The thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men
might be swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as
himself. Men shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and
your arguments shall be my heritage from you. I will make them my
own. It matters nothing that I do not believe in your gospel of
freedom. I know it - every word of it; that is all that matters to
our purpose, yours and mine. If all else fails, your thoughts shall
find expression in my living tongue. Thus at least we shall have
frustrated his vile aim to still the voice he feared. It shall
profit him nothing to have your blood upon his soul. That voice in
you would never half so relentlessly have hounded him and his as it
shall in me - if all else fails."

It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed his grief,
and he began very softly to pray. And then his heart trembled as
he considered that Philippe, a man of peace, almost a priest, an
apostle of Christianity, had gone to his Maker with the sin of anger
on his soul. It was horrible. Yet God would see the righteousness
of that anger. And in no case - be man's interpretation of Divinity
what it might - could that one sin outweigh the loving good that
Philippe had ever practised, the noble purity of his great heart.
God after all, reflected Andre-Louis, was not a grand-seigneur.




CHAPTER V

THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC