“Forgive me,” said the abbé at last, disinterring an apoplectic face from his handkerchief. “I know you are too good a Catholic, Madame la comtesse, not to understand and share my emotion, when you hear....” The Countess could not abide lack of control; her propriety took refuge behind a lorgnette. The abbé quickly recovered himself and, drawing his chair nearer: “It required the Cardinal’s solemn assurance, Madame la comtesse, before I could bring myself to come and see you--his assurance that your faith was something more than worldly conventionality--not a mere cloak for indifference.” “Let’s get to the point, Monsieur l’abbé.” “The Cardinal assured me, then, that I might have perfect confidence in your discretion--the discretion of the confessional, if I may say so....” “Excuse me, Monsieur l’abbé, but if the secret is one with which the Cardinal is acquainted--a secret of such importance--how is it that he has not told me of it himself?” The abbé’s smile alone would have sufficed to show the Countess the futility of her question. “In a letter! But, my dear Madam, the post nowadays opens all cardinals’ letters.” “He might have confided one to you.” “Yes, Madam, but who knows what may happen to a paper, with the surveillance to which we are subjected? More than that--the Cardinal prefers to ignore what I am about to tell you--to have nothing to do with it.... Ah! Madam, at the last moment my courage fails me and I can hardly....” “Monsieur l’abbé, as you are a stranger to me; I cannot feel offended that your confidence in me is no greater,” said the Countess very gently, turning her head aside and letting her lorgnette fall. “I have the utmost respect for the secrets which are confided to me. God knows I have never betrayed the smallest. But I have never been a person to solicit confidences.” She made a slight movement as though to rise; the abbé stretched out his hand toward her. “You will excuse me, Madame la comtesse, when you condescend to reflect that you are the first woman to have been judged worthy by the persons who have entrusted me with the fearful task of enlightening you--the first, I say, worthy to hear and keep this secret. I am alarmed, I confess, when I consider that this revelation is of a nature to weigh heavily--crushingly--on a woman’s intelligence.” “There are very mistaken opinions held about the feebleness of women’s intelligence,” said the Countess almost dryly; then, with her hands slightly raised, she sat concealing her curiosity beneath an air which was a mixture of absent-mindedness, resignation and ecstatic vagueness--an air which she thought would be appropriate for receiving an important and confidential communication from the Church. The abbé drew his chair still nearer. But the secret which Father Salus prepared to confide to the Countess seems to me even now so disconcertingly peculiar that I cannot venture to relate it without further precautions.