caught him in my arms, and returned his caresses with expressions of
tenderness I sought not to conceal. I tore myself from him, and
entered my new abode.



CHAPTER IX.



It was a dark and gloomy place; instead of glass it had pasteboard
for the windows; the walls were rendered more repulsive by being
hung with some wretched attempts at painting, and when free from
this lugubrious colour, were covered with inscriptions. These last
gave the name and country of many an unhappy inmate, with the date
of the fatal day of their captivity. Some consisted of lamentations
on the perfidy of false friends, denouncing their own folly, or
women, or the judge who condemned them. Among a few were brief
sketches of the victims' lives; still fewer embraced moral maxims.
I found the following words of Pascal: "Let those who attack
religion learn first what religion is. Could it boast of commanding
a direct view of the Deity, without veil or mystery, it would be to
attack that religion to say, 'that there is nothing seen in the
world which displays Him with such clear evidence.' But since it
rather asserts that man is involved in darkness, far from God, who
is hidden from human knowledge, insomuch as to give Himself the name
in scripture of 'Deus absconditus,' what advantage can the enemies
of religion derive when, neglecting, as they profess to do, the
science of truth, they complain that the truth is not made apparent
to them?" Lower down was written (the words of the same author),