" And then to me--" Do you deny that you occupied that hermitage
during the season named?"
"I do not."
"Set it down," he said again. "What, then, remains?" he asked me.
"It remains that I knew nothing of the fraud. The trickster was a
pretended monk who dwelt there before me and at whose death I was present.
I took his place thereafter, implicitly believing in the miraculous image,
refusing, when its fraud was ultimately suggested to me, to credit that any
man could have dared so vile and sacrilegious a thing. In the end, when it
was broken and its fraud discovered, I quitted that ghastly shrine of
Satan's in horror and disgust."
There was no emotion on the huge, yellow face. "That is the obvious
defence," he said slowly. "But it does not explain the appropriation of
the moneys."
"I appropriated none," I cried angrily. That is the foulest lie of all."
"Do you deny that alms were made?"
"Certainly they were made; though to what extent I am unaware. A vessel of
baked earth stood at the door to receive the offerings of the faithful. It
had been my predecessor's practice to distribute a part of these alms among
the poor; a part, it was said, he kept to build a bridge over the Bagnanza
torrent, which was greatly needed."
"Well, well?" quoth he.
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