that happiness has not been denied to me:  that it is my conscience, admonished from on high, which has refused to accept it, and there is a divine sweetness in great trials religiously accepted.  Believe me, it is God who speaks to me, as he spoke to me of old in San Francisco, to enjoin me to forsake everything and give my blood for my country.  I recognise his voice, which to-day bids my heart be silent and immolate itself on the altar of its chosen cause.  God and Poland!  Beyond this, my watch-word, I have no longer the right to yield to anything.”

And, turning towards the statuette, he exclaimed:  “It is at her feet that I lay down my dolorous offering; she it is who will cure my bruised and broken heart.”

Samuel Brohl spoke in a voice thrilling with emotion; the breath of the Divine Spirit seemed to play through his hair, and make his eyes grow humid.  The eyes of the good abbe also grew moist:  he was profoundly moved; he gazed with veneration upon this hero; he was filled with respect for this antique character, for this truly celestial soul.  He never had seen anything like it, either in the odes or in the epistles of Horace.  Lollius himself was surpassed.  Transported with admiration, he opened wide his arms to Samuel Brohl, spreading them out their full length, as though otherwise they might fail to accomplish their object, and, clasping him to his bosom, he cried: 

“Ah! my dear count, how grand you are!  You are immense as the world!”

CHAPTER VIII

Abbe Miollens hastened to repair to Cormeilles, where he gave a faithful circumstantial account of his conference with Count Larinski.  He was still warm from the interview, and he gave free vent to the effusions of his enthusiasm.  He struck up a Canticle of Zion in honour of the antique soul, the celestial soul, which had just been revealing to him all its hidden treasures.  M. Moriaz, both astonished and scandalized, observed, dryly: 

“You are right, this Pole is a prodigy; he should either be canonized or hanged, I do not know which.”

Antoinette said not a word; she kept her reflections to herself.  She retired to her chamber, where she paced to and fro for some time, uncertain regarding what she was about to do, or, rather more restless than uncertain.  Several times she approached her writing-table, and gazed earnestly at her inkstand; then, seized with a sudden scruple, she would move away.  At last she formed a resolute decision, seized her pen, and wrote the following lines: 

“MONSIEUR:  Before setting out for Vienna, will you be so good as to come and pass some moments at Cormeilles?  I desire to have a conversation with you in the presence of my father.

“Accept, monsieur, I beg of you, the expression of my most profound esteem.

“ANTOINETTE MORIAZ.”

The next morning she received by the first mail the response she awaited, and which was thus fashioned: