“My dear abbe,” I said, interrupting him, “you have a habit of seeing everything black at the first glance, when you do not happen to see the sun in the middle of the night.  Now let me tell you some things which ought to drive out these gloomy presentiments.  I know John Mauprat of old; he is a signal impostor, and, moreover, the rankest of cowards.  He will sink into the earth at the sight of me, and as soon as I speak I will make him confess that he is neither Trappist, nor monk, nor saint.  All this is a mere sharper’s trick.  In the old days I have heard him making plans which prevent me from being astonished at his impudence now; so I have but little fear of him.”

“There you are wrong,” replied the abbe.  “You should always fear a coward, because he strikes from behind while you are expecting him in front.  If John Mauprat were not a Trappist, if the papers he showed me were lies, the prior of the Carmelites is too shrewd and cautious to have let himself be deceived.  Never would he have espoused the cause of a layman, and never would he mistake a layman for one of his own cloth.  However, we must make inquiries; I will write to the superior of the Trappist monastery at once, but I am certain he will confirm what I know already.  It is even possible that John Mauprat is a genuine devotee.  Nothing becomes such a character better than certain shades of the Catholic spirit.  The inquisition is the soul of the Church, and the inquisition should smile on John Mauprat.  I firmly believe that he would give himself up to the sword of justice solely for the pleasure of compassing your ruin with his own, and that the desire to found a monastery with your money is a sudden inspiration, the honour of which belongs entirely to the prior of the Carmelites . . .”

“That is hardly probable, my dear abbe,” I said.  “Besides, where can these discussions lead us?  Let us act.  Let us keep the chevalier in sight, so that the unclean beast may not come and poison the calm of his last days.  Write to the Trappist superior; I will offer the creature a pension, and when he comes, let us carefully watch his slightest movements.  My sergeant, Marcasse, is an admirable bloodhound.  Let us put him on the track, and if he can manage to tell us in vulgar speech what he has seen and heard, we shall soon know everything that is happening in the province.”

Chatting thus, we arrived at the chateau towards the close of day.  As I entered the silent building, I was seized with a fond, childish uneasiness, such as may come upon a mother when she leaves her babe a moment.  The eternal security which nothing had ever disturbed within the bounds of the old sacred walls, the decrepitude of the servants, the way in which the doors always stood open, so that beggars would sometimes enter the drawing-room without meeting any one and without giving umbrage—­the whole atmosphere of peace and trust and isolation—­formed a strange contrast to the thoughts of strife, and the