Thereupon the woodsman told the whole truth concerning the tailor of Chaudiere.
“To save him, I have confessed my own sin. To you I might tell all in confession, and the truth about him would be buried for ever. I might not confess at all unless I confessed my own sin. You will save him, father?” he asked anxiously.
“I will save him,” was the reply of the priest.
“I want to give myself to justice; but he has been ill, and he may be ill again, and he needs me.” He told of the tailor’s besetting weakness, of his struggles against it, of his fall a few days before, and the cause of it... told all to the man of silence.
“You wish to give yourself to justice?”
“I shall have no peace unless.”
There was something martyr-like in the man’s attitude. It appealed to some stern, martyr-like quality in the priest. If the man would win eternal peace so, then so be it. His grim piety approved. He spoke now with the authority of divine justice.
“For one year longer go on as you are, then give yourself to justice—one year from to-day, my son. Is it enough?”
“It is enough.”
“Absolvo te!” said the priest.