“Et puis,” I pursued, “he underwent calamities which one did not pity—bore them in a spirit one did not admire—endured wrongs for which one felt no sympathy; finally took the unchristian revenge of heaping coals of fire on his adversary’s head.”
“You have not told me all,” said he.
“Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Père Silas’s chapters.”
“You have forgotten one—that which touched on the pupil’s lack of affection—on his hard, cold, monkish heart.”
“True; I remember now. Père Silas did say that his vocation was almost that of a priest—that his life was considered consecrated.”
“By what bonds or duties?”
“By the ties of the past and the charities of the present.”
“You have, then, the whole situation?”
“I have now told Monsieur all that was told me.”
Some meditative minutes passed.