“Made over the property!” cried Dagobert, quite petrified. “To whom, then?—to whom?”
“To this gentleman,” said Gabriel, pointing to Father d’Aigrigny.
“To him!” exclaimed Dagobert, overwhelmed by the news; “to him—the renegade—who has always been the evil genius of this family!”
“But, brother,” cried Agricola, “did you then know your claim to this inheritance?”
“No,” answered the young priest, with deep dejection; “no—I only learned it this morning, from Father d’Aigrigny. He told me, that he had only recently been informed of my rights, by family papers long ago found upon me, and sent by our mother to her confessor.”
A sudden light seemed to dawn upon the mind of the smith, as he exclaimed: “I understand it all now. They discovered in these papers, that you would one day have a chance of becoming rich. Therefore, they interested themselves about you—therefore, they took you into their college, where we could never see you—therefore, they deceived you in your vocation by shameful falsehoods, to force you to become a priest, and to lead you to make this deed of gift. Oh, sir!” resumed Agricola, turning towards Father d’Aigrigny, with indignation, “my father is right—such machinations are indeed infamous!”
During this scene, the reverend father and his socius, at first alarmed and shaken in their audacity, had by degrees recovered all their coolness. Rodin, still leaning upon the casket, had said a few words in a low voice to Father d’Aigrigny. So that when Agricola, carried away by his indignation, reproached the latter with his infamous machinations, he bowed his head humbly, and answered: “We are bound to forgive injuries, and offer them to the Lord as a mark of our humility.”
Dagobert, confounded at all he had just heard, felt his reason begin to wander. After so much anxiety, his strength failed beneath this new and terrible blow. Agricola’s just and sensible words, in connection with certain passages of the testament, at once enlightened Gabriel as to the views of Father d’Aigrigny, in taking charge of his education, and leading him to join the Society of Jesus. For the first time in his life, Gabriel was able to take in at a glance all the secret springs of the dark intrigue, of which he had been the victim. Then, indignation and despair surmounting his natural timidity, the missionary, with flashing eye, and cheeks inflamed with noble wrath, exclaimed, as he addressed Father d’Aigrigny: “So, father, when you placed me in one of your colleges, it was not from any feeling of kindness or commiseration, but only in the hope of bringing me one day to renounce in favor of your Order my share in this inheritance; and it did not even suffice you to sacrifice me to your cupidity, but I must also be rendered the involuntary instrument of a shameful spoliation! If only I were concerned—if you only coveted my claim to all this wealth, I should not complain. I am the minister of a religion which honors and sanctifies poverty; I have consented to the donation in your favor, and I have not, I could never have any claim upon it. But property is concerned which belong to poor orphans, brought from a distant exile by my adopted father, and I will not see them wronged. But the benefactress of my adopted brother is concerned, and I will not see her wronged. But the last will of a dying man is concerned, who, in his ardent love of humanity, bequeathed to his descendants an evangelic mission—an admirable mission of progress, love, union, liberty—and I will not see this mission blighted in its bud. No, no; I tell you, that this his mission shall be accomplished, though I have to cancel the donation I have made.”
On these words, Father d’Aigrigny and Rodin looked at each other with a slight shrug of the shoulders. At a sign from the socius, the reverend father began to speak with immovable calmness, in a slow and sanctified voice, keeping eyes constantly cast down: “There are many incidents connected with this inheritance of M. de Rennepont, which appear very complicated—many phantoms, which seem un usually menacing—and yet, nothing could be really more simple and natural. Let us proceed in regular order. Let us put aside all these calumnious imputations; we will return to them afterwards. M. Gabriel de Rennepont—and I humbly beg him to contradict me, if I depart in the least instance from the exact truth—M. Gabriel de Rennepont, in acknowledgment of the care formerly bestowed on him by the society to which I have the honor to belong, made over to me, as its representative, freely and voluntarily, all the property that might come to him one day, the value of which was unknown to him, as well as to myself.”
Father d’Aigrigny here looked at Gabriel, as if appealing to him for the truth of this statement.