‘A sailor, and as good a fellow as ever went to sea. He and Marie had been playfellows. They had attended the same class for instruction. Jean was intelligent, Marie was dull. Jean was frank and good-humoured, Marie was reserved and self-willed. But the poor fellow was dazzled by the girl’s beauty, and she was endeared to him by old associations. He told me that she was the only woman he ever had cared for, the only woman he ever should care for. He had saved a little money, and could afford to furnish one of the cottages in the street by the quay. He would have to go to sea, of course, and Marie would stop at home and keep house, and perhaps earn a little money by washing linen, having the river so convenient. I would rather have had a home-staying husband for her, but Jean was a thoroughly good fellow, and I thought such a husband must keep her out of harm’s way. He was not the kind of man that any woman could attempt to trifle with.’ ‘And he married her?’ ‘Yes, they were married in the church yonder, one Easter Monday.’ ‘Can you tell me the date?’ ‘I can find it for you in the book where such events are registered. I could not say at this moment how many years ago it may have been. I could tell you the year of poor Kergariou’s death.’ ‘Oh, he is dead, then?’ asked Treverton, with a dreadful sinking of the heart. ‘Yes, poor fellow. Let me see; it must have been three years ago last summer that Kergariou met with his melancholy death.’ ‘His melancholy death,’ repeated Treverton. ‘Why melancholy?’ ‘He was killed--run over by a waggon, on the Boulevard St. Denis, in Paris.’ ‘Run over by a waggon, three summers ago, on the Boulevard,’ echoed John Treverton. ‘Yes, I recollect.’ ‘What--you knew him?’ ‘No, but I was in Paris at the time of the accident.’ John Treverton recalled that scene at the Morgue, and his wife’s ghastly face when she entreated him to take her away. Yes, that one page which had stood boldly out from the book of memory, with a lurid light upon it, was indeed a page of momentous meaning. ‘Tell me all about Jean Kergariou and his wife,’ he said to the curé. ‘It is a matter of vital importance for me to know. You are doing me a service which will make me grateful to you for the rest of my life.’ ‘Not quite so long, I hope,’ retorted the priest, with a sly smile. ‘A man would be but short-lived if his life were to be measured by the endurance of his gratitude. That is a delightful virtue, but not a lasting one.’ ‘Try me,’ exclaimed John Treverton. ‘Give me legal proof that Marie Pomellec and the dancer called Chicot were one, and that the man killed on the Boulevard three summers ago was Marie Pomellec’s husband, and you may put me to the hardest proof you choose, but you shall never find me ungrateful.’