"I was afraid you might go off without seeing me," he resumed, "for I have something to tell you.

You know that poor old man to whom I sent you this morning and in whom I asked you to interest yourself?
Well, on getting home I found a lady there, who sometimes brings me a little money for my poor.

Then I thought to myself that the three francs I gave you were really too small a sum, and as the thought worried me like a kind of remorse, I couldn't resist the impulse, but went this afternoon to the Rue des Saules myself." He lowered his voice from a feeling of respect, in order not to disturb the deep, sepulchral silence of the church.

Covert shame, moreover, impeded his utterance, shame at having again relapsed into the sin of blind, imprudent charity, as his superiors reproachfully said.

And, quivering, he concluded in a very low voice indeed: "And so, my child, picture my grief.