silent before the great figure rising up
in front of him. At Lourdes he had only seen suffering humanity rushing
thither for health of the body and consolation of the soul; but here was
the intellectual believer, the mind that needs certainty, finding
satisfaction, tasting the supreme enjoyment of doubting no more. He had
never previously heard such a cry of joy at living in obedience without
anxiety as to the morrow of death. He knew that Boccanera's youth had
been somewhat stormy, traversed by acute attacks of sensuality, a flaring
of the red blood of his ancestors; and he marvelled at the calm majesty
which faith had at last implanted in this descendant of so violent a
race, who had no passion remaining in him but that of pride.

"And yet," Pierre at last ventured to say in a timid, gentle voice, "if
faith remains essential and immutable, forms change. From hour to hour
evolution goes on in all things--the world changes."

"That is not true!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "the world does not change.
It continually tramps over the same ground, loses itself, strays into the
most abominable courses, and it continually has to be brought back into
the right path. That is the truth. In order that the promises of Christ
may be fulfilled, is it not necessary that the world should return to its
starting point, its original innocence? Is not the end of time fixed for
the day when men shall be in possession of the full truth of the Gospel?
Yes, truth is in the past, and it is always to the past that one must
cling if one would avoid the pitfalls which evil imaginations create. All
those fine novelties, those mirages of that famous so-called progress,
are simply traps and snares of the eternal tempter, causes of perdition
and death. Why seek any further, why constantly incur the risk of error,
when for eighteen hundred years the truth has been known? Truth! why it
is in Apostolic and Roman Catholicism as created by a long succession of
generations! What madness to desire to change it when so many lofty
minds, so many pious souls have made of it the most admirable of
monuments, the one instrument of order in this world, and of salvation in
the next!"

Pierre, whose heart had contracted, refrained from further protest, for
he could no longer doubt that he had before him an implacable adversary
of his most cherished ideas. Chilled by a covert fear, as though he felt
a faint breath, as of a distant wind from a land of ruins, pass over h