. . just fancy killing himself
for that!"
"Killing himself!" cried the Cardinal, "What do you mean?"
"You would like to hear the story?--ah, take care, mon ange!" he
cried, as he perceived Manuel standing lightly near the brink of the
platform, and stretching out his arms towards the city, "Thou art
not a bird to fly from that edge in the air! What dost thou see?"
"Paris!" replied the boy in strangely sorrowful accents, turning his
young, wistful face towards the Cardinal, his hair blown back in the
light wind, "All Paris!"
"Ah!--'tis a fine sight, all Paris!" said the old guide--"one of the
finest in the world, to judge by the outside of it. But the inside
is a very different matter; and if Paris is not a doomed city, then
there is no God, and I know nothing of the Bible. It has got all the
old sins in a new shape, and revels in them. And of the story of the
priest, if you would hear it;--ah!--that is well!" he said, as
Manuel left the giddy verge of the platform where he had been
standing, and drew near. "It is safer to be away from that edge, my
child! And for the poor priest, it happened in this way,--it was a
fair night, and the moon was high--I was dozing off in a chair in my
room below, when the bell rang quickly, yet softly.
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