."

At this moment, Rodin re-entered the room. Father d'Aigrigny questioned
him with a significant look. The socius approached, and said to him in a
low voice, so, that Gabriel could not hear: "Nothing serious. It was only
to inform me, that Marshal Simon's father is arrived at M. Hardy's
factory."

Then, glancing at Gabriel, Rodin appeared to interrogate Father
d'Aigrigny, who hung his head with a desponding air. Yet he resumed,
again addressing Gabriel, whilst Rodin took his old place, with his elbow
on the chimney-piece: "Go on, my dear son. I am anxious to learn what
resolution you have adopted."

"I will tell you in a moment, father. I arrived at Charleston. The
superior of our establishment in that place, to whom I imparted my doubts
as to the object of our Society, took upon himself to clear them up, and
unveiled it all to me with alarming frankness. He told me the tendency
not perhaps of all the members of the Company, for a great number must
have shared my ignorance--but the objects which our leaders have
pertinaciously kept in view, ever since the foundation of the Order. I
was terrified. I read the casuists. Oh, father! that was a new and
dreadful revelation, when, at every page, I read the excuse and
justification of robbery, slander, adultery, perjury, murder, regicide.
When I considered that I, the priest of a God of charity, justice,
pardon, and love, was to belong henceforth to a Company, whose chiefs
professed and glorified in such doctrines, I made a solemn oath to break
for ever the ties which bound me to it!"[19]

On these words of Gabriel, Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin exchanged a look
of terror. All was lost; their prey had escaped them. Deeply moved by the
remembrances he recalled, Gabriel did not perceive the action of the
reverend father and the socius, and thus continued: "In spite of my
resolution, father, to quit the Company, the discovery I had made was
very painful to me. Oh! believe me, for the honest and loving soul,
nothing is more frightful than to have to renounce what it has long
respected!--I suffered so much, that, when I thought of the dangers of my
mission, I hoped, with a secret joy, that God would perhaps take me to
Himself under these circumstances: but, on the contrary, He watched over
me with providential solicitude."

As he said this, Gabriel felt a thrill, for he remembered a Mysterious
Woman who had saved his life in America. After a moment's silence, he
resumed: "My m