r*|t ffpjii 
 
 j4ni>iK?jri a ftff«vrr«»6 
 
 MW 
 
 §P$ 
 
 «rfi sM ifitef 
 
 *S:»V jV ’■ S-iMfy ir“ : ' 1 tffcJwFjit'Ai 
 
 W ■ ft* ttM+tooWw 
 
 
 iSIwiiiwi 
 
 ‘iVw' V[ wsf^v* ^/» I p»iyi 14 f> t n*W'fW' • ■ tr 
 
 :ri -r' mm ;a® r* .>nrsv # £ a win 
 
 
 wMiMiaiai 
 
m 
 
 ■ 
 
 . 
 
 A. <■ 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 / : 
 
 : . j; /V - <V- ^ - 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ■ " 4 -V 
 
 miSmVr 
 
 815 
 
 Ml 9 a-f 
 
 
 TW.- 
 
 iErsgj- 
 
 s.'.V •. 
 
 .-',v : ?:7* 
 
 j a- ' 
 
 vir. , x : 
 
 " 
 
 . 
 
 A< >v* 
 
 jjfisfi; v 3 
 
 
 
 . -• 
 
 •M 
 
 
 
 JjWt- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iJES • 
 
 
 .ylgf'4% 
 
 m 
 
 >' 
 
 ; ■ f » 
 
 *. ». ! , 
 
 - * . • J . 
 
 A,<. 
 
 
 
 
 • /'i . r';' :.-.i^f 
 
 ■ . i/R 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 '.iifra PJ&*wbtetmimSf •>. - 
 
 ; ;; ' :,%am 
 
The person charging this material is re¬ 
 sponsible for its return on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books 
 are reasons for disciplinary action and may 
 resist in dismissal from the University. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 L161—0-1096 
 
FATHER AMBROSE 
 
 THE REVELATIONS OE MAY 3d ’68. 
 
 BY 
 
 STEELE MACKAYE. 
 
 Author of “ Paul Kauvar, ” “ Flazel Kirke,’ ’ Etc. 
 
 COPYRIGHT EDITION—ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THE DESHLER WELCH PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1894. f* 
 

 • • 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 . 
 
 
* 
 
 SI 3 
 MMa-f 
 
 ‘ * ' / /l ' / )| 
 
 0 I' / 
 
 TO 
 
 I*EWIS MORRISON, 
 
 THE EOYAL FRIEND and zealous artist-to 
 
 * ^VHOSE STEADFAST ENCOURAGEMENT 
 THESE PAGES owe THEIR GROWTH—'THIS ROOK 
 
 IS FRATERNALLY DEDICATED BY 
 
 * STEEEE MACKAYE. 
 
 i 
 
 .■5 
 
 r 
 
 678989 
 
PROEM. 
 
 What a paltry word love is—in print. 
 
 What a potent reality love is—in life. 
 
 To escape certain woe—beware of it. 
 
 To experience perfect happiness await it ; 
 if it approaches—welcome and woo it. 
 
 L,ove is the Alpha and Omega of the ages ; 
 the beginning of all evil—the end of all good. 
 
 It is the most vicious virtue, and the most 
 virtuous vice that tempts or inspires the race. 
 
 It is a tyrant—that sets us free ; a slave— 
 that fetters us forever. 
 
 It is a relentless liar ; and yet it alone is 
 true. 
 
 There is nothing that it is not—nothing 
 that it does not. 
 
6 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 4 
 
 Magician of magicians, it works wonders 
 that transcend all understanding—but that of 
 the heart. 
 
 It makes a fool of the philosopher—a sage 
 of an ass. 
 
 It converts saints into sinners- sinners into 
 saints. 
 
 It tortures the faithful, and fondles the 
 false. 
 
 It drags purity into the pit, and lifts the 
 lost from the slough of lust. 
 
 It is the most puzzling and perilous contra¬ 
 diction that consciousness records—the primal 
 paradox, and final solution of the riddle of 
 - life. 
 
 He is a fool who seeks it—a craven who 
 shirks it—a cur who betrays it—a Man who 
 keeps it—a Saint who serves it—a God who 
 commands it. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 The Struggle. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 — II. 
 
 The Authority for the Facts 
 The Discovery .... 
 The Somnipathist . . . 
 
 Audacity that was Divine 
 The Desecrating Stare of 
 Vulgar Eyes .... 
 Humiliation most Abjectly 
 
 Human. 
 
 A Crushing Creed . . . 
 
 Human Affection Versus 
 Fiendish Faith . . . 
 
 A vSoul for a Soul . . 
 
 Which of the Two . . . 
 
 “How Evidence can Lie” 
 The Doctor’s Decision 
 CHAPTER XIII. The Struggle .... 
 — XIV. The Saint becomes an 
 
 Assassin ..... 
 
 — III. 
 
 — IV. 
 
 — V. 
 
 — VI. 
 
 — VII. 
 
 — VIII. 
 
 — IX. 
 
 — X. 
 
 — XI. 
 
 — XII. 
 
 Page 
 
 9 
 
 15 
 
 23 
 
 29 
 
 37 
 
 52 
 
 60 
 
 66 
 
 73 
 
 79 
 
 93 
 
 98 
 
 107 
 
 116 
 
8 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 
 
 The Triumph. 
 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 Sub Silentio. 
 
 125 
 
 — II. 
 
 The Awakening .... 
 
 132 
 
 — III. 
 
 Stevna . 
 
 140 
 
 — IV. 
 
 The Bronze Chest . . . 
 
 156 
 
 — V. 
 
 The Apparition . . . *. 
 
 163 
 
 — VI. 
 
 Eove that conquers Scorn 
 
 171 
 
 — VII. 
 
 The Resuscitation of Am- 
 
 
 
 brose . 
 
 1S6 
 
 — VIII. 
 
 The Fatal Letter.... 
 
 194 
 
 — IX. 
 
 The Last Command . 
 
 221 
 
 — X. 
 
 The Police, the Priests, the 
 
 
 Doctor and the Dead 
 
 
 Hound. 
 
 240 
 
 — XI. 
 
 The Surgeon’s Triumph . 
 
 260 
 
 — XII. 
 
 A Priest and yet a Parent 
 
 267 
 
 — XIII. 
 
 The Mother Speaks 
 
 275 
 
 — XIV. 
 
 The Mission of the New 
 
 . 279 
 
 Avatar 
 
THE REVELATIONS OE MAY 30, 1868. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE AUTHORITY FOR THE FACTS. 
 
 At last I had captured him, and he was 
 forced to unfold the whole affair. 
 
 He had excited intense curiosity, by de¬ 
 claring he knew a story of real life surpassing 
 in surprises the most audacious inventions 
 that fiction had ever revealed. He had 
 promised a hundred times that I should hear 
 of these startling realities, but had escaped the 
 keeping of his word by excuses so unimpeach¬ 
 able that I was forced to exercise a patience 
 I did not .suppose that I possessed. 
 
io 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Now, thanks to my own cleverness, the 
 time for my reward had come and I was de¬ 
 termined that this opportunity should not pass 
 without the narrative I had conspired so cun¬ 
 ningly to secure. 
 
 I was living in a charming chateau near 
 Fontainebleau. The doctor had received a 
 telegram calling him imperatively to my side. 
 He came, supposing that I was at the point of 
 death, and found me awaiting his companion¬ 
 ship at the daintiest dinner ever prepared by 
 one of the foremost chefs of Paris. 
 
 I knew the doctor’s weakness. But for his 
 delight in a rare dinner I .should not have 
 dared to play him such a trick. Even with 
 the wonder I had planned to offer, I trembled 
 at my own temerity in attempting such a ruse. 
 
 He was the most distinguished physician 
 of the day; one of those imperial types who 
 reach without effort the highest rank in any 
 walk of life which they select. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 II 
 
 His character, too, was as glorious as his 
 genius. 
 
 Rank and wealth sought his services with 
 eagerness, and danced attendance on his ease, 
 but suffering poverty never called on his great 
 heart in vain, nor waited an instant, either for 
 his own convenience or for his favoring ser¬ 
 vice of the rich. 
 
 The feast succeeded, proving worthy of the 
 great artist who deigned to favor us with his 
 creative skill. When we had exhausted all 
 the gastronomic delights of his chef d’oeuvre 
 we lay back in lounging chairs before a brill¬ 
 iant fire, and smoked regalias which a Sultan 
 might have envied. Then it was that the 
 Scientist began his long awaited revelations, 
 and with the following enigmatic words : 
 
 “ My friend, I have been patient with the 
 amusing device by which you have endeavored 
 to deprive me of any excuse for further 
 silence, because I have been more anxious to 
 
12 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 secure an opportunity to speak than you could 
 have been to obtain a chance to listen. 
 
 The time has come when the truth ought to 
 be told, but I am not the one who should first 
 communicate to the public a matter of such 
 moment to mankind. To scientific literature 
 I have, and shall, contribute; but historic 
 statement requires a faculty which I do not 
 possess, and therefore even though I were 
 not personally associated with the circum¬ 
 stances, I should feel bound to entrust to 
 another brain than my own the initial form¬ 
 ulation of the almost incredible facts, which 
 first commanded my respect for phenomena I 
 once despised, but which I have since learned 
 are of primal importance to the progress of 
 the race. 
 
 You are the man whom I have selected to 
 afford the world its first glimpse of the light to 
 come. For years I have witnessed your ca¬ 
 reer, and it has begotten a firm faith in the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 13 
 
 unpretentious sincerity of your art. But for 
 this confidence I should not permit you to 
 hear the history of which I gave you a hint so 
 many months ago. I know that you are a 
 thorough man of the world, but if you are not 
 sufficiently surfeited with its shams, and eman¬ 
 cipated from its opinions, to be wholly indif¬ 
 ferent to excommunication from any and every 
 social circle, you would be exceedingly unwi.se 
 fto undertake the dangerous task of heralding 
 <a new dawn. 
 
 Courage and catholicity of spirit are nec¬ 
 essary to deal justly with the radical views, 
 fanatical antagonisms and sacred assertions 
 involved in the monstrous strangeness of my 
 i story. To learn what I mean you must give 
 feme your word of honor that you will devote 
 *your pen to proclaiming with unflinching free- 
 Idom of diction the facts I unfold, but you must 
 assume all responsibility for any consequences 
 | resulting to yourself from the publication of 
 
I 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 the startling statements I shall make. At the 
 right instant I shall stand at your side and 
 proudly share all you may suffer, but unless 
 you are confident that you contemn contume¬ 
 ly, forbid me now and forever to speak of 
 
 this affair.” 
 
 One year has passed since the memorable 
 night when this matter was committed to my 
 care. It has taken many months to study the 
 astounding documents and to become acquaint. , | 
 ed with the exceptional personages connecter 
 with the occurrences which it is now my dut> jf. 
 to relate. Names have been changed and such I 
 modifications of time and place adopted as arej 
 necessary to protect the living from discover^ 
 and attack. As time ripens concealments wil 
 cease and those whom destiny dedicates to th< J 
 highest service of man will publicly appear,* 
 For the present it is enough to state that thefi 
 authority for the facts herein set forth is a« 
 character whose name is a synonym for truth, 
 in the social as well as the scientific world. 
 
 i 
 
15 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY. 
 
 One day in his life Ambrose Bonnard will 
 never forget. 
 
 That day is the 3d of May, 1868,—a day 
 when the monotonous routine of his simple 
 existence was interrupted by an experience so 
 (Overwhelming that a thousand untouched re¬ 
 cesses of his being awoke to consciousness, 
 and wrought with ruinous rapidity a profound 
 destruction of the foundations of his faith. 
 
 The vigor of a virile spring quivered in the 
 < air, its irrepressible delight scintillating 
 i* throughout the brilliant .spaces of a cloudless 
 / sky. 
 
 The breasts of the birds, bursting w r ith ex- 
 ! uberant bliss, greeted the glory of the after- 
 j noon with gushes of gay song. 
 
i6 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The Champs Elysees was crowded with car¬ 
 riages filled with beauty that dazzled and faces 
 that beamed. Its walks were packed with ani¬ 
 mated masses of humanity, palpitating with 
 the happy hopes awakened by that early sea¬ 
 son of the year, which sows so freely the bit¬ 
 ter seeds of illusion in the receptive soil of 
 youth. 
 
 The good young Father Ambrose was stroll¬ 
 ing along the Rue de la Faizanderie, in Pas- 
 sy, toward that broad avenue through which 
 the merry multitude of Paris pours into the 
 Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 He was lost in a deep, delicious dream : a, 
 dream of happiness for others—the only hap-j 
 piness his chastened life had ever known, th^ 
 only happiness for which his lowly spirit hac 
 ever hoped or prayed. 
 
 He had just united by the holy sacrament 
 of marriage two lives, whose souls by the in¬ 
 visible sacrament of love, were already made 
 
 one. 
 

