De Bornais and Father Bertrand looked at each other as the door closed.
"We plot against a man to serve a cur," said de Bornais.
"It is Mademoiselle we serve," said the priest.
"Truly we serve her badly to help the Count to marry her," was the answer.
"But afterward." And the priest laid his hand on his shoulder. "The fight has been a long one, de Bornais, but the end is in sight. The labor of years is soon to be paid for. It will be a glorious triumph."
"Father Bertrand, all is yet to win, remember," was the answer. "Whatever his faults, whatever his ambition, this Roger Herrick is a man. You thought to make him a tool, and you find you cannot use him; now you hope to put him aside, it is possible we shall not be able to do so. He is an honest man, and if we overthrow him, in my heart I shall feel a traitor to the end of my days."
"True, quite true, but our cause acquits our conscience," said the priest.
"Do foul means justify even a good cause?" asked de Bornais.
"In this case, yes—a thousand times, yes. I speak not as a man, but as a priest. Evil must sometimes be done that good may come. It is a truth burnt into the record of all times and into the annals of every nation."
"I would there were another way than this," de Bornais returned as he fastened his cloak, "or that the work had fallen into other hands."