“But Matilde—­” Bosio began in troubled tones.  “And yet, perhaps, it is possible.  Veronica would not be so cruel as to ruin them—­the money is nothing to her.  And, after all, she will hardly feel the loss out of her immense fortune.  Yes—­” his face brightened slowly with the rays of hope.  “Yes—­it may be possible, after all.  I had thought of going to her, but not of telling her the whole truth.  It did not seem as though I could, until I had heard myself tell it to you.  It will be hard, but it seems possible, and it will save her—­and then—­”

His face changed again, as he broke off in the sentence, and his melancholy eyes turned slowly to his friend.

“And then,” said Don Teodoro, “perhaps you will go back with me to Muro, and rest and forget it all.”

“Yes,” answered Bosio, sadly and dreamily, “perhaps I shall go to Muro with you.  I wonder,” he continued, after a short pause, “that you should want such a man as I am in your priest’s house there.”

“Oh!  I am glad of a little society when I can get it, and I have much to show you which might interest you.  I have worked perpetually for many years, since we used to talk about my history of the Church.”

He checked himself.  In spite of all he had just heard, and the real distress and sympathy he had felt for Bosio, the one of his dominant passions which was uppermost just then had almost made him forget everything, and launch into an account of his work and studies.  Men who, intellectually, are deeply engrossed in one matter, and who, socially, have long lived very lonely lives, are not generally able to lose themselves in sympathy for others.  As Bosio was not exactly an object for Don Teodoro’s charity, he was in some danger of being made a listener for the outpouring of the priest’s tremendous intellectual enthusiasm.  But the latter checked himself.  The things he had heard were indeed of a nature not so easily forgotten.  He went back to them at once.

“My dear Bosio,” he began again, “do not put yourself down as the worst of men.  It is just as bad to go too far in one direction as in the other.  There is undoubtedly, in theory, the man in the world, at any given moment, who must be a little worse than any other living man; but though he might be our next-door neighbour, we have no means whatever of knowing that he is the greatest sinner alive, because we do not know all about all existing sinners.  Consequently, and for the same reason, no man has any right to assume that he is worst of men.  And as far as that goes, many men have done worse things, even in the religious view, than you have done, and very much worse things, in the opinion of society.  You are not responsible for all that the others have done.  You are only responsible in the immediate future for your share of duty, in doing the wisest and best thing which may present itself.  And if you can induce Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother’s wife,