 FATHER AMBROSE. jy 
 
 Absorbed in thoughts of the unutterable 
 happiness of these newly-wedded lives, and 
 keenly alive to the cheering atmosphere of joy- 
 winch surrounded him, the priest passed with 
 a pensive smile upon his lips, a charming villa 
 
 among a mass of vines behind a high, but or- 
 ' namental fence. 
 
 Suddenly a cry of anguish rent the air—a 
 
 woman’s anguish, terror laden—the wail of a 
 
 great love crushed by a cruel surprise. 
 
 The priest turned, touched to his very vitals 
 
 1 the pain of that woman’s voice. 
 
 The fierce bay of an approaching hound was 
 
 p only echo awakened by that frantic cry. 
 
 vVith every nerve tense and each sense quick- 
 
 pd by the shock, the curate gazed in all di- 
 actions. 
 
 The street was deserted ; not a person in 
 
 ight, except on the distant Boulevard, from 
 
 vhich was borne the softened hum of chil- 
 
 ren’s happy cries and their elders’ careless 
 hatter. 
 
iS 
 
 FATHER . AMBROSE. 
 
 There was a soul-seeking quality in that cry 
 which shot to the inmost depths of the father’s 
 heart. He realized at once that a calamity of 
 the most appalling kind was at hand. His 
 flesh crept. A shudder ran through his spare 
 frame, while a wild longing to leap to the as¬ 
 sistance of the sufferer made him impatient to 
 discover who she was. 
 
 As he stood, wondering which way to turn, 
 his attention was attracted by the strange con- 
 duct of a dog, which sprang over a high hedge 
 of arbor-vitae and with mad growls bounde 
 furiously against the front door of the villa be 
 hind the fence. The door opened. The houn 
 tore into the house. A woman appeared, peei 
 ing anxiously after the hound, hesitating, pow 
 erless to decide some question that oppresse( 
 her. Presently she turned and looked into th 
 
 a 
 
 street with a distracted .stare. One sight c) 
 that wretched face was enough for the zealouj j s 
 priest. In an instant he reached the gate am e 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 19 
 
 pulled the bell. Its clang startled the puzzled 
 icreature at the door into an exclamation of 
 
 4 
 
 alarm. 
 
 ‘‘Courage, madame ! It is I, Father Am¬ 
 brose. Let me in. I will help you.” 
 
 His sympathetic voice brought the woman 
 to her senses. She hurried forward and, open¬ 
 ing the gate, cried out in joy : 
 
 ” Ah, the good God has sent you ! ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ What has happened ? ’ * 
 
 “ I don’t know. I fear the worst! ” 
 
 ” To whom ? ” 
 
 “ You shall see. Follow me. Hurry ! ” 
 Shutting the gate with a reckless slam, the 
 woman ran to the door of the villa, holding it 
 open as the father hastened in ; then, closing 
 it, she paused a second and quickly deciding, 
 glided up the broad .stairs before them, mut¬ 
 tering to herself: 
 
 ” No matter ! We can trust the priest.” 
 f The long frock followed closely, in silence. 
 
20 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 They reached the upper hallway. A large 
 window at one end opened upon the .street. A; 
 .seat was built into the window. In front of 
 this .seat appeared a picture grotesque and) 
 weird. j 
 
 The body of a young girl lay in a graceles^ 
 heap, face downward upon the floor, awfully 
 still. Above her, immovable as bronze, watch¬ 
 ing with glaring eyes, stood a monstrous black 
 hound. 
 
 With terrified face the woman pointed to 
 the almost shapeless mass beneath the brute, 
 whispering : 
 
 ‘ ‘ It is there ! ’ ’ 
 
 That * ‘ it ’ * expressed the repulsion which 
 ignorance suffers at sight of death. 
 
 The woman shrank back ; the man bound¬ 
 ed forward. The beast, recognizing the ap¬ 
 proach of pity, sprang out of the way. 
 
 The messenger of love lifted the body teii-_ 
 derly and laid it under the light, upon t' 
 broad cushion of the seat. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 21 
 
 The heart had ceased to beat. The pulse 
 had passed away. The sweat of death lay on 
 her placid brow. 
 
 The young father deeply moved uttered a 
 groan of dismay. The hound moaned in sym¬ 
 pathy, and, with an unceasing woeful whine 
 licked the ghastly face that lay in the light of 
 that smiling da}^. 
 
