an angel,
a good angel as you make out you are, it would never occur to you to
disobey your Creator."

"You are in error, Maurice, and the authority of the Fathers condemns
you. Origen lays it down in his homilies that good angels are fallible,
that they sin every day and fall from Heaven like flies. Possibly you
may be tempted to reject the authority of this Father, despite his
knowledge of the Scriptures, because he is excluded from the Canon of
the Saints. If this be so, I would remind you of the second chapter of
Revelation, in which the Angels of Ephesus and Pergamos are rebuked for
that they kept not ward over their church. You will doubtless contend
that the angels to whom the Apostle here refers are, properly speaking,
the Bishops of the two cities in question, and that he calls them angels
on account of their ministry. It may be so, and I cede the point. But
with what arguments, Maurice, would you counter the opinion of all those
Doctors and Pontiffs whose unanimous teaching it is that angels may fall
from good into evil? Such is the statement made by Saint Jerome in his
Epistle to Damasus...."

"Monsieur," said Madame des Aubels, "go away, I beg you."

But the Angel hearkened not, and continued:

"Saint Augustine, in his _True Religion_, Chapter XIII; Saint Gregory,
in his _Morals_, Chapter XXIV; Isidore----"

"Monsieur, let me get my things on; I am in a hurry."

"In his treatise on _The Greatest Good_, Book I, Chapter XII; Bede on
Job----"

"Oh, please, Monsieur ..."

"Chapter VIII; John of Damascus on _Faith_, Book II, Chapter III. Those,
I think, are sufficiently weighty authorities, and there is nothing for
it, Maurice, but to admit your error. What has led you astray is that
you have not duly considered my nature, which is free, active, and
mobile, like that of all the angels, and that you have merely observed
the grace and felicity with which you deem me so richly endowed. Lucifer
possessed no less, yet he rebelled."

"But what on earth are you rebelling for?" asked Maurice.

"Isaiah," answered the child of light, "Isaiah has already asked, before
you: '_Quomodo cecidisti de coelo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris?_'
Hearken, Maurice. Before Time was, the Angels rose up to win dominion
over Heaven, the most beautiful of the Seraphim revolted through pride.
As for me, it is science that has inspired me with the generous desire
for freedom. Finding myself near you, Maurice, in a house containing o