'But since you are content, may it not be acquired?'
'Ah, my beloved!' he said with a sigh. 'Do not compare the retreat of the soldier tired of his wounds, of the gambler wearied by his losses, with the poet or the saint who is at peace with himself and sees all his life long what he at least believes to be the smile of God. Loyola and Francis d'Assisi are not the same thing, are not on the same plane.'
'What matter what brought them,' she said softly, 'if they reach the same goal?'
'You think any sin may be forgiven?' he said irrelevantly, with his face averted.
'That is a very wide question. I do not think S. Augustine himself could answer it in a word or in a moment. Forgiveness, I think, would surely depend on repentance.'
'Repentance in secret—would that avail?'
'Scarcely—would it?—if it did not attain some sacrifice. It would have to prove its sincerity to be accepted.'
'You believe in public penance?' said Sabran, with some impatience and contempt.
'Not necessarily public,' she said, with a sense of perplexity at the turn his words had taken. 'But of what use is it for one to say he repents unless in some measure he makes atonement?'
'But where atonement is impossible?'