“My friend,” resumed the Abbé, after another long silence, during which the sun had reached the horizon, and was now shedding a broad red glare on his companion’s face, giving him an excuse to shade it with his hand; “your penance has been well begun, and needs but this one culminating effort to be fully accomplished. I have been at Rome very lately, and the General himself spoke approvingly of your repentance and your return. The provincial at Maria-Galante had reported favourably on your conduct during the disturbances in the island, and your unfeigned penitence, when you gave yourself up as a deserter from the Order. We have no secrets, you know, amongst ourselves; or rather, I should say nothing is so secret but that it has its witnesses. Here, at Paris, in Rome, will be known all that you do in England; more, all that you leave undone. I need scarcely charge you to be diligent, trustworthy, secret; but I must warn you not to be over-scrupulous. Remember, the intention justifies the deed. It is not only expedient, but meritorious to do evil that good may come.”
They were now approaching the town, and the sentry was being relieved at its fortified gate. The clash of arms, the measured tramp, the martial bearing of the soldiers, called up in Florian’s mind such associations as for the moment drowned the sentiments of religious penitence and self-accusation that had lately taken possession of his heart. He longed to throw off the priest’s robe, the grave deportment, the hateful trammels of an enforced and professional hypocrisy, and to feel a man once more—a man, adventurous, free, desperate, relying for very life on the plank beneath his foot or the steel in his hand, but at least able to carry his head high amongst his fellows, and to know that were it but for five minutes, the future was his own. It was sin even to dream of such things.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa!” he muttered in a desponding tone, and beat his breast, and bent his eyes once more upon the ground.
“When am I to go?” said he meekly, reverting to their previous conversation, and abandoning, as though after deep reflection, the unwillingness he had shown from the first.
“This evening, after vespers,” answered the Abbé, with a scarce perceptible inflection of contempt in his voice that denoted he had read him through like a book. “You will attend as usual. Everything is prepared, even to a garb less grave than that you wear, and a good horse (ah! you cannot help smiling now) will be waiting for you at the little gate. You ought to be half way to Calais before the moon is up.”
His face brightened now, though he strove hard to conceal his satisfaction. Here was change, freedom, excitement, liberty, at least for a time, and an adventurous journey, to terminate in her presence, who was still to his eyes the ideal of womankind. All, too, in the fulfilment of a penance, the execution of a duty. His heart leaped beneath his cassock, and warned him of the danger he incurred. Danger, indeed! It did but add to the intoxication of the draught. With difficulty he restrained the bounding impatience of his step, and kept his face averted from his friend.
The precaution was useless. Malletort knew his thoughts as well as if he had been his penitent in the confessional, and laughed within himself. The tool at least was sharp and ready, quivering, highly-tempered, and flexible; it needed but a steady hand to drive it home.
“You will come to the provincial for final instructions half an hour before you mount,” said he gravely, and added, without altering his tone or moving a muscle of his countenance, “Your especial duty is to gain over Sir George. For this object it is essential to obtain the good-will of Lady Hamilton.”