"How, then?"
He leaned forward, his head sunk in his hands, his eyes riveted upon mine.
"There is—so—much—dire—need of money," he said, catching his breath between his words. "We are all human—all weak in the face of another's misery. It takes a strong heart, a strong mind, a strong body to resist. There are some temptations too terrible even for a priest. I wish with all my heart that Alice had never given it into my hands."
I started to speak, but he held up his arms.
"Do not ask me more," he pleaded—"I cannot tell you—I am ill and weak—my courage is gone."
"Is there any of the money left?" I ventured quietly, after waiting in vain for him to continue.
"I do not know," he returned wearily, "most of it has gone—over there, beneath the papers, in the little drawer," he said pointing to the corner; "I kept it there. Yes, there is some left—but I have not dared count it."
Again there ensued a painful silence, while I racked my brain for a scheme that might still save the situation, bad as it looked. In the state he was in, I had not the heart to worry out of him a fuller confession. Most of the fifteen hundred francs was gone, that was plain enough. What he had done with it I could only conjecture. Had he given it to save another I wondered. Some man or woman whose very life and reputation depended upon it? Had he fallen in love hopelessly and past all reasoning? There is no man that some woman cannot make her slave. It was not many years ago, that a far more saintly priest than he eloped to Belgium with a pretty seamstress of Les Fosses. Then I thought of Germaine!—that little minx, badly in debt—perhaps? No, no, impossible! She was too clever—too honest for that.