 Youth, in all its glorious fullness was strick¬ 
 en into the endless impotence of death by some 
 sinister cause, whose cruelty was emphasized 
 tenfold by the grace and beauty of its victim. 
 
 The priest, with the skill of years devoted 
 to disaster, examined more closely the lifeless 
 body before him. Suddenly he sank upon his 
 knees with a reverent cry and crossed him¬ 
 self. 
 
 Mother of God, have pity,” he faltered. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Spare this life in death ! ’ ’ 
 
 Then, springing to his feet, he turned to the 
 frightened peasant behind him, commanding : 
 
 
22 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “ Quick ! to Doctor Lefort. At the corner 
 on your left. Say Father Ambrose wants him 
 at once. There is a life to save ! 5 ’ 
 
 The woman gave an hysterical laugh of de¬ 
 light and disappeared. 
 
 The corpse of the young girl was the tomb 
 of a living child. 
 
 To the religious faith of the fervent fanatic 
 there was more than a life—there was a soul— 
 to save. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 n 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SOMNIPATHIST. 
 
 Ambrose Bonnard was the son of a soldier 
 whose wife was the sister of a Benedictine 
 monk. His father, who was a Captain of 
 dragoons and a fiery enthusiast in all he ever 
 undertook, was killed leading the w T ild charge 
 of a forlorn hope in Algeria. His mother died 
 of a broken heart, struck senseless by the 
 sudden news of her husband’s fate. 
 
 From the hour of the infant’s birth the 
 monk considered him a special charge im¬ 
 posed by Providence upon his humanity. He 
 resolved to cherish and dedicate his future to 
 the saintly perfection of an ascetic life. 
 
 As the child developed he proved to be ex- 
 ' edingly delicate and dreamy, full of strange 
 1 flections, introspective and given to the 
 
24 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 i 
 
 most mystic imaginings. His spiritual per¬ 
 ceptions were vivid, clear, and strong. His 
 sense of physical things or of worldly affairs 
 was so obtuse that he passed at school as a 
 dullard whom no one could understand. 
 
 From books he could learn nothing, but his 
 inner commerce with the spirit gave him at 
 moments an eloquence that thrilled the puzzled 
 auditors who chanced to hear his words. 
 
 At seven, spells of trance began. In these 
 he often lay for hours, to all appearance dead. 
 He was one of those anomalous human beings 
 whose sensitive organization is so susceptible 
 to occult influence that it passes readily into a 
 somnambulistic condition, during which events 
 take place that are unexplained by any hy¬ 
 pothesis which science or philosophy has thus 
 far advanced. 
 
 At fourteen, he entered upon a course of 
 training with his uncle that was mediaeval 
 its merciless severity. Now and then th ^ 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 25 
 
 exercises produced religious ecstacies which 
 causi.d a frequent recurrence of the trance. 
 
 C 1 some of these occasions there would issue 
 from the lips of the corybantic lad the most 
 wonderful declarations, astounding his ortho¬ 
 dox companion by the reckless and poetic 
 force with which he prophesied a coming day 
 of religious liberation for the race. 
 
 The worthy monk, growing thoroughly 
 alarmed at the rhapsodic boldness of the boy, 
 decided to confide to the learned abbot of his 
 cloister the .secret of his nephew’s suspicious 
 visitations. 
 
 The superstition-ridden man feared that the 
 devil was snatching his beloved charge from 
 God. 
 
 Before he could confer with his superior, 
 however, he was killed by the falling of his 
 horse when returning from a mission of mer- 
 cv" which he had undertaken for the parish 
 
 priest. 
 
26 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 [ 
 
 I 
 
 At the death of the monk, the priest whotjh 
 he had served regarded the sole relative of his 
 dead friend as a ward to whom the accident 
 had bound him by most sacred ties. Inspired 
 by this sentiment, he took the youth into his 
 own home, devoting himself most faithfully to 
 his education for the Church. 
 
 From the date of his uncle’s death the ter¬ 
 rible severities of the ascetic system were su¬ 
 perseded by the comparatively easy discipline 
 which prepares the novitiate for the unpreten¬ 
 tious labors of a curate’s life. 
 
 In his new home his health improved, but 
 his naturally handsome face never lost the 
 scars of care which those early years of self- 
 denial had left upon it. When later he was 
 admitted to holy orders, he performed the 
 functions of his office with an unaffected sin¬ 
 cerity that endeared him deeply to all “ who 
 labored or were heavy laden ’ ’ in the little 
 world he served. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 2J 
 
 His spells of trance had now become most 
 rare, but still, at long intervals continued to 
 occur, especially when he had been more deep¬ 
 ly stirred than usual by the unexpected jo> r or 
 sorrow of any of his flock. 
 
