to you; and this, my temper and Gerald's coolness with you rendered an
easy obligation to both;--I say my temper, for I loved to think I had a
secret not known to another; and I carried this reserve even to the
degree of concealing from Gerald himself the greater part of the
correspondence between me and the Abbe. In his correspondence with each
of us, Montreuil acted with his usual skill; to Gerald, as the elder in
years, the more prone to enterprise, and the manlier in aspect and in
character, was allotted whatever object was of real trust or importance.
Gerald it was who, under pretence of pursuing his accustomed sports,
conferred with the various agents of intrigue who from time to time
visited our coast; and to me the Abbe gave words of endearment and
affected the language of more entire trust. "Whatever," he would say,
"in our present half mellowed projects, is exposed to danger, but does
not promise reward, I entrust to Gerald; hereafter, far higher
employment, under far safer and surer auspices, will be yours. We are
the heads: be ours the nobler occupation to plan; and let us leave to
inferior natures the vain and perilous triumph to execute what we
design."

All this I readily assented to; for, despite my acquiescence in
Montreuil's wishes, I loved not enterprise, or rather I hated whatever
roused me from the dreamy and abstracted indolence which was most dear
to my temperament. Sometimes, however, with a great show of confidence,
Montreuil would request me to execute some quiet and unimportant
commission; and of this nature was one I received while I was thus,
unknown even to the object, steeping my soul in the first intoxication
of love. The plots then carried on by certain ecclesiastics I need not
say extended, in one linked chain, over the greater part of the
Continent. Spain, in especial, was the theatre of these intrigues; and
among the tools employed in executing them were some who, though