" 'Ha! ha! my fine apostle!' cried Antony, throwing himself back in his chair in a fit of laughter. 'You are glad enough about it, now that it is done. You were always a coward; and had it not been for me you would never have thought of anything better than getting yourself made a Trappist, to ape devotion and afterward get absolution for the past, so as to have a right to draw a little money from the "Headbreakers" of Sainte-Severe. By Jove! a mighty fine ambition, to give up the ghost under a monk's cowl after leading a pretty poor life and only tasting half its sweets, let alone hiding like a mole! Come, now; when they have hung my pretty Bernard, and the lovely Edmonde is dead, and when the old neck-breaker has given back his big bones to the earth; when we have inherited all that pretty fortune yonder; you will own that we have done a capital stroke of business--three at a blow! It would cost me rather too much to play the saint, seeing that convent ways are not quite my ways, and that I don't know how to wear the habit; so I shall throw the cowl to the winds, and content myself with building a chapel at Roche-Mauprat and taking the sacrament four times a year.'
" 'Everything you have done in this matter is stupid and infamous.'
" 'Bless my soul! Don't talk of infamy, my sweet brother, or I shall make you swallow this bottle whole.'
" 'I say that it is a piece of folly, and if it succeeds you ought to burn a fine candle to the Virgin. If it does not succeed, I wash my hands of the whole business, do you hear? After I had been in hiding in the secret passage in the keep, and had heard Bernard telling his valet after supper that he was going out of his mind on account of the beautiful Edmee, I happened to throw out a suggestion that there might be a chance here of doing a good stroke of business; and like a fool you took the matter seriously, and, without consulting me or waiting for a favourable moment, you went and did a deed that should have been thought over and properly planned.'
" 'A favourable moment, chicken-heart that you are! How the deuce was I to get one? "Opportunity makes the thief." I find myself surprised by the hunt in the middle of the forest; I go and hide in that cursed Gazeau Tower; I see my turtle-doves coming; I overhear a conversation that might make one die of laughing, and see Bernard blubbering and the girl playing the haughty beauty; Bernard goes off like an idiot without showing himself a man; I find on me--God knows how--a rascally pistol already loaded. Bang! . . .'
" 'Hold your tongue, you wild brute!' said the other, quite frightened. 'Do you think a tavern is the proper place to talk of these things? Keep that tongue quiet, you wretched creature, or I will never see you again.'
" 'And yet you will have to see me, sweet brother mine, when I go and ring the bell at the gate of the Carmelite monastery.'
" 'If you come I will denounce you.'
" 'You will not denounce me, for I know too much about you.'
" 'I am not afraid. I have given proofs of my repentance; I have expiated my sins.'
" 'Hypocrite!'
" 'Come, now, hold your tongue, you madman!' said the other. 'I must leave you. There is some money.'
" 'That all?'
" 'What do you expect from a monk? Do you imagine that I am rich?'
" 'Your Carmelites are; and you can do what you like with them.'
" 'I might give you more, but I would rather not. As soon as you got a couple of louis you would be off for a debauch, and make enough row to betray yourself.'
" 'And if you want me to quit this part of the country for some time, what do you suppose I am to travel with?'
" 'Three times already I have given you enough to take you away, haven't I? And each time you have come back, after drinking it all in the first place of ill-fame on the frontier of the province! Your impudence sickens me, after the evidence given against you, when the police are on the watch, when Bernard is appealing for a fresh trial.
You may be caught at any moment!'
" 'That is for you to see to, brother. You can lead the Carmelites by the nose; and the Carmelites can lead the bishop, through some little peccadillo, I suppose, done together on the quiet in the convent after supper . . .' "Here the president interrupted Patience.
"Witness," he said, "I call you to order. You are outraging a prelate's virtue by daring to retail such a conversation.""By no means," replied Patience. "I am merely reporting a drunkard's and a murderer's invectives against the prelate. They do not concern me in the least; and every one here knows what value to put upon them;but, if you wish, I will say no more on this point. The discussion lasted for some time longer. The real Trappist wanted to make the sham Trappist leave the country, and the latter persisted in remaining, declaring that, if he were not on the spot, his brother would have him arrested immediately after Bernard's head had been cut off, so that he might have the whole inheritance to himself. John, driven to extremities, seriously threatened to denounce him and hand him over to justice.
" 'Enough!' replied Antony. 'You will take good care not to do that, Iknow; for, if Bernard is acquitted, good-bye to the inheritance!'
