It was impossible to lie to
himself. St. Pierre, in this moment, was of more importance to him
than Roger Audemard. And St. Pierre's wife, Marie-Anne--
His eyes fell on the crumpled handkerchief on the piano keys.
Again he was crushing it in the palm of his hand, and again the
flood of humiliation and shame swept over him. He dropped the
handkerchief, and the great law of his own life seemed to rise up
in his face and taunt him. He was clean. That had been his
greatest pride. He hated the man who was unclean. It was his
instinct to kill the man who desecrated another man's home. And
here, in the sacredness of St. Pierre's paradise, he found himself
at last face to face with that greatest fight of all the ages.
He faced the door. He threw back his shoulders until they snapped,
and he laughed, as if at the thing that had risen up to point its
finger at him. After all, it did not hurt a man to go through a
bit of fire--if he came out of it unburned. And deep in his heart
he knew it was not a sin to love, even as he loved, if he kept
that love to himself. What he had done when Marie-Anne stood at
the window he could not undo. St. Pierre would probably have
killed him for touching her hair with his lips, and he would not
have blamed St.
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