After a moment of secret prayer, the curé answered, "I will go with you." Without asking any further explanation, he allowed his eyes to be bandaged, and leaned on the arm of his suspicious visitor. They both got into a coach, whose windows were immediately covered by wooden shutters, and then they drove off rapidly. They seemed to go a long way, and make many doublings and turnings ere the coach drove under a wide archway and stopped.
During this time, not a single word had been exchanged between the travelers, and ere they got out the stranger assured himself that the bandage over his companion's eyes had not been displaced, and then taking the old man respectfully by the hand, he assisted him to alight and to ascend the wide steps of a staircase as far as the second story. A great door opened, as if of itself, and several thickly-carpeted rooms were traversed in silence. At length, another door was opened by the guide, and the curé felt his bandage removed. They were in a solemn-looking bed-chamber; near a bed, half-vailed by thick damask curtains, was a small table, supporting two wax lights, which feebly illuminated the cold death-like apartment. The stranger (he was the Duke de ——), then bowing to the curé, led him toward the bed, drew back the curtains, and said in a solemn tone:
"Minister of God, before you is a woman who has betrayed the blood of her ancestors, and whose doom is irrevocably fixed. She knows on what conditions an interview with you has been granted her; she knows too that all supplication would be useless. You know your duty, M. le Curé; I leave you to fulfill it, and will return to seek you in half an hour."
So saying he departed, and the agitated priest saw lying on the bed a young and beautiful girl, bathed in tears, battling with despair, and calling in her bitter agony for the comforts of religion. No investigation possible! for the unhappy creature declared herself bound by a terrible oath to conceal her name; besides, she knew not in what place she was.
"I am," she said, "the victim of a secret family tribunal, whose sentence is irrevocable! More, I can not tell. I forgive mine enemies, as I trust that God will forgive me. Pray for me!"
The minister of religion invoked the sublime promises of the gospel to soothe her troubled soul, and he succeeded. Her countenance, after a time, became composed, she clasped her hands in fervent prayer, and then extended them toward her consoler.
As she did so, the curé perceived that the sleeve of her robe was stained with blood.
"My child," said he, with a trembling voice, "what is this?"
"Father, it is the vein which they have already opened, and the bandage, no doubt, was carelessly put on."
At these words, a sudden thought struck the priest. He unrolled the dressing, allowed the blood to flow, steeped his handkerchief in it, then replaced the bandage, concealed the stained handkerchief within his vest, and whispered: