“But you have, on your own shewing: and taken up with the devil.”
Tournier writhed under this, and was about to say something sharp, but Cosin went on,—
“I will prove it to you. God says, ‘Vengeance is mine: I will repay’; and you say, ‘Not so, I will avenge myself.’ And whenever we contradict God, we take up with the devil.”
Then Cosin sat down again, and in his old gentle tone of voice, said,—
“Which do you think has sinned most against the other: Fontenoy against you, or you against God?”
Tournier was silent. He was thinking of all the misery that man had brought upon him. How happy he might have been, if he had not come between him and his love. He thought of his future, and how, even if ever he were set at liberty again, life would be a blank to him. And he ground his teeth with rage.
And then he heard his friend Cosin saying with quiet voice, like the voice of conscience,—
“When once you had given up God, in years gone by, and you scouted Him who had given you every comfort and blessing you possessed, who had preserved you every day and night, so that you would have dropped down dead had He withheld His hand any moment, and who had covered your head in the day of battle—did He take vengeance on you? or did He open
your eyes and make you see some glimpse of His goodness?”
Then, after a pause, he went on in the same quiet way,—