Mouret assumed an expression of surprise, and, as he went back into the house, he murmured:
'Pooh! that worthy Bourrette will manage to console himself to-morrow when he is appointed Curé in the other's place. He counts on getting the post; he told me so.'
Abbé Faujas disengaged himself from the old priest's embrace, quietly closed his breviary, and listened to the sad news with a grave face.
'Compan wants to see you,' said Abbé Bourrette in a broken voice; 'he will not last the morning out. Oh! he has been a dear friend to me! We studied together. He is anxious to say good-bye to you. He has been telling me all through the night that you were the only man of courage in the diocese. For more than a year now he has been getting weaker and weaker, and not a single Plassans priest has dared to go and grasp his hand; while you, a stranger, who scarcely knew him, you have spent an afternoon with him every week. The tears came into his eyes just now as he was speaking of you; you must lose no time, my friend.'
Abbé Faujas went up to his room for a moment, while Abbé Bourrette paced impatiently and hopelessly about the passage; and then at last they set off together. The old priest wiped his brow and swayed about on the road as he talked in disconnected fashion:
'He would have died like a dog without a single prayer being said for him if his sister had not come and told me about him at eleven o'clock last night. She did quite right, the dear lady, though he did not want to compromise any of us, and even would have foregone the last sacraments. Yes, my friend, he was dying all alone, abandoned and deserted, he who had so high a mind, and who has only lived to do good!'
Then Bourrette became silent; but after a few moments he resumed again in a different voice:
'Do you think that Fenil will ever forgive me for this? Never, I expect! When Compan saw me bringing the viaticum, he was unwilling to let me anoint him and told me to go away. Well, well! it's all over with me now, and I shall never be Curé! But I am glad that I did it, and that I haven't let Compan die like a dog. He has been at war with Fenil for thirty years, you know. When he took to his bed he said to me, "Ah! it's Fenil who is going to carry the day! Now that I am stricken down he will get the better of me!" So think of it! That poor Compan, whom I have seen so high-spirited and energetic at Saint-Saturnin's! Little Eusèbe, the choir-boy, whom I took to ring the viaticum bell, was quite embarrassed when he found where we were going. He kept looking behind him at each tinkle, as if he was afraid that Fenil would hear it.'
Abbé Faujas, who was stepping along quickly with bent head and a preoccupied air, kept perfectly silent, and did not even seem to hear what his companion was saying.