"Monsignor Moretti," interposed the Cardinal with dignity, "it is no part of justice or holiness to denounce anything or anybody till the full rights of the case have been heard. I was as unaware as yourself that this young man, Cyrillon Vergniaud, was the daring writer who has sent his assumed name of 'Gys Grandit' like a flame through Europe. I have read his books, and cannot justly denounce them, because they are expressed in the language of one who is ardently and passionately seeking for Truth. Equally, I cannot denounce the Abbe, because he has confessed his sin, declared himself as he is, to the public, saved his son from being a parricide, and has to some extent we trust, made his peace with God. If you can find any point on which, as a servant of Christ, I can denounce these two human beings who share with me the strange and awful privileges of life and death, and the promise of an immortal hereafter, I give you leave to do so. The works of Gys Grandit do not blaspheme Christ,—they call, they clamour, they appeal for Christ through all and in all—"
"And with all this clamour and appeal their writer is willing to become a murderer!" said Moretti satirically.
Young Vergniaud sprang forward.
"Monsignor, in the name of the Master you profess to serve I would advise you to set a watch upon your tongue!" he said, "Granted that I was willing to murder the man who had made my mother's life a misery, I was also willing to answer to God for it! I saw my mother die—" here he gave a quick glance towards the Abbe who instinctively shrank at his words, "I shall pain you, my father, by what I say, but the pain is perhaps good for us both! I repeat—I saw my mother die. She passed away uncomforted after a long life of patient loneliness and sorrow—for she was faithful to the last, ever faithful! I have seen her weep in the silence of the night!—I have heard her ever since I was able to understand the sound of weeping! Oh, those tears!—Do you not think God has seen them! She worked and toiled, and starved herself to educate me,—she had no friends, for she had 'fallen', they said, and sometimes she could get no employment, and often we starved together; and when I thought of the man who had done this thing, even as a young boy I said to myself, 'I will kill him!' She did not mean, poor mother, to curse her lover to me—but unconsciously she did,—her sorrow was so great—her loneliness so bitter!"
Moretti gave a gesture of impatience and contempt. Cyrillon noted it, and his dark eyes flashed, but he went on steadily,—
"And then I saw her die—she stretched her poor thin hard-working hands out to God, and over and over again she muttered and moaned in her fever the refrain of an old peasant song we have in Touraine, 'Oh, la tristesse d'avoir aime!' If you had heard her—if you had seen her—if you had, or have a heart to feel, nerves to wrench, a brain to rack, blood to be stung to frenzy, you would,—seeing your mother perish thus,—have thought, that to kill the man who had made such a wreck of a sweet pure life, would be a just, aye even a virtuous deed! I thought so. But my intended vengeance was frustrated—whether by the act of God, who can say? But the conduct of the man whom I am now proud to call my father—"
"You have great cause for pride!" said Moretti sarcastically.
"I think I have"—said the young man, "In the close extremity of death at my hands, he won my respect. He shall keep it. It will be my glory now to show him what a son's love and pardon may be. If it be true as I understand, that he is attacked by a disease which needs must be fatal, his last hours will not be desolate! It may be that I shall give him more comfort than Churches,—more confidence than Creeds! It may be that the clasp of my hand in his may be a better preparation for his meeting with God,—and my mother,—than the touch of the Holy Oils in Extreme Unction!"
"Like all your accursed sect, you blaspheme the Sacraments"—interrupted Moretti indignantly—"And in the very presence of one of her chiefest Cardinals, you scorn the Church!"
Cyrillon gave a quick gesture of emphatic denial.