 At the time of the incident at the villa he 
 was the curate of the little Church of ‘ ‘ St. 
 John the Beloved,” at Passy, where, during a 
 
 residence of eighteen months, he had won the 
 
 0 
 
 reverence and love even of those most ready to 
 mock the faith he followed. 
 
 By nature and unique experience he was 
 far superior to his environment. Latent in 
 his breast were powers and passions of whose 
 existence he was wholly unaware. His un¬ 
 selfish soul, untainted by one touch of vanity, 
 little realized that it possessed the ardent valor 
 of the soldier and the patient resignation of the 
 saint, although the slightest cruelty to others 
 
 promptly roused the daring of the first, and 
 any trial to himself the fortitude so impressive 
 
 in the last. 
 
28 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Mystic, ascetic, sensitively sympathetic, 
 recklessly enthusiastic, with strong spiritual 
 impulses, but without the slightest worldly 
 sense, such was the rare and pathetic person¬ 
 ality which fate, or Providence, had called to 
 meet the trying circumstances which occurred 
 in the lonely villa on that glowing day of 
 spring. 
 
 i 
 
 S 
 
 j 
 
 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AUDACITY THAT WAS DIVINE. 
 
 With infinite compassion, the curate re¬ 
 sumed his inquisition of the dead. 
 
 One fair arm of the unfortunate hung over 
 the seat. 
 
 The brute at her side, powerless to word its 
 grief, crouched, still moaning, and lapped the 
 fine, pale skin of his inanimate mistress with 
 a tenderness that touched to tears the solitary 
 witness of his distress. 
 
 No human being ever expressed a more hu¬ 
 mane commiseration than the eye, tones, and 
 actions of that black beast revealed to the soul 
 of the ecclesiastic that memorable day. 
 
 Deeply moved at the presence of such a 
 spiritual grace as pity in a dog, the pious spec¬ 
 tator stooped and fondled the hound with a 
 
3 <> 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 feeling of fellowship he had not felt before, 
 even for one of his own kin or cloth. 
 
 While doing this, he noticed that the ani¬ 
 mal was sniffing suspiciously at his mistress’ 
 hand. 
 
 lifting the limp arm, he saw that the fragile 
 fingers were tightly closed by the last strong 
 throe of death upon a mass of paper. 
 
 Gently, as though he feared the sleeper 
 might awake, he loosened that pain-locked 
 clasp and released a letter, in which, by acci¬ 
 dent, he read this fatal line : 
 
 “You have never been—can never be —my 
 wife.” 
 
 He placed the rumpled letter in his pocket, 
 intending none should see it who had not a 
 sacred right to the secret it contained. 
 
 Alas ! he already knew that the shock of 
 shame had sent a sensitive creature to its Cre¬ 
 ator before she had known the purifying an¬ 
 guish or ennobling compensations of maternity. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 31 
 
 While these thoughts were passing through 
 his mind, death, having overcome the woman, 
 was fast completing its possession of the other. 
 
 Once more he felt the body of the lifeless for 
 a sign of the living. 
 
 Only the faintest flickerings responded to 
 his anxious touch. 
 
 He was seized with a mad yearning to res¬ 
 cue this unknown, who had all at once become 
 so strangely dear to him! A deep, passionate 
 determination took entire possession of his will. 
 
 What a tragic reversal of Nature’s order was 
 here ! 
 
 The grave preceded the cradle in the story 
 of this life unseen. 
 
 How keep the unborn alive in the breast of 
 the dead till the deliverer could arrive ? 
 
 He must do it at any cost. 
 
 Warmth could save this waif, who might 
 yet prove a veritable king of men. No ordi¬ 
 nary heat, however; no mere mechanical cal- 
 
32 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 oric, could perform this miracle. Only that 
 animating vibvation which radiates through 
 the flesh from the sovereign soul itself could 
 accomplish such a wonder. Nothing but the 
 warmth of the living could preserve this fast- 
 ebbing life from death. * 
 
 The violence of his mental activity, as these 
 thoughts stirred his brain, produced a semi¬ 
 visionary state. Tike a flash the past illumined 
 the present; the old man’s voice sounded 
 clearly in his ears once more, repeating the 
 oft-told tale which his uncle’s cruel faith had 
 taught him to believe was possible to the un¬ 
 born innocent who failed to command the holy 
 office of baptism; the sacrament essential to 
 save a newly-created spirit from the power of 
 the fiend. 
 
