The priest sighed and hesitated. 'I don't know, Madame, why I should trouble you with my poor story.
'It would not trouble me. Besides, I know so much of it already.'
She pointed to the bench he had just left.
'And I,' said Lucy, 'will go and fetch a book I left in the loggia. Father Benecke, Mrs. Burgoyne is not strong. She has walked more than enough. Will you kindly make her rest while I am gone?'
She fixed upon him her kind beseeching eyes. The sympathy, the homage of the two women enveloped the old man. His brow cleared a little.
She sped down the winding path, aglow with anger and pity. The priest's crushed strength and humiliated age—what a testimony to the power of that tradition for which Mr. Manisty was working—its unmerciful and tyrannous power!
Why such a penalty for a 'mildly Liberal' book?—'a fraction of the truth'? She could hear Manisty's ironic voice on that bygone drive to Nemi. If he saw his friend now, would he still excuse—defend?—
Her thoughts wrestled with him hotly—then withdrew themselves in haste, and fled the field.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Father Benecke's reserve had gradually yielded. He gave Eleanor a long troubled look, and said at last, very simply—