On another day, while alone with old Prosper and Nance, he turned to her and said:

"Nance, did I ever tell you about the Priest and the Faun, whom I found in my blessed attic at the top of my secret stairway?... Yes?"

"Are you feeling quite strong enough, Monsieur Jacques?" was her gentle answer.

"Better than I shall ever feel again," came the reply.

"I should like to hear about them," she said.

"When I found them," he began, "the Priest was seated upon a stool. His head was bowed, about his neck was the rosary, the crucifix of which he held in his hand. Upon his face was sorrow, a great pity, infinite patience, gentleness. His features though rugged were softened and refined by the strength and compassion of his heart.

"His brother, the Faun, stood facing him. He was closely enough like the Priest for their relationship to be seen at once. Yet he who stood was a trifle larger of body, with features bearing a wild and inhuman cast of countenance. His small bright eyes glistened in astonishment mingled with anger. The wide, large-lipped mouth was twisted into a leer of contempt. The small pointed ears twitched nervously. In his hand there was the branch of an oak all clustered with leaves and acorns.

"'So you would remain here,' said the Faun in a preternatural, highly pitched voice which had the sound of the wind in the tree-tops, 'and count your weary beads?... You—you would do good to man,'" he smiled.

"'I would, my brother,' came the reply in a quiet, even tone, yet compassionate withal.

"'Ah! Out with you,' fairly shouted the Faun, 'you are no brother of mine! I—I,' he laughed shrilly, 'am brother to the trees, to the hills, to the river, to the old god Pan, but never—

"'Ah,' he cried, changing his tone to one of gentle pleading not unlike a summer's breeze on the river, 'come! Come with me where the wild thyme grows, where the rhododendron climbs the mountainside with sinuous grace, where the lusty trout leap out of their clear course from sheer joy of living! Come with me to the dingle where my cousin the gipsy camps o' night. Where their maidens frolic in enticing nakedness in the streams and the old crones chant their witches' songs. Come where men are brave and strong and virile like my sire, the oak. Come where the berries shall stain your mouth with gladness; the frolicsome squirrel shall call you comrade; the fairies and elves, even the goblins of hell, shall dance about you in moonlit revels; the great-limbed satyrs shall teach you their bacchanalian bouts; while with amorous-breasted dryads you will discover the delectable madness of passion.... You shall roam the wide earth—free, alive, with love and an open heart! Come!'

"At this the priest stood, and anger lit his face. The resemblance between them was now more marked.

"'Come with me, brother to Pan,' cried he. 'Come into the house of the poor, the broken of spirit, the conquered, the beaten, the hopeless who have fallen in the battle! Come into the house of death, of shame, of ignominy. Come into the hovels of wretched, diseased hearts and leprous souls! Come where children are born into crime, and the breasts of mothers secrete the poisonous milk of lust! Come where all of the misery of hell reigns, brutalizing, dwarfing, killing the souls of men. Come and let your slender Faun's fingers bring hope and health and opportunity.... Come?'

"Thus they struggled, the Faun and the Priest, threatening, pleading, defying. Sometime the Faun fled to his greenwood; often the Priest to his people. Rarely, as if they would effect a compromise, did they go together: the Priest gladly to the hills; the Faun with terror into town. And to-day they yet wrangle.

"I have wondered in my heart, Nance, which one of them would win."

"It is when they go together, first to the dingle, then to the street, that I like them best. That comes nearest to the way of solution," she said, with a smile as comprehending as it was sympathetic.

"The Priest must come to nature; the Faun, at least occasionally, to town. May not old Pan with his pipes be the brother of the Man with the heart of God?" she asked.

"I have given a great deal of time to living, Nance, and little enough to thinking, but I feel that you speak the truth."

An hour later Monsieur l'AbbÉ, dreaming of France with her sunny fields, her morning roads, and happy village streets, discovered a boy fishing by a merry little stream.

"Do you live here?" questioned Monsieur Picot, indicating the town near by.

"Yes," returned the boy, "I live when I am here," meaning the river and the hills, "but I stay in the town. I know it is natural to live in the fields.... Was it not queer that the good God should make that which is right so different from that which is natural?"

"But the good God did not, my son," replied the priest.

"Are you sure, sir? My master thinks He did."

"Your master is wrong, my lad.... Tell me, your face seems familiar to me," said the AbbÉ, "have I ever seen you before?"

"You have," replied the boy; "I am your soul."

And Monsieur l'AbbÉ smiled in his sleep.