He smiled, as the youth turned away, and a moment after started as if a
thought had suddenly struck him.
"I have it!" he said to himself. "There may be a woman at the bottom
of this discomposure of our holy father; for he is wrought upon by
something to the very bottom of his soul. I have not studied human
nature so many years for nothing. Father Francesco hath been much in the
guidance of women. His preaching hath wrought upon them, and perchance
among them.--Aha!" he said to himself, as he paced up and down, "I have
it! I'll try an experiment upon him!"
CHAPTER XV.
THE SERPENT'S EXPERIMENT.
Father Francesco sat leaning his head on his hand by the window of his
cell, looking out upon the sea as it rose and fell, with the reflections
of the fast coming stars glittering like so many jewels on its breast.
The glow of evening had almost faded, but there was a wan, tremulous
light from the moon, and a clearness, produced by the reflection of such
an expanse of water, which still rendered objects in his cell quite
discernible.
In the terrible denunciations and warnings just uttered, he had been
preaching to himself, striving to bring a force on his own soul by which
he might reduce its interior rebellion to submission; but, alas! when
was ever love cast out by fear? He knew not as yet the only remedy
for such sorrow,--that there is a love celestial and divine, of which
earthly love in its purest form is only the sacramental symbol and
emblem, and that this divine love can by God's power so outflood human
affections as to bear the soul above all earthly idols to its only
immortal rest.
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