with the Order. You have known me since I was a boy. For the love of Heaven have pity on me, and spare me this!"
The Abbé was not one of those abnormal specimens of humanity who take pleasure in the sufferings of their fellow-*creatures. It could not be said of him that his heart was cruel or malicious. He had simply no heart at all. But it was a peculiarity he shared with many governing spirits, that he grew cooler and cooler in proportion to the agitation with which he came in contact. He took a pinch of snuff, pausing for the refreshment of a sneeze before he replied:
"And with the next report I furnish to the Order send in your refusal to obey? Your refusal, Florian; you know what that means? Well, be it so. The promotion to a coadjutor's rank is revoked, the former novice is recalled, and returns to St. Omer at once, where I will not enlarge on his reception. Riding post to the seaboard he meets another traveller, young, handsome, well provided, and unscrupulous, hurrying northward on a mission which seems to afford him considerable satisfaction. It is Brother Jerome, we will say, or Brother Boniface! the one known in the world as Beauty Adolphe of the King's Musketeers, the other as Count Victor de Rosny, whose boast it is that love and credit are universally forced on him, though he has never paid a tradesman nor kept faith with a woman in his life. Either of these would be an agreeable addition to the family party up there on the hill. Either would labour hard to obtain influence over Sir George, and do his best or worst to be agreeable to Lady Hamilton. Shall I forward your refusal by to-morrow's courier, Florian, or will you think better of it, and at least take a night to consider the subject in all its bearings?"
Florian pondered, passed his hand across his brow, and looked wildly in his adviser's face.
"Not a moment!" said he, "not a moment! I was wrong—I was impatient—I was a fool—I was wicked, mea culpa, mea culpa. What am I that I should oppose the will of the Order—that I should hesitate in anything they think fit to command? What is a Jesuit priest, what is any one, after all, but a leaf blown before the wind—a
