meat, and wine of the Christian's soul,
sins against that truth; and, if he is a leader of men, he draws on those
who look up to him, and who are only too ready to follow his example,
into everlasting fire. Where your father ought to have been a
recalcitrant though conquered enemy, he became an ally; nay, so far as
the leader of the infidels was concerned, a friend--how many tears it
cost me! And our hapless people were forced to see this attitude of their
chief, and imitated it.--Forgive their seducer, Merciful God!--forming
their conduct on his. Thousands fell away from our saving faith and went
over to those, who in their eyes could not be reprobate, could not be
damned, since they saw them dwelling and working hand-in-hand with their
wise and righteous leader; and it was simply and solely to warn his
misguided people that I did not hesitate to wound my own heart, to raise
the voice of reproof at the grave of a dear friend, and to refuse the
honor and blessing of which his just and virtuous life rendered him more
worthy than thousands of others. I have spoken, and now your foolish
anger must be appeased; now you will grasp the hand held out to you by
the shepherd of the souls entrusted to him with an easy and willing
heart."

And again he offered his hand to Orion, who, however, again took it
doubtfully, and instead of looking the prelate in the face, cast down his
eyes in gloomy bewilderment. The patriarch appeared not to observe the
young man's repulsion and clasped his hand warmly. Then he changed the
subject, speaking of the grieving widow, of the decadence of Memphis, of
Orion's plans for the future, and finally of the gems dedicated to the
Church by the deceased Mukaukas. The dialogue had taken a calm,
conversational tone; the patriarch was sitting in the dead man's
arm-chair, and there was nothing forced or unnatural in his asking, in
the course of discussing the jewels, what had become of the great
emerald.

Orion replied, in the same tone, that this stone was not, strictly
speaking, any part of his father's gift; but Benjamin expressed an
opposite opinion.

All the tortures Orion had endured since that luckless deed in the
tablinum revived in his soul during this discussion; however, it was some
small relief to him to perceive, that neither his mother nor Dame
Susannah seemed to have told the patriarch the guilt he had incurred by
reason of that gem. Susannah, of course, had said nothing of the incident