The Unknown, after a long embrace, covering his face with his hands, raised his head, exclaiming, “Oh! God! Thou who art truly great and good! I know myself now; I comprehend what I am; my iniquities are all before me; I abhor myself; but still—still I experience a consolation, a joy—yes, a joy which I have never before known in all my horrible life!”
“God accords to you this grace,” said Frederick, “to attract you to his service, to strengthen you to enter resolutely the new way he has opened to you, where you have so much to undo, to repair, to weep for!”
“Miserable that I am!” cried he, “there is so much—so much—that I can only weep over. But at least, there are some things but just undertaken, that I can arrest—yes, there is at least one evil that I can repair.”
He then briefly related, in the most energetic terms of self-execration, the story of Lucy, with the sufferings and terrors of the unfortunate girl; her entreaties, and the species of frenzy that her supplications had excited in his soul; adding, that she was still in the castle.
“Ah! let us lose no time!” cried Frederick, moved with pity and solicitude. “What happiness for you! You may behold in this, the pledge of pardon! God makes you the instrument of safety to her, to whom you were to have been the instrument of ruin. God has indeed blessed you!—Do you know the native place of the unhappy girl?”
The Unknown named the village.
“It is not far from this,” said the cardinal; “God be praised! And probably——” so saying, he approached a table, and rang a little bell. The chaplain entered, with an unquiet look; in amazement he beheld the altered countenance of the Unknown, on which the traces of tears were still visible; and glancing at that of the cardinal, he perceived, through its wonted calmness, an expression of great satisfaction, mingled with extraordinary solicitude. He was roused from the astonishment which the contemplation excited, by a question of the cardinal, if, among the curates in the hall, “there was one from ***?”
“There is, most illustrious lord,” replied the chaplain.
“Bring him hither immediately,” said Frederick, “and with him, the curate of this parish.”
The chaplain obeyed, and went to the hall where the priests were assembled. All eyes were turned towards him. He cried aloud, “His most illustrious and reverend lordship asks for the curate of this parish and the curate of ***.”