CHAPTER XIV.
BY AN OATH.
Pere Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight, had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked, so suddenly as to startle him: "_Miche, commin ye 'pelle la rie ici ?_--how do they call this street here ?" It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized the woman to whom he replied in her own _patois_: "It is the Rue Burgundy.

Where are you going, Madame Delphine ?" She almost leaped from the ground.
"Oh, Pere Jerome! _mo pas conne_,--I dunno.

You know w'ere's dad 'ouse of Miche Jean Tomkin?
_Mo courri 'ci, mo courri la,--mo pas capale li trouve_.

I go (run) here--there--I cannot find it," she gesticulated.
"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean Thompson, Madame Delphine ?" "I '_blige_' to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away, one foot planted forward with an air of excited preoccupation; "I god some' to tell 'im wad I '_blige_' to tell 'im!" "Madame Delphine----" "Oh! Pere Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de 'ouse of Jean Tomkin!" Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.
"What are you going to tell him ?" asked the priest.
"Oh, Pere Jerome,"-- in the Creole _patois_ again,--"I am going to put an end to all this trouble--only I pray you do not ask me about it now; every minute is precious!" He could not withstand her look of entreaty.
"Come," he said, and they went.
* * * * * Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed.

Each had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the magnolias,--his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly shaded garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall, brick-pillared gate, his square of bright, red pavement on the turf-covered sidewalk, and his railed platform spanning the draining-ditch, with a pair of green benches, one on each edge, facing each other crosswise of the gutter.