"No doubt," answered the monk, "but will you let me depart without a word of confession? I have cured your flesh,—that was the first thing to be done; but is your conscience in any better state? Do you think you have no need of absolution, which is to the soul what that balsam is to the body?"
"I have great need of it, my father," said Huriel, "but you would do wrong to give it to me; I am not worthy to receive it until I have done penance. As to my confession, you do not need to hear it, for you saw me commit a mortal sin. Pray God for me; that is what I ask of you, and see that many masses are said for the soul of—those who let anger get the better of them."
I thought at first he was joking; but I knew better when I saw the money he gave to the friar, and heard the sad tone of his last words.
"Be sure you shall receive according to your generosity," said the friar putting the money in his wallet. Then he added, in a tone in which there was nothing hypocritical: "Maître Huriel, we are all sinners and there is but one just judge. He alone, who has never sinned, has the right to condemn or to absolve the faults of men. Commit yourself to him, and be sure that whatever there is to your credit he will in his mercy place to your account. As for the judges of earth, very foolish and very cowardly would he be who would send you before them, for they are weak or hardened creatures. Repent, for you have cause to, but do not betray yourself; and when you feel that grace is calling you to a confession of repentance go to some good priest, though he may only be a poor barefooted Carmelite like Brother Nicolas. And you, my son," added the good man, who felt in a preaching mood and wanted to sprinkle me too with his holy water, "learn to moderate your appetites and conquer your passions. Avoid occasions for sin; flee from quarrels and bloody encounters—"
"That will do, that will do, Brother Nicolas," interrupted Huriel. "You are preaching to a believer, you need not call a man with pure hands to repentance. Farewell. Go, I tell you; it is high time."
The monk departed, after shaking hands with us kindly and with a great air of frankness. When he had got to a distance Huriel, taking me by the arm, led me back to the tree where I had found the monk in prayer.
"Tiennet," he said, "I have no distrust of you, and if I compelled the good friar to hold his tongue it was only to make him cautious. However, there is no danger from him. He is own uncle to our chief Archignat, and he is, moreover, a safe man, always on good terms with the muleteers, who often help him to carry the provisions he collects from one place to another. But though I am not afraid of you or of him, it does not follow that I should tell you what you have no need to know, unless you make it a test of my friendship."
"You shall do as you like," I answered. "If it is useful for you that I should know the results of your fight with Malzac, tell me, even though I may deeply regret to hear them; if not, I would just as soon not know what has become of him."
"What has become of him!" echoed Huriel, whose voice was choked by some great distress. He stopped me when we reached the first branches which the oak stretched toward us, as if he feared to tread upon a spot where I saw no trace of what I was beginning to guess. Then he added, casting a look black with gloom before him, and speaking as if something were forcing him to betray himself: "Tiennet, do you remember the threatening words that man said to us in the woods of La Roche?—'There is no lack of ditches in the forest to bury fools in, and the stones and the trees have no tongues to tell what they see.'"
"Yes," I answered, feeling a cold sweat creeping over my whole body. "It seems that evil words tempt fate, and bring disaster to those who say them."