Dumars, a conventional Catholic, succumbed to the dramatic in the act.  He bowed his head for an instant and made the sign of the cross.  The somewhat abashed Robbins, murmuring an indistinct apology, backed awkwardly away.  Sister Felicite drew back the curtain, and the reporters departed.

On the narrow stone sidewalk of Bonhomme Street, Robbins turned to Dumars, with unworthy sarcasm.

“Well, what next?  Churchy law fem?”

“Absinthe,” said Dumars.

With the history of the missing money thus partially related, some conjecture may be formed of the sudden idea that Madame Tibault’s words seemed to have suggested to Robbins’s brain.

Was it so wild a surmise—­that the religious fanatic had offered up his wealth—­or, rather, Madame Tibault’s—­in the shape of a material symbol of his consuming devotion?  Stranger things have been done in the name of worship.  Was it not possible that the lost thousands were molded into that lustrous image?  That the goldsmith had formed it of the pure and precious metal, and set it there, through some hope of a perhaps disordered brain to propitiate the saints and pave the way to his own selfish glory?

That afternoon, at five minutes to three, Robbins entered the chapel door of the Little Sisters of Samaria.  He saw, in the dim light, a crowd of perhaps a hundred people gathered to attend the sale.  Most of them were members of various religious orders, priests and churchmen, come to purchase the paraphernalia of the chapel, lest they fall into desecrating hands.  Others were business men and agents come to bid upon the realty.  A clerical-looking brother had volunteered to wield the hammer, bringing to the office of auctioneer the anomaly of choice diction and dignity of manner.

A few of the minor articles were sold, and then two assistants brought forward the image of the Virgin.

Robbins started the bidding at ten dollars.  A stout man, in an ecclesiastical garb, went to fifteen.  A voice from another part of the crowd raised to twenty.  The three bid alternately, raising by bids of five, until the offer was fifty dollars.  Then the stout man dropped out, and Robbins, as a sort of coup de main, went to a hundred.

“One hundred and fifty,” said the other voice.

“Two hundred,” bid Robbins, boldly.

“Two-fifty,” called his competitor, promptly.

The reporter hesitated for the space of a lightning flash, estimating how much he could borrow from the boys in the office, and screw from the business manager from his next month’s salary.

“Three hundred,” he offered.

“Three-fifty,” spoke up the other, in a louder voice—­a voice that sent Robbins diving suddenly through the crowd in its direction, to catch Dumars, its owner, ferociously by the collar.

“You unconverted idiot!” hissed Robbins, close to his ear—­“pool!”

“Agreed!” said Dumars, coolly.  “I couldn’t raise three hundred and fifty dollars with a search-warrant, but I can stand half.  What you come bidding against me for?”