“Yes,” said the old man, gazing after the marchioness as she withdrew, “yes, I know you have a heart of adamant, madam, insensible to every sort of fear, with the exception of that which God has placed within your breast to supply the place of remorse. But that suffices; and it is dearly buying that reputation you have obtained for virtue, to pay the price of such eternal terrors. It is true that the virtue of the Marchioness d’Auray is so firmly established, that if truth herself were to rise from the earth or to descend from heaven to arraign her, she would be treated as a calumniator. But God orders all things according to His will, and what He does ordain, His wisdom has long before matured.”
“Rightly reasoned,” cried a youthful and sonorous voice, replying to the religious axiom which the resignation of the old man had led him to utter. “Upon my word, good father, you speak like Ecclesiastes.” Achard turned round and perceived Paul, who had arrived just as the marchioness left him, but who was so absorbed by the scene we have just described, that she had not observed the young captain. The latter, seeing the old man alone, approached him, and not hearing the last words he had uttered, had spoken with his usual good humor. Achard, who was surprised by his unexpected appearance, looked at him as if he wished him to repeat that which he had said.
“I say,” resumed Paul, “that there is more grandeur in resignation that humbly bows itself, than in philosophy that doubts. That is a maxim of our quakers, which, for my eternal welfare, I wish I had less often on my tongue, and more frequently in my heart.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the old man on seeing our adventurer, who was fixedly gazing at him, while standing with one foot on the threshold of his door. “May I know who you are?”
“For the moment,” replied Paul, giving, as usual, free course to his poetical and heedless gaiety, “I am a child of the republic of Plato, having all human kind for brothers, the world for a country, and possessing upon this earth only the station I have worked out for myself.”
“And what are you in search of?” continued the old man, smiling in spite of himself at the air of jovial good-nature which was spread over the features of the young man.
“I am seeking,” replied Paul, “at three leagues distance from Lorient, at five hundred paces from resembles this one, and in which I am to find an old man, whom it is very likely is yourself.”
“And what is the name of this old man?”
“Louis Achard.”
“That is my name.”