aking and attempted
burglary, they would be sent to the galleys."

"Heavens! and for my sake!"

"Yes; it would be for you, and what is worse, by you, that they would be
condemned."

"By me, sir?"

"Certainly; that is, if you follow up your vengeance against your aunt
and Abbe d'Aigrigny--I do not speak of myself, for I am quite safe; in a
word, if you persist in laying your complaint before the magistrates,
that you have been unjustly confined in this house."

"I do not understand you, sir. Explain yourself," said Adrienne, with
growing uneasiness.

"Child that you are!" cried the Jesuit of the short robe, with an air of
conviction; "do you think that if the law once takes cognizance of this
affair, you can stop short its action where and when you please? When you
leave this house, you lodge a complaint against me and against your
family; well, what happens? The law interferes, inquires, calls
witnesses, enters into the most minute investigations. Then, what
follows? Why, that this nocturnal escalade, which the superior of the
convent has some interest in hushing up, for fear of scandal--that this
nocturnal attempt, I say, which I also would keep quiet, is necessarily
divulged, and as it involves a serious crime, to which a heavy penalty is
attached, the law will ferret into it, and find out these unfortunate
men, and if, as is probable, they are detained in Paris by their duties
or occupations, or even by a false security, arising from the honorable
motives which they know to have actuated them, they will be arrested. And
who will be the cause of this arrest? You, by your deposition against
us."

"Oh, sir! that would be horrible; but it is impossible."

"It is very possible, on the contrary," returned M. Baleinier: "so that,
while I and the superior of the convent, who alone are really entitled to
complain, only wish to keep quiet this unpleasant affair, it is you--you,
for whom these unfortunate men have risked the galleys--that will deliver
them up to justice."

Though Mdlle. de Cardoville was not completely duped by the lay Jesuit,
she guessed that the merciful intentions which he expressed with regard
to Dagobert and his son, would be absolutely subordinate to the course
she might take in pressing or abandoning the legitimate vengeance which
she meant to claim of authority. Indeed, Rodin, whose instructions the
doctor was following without knowing it, was too cunning to have it said
to Mdlle. de Cardovi