“You should not have been sleeping. It was a sinful indolence.”
“Yes, my father.”
“See now to what it led. The enemy of your soul, ever watching, seized this moment to tempt you.”
“Yes, my father.”
“Examine your soul well,” said Father Francesco, in a tone of austere severity that made Agnes tremble. “Did you not find a secret pleasure in his words?”
“My father, I fear I did,” said she, with a trembling voice.
“I knew it! I knew it!” the priest muttered to himself, while the great drops started on his forehead, in the intensity of the conflict he repressed. Agnes thought the solemn pause that followed was caused by the horror that had been inspired by her own sinfulness.
“You did not, then, heartily and truly wish him to go from you?” pursued the cold, severe voice.
“Yes, my father, I did. I wished him to go with all my soul.”
“Yet you say you found pleasure in his being near you,” said Father Francesco, conscious how every string of his own being, even in this awful hour, was vibrating with a sort of desperate, miserable joy in being once more near to her.