He drew himself up, his blue eyes shining. Yet they were swollen with fatigue and sleeplessness, and over the whole man a blighting breath of age and pain had passed since the day in St. Peter's.
Manisty looked at him in silence a moment. Then he said—
'I'm sorry—heartily, heartily sorry!'
At this Eleanor, thinking that the two men would prefer to be alone, turned to leave the room. The priest perceived it.
'Don't leave us, madame, on my account. I have no secrets, and I know that you are acquainted with some at least of my poor history. But perhaps I am intruding; I am in your way?'
He looked round him in bewilderment. It was evident to Eleanor that he had come to Manisty in a condition almost as unconscious of outward surroundings as that of the sleep-walker. And she and Manisty, on their side, as they stood looking at him, lost the impression of the bodily man in the overwhelming impression of a wounded spirit, struggling with mortal hurt.
'Come and sit down,' she said to him gently, and she led him to a chair. Then she went into the next room, poured out and brought him a cup of coffee. He took it with an unsteady hand and put it down beside him untouched. Then he looked at Manisty and began in detail the story of all that had happened to him since the letter in which he had communicated to his English friend the certainty of his condemnation.
Nothing could have been more touching than his absorption in his own case; his entire unconsciousness of anything in Manisty's mind that could conflict with it. Eleanor turning from his tragic simplicity to Manisty's ill-concealed worry and impatience, pitied both. That poor Father Benecke should have brought his grief to Manisty, on this afternoon of all afternoons!
It had been impossible to refuse to see him. He had come a pilgrimage from Rome and could not be turned away. But she knew well that Manisty's ear was listening all the time for every sound in the direction of his sister's room; his anxieties indeed betrayed themselves in every restless movement as he sat with averted head—listening.
Presently he got up, and with a hurried 'Excuse me an instant'—he left the room.