ght not this woman come, as thousands have come, to have
a doubt removed; a case of conscience satisfied; a heresy arrested?
Besides, she is a Pagan,' added he suddenly; 'may she not be one eager
to seek the truth?' The cold derision of his look, as he spoke, awed the
simple servitor, who, meekly bending his head, retired.

CHAPTER XIV. THE EGYPTIAN

Our reader is already fully aware of the reasons which influenced the
Pere Massoni to adopt the cause of young Fitzgerald. It was not any
romantic attachment to an ancient and illustrious house; as little was
it any conviction of a right. It was simply an expedient which seemed to
promise largely for the one cause which the Jesuit father deemed worthy
of a man's life-long devotion--the Church. To impart to the terrible
struggle which in turn ravaged every country in Europe a royalist
feature, seemed, to his thoughtful mind, the one sole issue of present
calamity. His theory was: after the homage to the throne will come back
reverence to the altar.

For a while the Pere suffered himself to indulge in the most sanguine
hopes of success. Throughout Europe generally men were wearied of
that chaotic condition which the French Revolution had introduced, and
already longed for the reconstruction of society in some shape or other.
By the influence of able agents, the Church had contrived to make her
interest in the cause of order perceptible, and artfully suggested the
pleasant contrast of a society based on peace and harmony, with the
violence and excess of a revolutionary struggle.

Had the personal character of young Gerald been equal, in Massoni's
estimation, to the emergency, the enterprise might have been deemed
most hopeful. If the youth had been daring, venturous, and enthusiastic,
heedless of consequences and an implicit follower of the Church, much
might have been made of him; out of his sentiment of religious devotion
would have sprung a deference and a trustfulness which would have
rendered him manageable. But, though he was all these, at times, he was
fifty other things as well.

There was not a mood of the human mind that did not visit him in
turns, and while one day would see him grave, earnest, and thoughtful,
dignified in manner, and graceful in address, on the next he would
appear reckless and indifferent, a scoffer, and a sceptic. The old
poisons of his life at the Tana still lingered in his system and
corrupted his blood; and if, for a moment, some hi