The Cardinal
gazed after his retreating figure like a man in a dream, then he
said gently,
"Angela, go after him!--Call him back!--"
But it was too late. Vergniaud had left the house before Angela
could overtake him. She came back hurriedly to say so, with a pale
face and troubled look. Her uncle patted her kindly on the shoulder.
"Well, well!--It will not hurt him to have seen me angry," he said
smiling, "Anger in a just cause is permitted. I seem to have
frightened you, Angela? Of a truth I have rather frightened myself!
There, we will not talk any more of the evils of Paris. Mr. Leigh
perhaps thinks me an intolerant Christian?"
"On the contrary I think you are one of the few 'faithful' that I
have ever met," said Leigh, "Of course I am out of it in a way,
because I do not belong to the Roman Church. I am supposed--I say
'supposed' advisedly--to be a Church of England man, or to put it
more comprehensively, a Protestant, and I certainly am so much of
the latter that I protest against all our systems altogether!"
"Is that quite just?" asked Bonpre gently.
"Perhaps not!--but what is one to do? I am not alone in my ideas!
One of our English bishops has been latterly deploring the fact that
out of a thousand lads in a certain parish nine-hundred-and-ninety-
nine of them never go to church! Well, what can you expect? I do not
blame those nine-hundred and-ninety-nine at all.
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