Great drops of dew beaded his temples as he spelled out the meaning of the parchment; and no wonder, for he read there that, although one lay as dead for three days, a few drops of the antidote poured between the lips would break that deathly sleep and restore life; but after those wondrous three days the drug could be of no avail—death must surely ensue.
In the cold and cheerless cell the old priest shivered as with a chill.
"What an awful responsibility lies upon me!" he muttered. "It is for me to decide whether to give her back to Carmontelle and the world, to be spoiled by its vanities, or leave her soul, now pure and unspotted, free to enter heaven."
After an hour of painful meditation he put away the mysterious drug and spent the night upon his knees on the cold stone floor of the cell, calling on all the saints to uphold him in his pious resolve to save the soul of the lovely girl by the sacrifice of her life.
And the next afternoon, in a shaken voice and a holy resolve written on his ashen features, he read the long Latin prayers for the dead to the assembled nuns and to Carmontelle among them, and saw the form of poor Little Nobody consigned to the grim vault in the convent cemetery.
Two days and a night had thus passed while the girl lay in that death-like trance. A few hours more and the prisoned soul would be separated from the body, and the story of her brief life be ended.
But when the shades of night again fell on the convent walls, a revulsion of feeling brought remorse to the soul of the old priest. He was haunted by the thought of the living girl prisoned in the vault among the dead. In the solitude of his cell that night a strange unrest grew upon him, and evil spirits seemed to people the gloom.
He started up in terror from his knees, the great drops of sweat pouring over his face.
"Yes, yes, it is murder!" he uttered, fearfully. "Heaven put the means of saving her in my hands, and I was too blind to understand. But I will atone, I will atone!"
A sudden thought came to him, and he hurriedly sought a brother priest and the mother superior. To them, in deep humility, he confessed his error.