to absolve you from joining us--leaving you completely free, for we
accept none but voluntary vocations."

"It is true, father," answered Gabriel, with sorrowful bitterness; "when,
worn out and broken by three months of solitude and trial, I was
completely exhausted, and unable to move a step, you opened the door of
my cell, and said to me: 'If you like, rise and walk; you are free; Alas!
I had no more strength. The only desire of my soul, inert and paralyzed
for so long a period, was the repose of the grave; and pronouncing those
irrevocable vows, I fell, like a corpse, into your hands."

"And, till now, my dear son, you have never failed in this corpse--like
obedience,--to use the expression of our glorious founder--because, the
more absolute this obedience, the more meritorious it must be."

After a moment's silence, Gabriel resumed: "You had always concealed from
me, father, the true ends of the Society into which I entered. I was
asked to abandon my free-will to my superiors, in the name of the Greater
Glory of God. My vows once pronounced, I was to be in your hands a docile
and obedient instrument; but I was to be employed, you told me, in a
holy, great and beauteous work. I believed you, father--how should I not
have believed you? but a fatal event changed my destiny--a painful malady
caused by--"

"My son," cried Father d'Aigrigny, interrupting Gabriel, "it is useless
to recall these circumstances."

"Pardon me, father, I must recall them. I have the right to be heard. I
cannot pass over in silence any of the facts, which have led me to take
the immutable resolution that I am about to announce to you."