Marie and her arithmetic seemed forgotten by all parties.

"I am afraid, Brother Bruno," faltered Father Nicholas, "really afraid, I may have been too remiss. The poor girl!--of course, though she is a Jew--and they are very bad people, very--yet she has a soul to be saved; yes, undoubtedly. I will see what I can do. There are only about a dozen leaves of the missal,--and then that treatise on grace of congruity that I promised the Abbot of Ham--and,--let me see! I believe I engaged to write something for the Prior of Saint Albans. What was it, now? Where are my tables? Oh, here!--yes,--ah! that would not take long: a week might do it, I think. I will see,--I really will see, Brother Bruno,--when these little matters are disposed of,--what I can do for the girl."

"Do! Give her ratsbane!" sneered Warner laconically.

Bruno's reply was a quotation.

"'While thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone.'"

Then he rose and left the room.

"Dear, dear!" said Father Nicholas. "Our brother Bruno means well,-- very well indeed, I am sure: but those enthusiastic people like him-- don't you think they are very unsettling, Brother Warner? Really, he has made me feel quite uncomfortable. Why, the world would have to be turned upside down! We could never write, nor paint, nor cultivate letters--we should have to be incessantly preaching and confessing people."

"Stuff! The fellow's an a.s.s!" was Father Warner's decision. "_Ha, chetife_!--what has become of that little monkey, Damsel Marie? I must go and see after her."

And he followed his colleague. Father Nicholas gathered his papers together, and from the silence that ensued, the girls gathered that the ante-chamber was deserted.

"Belasez," said Doucebelle that night, as she was brushing her hair--the two slept in the wardrobe--"wert thou very angry with Father Bruno, this morning?"

Belasez looked up quickly.

"With _him_? No! I thought--"

But the thought progressed no further till Doucebelle said--"Well?"

"I thought," said Belasez, combing out her own hair very energetically, "that I had at last found even a Christian priest who was worthy of him of whom the Bishop of Lincoln preached,--him whom you believe to be Messiah."

"Then," said Doucebelle, greatly delighted, "thou wilt listen to Father Bruno, if he talks to thee?"

"I would not if I could help it," was Belasez's equivocal answer.

"Belasez, I cannot quite understand thee. Sometimes thou seemest so different from what thou art at other times."

"Because I am different. Understand me! Do I understand myself? The Holy One--to whom be praise!--He understands us all."

"But sometimes thou art willing to hear and talk, and at others thou art close shut up like a coffer."

"Because that is how I feel."

"I wish thou wouldst tell thy feelings to Father Bruno."

"I shall wait till he asks me, I think," said Belasez a little drily.

"Well, I am sure he will."

"I am not sure that he will--twice."

"Why, what wouldst thou say to him?"

"He will hear if he wants to know."

And Belasez thereupon "shut up like a coffer," and seemed to have lost her tongue for the remainder of the night.

Doucebelle determined that, if she could possibly contrive it, without wounding the feelings of Father Nicholas, her next confession should be made to Father Bruno. He seemed to her to be a man made of altogether different metal from his colleagues. Master Aristoteles kept himself entirely to physical ailments, and never heard a confession, except from the sick in emergency. Father Nicholas was a very easy confessor, for his thoughts were usually in his beloved study, and whatever the confession might be, absolution seemed to follow as a matter of course.

If his advice were asked on any point outside philology in all its divisions, he generally appeared to be rather taken by surprise, and almost as much puzzled as his penitent. His strongest reproof was--

"Ah, that was wrong, my child. Thou must not do that again."

So that confession to Father Nicholas, while eminently comfortable to a dead soul, was anything but satisfying to a living one.

Father Warner was a terrible confessor. His minute questions penetrated into every corner of soul and body. He took nothing for granted, good nor bad. Absolution was hard to get from him, and not to be had on any terms but those of severe penance. And yet it seemed to Doucebelle that there was an inner sanctuary of her heart from which he never even tried to lift the veil, a depth in her nature which he never approached. Was it because there was no such depth in his, and therefore he necessarily ignored its existence in another?

In one way or another, they were all miserable comforters. She wished to try Father Bruno.

Most unwittingly, Father Nicholas helped her to gain her end by requesting a holiday. He had heard a rumour that a Latin ma.n.u.script had been discovered in the library of Saint Albans' Abbey, and Father Nicholas, in whose eyes the lost books of Livy were of more consequence than any thing else in the world except the Order of Saint Benedict, was unhappy till he had seen the ma.n.u.script.

The Countess, in the Earl's absence, readily granted his request, and Doucebelle's fear of hurting the feelings of her kind-hearted though careless old friend were no longer a bar in the way of consulting Father Bruno.

Father Warner, who was confessing the other half of the household, growled his disapprobation when Doucebelle begged to be included in the penitents of Father Bruno.

"Something new always catches a silly girl's fancy!" said he.

But Doucebelle had no scruple about hurting his feelings, since she did not believe in their existence. So when her turn came, she knelt down in Bruno's confessional.

At first she wondered if he were about to prove like Father Nicholas, for he did not ask her a single question till she stopped of herself.

Then, instead of referring to any thing which she had said, he put one of weighty import.

"Daughter, what dost thou know of Jesus Christ?"

"I know," said Doucebelle, "that He came to take away the sins of the world, and I humbly trust that He will take away mine."

"That He will?" repeated Bruno. "Is it not done already?"

"I thought, Father, that it would be done when I die."

"What has thy dying to do with that? If it be done at all, it was done when He died."

"Then where are my sins, Father?" asked Doucebelle, feeling very much astonished. This was a new doctrine to her. But Bruno was an Augustinian, and well read in the writings of the Founder of his Order.

"They are where G.o.d cannot find them, my child. Therefore there is little fear of thy finding them. Understand me,--if thou hast laid them upon Christ our Lord."

"I know I have," said Doucebelle in a low voice.

"Then on His own authority I a.s.sure thee that He has taken them."

"Father I may I really believe that?"

"May! Thou must, if thou wouldst not make G.o.d a liar."