He turned in, and shut his door as far as it would allow him to do
so, and went comfortably to bed, where Madame had gone before him.
And throughout the Hotel Poitiers deep peace and silence reigned.
Every one in the house slept, save Cardinal Bonpre, who with the
Testament before him, sat reading and meditating deeply for an hour
before retiring to rest. A fresh cause of anxiety had come upon him
in the idea that perhaps his slight indisposition was more serious
than he had deemed. If, as the Archbishop had said, there could have
been no music possible in the Cathedral that afternoon, how came it
that he had heard such solemn and entrancing harmonies? Was his mind
affected? Was he in truth imagining what did not exist? Were the
griefs of the world his own distorted view of things? Did the Church
faithfully follow the beautiful and perfect teachings of Christ
after all? He tried to reason the question out from a different and
more hopeful standpoint, but vainly;--the conviction that
Christianity was by no means the supreme regenerating force, or the
vivifying Principle of Human Life which it was originally meant to
be, was borne in upon him with increasing certainty, and the more he
read the Gospels, the more he became aware that the Church--system
as it existed was utterly opposed to Christ's own command, and
moreover was drifting further and further away from Him with every
passing year.

"The music in the Cathedral may have been my fancy," he said,--"But
the discord in the world sounds clear and is NOT imagination. A
casuist in religion may say 'It was to be';--that heresies and
dissensions were prophesied by Christ, when He said 'Because
iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold';--but this
does not excuse the Church from the sin of neglect, if any neglects