Père Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.
"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame Delphine without changing his attitude.
Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.
"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest, speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally—which they have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.
"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once to the worst.
The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief, with the stifled cry:
"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"
"Well, Madame Delphine," said Père Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is sure: we must find a way out of this trouble."
"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"
"But it must be!" said the priest.