"You must be mad!" cried the abbe, starting back. "John de Mauprat died
a long time ago."

"John Mauprat is not dead, nor perhaps Antony Mauprat either; and my
surprise is less than yours only because I have already met one of these
two ghosts. That he has become a monk, and is repenting for his sins,
is very possible; but alas! it is by no means impossible that he has
disguised himself in order to carry out some evil design, and I advise
you to be on your guard."

The abbe was so frightened that he no longer wanted to keep his
appointment. I suggested that it would be well to learn what the old
sinner was aiming at. But, as I knew the abbe's weak character, and
feared that my Uncle John would manage to win his heart by his lying
confessions and wheedle him into some false step, I made up my mind to
hide in a thicket whence I could see and hear everything.

But things did not happen as I had expected. The Trappist, instead of
playing the politician, immediately made known his real name to the
abbe. He declared that he was full of contrition, and that, as his
conscience would not allow him to make the monk's habit a refuge from
punishment (he had really been a Trappist for several years), he was
about to put himself into the hands of justice, that he might atone in
a striking way for the crimes with which he was polluted. This man,
endowed as he was with conspicuous abilities, had acquired a
mystic eloquence in the cloister. He spoke with so much grace and
persuasiveness that I was fascinated no less than the abbe. It was in
vain that the latter attempted to combat a resolution which appeared
to him insane; John Mauprat showed the most unflinching devotion to his
religious ideas. He declared that, having committed the crimes of the