“I will go to him,” said the priest. “The thought is a kind one.” If the priest dreamed that he was thus finished with the detective, it was because he did not know the nature of the creature. “From Beauce I think you said the wounded man came,” said Trafford carelessly. If Trafford thought to surprise the priest, it was proof that he too was ignorant. “I do not recall having said so,” the priest answered. “But he was, wasn’t he?” demanded Trafford. “I did not ask him.” On the matter of the wound the priest talked freely. It was painful, but not serious. The small bone of the lower right arm was broken, but he had set it and was confident it would improve. “If the man has been unjustly accused, I hope it may prove so,” Trafford said. “He goes directly home, of course.” The priest smiled. “I did not expect to see him again, so had no occasion to know.” Convinced that the other was absolutely on guard, and that even if he knew anything beyond what he had told--of which Trafford felt considerable doubt--it was not to be extracted from him, Trafford again commended the lad Étienne to his care, and turned to the matter of a conveyance to Carrytunk on the road to Millbank. At parting, he said: “If I accept your assurance as to the innocence of this man, it is none the less true that some one employed him to rob me, and his companion lost his life because of the attempt. He could not have told of this without telling who that was.” The priest smiled, but not in a way that encouraged Trafford to hope for information, and the event proved him wise not to do so. “If he told me aught that I have not repeated,” the other answered, “it was to obtain God’s pardon, not to invoke man’s punishment on any. Its object accomplished, the words passed as they came to the priest and not to the man.” So Trafford was forced to let him go, none the wiser beyond what the priest chose that he should be; but as they hurried towards Millbank, he tried hard to look at all sides of the story and at last asked his companion: “What do you think of it?” “A batch of lies, told to a gossiping priest to be peddled out to us again,” was the curt judgment. Even this Trafford weighed carefully before commenting on it. “You evidently think the fellow a shrewd chap.” “No; any one can see he’s a stupid lout; just the kind of a thing to be used for a dirty job.” “Yet he had a long enough head to cheat the priest.” “Then you think the priest believed him?” “I haven’t a doubt of it,” said Trafford. Trafford’s judgments had something of the weight of oracles with this man, who was able to see things but not to form opinions; and this curt declaration was to the point and not to be mistaken. For the time being, and for present purposes, it was to be accepted, and having accepted it, the other had nothing to say. But it was not so easy for Trafford. He had, perhaps, to convince some budding doubt that had not found expression either in tone or words.