The chaplain saw at once that the matter was more serious than he had supposed; he read the letter, and then asked if Ledda paid him money.
"Of course, a trifle now and then. Perhaps you think it wrong? Well, don't I take the risk of being put in a cell in order to serve him?"
"And you consider that you are doing right when you act in this manner?"
"What is doing right? If it is helping your neighbour, then I most certainly think that I am."
The chaplain re-read the letter attentively.
"Yes," pursued the other. "I certainly am. And what is more, if, when I get out of here, they don't reinstate me in my position, I intend to arrange a system of correspondence for all the prisons in Italy. It will be a sort of agency——"
"I see, my friend, that it will not be long before we have you back again."
"Eh! eh! I shall know how to manage the thing; a secret agency, and——"
"Pardons too!" said the priest, folding the letter and returning it. "How can you have the heart to fool those poor creatures so?"
"Yes, pardons too," replied Burrai calmly. "Well, and suppose they are fooled; if it gives them any comfort to hope, is not that an act of kindness in itself? What is there for any of us, but hope?"