"That is because she cared so much that you hurt her cruelly. She did not tell me so, though we have spoken of you, but I saw how it was. There is no question of a mistake this time. And when you have talked together in my garden to-morrow afternoon, she will forgive and understand everything."
"Is she going to your place?"
"At three o'clock she will be there. You had better come a little earlier."
"I shall not come at all," Vanno blazed out, with violence. "She believes already that I've persecuted her. I won't give her reason to think it."
"Poor child, she is very unhappy," the curé sighed, meekly.
"At least, it isn't I who have made her so."
"Perhaps it is herself, and that is sadder—to have only herself to blame. You say you must be allowed to go to the devil in your own way. Well, you are a man. You do not want another man, even if he be a priest, to try and save you. But she needs a man to save her, a strong man who loves her well. She is drifting, without a rudder. She told me to-day—with such a look in her eyes!—that she has 'gambler's blood' in her veins. Only one thing can save her now, for she has got the idea in her head that she is the victim of Fate. The one thing is: an interest ten million times greater than gambling—Love."
The blood rushed to Vanno's face.
"I'm not fit——" he stammered.
"The soul that's in you is fit to do God's work, for love is part of God. 'Thy soul must overflow, if thou another's soul would reach.' Now, my son, I won't keep you any longer. At two-thirty to-morrow in my garden."