Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/60

 verge of womanhood, it is probable she was not disinclined; and to lead her gradually into a train of thought that might at last bring her home to the bosom of the Church as a nun. That Church would at the same time protect her from temptation, by relieving her of the earthly dross with which she would be encumbered, and which would pass into its holy keeping the day the heiress should assume the black veil.

Besides the reversion of her mother's wealth, she would inherit considerable property of her own when she came of age. Had it been otherwise, it is possible the same interest might not have been shown for the insurance of her salvation, and Brother Ambrose might have been making fires of camel's dung in Tartary, or bearing witness by martyrdom in Morocco, instead of hurrying through the shade of those quivering poplars in homely, happy Normandy.

But as he approached the convent of our Lady of Succour, Brother Ambrose—or Florian, as we shall call him for the present—reduced his walk to a much slower step, and became conscious of a hot feeling about his eyes, a cold moisture in the palms of his hands, that had no connection with theology, polemics, or the usual duties of a priest. There are proverbs used in the world, such as "Tit-for-tat;" "The biter bit;" "Go for wool, and come back shorn," which are applicable to ecclesiastics as to laymen. It is no safer to play with edged tools in a convent than in a ball-room, and it is a matter of the merest hazard who shall get the best of an encounter in which the talents and education of a clever but susceptible man are pitted against the bright looks and fresh roses of girlhood at eighteen.

Florian had been enjoined to use every effort for the subjugation of Mademoiselle de Montmirail. He was to be restricted by no considerations such as hamper the proceedings of ordinary minds, for was not this one of the fundamental principles of his order—"It is lawful to do evil that good may come"? He had not, indeed, swallowed this maxim without considerable repulsion, so utterly at variance, as it seemed, not only with reason, but with that instinctive sentiment of right which is often a surer guide than even reason itself; but he had been con