chaplain, to allow him, as an especial favor, to hear
Eustace's usual confession on the ensuing Friday.

Poor Father Francis dared not refuse so great a man; and assented with
an inward groan, knowing well that the intent was to worm out some
family secrets, whereby his power would be diminished, and the Jesuits'
increased. For the regular priesthood and the Jesuits throughout England
were toward each other in a state of armed neutrality, which wanted but
little at any moment to become open war, as it did in James the First's
time, when those meek missionaries, by their gentle moral tortures,
literally hunted to death the poor Popish bishop of Hippopotamus (that
is to say, London) for the time being.

However, Campian heard Eustace's confession; and by putting to him such
questions as may be easily conceived by those who know anything about
the confessional, discovered satisfactorily enough, that he was what
Campian would have called "in love:" though I should question much
the propriety of the term as applied to any facts which poor prurient
Campian discovered, or indeed knew how to discover, seeing that a swine
has no eye for pearls. But he had found out enough: he smiled, and set
to work next vigorously to discover who the lady might be.

If he had frankly said to Eustace, "I feel for you; and if your desires
are reasonable, or lawful, or possible, I will help you with all my
heart and soul," he might have had the young man's secret heart, and
saved himself an hour's trouble; but, of course, he took instinctively
the crooked and suspicious method, expected to find the case the worst
possible,--as a man was bound to do who had been trained to take the
lowest possible view of human nature, and to consider the basest motives
as the mainspring of all human action,--and began his moral torture
accordingly by a series of delicate questions, which poor Eustace dodged
in every possible way, though he knew that the good father was too
cunning for him, and that he must give in at last. Nevertheless, like a
rabbit who runs squealing round and round before the weasel, into whose
jaws it knows that it must jump at last by force of fascination, he
parried and parried, and pretended to be stupid, and surprised, and
honorably scrupulous, and even angry; while every question as to her
being married or single, Catholic or heretic, English or foreign,
brought his tormentor a step nearer the goal. At last, when Campian,
finding the b