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 to the poor of Naples in one way or another,
and he had seen at a glance how his poor friend had in his youth
exaggerated his boyish admiration for his stepmother. But Don Matteo put
the main point very clearly before the cardinal--always as a purely
theoretical case of conscience, asking what a confessor's duty would be
in such an extremely difficult situation.
The cardinal listened attentively, and then was silent for some time.
"The first thing to be done," he said at last, "would be to make a
priest of him. He is evidently a man with a vocation, and the chain of
circumstances which led him into this sin and difficulty is a very
strange one. I hardly know what to say of it--left alone with savages
only just converted--well, he was wrong, of course. But the man you
represent in your theoretical case is supposed to be in all other
respects almost a holy man."
"Yes, a man of holy life," said Don Matteo, earnestly.
"I do not see how a man of such disposition could have been so lacking
in courage afterwards," said the cardinal.
"But suppose that it were exactly as I represent the case, Eminence,
what should the confessor do?"
The cardinal looked into his eyes long and gravely.
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