my
doubts as to the object of our Society, took upon himself to clear them
up, and unveiled it all to me with alarming frankness. He told me the
tendency not perhaps of all the members of the Company, for a great
number must have shared my ignorance--but the objects which our leaders
have pertinaciously kept in view, ever since the foundation of the
Order. I was terrified. I read the casuists. Oh, father! that was a
new and dreadful revelation, when, at every page, I read the excuse and
justification of robbery, slander, adultery, perjury, murder, regicide.
When I considered that I, the priest of a God of charity, justice,
pardon, and love, was to belong henceforth to a Company, whose chiefs
professed and glorified in such doctrines, I made a solemn oath to break
for ever the ties which bound me to it!"(19)

On these words of Gabriel, Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin exchanged a look
of terror. All was lost; their prey had escaped them. Deeply moved by
the remembrances he recalled, Gabriel did not perceive the action of
the reverend father and the socius, and thus continued: "In spite of my
resolution, father, to quit the Company, the discovery I had made was
very painful to me. Oh! believe me, for the honest and loving soul,
nothing is more frightful than to have to renounce what it has long
respected!--I suffered so much, that, when I thought of the dangers of
my mission, I hoped, with a secret joy, that God would perhaps take me
to Himself under these circumstances: but, on the contrary, He watched
over me with providential solicitude."

As he said this, Gabriel felt a thrill, for he remembered a Mysterious
Woman who had saved his life in America. After a moment's silence, he
resumed: "My mission terminated, I returned hither to beg, father, that
you would release me from my vows. Many times but in vain, I solicited
an interview. Yesterday, it pleased Providence that I should have a long
conversation with my adopted mother; from her I learned the trick by
which my vocation had been forced upon me--and the sacrilegious abuse
of the confessional, by which she had been induced to entrust to other
persons the orphans that a dying mother had confided to the care of
an honest soldier. You understand, father, that, if even I had before
hesitated to break these bonds, what I have heard yesterday must have
rendered my decision irrevocable. But at this solemn moment, father,
I am bound to tell you, that I do not accuse the whole S