“St. Peter’s cock!” said Paoletti in a low voice to Leon. Then, looking quickly round at María he went on:
“I began with thinking of your soul and ended with the cocks and hens in the village. Another time we will begin with the farm-yard and rise to Heavenly things ... God be with you.”
“But are you really going?” said María sincerely distressed.
“I will take a little walk and get something to eat and come back later.”
“On no account,” said Leon. “You will eat something here.”
“Thank you, thank you, Doña María,” said Paoletti, bending over the lady with a very mundane bow and smiling familiarly. “Your husband is most kind. I have never seen him since that melancholy time when our dear Luis quitted this world for a better. It has given me great pleasure to see him to-day.”
María looked at her husband with a mixed expression of kindliness and aversion.
“Do you know, my dear lady,” he went on, “that to-day, by the most extraordinary coincidence, I discovered something?”
“We will talk of it by-and-bye--I do not want to fatigue you.”
“No, do tell me,” said María in the plaintive tone of a child who begs for something it ought not to have.
“Well, then, I have discovered,” said the Italian, lowering his voice as though he did not wish Leon to hear, “that your husband is not so wicked as he seems; that all you heard--all the thousand stories which I know Doña Pilar told your mother--are a complete mistake, a misapprehension--I am assured--do you hear me?--I am assured that there never has been any such infidelity....”
María’s eyes glittered with excitement and pride. These words, which, coming from him were as Gospel truth, fell on her tortured spirit like balm applied by angel’s hands. She felt as though she were being lifted from a black abyss into the light and fresh air of a lovely day. Afterwards she brought mature reflection to bear on these statements and to test them severely; but for the moment the priest’s words had an immediate effect on her penitential credulity. If Paoletti had told her it was midnight, she would sooner have doubted her own eyes than his statement. Without knowing what to say or how to express her satisfaction she gazed alternately at the priest and at her husband, clasping their hands.