“There is a great deal of talking here!” said he, “I shall have to come in like a schoolmaster with a cane and command silence.”
“I—not another word! I believe I have talked more than enough,” said the confessor. “I am going to take a turn outside.”
He drew Leon into the recess of the window.
“Well?” he said.
“Admirable,” said Leon, who had fully appreciated the priest’s dexterity—and again they heard the cock crow.
“I have denied my God! I have connived at falsehood!” said Paoletti with a smile that might mean compunction. “If that cock continues to warn me with that crow that seems sent by Heaven, I shall not be able to hold out in this treason to my Master.”
“It is an act of charity,” replied Leon. “A cock cannot be expected to understand that.”
“She, and God, will forgive me I trust. I have never told her a lie or deceived her before—she has never heard me utter a word that was not truth itself, and she believes me implicitly.”
Leon stood silent for a minute after these words, which revived forgotten pangs like a blow on an old wound.