explain to Nathaniel the reason for the minister’s putting on his Sabbath voice of a week-day morning.  He cried out miserably, “Oh, mother, don’t make me go there!”