“You know all,” he repeated, “and you dare not let me hear her!”
“I dare not betray my trust.”
He waved the answer aside.
“Is this a time to quibble over church discipline? If you believed in her you would save her at any cost!”
I said to myself, “Eternity can hold nothing worse than this for me—“ and clutched my resolve again like a cross to my bosom.
Just then there was a hand on the door and we heard Donna Marianna.
“Faustina has sent to know if the signar parocco is here.”
“He is here. Bid her come down to the chapel.” Roberto spoke quietly, and closed the door on her so that she should not see his face. We heard her patter away across the brick floor of the salone.
Roberto turned to me. “Egidio!” he said; and all at once I was no more than a straw on the torrent of his will.
The chapel adjoined the room in which we sat. He opened the door, and in the twilight I saw the light glimmering before the Virgin’s shrine and the old carved confessional standing like a cowled watcher in its corner. But I saw it all in a dream; for nothing in heaven or earth was real to me but the iron grip on my shoulder.