‘Not that I care for detection,’ he said to himself. ‘What is shame to me? Is it not a glory to be evil-spoken of in the cause of God? How can the world appreciate the motives of those who are not of the world?—the divine wisdom of the serpent—at once the saint’s peculiar weapon, and a part of his peculiar cross, when men call him a deceiver, because they confound, forsooth, his spiritual subtlety with their earthly cunning. Have I not been called “liar,” “hypocrite,” “Jesuit,” often enough already, to harden me towards bearing that name once again?’
That led him into sad thoughts of his last few years’ career,—of the friends and pupils whose secession to Rome had been attributed to his hypocrisy, his ‘disguised Romanism;’ and then the remembrance of poor Luke Smith flashed across him for the first time since he left the bank.
‘I must see him,’ he said to himself; ‘I must argue with him face to face. Who knows but that it may be given even to my unworthiness to snatch him from this accursed slough?’
And then he remembered that his way home lay through the city in which the new convert’s parish was—that the coach stopped there to change horses; and again the temptation leapt up again, stronger than ever, under the garb of an imperative call of duty.
He made no determination for or against it. He was too weak in body and mind to resist; and in a half sleep, broken with an aching, terrified sense of something wanting which he could not find, he was swept down the line, got on the coach, and mechanically, almost without knowing it, found himself set down at the city of A—, and the coach rattling away down the street.
He sprang from his stupor, and called madly after it—ran a few steps—
‘You might as well try to catch the clouds, sir,’ said the ostler. ‘Gemmen should make up their minds afore they gets down.’
Alas! so thought the vicar. But it was too late; and, with a heavy heart, he asked the way to the late curate’s house.
Thither he went. Mr. Luke Smith was just at dinner, but the vicar was, nevertheless, shown into the bachelor’s little dining-room. But what was his disgust and disappointment at finding his late pupil tête-à-tête over a comfortable fish-dinner, opposite a burly, vulgar, cunning-eyed man, with a narrow rim of muslin turned down over his stiff cravat, of whose profession there could be no doubt.
‘My dearest sir,’ said the new convert, springing up with an air of extreme empressement, ‘what an unexpected pleasure! Allow me to introduce you to my excellent friend, Padre Bugiardo!’