 To have lived, even in the dark unconscious¬ 
 ness of the pre-natal state, without baptism 
 would condemn to eternal hopelessness- the 
 blameless creature whose little heart was beat¬ 
 ing in this corpse. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 33 
 
 This was the horrible certainty which his 
 relative’s fanaticism had convinced him threat¬ 
 ened the unborn. 
 
 Father Ambrose had been schooled too early 
 in this monstrous creed to realize what an in¬ 
 famous libel on the love of God it is. It never 
 occurred to him to analyze or question the 
 truth of the doctrines which austere training 
 had so assiduously beaten into his belief. 
 
 In the presence of the situation now con¬ 
 fronting him, he was filled with the unutter¬ 
 able anguish which the thought of misery to 
 others always caused to the divinity in him¬ 
 self. A sudden inspiration revealed the one 
 , fearful way which might insure success. 
 
 At the critical moment the mother’s pulse 
 had failed. 
 
 His pulse, the pulse of the one whom the 
 friendless called a father, should supply the 
 mother’s place. The spiritual Parent would 
 complete the creative work which the natural 
 parent had begun. 
 
34 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 He knew that every fold of clothing between 
 his strong, hot heart and that unborn babe less¬ 
 ened its certainty of salvation. He must get 
 as close to that quivering spark as nature 
 would permit. To risk failure was to him a 
 crime. Not the slightest shadow of a chance 
 to save that helpless being from eternal dark¬ 
 ness should be lost! 
 
 A low mind or a petty spirit would have 
 hesitated. 
 
 Not so this simple servant of the outcast 
 Nazarene, whose one great mission w T as to 
 save. 
 
 No vulgar concern regarding the opinions 
 of the vile belittled his noble mind at a mo¬ 
 ment so supreme. 
 
 ‘ ‘ He whom God commands heeds not the 
 voice of the world.” 
 
 Through an open door he saw a bed. 
 
 With the strength of a great hope, he 
 stripped the lifeless form and laid it ter derly 
 beneath the blankets. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 35 
 
 The bridal couch had become a bier. He 
 would convert it into life’s triumphal car. 
 This bier should become a bed of birth and 
 bring forth the living fruit of this hapless wo¬ 
 man’s love. 
 
 Glowing with a reckless enthusiasm, and 
 unconscious of all but the salvation he sought 
 to achieve, the uncanonized saint, Ambrose, 
 speedily bared his body, crept close to the 
 - dead, and clasped its icy flesh with the burn¬ 
 ing ardor of an intense, but chaste, desire. 
 
 For the first time in his whole existence 
 this noble son of man held a clotheless woman 
 to his naked breast. 
 
 Clotheless ? 
 
 Not to worthy eyes. 
 
 The celestial mantle of innocence—a far 
 more certain protection to purity than any 
 woven by a worldly hand—enwrapped him, 
 and the sanctity of a holy purpose hallowed 
 his embrace. 
 
3 & 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 To the pure in heart—whose spiritual vision 
 undimmed by the dust of any low idea, is 
 quick to see God behind a deed of man—this 
 priest’s first folding of a woman’s form can 
 only appear sublime — consecrated by the 
 grandeur of an audacity that was divine. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DESECRATING STARE OF VUEGAR EYES. 
 
 Father Ambrose lay, with eyes fast closed, 
 detached from all sense of self, by zealous sup¬ 
 plication of the Virgin whose divine maternity 
 he sought with ardent faith, at this most solemn 
 moment. 
 
 So absorbed was he that all perception of the 
 flight of time, or of his own anomalous posi¬ 
 tion, was suspended. 
 
 His mystic communion was interrupted by a 
 blow. 
 
 The dog, who had followed every action of 
 the priest with strained attention, perplexed at 
 the endless silence sprang upon the bed. 
 
 Ambrose, startled, opened his eyes, and met 
 those of the hound watching him in anxious 
 eagerness. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Realizing the life-giving potency of even a 
 brute’s affection, his superstitious confidence 
 regarded the creature as the envoy of the 
 heavenly mother, sent by her providential in¬ 
 fluence to fortify the energies which were 
 * struggling for the life of the unborn. 
 
 lifting the coverings he made a sign which 
 his companion understood so well that he 
 quickly stretched his full warm length against 
 the body of the one who less than an hour be¬ 
 fore had been the dearest in the world to him, 
 What a bizarre blending of animation and 
 mortality the spectacle presented! 
 
