"Two days."
"Oh, two days! Now I have struck it. And before that, you sinned with her?"
"No," said the man.
The priest was put out of countenance.
"Well, I suppose you are not lying. Why didn't you sin? It is unnatural. After all," he insisted, "you are a man."
The sick man was bewildered and began to get excited. Seeing this, the priest said:
"Do not be surprised, my son, if my questions are direct and to the point. I ask you in all simplicity, as is my august duty as a priest. Answer me in the same simple spirit, and you will enter into communion with God," he added, not without kindness.
"She is a young girl," said the old man. "I took her under my protection when she was quite a child. She shared the hardships of my traveller's life, and took care of me. I married her before my death because I am rich and she is poor."
"Was that the only reason—no other reason at all?"
He fixed his look searchingly on the dying man's face, then said, "Eh?" smiling and winking an eye, almost like an accomplice.