"We should have gained such a victory long ago," mused Cardinal
Bonpre--"only that we ourselves have set up stumbling-blocks, and
rejected God at every step of the way."

Closing his eyes he soon slept; the rays of the moon fell upon his
pale face and silvery hair like a visible radiant benediction,--and
the bells of the city chimed the hours loudly and softly, clanging
in every direction, without waking him from his rest. But slumbering
as he was, he had no peace,--for in his sleep he was troubled by a
strange vision.




IV.

As the terrors of imagined suffering are always worse than actual
pain, so dreams are frequently more vivid than the reality of life,-
-that is we are sure that life is indeed reality, and not itself a
dream within a dream. Cardinal Bonpre's sleep was not often
disturbed by affrighting visions,--his methods of daily living were
too healthy and simple, and his conscience too clear;--but on this
particular night he was visited by an impression rather than a
dream,--the impression of a lonely, and terrifying dreariness, as
though the whole world were suddenly emptied of life and left like a
hollow shell on the shores of time. Gradually this first sense of
utter and unspeakable loss changed into a startled consciousness of
fear;--some awful transformation of things familiar was about to be
consummated;--and he felt the distinct approach of some unnameable