“Why did he come to see me?”
“I asked him to come.”
She blurted out the words without knowing why, only feeling that she must speak the truth.
“You asked him!”
“Yes. I wanted you to be friends—and I thought perhaps you might——”
“Yes?”
“I wanted you to be friends.” She repeated it almost stubbornly.
“I have never before felt so ill at ease with any human being,” exclaimed the priest with tense excitement. “And yet I could not let him go. Whenever he was about to leave me I was impelled to press him to remain. We spoke of the most ordinary things, and all the time it was as if we were in a great tragedy. What is he? What can he be?” (He still looked down the road.)
“I don’t know. I know nothing. He is a man travelling, as other men travel.”
“Oh, no!”