Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/391

Rh But, as he read, his face changed, and he cast an anxious, sorrowful glance towards Clémence. Almost at the same moment a cry broke from her lips, "Oh, Henri—Henri!" Ivan went quickly to her side, and laid his hand tenderly on her shoulder.

"Henri has—has become a Protestant!" she faltered, in tones of dismay.

"So he tells me," said Ivan. "This letter is from him. He writes like the noble-hearted Christian man that he is. Clémence, you must not grieve for him. He has done well to obey the voice of his conscience."

"But our mother—it is such a blow for her," Clémence said mournfully.

"Yes; I am sorry for her—very. But, m'amie, God will help her to bear it, and bring good out of it in the end. I do not think the change of creed such a weighty matter. What does anything else signify, so long as a man believes in our Lord Jesus Christ?" After a pause he resumed, taking up another letter, "Emile will give us an impartial statement of the case. Let us see what he says."

"Emile has behaved well," Clémence observed, looking over the remainder of her letter. "My mother says Madame de Salgues was so angry, that, but for Emile, she and Henri must have left her house and gone to live in some poor lodging. But Emile reasoned with her, reminding her that he himself was once an infidel and a scoffer, which is worse than a Protestant, yet she never dreamed of forbidding him the house; and so, not being noticed, he grew tired of scoffing, and became in time like other people. He told her Henri would probably do the same; and pleaded, moreover, that his conduct had been always regular and blameless, and could bring nothing but credit to any one."

"He says as much for him here," said Ivan, reading from Emile's letter. "'My cousin is really miserable about the soul