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In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes to sit with Pere Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached–one, Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his brother in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest manhood, and both, like the little priest himself, the regretful rememberers of a fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like Pere Jerome, they had come, through years, to the thick of life’s conflicts,–the priest’s brother-in-law a physician, the other an attorney, and brother-in-law to the lonely wanderer,–yet they loved to huddle around this small board, and be boys again in heart while men in mind. Neither one nor another was leader. In earlier days they had always yielded to him who no longer met with them a certain chieftainship, and they still thought of him and talked of him, and, in their conjectures, groped after him, as one of whom they continued to expect greater things than of themselves.

They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing, speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way, the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the lawyer, who was half Americain; but running sometimes into English and sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.

Pere Jerome advanced an idea something like this:

“It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or our fathers. We all participate in one another’s sins. There is a community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human since Adam–nay, nor Adam himself–ever sinned entirely to himself. And so I never am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel my conscience pointing at me as one of the accessories.”

“In a word,” said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, “you think we are partly to blame for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?”

Father Jerome smiled.

“No; a man cannot plead so in his own defence; our first father tried that, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absent friend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser care and with better companions, how different might he not have been! How can we speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from that name?” Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his speech to English. “A lady sez to me to-day: ‘Pere Jerome, ‘ow dat is a dreadfool dat ‘e gone at de coas’ of Cuba to be one corsair! Ain’t it?’ ‘Ah, madame,’ I sez, ”tis a terrible! I ‘ope de good God will fo’give me an’ you fo’ dat!'”

Jean Thompson answered quickly:

“You should not have let her say that.”

“Mais, fo’ w’y?”

“Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have said,”–the attorney changed to French,–“‘He is no pirate; he has merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic of Carthagena!'”

“Ah, bah!” exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.

“Why not?” demanded Thompson.

“Oh!” said the physician, with a shrug, “say id thad way iv you wand.”

Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else, when Pere Jerome spoke.

“I will tell you what I could have said, I could have said: ‘Madame, yes; ’tis a terrible fo’ him. He stum’le in de dark; but dat good God will mek it a mo’ terrible fo’ dat man oohever he is, w’at put ‘at light out!'”