"Yes, yes—I know; that's your point of view, but that does not answer me in this case. He had every opportunity to work along legitimate lines towards the end he professed to wish to attain—and he had the ability to attain it; I know this from my experience with him. What could have possessed him to put himself in the place of a sneak thief—he, born a gentleman, with Champney blood in his veins?"
Father Honoré did not answer his question which was more an indignant ejaculation.
"You spoke of my 'point of view,' Mr. Van Ostend. I think I know what that implies; you mean from the point of view of the priesthood?"
The man on the opposite side of the fire-lighted hearth looked at him in surprise. "Yes, just that; but I intended no reflection on your opinion; perhaps I ought to say frankly, that it implied a doubt of your powers of judgment in a business matter like the one in question. Naturally, it does not lie in your line."
Father Honoré smiled a little sadly. "Perhaps you may recall that old saying of the Jew, Nathan the Wise: 'A man is a man before he is either Christian or Jew.' And we are men, Mr. Van Ostend; men primarily before we are either financier or priest. Let us speak as man to man; put aside all points of view entailed by difference of training, and meet on the common ground of our manhood, I am sure the perspective and retrospective ought to be in the same line of vision from that standpoint."
Mr. Van Ostend was silent. He was thinking deeply. The priest saw this, and waited for the answer which he felt sure would be well thought out before it found expression. He spoke at last, slowly, weighing his words:
"I am questioning whether, with the best intentions as men to meet in the common plane of our manhood, to see from thence alike in a certain direction, you and I, at our age, can escape from the moulded lines of our training into that common plane."
"I think we can if we keep to the fundamentals of life."
"We can but try; but there must be then an absolutely unclouded expression of individual opinion on the part of each." His assertion implied both a challenge and a doubt. "What is your idea of the reason for his succumbing to such a temptation?"
"I believe it was the love of money and the power its acquisition carries with it. I know, too, that Mrs. Googe blames herself for having fostered this ambition in him. She would only too gladly place anything that is hers to make good, but there is nothing left; it all went." He straightened himself. "What I have come to you for, Mr. Van Ostend, is to ask you one direct question: Are you willing to make good the amount of the embezzlement to the syndicate and save prosecution in this special case—save the man, Champney Googe, and so give him another chance in life? You know, but not so well, perhaps, as I, what years in a penitentiary mean for a man when he leaves it."