For his only answer the abbé let go Durtal's arm, and took both his hands.
"Do you know," he said, looking him in the face, "it is there you must go for your conversion?"
"Are you serious, Monsieur l'Abbé?"
And as the priest pressed his hands more strongly Durtal cried,—
"Ah, no indeed, first I have not the stoutness of soul, and if that be possible I have still less the bodily health needed for such a course, I should fall ill on my arrival, and then ... and then...."
"And then, what? I am not proposing to you to shut you up for ever in a cloister."
"So I suppose," said Durtal, in a somewhat piqued tone.
"But just to remain a week, just the necessary time for a cure. Now a week is soon over, then do you think that if you make such a resolution God will not sustain you?"
"That is all very fine, but ..."
"Let us speak on the health question, then;" and the abbé smiled a smile of pity that was a little contemptuous.