GRAPES AND THORNS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."
CHAPTER VIII.
SUMMER FRIENDS.
F. Chevreuse did not allow himself a long indulgence in his own sorrows. Before half an hour had elapsed, he was stepping through the portal of the city jail, all private grief set aside and lost sight of in the errand that had brought him.
Sensitive as he was, the gloom and dampness inseparable from a prison would have chilled him, but that pity for him who was suffering from them so unjustly, as he believed, startled his heart into intenser action, and sent an antagonistic glow through his frame, as though by force of love alone he would have warmed the stones and chased away those depressing shadows.
A few swift steps along the stone corridor brought him to the cell assigned to Mr. Schöninger. Looking with eagerness, yet shrinkingly too, through the grating, while the jailer unlocked the door, he saw the prisoner standing there with folded arms and head erect, regarding him coldly and without the faintest sign of recognition. The place was not so dim but he must have seen perfectly who his visitor was; yet a man of stone could not have stood more unmoved.
The jailer was not long unlocking the door, yet, brief as the time was, it sufficed to work a change in the priest. It was with him as with the fountain which tosses its warm waters into a chilly atmosphere: the spray retains its form, but not its temperature. "I am shocked at this, Mr. Schöninger!" he exclaimed, hastening into the cell. "I will do anything to relieve you! Only tell me what to do."
The words, the gesture, the emphasis, all were as he had meant; but a something in the whole manner, which tells when the heart outleaps the word and the gesture, was lost. It was possible to think the cordiality of his address affected.