"
"How horrible!" Domini said. She looked at the pale-green liquid. "How
horrible!" she repeated.
"Yes. The monks would have kept the matter a secret, but a servant
of the _hotellerie_--who had taken no vow of eternal silence--spoke,
and--well, I know it here in the 'belly of the desert.'"
"Horrible!"
She said the word again, and as if she felt its meaning more acutely
each time she spoke it.
"After twenty years to go!" she added after a moment. "And was there
no reason, no--no excuse--no, I don't mean excuse! But had nothing
exceptional happened?"
"What exceptional thing can happen in a Trappist monastery?" said the
priest. "One day is exactly like another there, and one year exactly
like another."
"Was it long ago?"
"No, not very long. Only some months. Oh, perhaps it may be a year by
now, but not more. Poor fellow! I suppose he was a man who didn't know
himself, Madame, and the devil tempted him."
"But after twenty years!" said Domini.
The thing seemed to her almost incredible.
"That man must be in hell now," she added. "In the hell a man can make
for himself by his own act.
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