She took my hand.  “You have pitied and forgiven her,” she answered.  “Speak of her, Bernard—­and don’t, for God’s sake, think that my heart is harder than yours.”

I kissed the hand that she had given to me—­even her “brother” might do that!

“It began,” I said, “in the grateful attachment which the boy felt for my wife.  He refused to leave her bedside on the day when she dictated her confession to the Rector.  As he was entirely ignorant of the English language, there seemed to be no objection to letting him have his own way.  He became inquisitive as the writing went on.  His questions annoyed the Rector—­and as the easiest way of satisfying his curiosity, my wife told him that she was making her will.  He knew just enough, from what he had heard at various times, to associate making a will with gifts of money—­and the pretended explanation silenced and satisfied him.”

“Did the Rector understand it?” Stella asked.

“Yes.  Like many other Englishmen in his position, although he was not ready at speaking French, he could read the language, and could fairly well understand it, when it was spoken.  After my wife’s death, he kindly placed the boy, for a few days, under the care of his housekeeper.  Her early life had been passed in the island of Martinique, and she was able to communicate with the friendless foreigner in his own language.  When he disappeared, she was the only person who could throw any light on his motive for stealing the papers.  On the day when he entered the house, she caught him peeping through the keyhole of the study door.  He must have seen where the confession was placed, and the color of the old-fashioned blue paper, on which it was written, would help him to identify it.  The next morning, during the Rector’s absence, he brought the manuscript to the housekeeper, and asked her to translate it into French, so that he might know how much money was left to him in ’the will.’  She severely reproved him, made him replace the paper in the desk from which he had taken it, and threatened to tell the Rector if his misconduct was repeated.  He promised amendment, and the good-natured woman believed him.  On that evening the papers were sealed, and locked up.  In the morning the lock was found broken, and the papers and the boy were both missing together.”

“Do you think he showed the confession to any other person?” Stella asked.  “I happen to know that he concealed it from his mother.”

“After the housekeeper’s reproof,” I replied, “he would be cunning enough, in my opinion, not to run the risk of showing it to strangers.  It is far more likely that he thought he might learn English enough to read it himself.”

There the subject dropped.  We were silent for a while.  She was thinking, and I was looking at her.  On a sudden, she raised her head.  Her eyes rested on me gravely.

“It is very strange!” she said

“What is strange?”