children who will
become good citizens. The day when there will cease to be Poles, there
will cease also to be a Poland."

Samuel Brohl interrupted him, pressing his arm earnestly, and saying:

"Look at me well; have I not the appearance of an adventurer?" The abbe
recoiled. "This word shocks you?" continued Samuel. "Yes, I am a man of
adventures, born to be always on my feet, and ready to start off at a
moment's warning. Marriage was not instituted for those whose lives are
liable at any time to be in jeopardy." With a tragic accent, he added:
"You know what occurred in Bosnia. How do we know that war may not very
shortly be proclaimed, and who can foresee the consequences? I must hold
myself in readiness for the great day. Perhaps an inscrutable Providence
may ere long offer me a new occasion to risk my life for my country;
perhaps Poland will call me, crying, 'Come, I have need of thee!' If I
should respond: 'I belong no more to myself, I have given my heart to
a woman who holds me in chains; I have henceforth a roof, a family, a
hearthstone, dear ties that I dare not break!' I ask you, M. l'Abbe,
would not Poland have a right to say to me, 'Thou hast violated thy vow;
thou hast denied me; upon thy head rest forever my maledictions?'"

Abbe Miollens had just taken a pinch of snuff, and he hearkened to this
harangue, tapping his fingers impatiently on the lid of his handsome
gold snuff-box, which had been presented to him by the most amiable of
his penitents.

"If this be the way you view it," replied he, "is your conscience quite
tranquil, my dear friend? for you will permit me, I trust, to call you
so. Ay, is it sure that from your standpoint your conscience has no
accusations to make you? Is it certain that your heart has not been
unfaithful to its mistress? If I may believe a certain rumour that has
reached my ear, there took place a most singular scene yesterday at the
house of Mme. de Lorcy."

Samuel Brohl trembled violently; he changed colour; he buried his face
in his hands, doubtless to hide from the abbe the blushes remorse had
caused to mantle his cheeks. In a faint voice he murmured:

"Not a word more! you know not how deep a wound you have probed."

"It is, then, true that you love Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz?" asked the
abbe.

"I have sworn that she never shall know it," replied Samuel, in accents
of the most humble contrition. "Yesterday I had the unworthy weakness to
betray myself. _Mon Dieu!_ wh