"Good-evening, Father." And he walked
away quickly.
The priest looked after him and sighed profoundly.
"Oh, Madame!" he exclaimed, as if impelled to liberate his mind to
someone, "what is the matter with that man? What is the matter?"
He stared fixedly into the twilight after Androvsky's retreating form.
"With Monsieur Androvsky?"
She spoke quietly, but her mind was full of apprehension, and she looked
searchingly at the priest.
"Yes. What can it be?"
"But--I don't understand."
"Why did he come to see me?"
"I asked him to come."
She blurted out the words without knowing why, only feeling that she
must speak the truth.
"You asked him!"
"Yes. I wanted you to be friends--and I thought perhaps you might----"
"Yes?"
"I wanted you to be friends." She repeated it almost stubbornly.
"I have never before felt so ill at ease with any human being,"
exclaimed the priest with tense excitement. "And yet I could not let
him go. Whenever he was about to leave me I was impelled to press him to
remain. We spoke of the most ordinary things, and all the time it was
as if we were in a great tragedy.
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