You will see she will forbid me to go to the Quirinal….
Only one thing will be lacking, and it is that Papa Hafner should
discover religious scruples which would prevent him from greeting the
King…. But Fanny must be appeased!"

"My God!" said Alba to herself, seeing the young man rise in his turn.
"I believe he is intoxicated. What a pity!"

As have almost all revolutions of that order, the work of Christianity, accomplished for years, in Fanny had for its principle an example.

The death of a friend, the sublime death of a true believer, ended by determining her faith. She saw the dying woman receive the sacrament, and the ineffable joy of the benediction upon the face of the sufferer of twenty lighted up by ecstasy. She heard her say, with a smile of conviction:

"I go to ask you of Our Lord, Jesus Christ."

How could she have resisted such a cry and such a sight?

The very day after that death she asked of her father permission to be baptized, which request drew from the Baron a reply too significant not to be repeated here:

"Undoubtedly," had replied the surprising man, who instead of a heart, had a Bourse list on which all was tariffed, even God, "undoubtedly I am touched, very deeply touched, and very happy to see that religious matters preoccupy you to such a degree. To the people it is a necessary curb, and to us it accords with a certain rank, a certain society, a certain deportment. I think that a person called like you to live in Austria and in Italy should be a Catholic. However, it is necessary to remember that you might marry some one of another faith. Do not object. I am your father. I can foresee all. I know you will marry only according to the dictates of your heart. Wait then until it has spoken, to settle the question…. If you love a Catholic, you will then have occasion to pay a compliment to your betrothed by adopting his faith, of which he will be very sensible…. From now until then, I shall not prevent you from following ceremonies which please you. Those of the Roman liturgy are, assuredly, among the best; I myself attended Saint Peter's at the time of the pontifical government…. The taste, the magnificence, the music, all moved me…. But to take a definite, irreparable step, I repeat, you must wait. Your actual condition of a Protestant has the grand sentiment of being more neutral, less defined."

What words to listen to by a heart already touched by the attraction of 'grace and by the nostalgia of eternal life! But the heart was that of a young girl very pure and very tender. To judge her father was to her impossible, and the Baron's firmness had convinced her that she must obey his wishes and pray that he be enlightened. She therefore waited, hoping, sustained and directed meanwhile by Cardinal Guerillot, who later on was to baptize her and to obtain for her the favor of approaching the holy table for the first time at the Pope's mass. That prelate, one of the noblest figures of which the French bishopric has had cause to be proud, since Monseigneur Pie, was one of those grand Christians for whom the hand of God is as visible in the direction of human beings as it is invisible to doubtful souls. When Fanny, already devoted to her charities, confided in him the serious troubles of her mind and the discord which had arisen between her and her father on the so essential point of her baptism, the Cardinal replied:

"Have faith in God. He will give you a sign when your time has come." And he uttered those words with an accent whose conviction had filled the young girl with a certainty which had never left her.

In spite of his seventy years, and of the experiences of the confession, in spite of the disenchanting struggle with the freemasonry of his French diocese, which had caused his exile to Rome, the venerable man looked at Fanny's marriage from a supernatural standpoint. Many priests are thus capable of a naivete which, on careful analysis, is often in the right. But at the moment the antithesis between the authentic reality and that which they believe, constitutes an irony almost absurd. When he had baptized Fanny, the old Bishop of Clermont was possessed by a joy so deep that he said to her, to express to her the more delicately the tender respect of his friendship:

"I can now say as did Saint Monica after the baptism of Saint Augustine: 'Cur hic sim, nescio; jam consumpta spe hujus saeculi'. I do not know why I remain here below. All my hope of the age is consummated. And like her I can add—the only thing which made me desire to remain awhile was to see you a Catholic before dying. The traveller, who has tarried, has now nothing to do but to go. He has gathered the last and the prettiest flower."….

Noble and faithful apostle, who was indeed to go so shortly after, meriting what they said of him, that which the African bishop said of his mother: "That religious soul was at length absolved from her body."…. He did not anticipate that he would pay dearly for that realization of his last wish! He did not foresee that she whom he ingenuously termed his most beautiful flower was to become to him the principal cause of bitter sorrow. Poor, grand Cardinal! It was the final trial of his life, the supremely bitter drop in his chalice, to assist at the disenchantment which followed so closely upon the blissful intoxication of his gentle neophyte's first initiation. To whom, if not to him, should she have gone to ask counsel, in all the tormenting doubts which she at once began to have in her feelings with regard to her fiance?

It was, therefore, that on the day following the evening on which imprudent Ardea had jested so persistently upon a subject sacred to her that she rang at the door of the apartment which Monseigneur Guerillot occupied in the large mansion on Rue des Quatre-Fontaines. There was no question of incriminating the spirit of those pleasantries, nor of relating her humiliating observations on the Prince's intoxication. No. She wished to ease her mind, on which rested a shade of sorrow. At the time of her betrothal, she had fancied she loved Ardea, for the emotion of her religious life at length freed had inspired her with gratitude for him who was, however, only the pretext of that exemption. She trembled to-day, not only at not loving him any more, but at hating him, and above all she felt herself a prey to that repugnance for the useless cares of the world, to that lassitude of transitory hopes, to that nostalgia of repose in God, undeniable signs of true vocations.

At the thought that she might, if she survived her father and she remained free, retire to the 'Dames du Cenacle,' she felt at her approaching marriage an inward repugnance, which augmented still more the proof of her future husband's deplorable character. Had she the right to form such bonds with such feelings? Would it be honorable to break, without further developments, the betrothal which had been between her and her father the condition of her baptism? She was already there, after so few days! And her wound was deeper after the night on which the Prince had, uttered his careless jests.

"It is permitted you to withdraw," replied Monsieur Guerillot, "but you are not permitted to lack charity in your judgment."

There was within Fanny too much sincerity, her faith was too simple and too deep for her not to follow out that advice to the letter, and she conformed to it in deeds as well as in intentions. For, before taking a walk in the afternoon with Alba, she took the greatest care to remove all traces which the little scene of the day before could have left in her friend's mind. Her efforts went very far. She would ask pardon of her fiance…. Pardon! For what? For having been wounded by him, wounded to the depths