d Rodin, with the same sardonic smile on his
violet lips.

"Why repeat them?" cried the angry prelate. "In order to gain pardon;
for if there is indulgence and mercy for the repentant sinner, there
must be condemnation and curses for the hardened criminal!"

"Oh, what torture! I am dying by slow fire!" murmured Rodin. "Since I
have told all," he resumed, "I have nothing more to tell. You know it
already."

"I know all--doubtless, I know all," replied the prelate, in a voice of
thunder; "but how have I learned it? By confessions made in a state
of unconsciousness. Do you think they will avail you anything? No; the
moment is solemn--death is at hand, tremble to die with a sacrilegious
falsehood on your lips," cried the prelate, shaking Rodin violently by
the arm; "dread the eternal flames, if you dare deny what you know to be
the truth. Do you deny it?"

"I deny nothing," murmured Rodin, with difficulty. "Only leave me
alone!"

"Then heaven inspires you," said the cardinal, with a sigh of
satisfaction; and, thinking he had nearly attained his object, he
resumed, "Listen to the divine word, that will guide you, father. You
deny nothing?"

"I was--delirious--and cannot--(oh! how I suffer!)" added Rodin, by way
of parenthesis; "and cannot therefore--deny--the nonsense--I may have
uttered!"

"But when this nonsense agrees with the truth," cried the prelate,
furious at being again deceived in his expectation; "but when raving is
an involuntary, providential revelation--"

"Cardinal Malipieri--your craft is no match--for my agony," answered
Rodin, in a failing voice. "The proof--that I have not told my
secret--if I have a secret--is--that you want to make me tell it!" In
spite of his pain and weakness, the Jesuit had courage to raise himself
in the bed, and look the cardinal full in the face, with a smile of
bitter irony. After which he fell back on the pillow, and pressed his
hands to his chest, with a long sigh of anguish.

"Damnation! the infernal Jesuit has found me out!" said the cardinal
to himself, as he stamped his foot with rage. "He sees that he was
compromised by his first movement; he is now upon his guard; I shall get
nothing more from him--unless indeed, profiting by the state of weakness
in which he is, I can, by entreaties, by threats, by terror--"

The prelate was unable to finish. The door opened abruptly, and Father
d'Aigrigny entered the room, exclaiming with an explosion of joy:
"Excellent new