to you. Excuse the intrusive sorrow of a poor, broken
hearted old man!"

"I have suffered too much myself, sir, to be indifferent to any kind of
sorrow," replied Hardy. "Besides, you are no stranger to me--for you
did me a real service--and we both agree in our veneration for the same
young priest."

"The Abbe Gabriel!" cried Rodin, interrupting Hardy; "ah, sir! he is my
deliverer, my benefactor. If you knew all his care and devotion, during
my long illness, caused by intense grief--if you knew the ineffable
sweetness of his counsels--"

"I know them, sir," cried Hardy; "oh, yes! I know how salutary is the
influence."

"In his mouth, sir, the precepts of religion are full of mildness,"
resumed Rodin, with excitement. "Do they not heal and console? do they
not make us love and hope, instead of fear and tremble?"

"Alas, sir! in this very house," said Hardy, "I have been able to make
the comparison."

"I was happy enough," said Rodin, "to have the angelic Abbe Gabriel for
my confessor, or, rather, my confidant."

"Yes," replied Hardy, "for he prefers confidence to confession."

"How well you know him!" said Rodin, in a tone of the utmost simplicity.
Then he resumed: "He is not a man but an angel. His words would convert
the most hardened sinner. Without being exactly impious, I had myself
lived in the profession of what is called Natural Religion; but the
angelic Abbe Gabriel has, by degrees, fixed my wavering belief, given it
body and soul, and, in fact, endowed me with faith."

"Yes! he is a truly Christian priest--a priest of love and pardon!"
cried Hardy.

"What you say is perfectly true," replied Rodin; "for I came here almost
mad with grief, thinking only of the unhappy boy who had repaid my
paternal goodness with the most monstrous ingratitude, and sometimes I
yielded to violent bursts of despair, and sometimes sank into a state
of mournful dejection, cold as the grave itself. But, suddenly, the
Abbe Gabriel appeared--and the darkness fled before the dawning of a new
day."

"You were right, sir; there are strange coincidences," said Hardy,
yielding more and more to the feeling of confidence and sympathy,
produced by the resemblance of his real position to Rodin's pretended
one. "And to speak frankly," he added, "I am very glad I have seen you
before quitting this house. Were I capable of falling back into fits of
cowardly weakness, your example alone would prevent me. Since I listen
to you, I feel m