This painful conversation had already lasted too long. I was anxious to see the end of it; for I could easily read in the face of my superior that every word I uttered was sealing my doom. I rose up to take leave of him, and said: “My lord, I beg your pardon for disappointing your lordship.”
He coldly answered me:
“It is not the first time, though I would it were the last, that you show such a want of respect and submission to the will of your superiors. But, as I feel it is a conscientious affair on your part, I have no ill-will against you, and I am happy to tell you that I entertain for you all my past esteem. The only favor I ask from you, just now, is that this conversation may be kept secret.”
I answered: “It is still more to my interest than yours to keep this unfortunate affair a secret between us. I hope that neither your lordship, nor the Great God, who alone has heard us, will ever make it an imperious duty for me to mention it.”
“What good news do you bring me from the bishop’s palace?” asked my venerable friend, Mr. Brassard, when I returned, late in the afternoon.
“I would have very spicy, though unpalatable news to give you, had not the bishop asked me to keep what has been said between us a secret.”
Mr. Brassard laughed outright, at my answer, and replied:
“A secret! a secret! Ah! but it is a gazette secret; for the bishop has bothered me, as well as many others, with that matter, frequently, since your return from Illinois. Several times he has asked us to persuade you to advise your devoted penitent, Mrs. Chenier, to become a nun. I knew he invited you to his palace, yesterday, for that object.”
“The eyes and the heart of our poor bishop,” continued Mr. Brassard, “are too firmly fixed on the fortune of that lady. Hence, his zeal about the salvation of her soul, through the monastic life. In vain I tried to dissuade the bishop from speaking to you on that subject, on account of your prejudices against our good nuns. He would not listen to me. No doubt you have realized my worst anticipations; you have, with your usual stubbornness, refused to yield to his demands. I fear you have added to his bad feelings, and consummated your disgrace.”
“What a deceitful man that bishop is,” I answered indignantly. “He has given me to understand that this was a most sacred secret between him and me; when I see, by what you say, that it is nothing else than a farcical secret, known by the hundreds who have heard of it.