ithin him. There was something almost feminine in his universal
susceptibility to the influence of one solitary emotion. Even the
rough, desperate landholder felt awed by the enthusiasm of the being
before him, and forgot his wrongs, terrible as they were--and his
misery, poignant as it was--as he gazed upon his companion's face.

For some minutes neither of the men said more. Soon, however, the last
speaker calmed his agitation with the facility of a man accustomed to
stifle the emotions that he cannot crush, and advancing to the
landholder, took him sorrowfully by the hand.

'I see, Probus, that I have amazed you,' said he; 'but the Church is
the only subject on which I have no discretion. In all other matters I
have conquered the rashness of my early manhood; in this I have to
wrestle with my hastier nature still. When I look on the mockeries
that are acting around us; when I behold a priesthood deceivers, a
people deluded, a religion defiled, then, I confess it, my indignation
overpowers my patience, and I burn to destroy, where I ought only to
hope to reform.'

'I knew you always violent of imagination; but when I last saw you your
enthusiasm was love. Your wife--'

'Peace! She deceived me!'

'Your child--'

'Lives with me at Rome.'

'I remember her an infant, when, fourteen years since, I was your
neighbour in Gaul. On my departure from the province, you had just
returned from a journey into Italy, unsuccessful in your attempts to
discover there a trace either of your parents, or of that elder brother
whose absence you were wont so continually to lament. Tell me, have
you, since that period, discovered the members of your ancient
household? Hitherto you have been so occupied in listening to the
history of my wrongs that you have scarcely spoken of the changes in
your life since we last met.'

'If, Probus, I have been silent to you concerning myself, it is because
for me retrospection has little that attracts. While yet it was in my
power to return to those parents whom I deserted in my boyhood, I
thought not of repentance; and now that they must be but too surely
lost to me, my yearning towards them is of no avail. Of my brother,
from whom I parted in a moment of childish jealousy and anger, and
whose pardon and love I would give up even my ambition to acquire, I
have never yet discovered a trace. Atonement to those whom I injured
in early life is a privilege denied to the prayers of my ag