at all, and must be
married by a true priest; and to do so, without injuring the poor people
of Muro who have been the victims of my sin for many years.

"That is my confession. And now, if I have not made all clear to you, I
beg you to ask me such questions as you think fit, for it is not in
your power to give me absolution."

Don Teodoro was exhausted. His face sank upon his folded hands on the
edge of the table, and his shoulders trembled.

"My poor friend! My poor friend!" repeated Don Matteo, in a low and
wondering tone. "No--it is quite clear," he added. "There is nothing
which I have not understood. But I can say nothing, my poor friend!
Pray--pray for forgiveness. God will forgive you, for you have done evil
only to yourself, and never anything but good to others."

Don Teodoro in a hardly audible voice repeated the second half of the
'Confiteor' and remained on his knees a little while longer. Don Matteo
covered his eyes with his hands, and during several minutes there was
silence. Then the two old men rose and looked at each other for a
moment.

"Courage!" said Don Matteo, and he gently patted his friend's shoulder.

He took off his stole, folded it carefully, and wrapped it in its clean
white paper again, before putting it away. But he did that by force of
habit. Confessors hear strange things sometimes and are not easily
disconcerted, but Don Teodoro's was the strangest tale that had ever
come to Don Matteo's ears. Again he came and patted Don Teodoro's
shoulder in a way of kindly encouragement.

Then he took his three-cornered hat and went out without a word. In
such a case there was no time to be lost.

Cardinal Campodonico was at that time the archbishop of Naples, and he
received Don Matteo immediately, for the priest was a man of
extraordinarily brilliant gifts and well known to the prelate, who liked
him and had caused him to be made a canon of the cathedral not many
years earlier.

Don Matteo, as was right in such a position, laid the whole matter
before him as a theoretical case of conscience, without names, and
without any useless details which might by any possibility give a clue
to his real penitent's identity. He stated it all with great clearness
and force, but he dwelt much upon the spotless life of charity and good
works which the man had led, in spite of his one chief sin. He knew,
when Don Teodoro spoke of having spent his father's fortune, that almost
every penny of it had gone