“In that case, you must be more careful and more prudent,” retorted the Stranger gently, reaching to the table and taking up a breviary. “I do not believe that you understand Latin, and——”
He did not continue, for the extraordinary emotion depicted on the faces of the two poor nuns made him feel that he had gone too far; they were trembling, and their eyes were filled with tears.
“Reassure yourselves,” he said to them in a cheery voice; “I know the name of your guest, and yours; and three days ago I was informed of your destination and of your devotion to the venerable Abbé of——”
“Chut!” said Sister Agatha naïvely, putting her finger to her lips.
“You see, my sisters, that if I had formed the horrible design of betraying you, I might already have accomplished it more than once.”
When he heard these words, the priest emerged from his prison and reappeared in the middle of the room.
“I cannot believe, monsieur,” he said to the Stranger, “that you can be one of our persecutors, and I have faith in you. What do you want of me?”
The saintlike confidence of the priest, the nobility that shone in all his features, would have disarmed assassins. The mysterious personage who had enlivened that scene of misery and resignation gazed for a moment at the group formed by these three; then he assumed a confidential tone, and addressed the priest in these words:
“Father, I have come to implore you to celebrate a mortuary mass for the repose of the soul of a—a consecrated person, whose body, however, will never repose in holy ground.”
The priest involuntarily shuddered. The two nuns, not understanding as yet of whom the Stranger was speaking, stood with necks outstretched, and faces turned towards the two speakers in an attitude of curiosity. The ecclesiastic scrutinized the Stranger; unfeigned anxiety was depicted upon his face, and his eyes expressed the most ardent supplication.