“The long and short of it is, Señor Cimarra, that you are in my eyes so abominable that I cannot see my way to gratifying the only legitimate desire which lurks, almost invisible, in the blackness and barrenness of your soul. Do not count upon me for anything. If your wife repents and dismisses her lover, and if I am called in—which is no doubt, very possible—to direct her conscience, my first task will be to cure her of her sinful griefs; and then I will turn her thoughts to God, who is the only refuge of those poor women who have been so rash as to love unworthy men. What joy for me to win a fresh battle against Satan. You—you do not exist, you are nothing to me! Do not keep me any longer; let me return to watch by the beloved dead.”
“I shall not go into the chapel; I have a horror of dead people. Pardon me for having disturbed you, reverend Father.”
“I will not neglect to pray for you.”
“I do not refuse—on the contrary, I thank you.”
“I look forward to the day of your repentance.”
“Thank you; you are most kind. It is more than I deserve. Good-bye, a thousand apologies.”
The little priest went softly away; his heavy steps died away in the passage which led to the chapel. Cimarra went out the same way; but he went down the steps and not into the little sanctuary where the illumination of mortuary torches filled him with more dread than respect. He crossed the deserted park, shrinking into the shadow of the trees when, now and again, he heard footsteps. Every now and then he felt his pocket to be sure that he had not lost the toy for Monina.
Presently, in the course of his nocturnal expedition, he saw Fúcar’s carriage drive in at the gates, and from his safe distance he addressed him in thought rather than in words: “Ah! my friend, what eyes I caught you making this afternoon in the street at the fair American who came with me from the States. Jupiter! you wished she was for you I’ll wager.”
He saw the marquis get out of the carriage with another man, and muttered to himself: “My uncle is with him! What is up I wonder. Oh! dread curiosity! Why do you torment me as if you were jealousy?”