ter words, but, although he paused at
the threshold and listened, he did not enter.

As he stood there, uncertain and trembling, a figure replete with
youth and vigor approached, and, glancing at her, an exclamation
escaped him that caused her to pause and turn.

"You are not well," she said, solicitously. "Can I help you?"

"It is nothing, nothing!" answered the marquis, ashy pale at the sight
of her and the proximity of that face which regarded him with womanly
sympathy. "Go away."

"At least, let me assist you. You were going to the cathedral? Come!"

His hand rested upon her strong young arm; he felt himself too weak to
resist, so, together--father and daughter!--they entered the
cathedral. Side by side they knelt--he to keep up the farce, fearing
to undeceive her--while yet only mocking words came to the old man's
heart, as the bitterness of the situation overwhelmed him. She was a
daughter in whom a prince might have found pride, but he remained
there mute, not daring to speak, experiencing all the tortures of
remorse and retribution. Of what avail had been ambition? How had it
overleaped content and ease of mind! Into what a nest of stings and
thorns his loveless marriage had plunged him! And now but the black
shadow remained; he walked in the darkness of unending isolation. So
he should continue to walk straight to the door of death.

He scarcely heard the organ or the voice of the priest. The high
altar, with its many symbols, suggested the thousands that had
worshiped there and gone away comforted. Here was abundant testimony
of the blessings of divine mercy in the numerous costly gifts and in
the discarded crutches, and here faith had manifested itself for
generations.

The marquis' throat was hoarse; he could have spoken no words if he
had tried. He laughed in his heart at the gifts of the grateful ones;
those crosses of ivory and handsome lamps were but symbols of
barbarism and superstition. The tablets, with their inscriptions,
_"Merci"_ and _"Ex voto,"_ were to him absurd, and he gibed at the
simple credulity of the people who could thus be misled. All these
evidences of thanksgiving were but cumulative testimony that men and
women are like little children, who will be pleased over fairy tales
or frightened over ghost stories. The promise of paradise, but the
fairy tale told by priests to men and women; the threats of
punishment, the ghost stories to awe them! A malicious delight crept
into his d