"That is what I ask you," said Father D'Aigrigny; "how can this storm of passion prevent Mdlle. de Cardoville and the prince from inheriting?"
"Is it from the serene, or from the stormy sky, that darts the destroying thunderbolt?" said Rodin, disdainfully. "Be satisfied; I shall know where to place the conductor. As for M. Hardy, the man lived for three things: his workmen, his friend, his mistress. He has been thrice wounded in the heart. I always take aim at the heart; it is legal and sure."
"It is legal, and sure, and praiseworthy," said the bishop; "for, if I understand you rightly, this manufacturer had a concubine; now it is well to make use of an evil passion for the punishment of the wicked."
"True, quite true," added the cardinal; "if they have evil passion for us to make use of it, it is their own fault."
"Our holy Mother Perpetue," said the princess, "took every means to discover this abominable adultery."
"Well, then, M. Hardy is wounded in his dearest affections, I admit," said Father d'Aigrigny, still disputing every inch of ground; "ruined too in his fortune, which will only make him the more eager after this inheritance."
The argument appeared of weight to the two prelates and the princess; all looked at Rodin with anxious curiosity. Instead of answering he walked up to the sideboard, and, contrary to his habits of stoical sobriety, and in spite of his repugnance for wine, he examined the decanters, and said: "What is there in them?"
"Claret and sherry," said the hostess, much astonished at the sudden taste of Rodin, "and—"
The latter took a decanter at hazard, and poured out a glass of Madeira, which he drank off at a draught. Just be fore he had felt a strange kind of shivering; to this had succeeded a sort of weakness. He hoped the wine would revive him.
After wiping his mouth with the back of his dirty hand, he returned to the table, and said to Father d'Aigrigny: "What did you tell me about M. Hardy?"