"This is too much!" he exclaimed, as he strode up and down, striking the palms of his hands together, and his eyes flashing. "How dare you imagine all this string of things that may possibly happen, and then repeat them to that poor creature as though they were actual occurrences? Because the young woman once had another suitor, you mean to say----" "My dear friend, there is no need to get so angry," said the other. "Here, look at this," and he showed him the anonymous letter. The chaplain saw at once that the matter was more serious than he had supposed; he read the letter, and then asked if Ledda paid him money. "Of course, a trifle now and then. Perhaps you think it wrong? Well, don't I take the risk of being put in a cell in order to serve him?" "And you consider that you are doing right when you act in this manner?" "What is doing right? If it is helping your neighbour, then I most certainly think that I am." The chaplain re-read the letter attentively. "Yes," pursued the other. "I certainly am. And what is more, if, when I get out of here, they don't reinstate me in my position, I intend to arrange a system of correspondence for all the prisons in Italy. It will be a sort of agency----" "I see, my friend, that it will not be long before we have you back again." "Eh! eh! I shall know how to manage the thing; a secret agency, and----" "Pardons too!" said the priest, folding the letter and returning it. "How can you have the heart to fool those poor creatures so?" "Yes, pardons too," replied Burrai calmly. "Well, and suppose they are fooled; if it gives them any comfort to hope, is not that an act of kindness in itself? What is there for any of us, but hope?" "Well," said the other more mildly, "at least do me the favour to leave that poor fellow alone. Allow _him_ to enjoy the pleasures of hope, otherwise he will certainly fall ill." The ex-marshal promised, though with bad grace. It seemed to him a poor method. "He will die of heartstroke, I verily believe," he said to himself. "Wait till the spring; then we will see whether a man of the world knows what he is about or no." And he laid one hand on his breast. When they next met, Costantino asked with a smile if he had seen _Su Preideru_, as they called the chaplain between themselves, and what he had said to him. The ex-marshal was leaning against the damp and dingy wall, softly cursing some individual unknown, in the Sardinian dialect. "_Balla chi trapasset sa busacca, brasciai!_" (I wish a ball would hit him in the pouch, the he-wolf!) he murmured, as Costantino approached. "What is it? Who?" "Oh! nothing." "You want to know if I have seen the priest? Yes, and he scolded me like a child. What a child it is! A little pig, really and truly, a little pig! But the lard is yellow and rancid. Do you know, I read somewhere that in Russia they think very highly of rancid lard?" "But tell me what he said."