At last, when he needed a new suit--so torn had his others become at woodchopping and many kinds of work--he went to the village tailor, and was promptly told that nothing but Luc Pomfrette's grave-clothes would be cut and made in that house.
When he walked down to the Four Corners the street emptied at once, and the lonely man with the tinkling bell of honour at his knee felt the whole world falling away from sight and touch and sound of him.

Once when he went into the Louis Quinze every man present stole away in silence, and the landlord himself, without a word, turned and left the bar.

At that, with a hoarse laugh, Pomfrette poured out a glass of brandy, drank it off, and left a shilling on the counter.

The next morning he found the shilling, wrapped in a piece of paper, just inside his door; it had been pushed underneath.

On the paper was written: "It is cursed." Presently his dog died, and the day afterwards he suddenly disappeared from Pontiac, and wandered on to Ste.