holy keeping!"

CHAPTER VII.

A DAY OF ENCOUNTERS.

"Can a prophet come out of Galilee?"--The unexpected happens--under
the probe--Wise reservation--Born to command--Contrasts--Nothing
new under the sun--The senora prepares for the fair--Grievance not
very deep seated--Bewitching appearance--Senora
dramatic--Ernesto--Marriage a lottery--Every cloud its silver
lining--Gerona _en fete_--Delormais' mission--Deceptive
appearances--Evils of conscription--Ernesto's ambition--Les beaux
jours de la vie--Rosalie--A fair picture--Strange
similarity--Heavenwards--Anastasia or Rosalie--Her dreams and
visions--Modern Paul and Virginia--Eternal possession--A Gerona
saint--The better part--More heresy--Fenelon--One creed, one
worship--Not peace but a sword--Not dead to the world--Angel of
mercy--H. C. mistaken--Earthly idyll.

That same afternoon the people had recovered from their glamour. The
fair was in full swing, Gerona festive. It was a general holiday and
work was suspended. The shops were open, but no one attempted to make
purchases. Even our industrious little lady with the idle husband gave
up hoping for customers and turned to pleasure. And she took her
pleasure as she did her work, with a great amount of earnestness.

Luncheon had long been over. Black coffee and headache were of the past.
The Silent Enigma had gone their way. Mutely they had risen, taken their
hats, and marched out in a procession of three. Delormais had duly
administered his homily; and after so strangely opening his heart had
gone into the town to prosecute his mission. Whether an inspection of
the numerous convents, a private embassy from the Pope, or some other
weighty matter only to be entrusted to a man of tact and judgment, he
did not say.

Before separating we had asked him if his object in visiting Gerona were
ecclesiastical or domestic, concerned himself or his office.

"Your question is very natural, but on that point I must be silent," he
returned. "My mission--I may tell you so much--is delicate and
momentous. It is secret, but the secret is not mine, and can no more be
disclosed than a secret of the confessional. Just now when I promised to
relate to you a part of my life I was offering you of my own. No one has
a right to stay me. My experiences injure none. I might publish them
to-morrow and disturb no one's slumbers. But at the present moment I may
call mys