“Yes,” said the priest. “It’s a miserable story. A great many years ago a French ship was wrecked in the Miramichi River. There were some clothing and bedding on board that came from the Levant, and the people here used them; and it is said that from this clothing they caught this terrible disease. It has continued here ever since, and the place has been established here for the poor creatures.” “Lepers!” groaned Pat again. “An me walkin by that place, and thinkin of goin in.” “It’s a terrible thing,” said the priest. “The patients who go there are dead to their friends. They never can hope to see them again.” “Och, murdher!” cried Pat, starting up. “What’ll iver become of me? Och, murdher! Why didn’t somebody tell me?” “What’s the matter?” asked the priest, in surprise. “Och, everything’s the matther. Sure, an didn’t I go an swim for over half an hour in the leper wather, down yondher?” “Leper water?” said the priest. “What is that?” “Sure, the lake down there, or the cove, or whatever ye call it. Don’t they all go there an bathe?” “I dare say they do; but what of that?” “Och, murdher! The wather’s all fairly pisoned wid the leprosy, an I’m lost and gone intirely.” “Nonsense,” said the priest; “don’t be alarmed. It isn’t contagious.” “Sure, an how do I know that it isn’t?” The priest smiled. “Why,” said he, “I’m a proof of that, I suppose. I’ve lived here a great many years, and I’ve visited the poor creatures all that time regularly. I’ve shaken hands with them, and attended to all the duties of religion among them, but without any evil consequences.” As the priest said this, Pat rose slowly to his feet, with a face of perfect horror. Even Bart experienced a slight feeling of repugnance as he thought that he was in familiar intercourse with one who had been so much in contact with lepers. But the priest’s calm, good-natured face, and his assurance that the disease was not contagious, quelled his rising fears, and the thought of that priest’s self-sacrifice made him feel ashamed of that cowardly feeling. But with Pat it was different. The thought that the priest had touched the lepers; that on this very day he may have been there shaking hands with them; that he had been coming and going for years between his house and the Lazaretto,--all this filled him with terror. If that disease had been originally communicated by means of clothing, why should it not yet communicate itself in the same way? The whole house might be reeking with the insidious seeds of the deadly disease. The thought was too horrible. He murmured some inarticulate words, and went out of the house. The priest went on talking with Bart, and for a long time no notice was taken of Pat’s absence. But hours passed, and bedtime came, and still there were no signs of him. Bart went out to call him.