.

When Agnes began her confession, her voice seemed to him to pass through
every nerve; it seemed as if he could feel her presence thrilling through
the very wood of the confessional. He was astonished and dismayed at his
own emotion. But when she began to speak of the interview with the
cavalier, he trembled from head to foot with uncontrollable passion.
Nature long repressed came back in a tempestuous reaction. He crossed
himself again and again, he tried to pray, and blessed those protecting
shadows which concealed his emotion from the unconscious one by his side.
But he set his teeth in deadly resolve, and his voice, as he questioned
her, came forth cutting and cold as ice crystals.

"Why did you listen to a word?"

"My father, it was so sudden. He wakened me from sleep. I answered him
before I thought."

"You should not have been sleeping. It was a sinful indolence."

"Yes, my father."

"See now to what it led. The enemy of your soul, ever watching, seized
this moment to tempt you."

"Yes, my father."

"Examine your soul well," said Father Francesco, in a tone of austere
severity that made Agnes tremble. "Did you not find a secret pleasure in
his words?"

"My father, I fear I did," said she, with a trembling voice.

"I knew it! I knew it!" the priest muttered to himself, while the great
drops started on his forehead, in the intensity of the conflict he
repressed. Agnes thought the solemn pause that followed was caused by the
horror that had been inspired by her own sinfulness.

"You did not, then, heartily and truly wish him to go from you?" pursued
the cold, severe voice.

"Yes, my father, I did. I wished him to go with all my soul."

"Yet you say you found pleasure in his being near you," said Father
Francesco, conscious how every string of his own being, even in this awful
hour, was vibrating with a sort of desperate, miserable joy in being once
more near to her.

"Ah," sighed Agnes, "that is true, my father,--woe is me! Please tell me
how I could have helped it. I was pleased before I knew it."

"And you have been thinking of what he said to you with pleasure since?"
pursued the confessor, with an intense severity of manner, deepening as he
spoke.

"I _have_ thought of it," faltered Agnes.

"Beware how you trifle with the holy sacrament! Answer frankly. You have
thought of it with _pleasure_. Confess it."

"I do not understand myself exactly," said Agnes. "I have thought of it
partly wi