Then, glancing at Gabriel, Rodin appeared to interrogate Father d’Aigrigny, who hung his head with a desponding air.  Yet he resumed, again addressing Gabriel, whilst Rodin took his old place, with his elbow on the chimney-piece:  “Go on, my dear son.  I am anxious to learn what resolution you have adopted.”

“I will tell you in a moment, father.  I arrived at Charleston.  The superior of our establishment in that place, to whom I imparted my doubts as to the object of our Society, took upon himself to clear them up, and unveiled it all to me with alarming frankness.  He told me the tendency not perhaps of all the members of the Company, for a great number must have shared my ignorance—­but the objects which our leaders have pertinaciously kept in view, ever since the foundation of the Order.  I was terrified.  I read the casuists.  Oh, father! that was a new and dreadful revelation, when, at every page, I read the excuse and justification of robbery, slander, adultery, perjury, murder, regicide.  When I considered that I, the priest of a God of charity, justice, pardon, and love, was to belong henceforth to a Company, whose chiefs professed and glorified in such doctrines, I made a solemn oath to break for ever the ties which bound me to it!"[19]

On these words of Gabriel, Father d’Aigrigny and Rodin exchanged a look of terror.  All was lost; their prey had escaped them.  Deeply moved by the remembrances he recalled, Gabriel did not perceive the action of the reverend father and the socius, and thus continued:  “In spite of my resolution, father, to quit the Company, the discovery I had made was very painful to me.  Oh! believe me, for the honest and loving soul, nothing is more frightful than to have to renounce what it has long respected!—­I suffered so much, that, when I thought of the dangers of my mission, I hoped, with a secret joy, that God would perhaps take me to Himself under these circumstances:  but, on the contrary, He watched over me with providential solicitude.”

As he said this, Gabriel felt a thrill, for he remembered a Mysterious Woman who had saved his life in America.  After a moment’s silence, he resumed:  “My mission terminated, I returned hither to beg, father, that you would release me from my vows.  Many times but in vain, I solicited an interview.  Yesterday, it pleased Providence that I should have a long conversation with my adopted mother; from her I learned the trick by which my vocation had been forced upon me—­and the sacrilegious abuse of the confessional, by which she had been induced to entrust to other persons the orphans that a dying mother had confided to the care of an honest soldier.  You understand, father, that, if even I had before hesitated to break these bonds, what I have heard yesterday must have rendered my decision irrevocable.  But at this solemn moment, father, I am bound to tell you, that I do not accuse the whole Society; many simple, credulous, and confiding men, like myself, must no doubt form part of it.  Docile instruments, they see not in their blindness the work to which they are destined.  I pity them, and pray God to enlighten them, as he has enlightened me.”