The old man continued, and here a new terror arose for our abbe. "You have never heard mass to the end! And I," thought he, "have never heard even the beginning for these last thirty years!" The penitent continued:-- "I have committed, monseigneur, the great sin that you know." "The great sin that I know! I know so many," thought the abbe. "What sin, my friend?" "Yea, the great sin--although married--" "Ah! I understand!" Then, _sotto voce_, "My great sin, although a priest." A deplorable fatality, if it was a fatality, had so willed it that the vassal should have fallen into the same snares as had his lord, who was now called to judge him at his last hour. When the confession was ended, the Abbe de Voisenon consulted his own heart with inward terror, and after some hesitation he remitted his penitent's sins, inwardly avowing to himself that the dying man ought, at least, out of gratitude, to render him the same service. The ceremony over, the abbe rose to depart: but his limbs failed him, and they were actually obliged to carry him home, where he arrived in a state of prostration that seriously alarmed his household. During the remainder of that day he spoke to no one; wrapped up in the silence of his own melancholy thoughts, he opened his lips only to cough. The night was bad; icy shiverings passed over his frame: the image of this man, of the same age, and burdened with the same sins as he himself had committed, would not leave his memory. By daylight his trouble of mind and body was at its height; he desired his valet to summon his physician and the prior of the convent. "And immediately," added he, "immediately." Comprehending better this time the wishes of his master, the domestic hastened to arouse the prior, whose convent almost adjoined the chateau, and the physician, who had apartments in the chateau itself. This physician was a young man, chosen by the celebrated Tronchin from among his cleverest pupils at the express desire of the Abbe de Voisenon. Seriously alarmed at the danger of the abbe, both prior and physician hastened to obey the summons. M. de Voisenon was so ill last night. Should they arrive in time? So equal and so prompt was their zeal that both reached the abbe's bedroom door together. But when they opened it, what was their astonishment to find that the bird had flown; our abbe had got over his little fright, and had gone out shooting again.