sternness, and he muttered to himself as he mixed with the crowd
struggling onwards in the direction of the basilica: 'Let him depart
unregretted; he has denied himself to the service of his Maker. He
should no longer be my friend.'

In this sentence lay the index to the character of the man. His
existence was one vast sacrifice, one scene of intrepid
self-immolation. Although, in the brief hints at the events of his life
which he had communicated to his friend, he had exaggerated the extent
of his errors, he had by no means done justice to the fervour of his
penitence--a penitence which outstripped the usual boundaries of
repentance, and only began in despair to terminate in fanaticism. His
desertion of his father's house (into the motives of which it is not
our present intention to enter), and his long subsequent existence of
violence and excess, indisposed his naturally strong passions to submit
to the slightest restraint. In obedience to their first impulses, he
contracted, at a mature age, a marriage with a woman thoroughly
unworthy of the ardent admiration that she had inspired. When he found
himself deceived and dishonoured by her, the shock of such an
affliction thrilled through his whole being--crushed all his
energies--struck him prostrate, heart and mind, at one blow. The
errors of his youth, committed in his prosperity with moral impunity,
reacted upon him in his adversity with an influence fatal to his future
peace. His repentance was darkened by despondency; his resolutions
were unbrightened by hope. He flew to religion as the suicide flies to
the knife--in despair.

Leaving all remaining peculiarities in Numerian's character to be
discussed at a future opportunity, we will now follow him in his
passage through the crowd, to the entrance of the basilica--continuing
to designate him, here and elsewhere, by the name which he had assumed
on his conversion, and by which he had insisted on being addressed
during his interview with the fugitive landholder.

Although at the commencement of his progress towards the church, our
enthusiast found himself placed among the hindermost of the members of
the advancing throng, he soon contrived so thoroughly to outstrip his
dilatory and discursive neighbours as to gain, with little delay, the
steps of the sacred building. Here, in common with many others, he was
compelled to stop, while those nearest the basilica squeezed their way
through its stately doors.