Abbé Mouret pointed to his cassock. ‘I cannot,’ he said simply; ‘I am a priest.’ ‘Priest!’ she repeated, no longer smiling. ‘Yes, Uncle says priests have no wife, no sister, no mother. That’s true, then... But why did you come? You took me as your sister and your wife. Were you just lying?’ He raised his face to her, pale, and showing beads of anguished sweat. ‘I have sinned,’ he murmured. ‘As for me,’ she went on, ‘when I saw how free you were, I thought you weren’t a priest any more. I thought that was over and done with, and you’d always be there, for me and with me... And now what do you
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