Oh, those uncontrollable circumstances! How
convenient they are! And what a weak creature they make of man, who
at other times than those of temptation, is wont to assert himself
master of this planet! Master of a planet and cannot control a vice!
Excellent! Well,--I never, as I say, thought of the wrong I had
done,--but if _I_ forgot it, some One or some Thing remembered it!
Yes--remembered it!--put it down--chronicled it with precision as to
time and place,--and set it, a breathing fact, before me in my old
age,--a living witness of my own treachery."
He paused, the congregation stirred,--the actor Miraudin looked up
at him with a surprised half-smile. Angela Sovrani lifted her
beautiful violet eyes towards him in amazed compassion,--Cardinal
Bonpre, recalling the Abbe previous confession to him, bent his
head, deeply moved.
"Treachery," resumed Vergniaud determinedly, "Is always a covert
thing. We betray each other in the dark, with silent foot-steps and
sibilant voices. We whisper our lies. We concoct our intrigues with
carefully closed doors. I did so. I was a priest of the Roman Church
as I am now; it would never have done for a priest to be a social
sinner! I therefore took every precaution to hide my fault;--but out
of my lie springs a living condemnation; from my carefully concealed
hypocrisy comes a blazonry of truth, and from my secret sin comes an
open vengeance .
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