Baptiste raised his hand beseechingly, as though he would fain have her cease, but she only drew still closer to him and continued quickly: 

“Have we not known it since we were children?  Did not our parents believe in it?  Even if we had not been told these things, we know it is true.  Have you forgotten Arsene Bolduc, Baptiste?”

Again he raised his hand, mutely protesting, but she did not heed him.

“It is only three years ago that it happened to Arsene.  He, like our boy, had not partaken of the blessed sacrament for seven years.  You know how he blasphemed and drank, and grew wickeder every year, till finally the very last night of the seventh year came, and just a few minutes before twelve he became possessed of the devil, and beat his mother, and then ran out of the house and was never seen again.  And why was he never seen again, Baptiste?” She was getting strangely excited, and her voice was rising.

“For the love of the Virgin, cease, wife?”

But she was now far too excited for him to have control over her, and went on: 

“When Arsene did not come back, his father thought the evil one had turned him into a wolf; but his mother said she believed he had been changed into a bull, and we know she was right, for a few days later you helped, with the other men, to drag out of the river the bull that was found drowned.  Did not all the village folk talk about it, and regret that someone had not met the beast before it was drowned, and drawn blood from it so as to release Arsene?  Has he ever been seen since?  We have known of others like him who have disappeared and have never been seen again.  How can we deceive ourselves and say there is no loup-garou?  There is; and we must not sleep this night till our son returns.  This night above all others he should not have been out late.  He must be drinking heavily in the village.  We do not know what may happen, Baptiste.  I fear some evil is about to befall him, for my heart is full of fear.”

Her voice had a pitiful break in it as she concluded.

“Let us pray the good God to protect him this night, wife,” answered Baptiste, no longer pretending that he did not believe in this strange legend, in which nearly all his race in his station in life have faith.

While they were on their knees praying, the yellow-faced clock behind the stove struck the hour of midnight.

“Mon Dieu! twelve o’clock!”

The anxious mother sprang to her feet, ran to the door, opened it, and standing on the steps shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked earnestly down the long snow-clad road in the direction of the little village of St. Pascal.  Behind her stood Baptiste, also shading his weak eyes and looking.  Not a human being was in sight.  The zinc-covered spire of the little village church, nearly half a mile away, glittered and shone in the fairy light like burnished silver.  The quaint whitewashed cottages that dotted the road to the village looked far different from what they did in the daytime; somehow the charitable moon had forgotten to reveal the cracks and stains that time in its relentless march had made.  The lines, too, that age and care had made on the two eager watching faces were also, by the great ruler of the night, tenderly smoothed out.