 There lay death, between two lives, sepa¬ 
 rated by the accident of creation—united by the 
 design of affection. 
 
 On one side a life vowed to heaven—on the 
 other a life fatally bound to earth ; each of these 
 lives penetrating the dead, and co-mingling, to 
 preserve another life, which the credulous 
 ascetic believed was on the verge of hell! 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 39 
 
 The man believed that he was clinging to a 
 coffin of flesh, in which life was confined. The 
 beast felt that he was fondling a friend who lay 
 in mute submission to some misfortune which 
 the faithful slave could feel, but could not 
 comprehend. 
 
 The priest sought only to save the living, 
 while the dog lavished his devotion in a vain 
 endeavour to comfort the dead. 
 
 Both however sublimated by that mystery 
 called Love—that omnipotence which lifts all 
 —levels all—and so often asserts the equiva¬ 
 lence of creatures who appear the most op¬ 
 posed in natural rank. 
 
 sfc ijc j}: ifc 
 
 The house was deserted. In spite of the 
 cries which for a time had echoed through its 
 halls, no signal of response had reached the 
 Father, save those of the servant and the dog. 
 
 She whose offspring lay in present peril, had 
 doubtless been sole mistress of the house; while 
 the master had departed, never to return. 
 
4 ° 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 And the woman who had flown so swiftly, 
 with that nervous laugh upon her lips, had she, 
 too, deserted the betrayed ? 
 
 These questions sped through the watcher’s 
 mind until influences too insidious to arouse 
 resistance, slowly drifted his attention into 
 channels, of whose dangerous reefs and shoals 
 he knew as little as a child. 
 
 The priest’s gaze fell upon the face beside 
 him. 
 
 The silky, gold-brown hair, spread in mag¬ 
 nificent profusion upon her pillow, glistened 
 like the dark, luminous background, on which 
 the great Titian loved to paint his imperial Bella 
 Donnas. The ivory fleshed tints of her fea¬ 
 tures possessed the same ineffable transparence 
 which so enchants the eye in the immortal 
 
 t 
 
 works of that master of the Renaissance. 
 
 There was a nobility of proportion in the 
 symmetry of her shapely head that betokened 
 both high breeding and large brain. The face 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 41 
 
 was full of force and refinement. It had a 
 fascination peculiarly its own. 
 
 The longer the curate gazed the more com¬ 
 pletely he perceived the wondrous grace that 
 glorified that countenance. 
 
 The brows, penciled with delicate decision, 
 combined a breadth that was commanding with 
 a serenity supremely sweet. 
 
 The eyes were signless, gleaming no longer 
 with the glances of a noble mind that scarce a 
 moment since gazed through their hazel lenses. 
 Their lids had fallen in meek surrender to their 
 mortal foe, and lay with an impotence that was 
 pathetic upon the windows of the spirit world. 
 
 The nose, however, had a look of life con¬ 
 trasting most uncannily with the ashen-hued 
 rigidity around it. Its dainty nostrils—ex¬ 
 panded by their last convulsive effort to retain 
 the breath of life—appeared almost to quiver; 
 while the chiseled elegance of its formation was 
 unmarred by any touch of death’s disfiguring 
 finger. 
 
42 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 But her mouth ! O ! that winsome, way¬ 
 ward, virtuous mouth ! So incapable of wrong 
 itself—so provocative of wrong in others ! In 
 the delicate lines of those lifeless lips strength 
 and tenderness, passion and purity, earnestness 
 and archness, gravity and gaiety, were so 
 subtly interwoven that, though .still and stiff, 
 they were irresistibly bewitching. 
 
 And there, uplifted in the mellow light—its 
 innocently wrecking lips just parted, by the 
 last soft sigh that set the spirit free—this 
 matchless human mouth revealed, with peril¬ 
 ous plenitude, the ravishing exquisiteness of 
 its magic curves. 
 
 From the subtle sorcery of that guileless con¬ 
 templation, Ambrose, the simple hearted, was 
 destined never to escape. 
 
 vf/ 4# si/ s]/ v]/ 
 
 4^ /js 
 
 Faintly, from afar, the solemn measure of a 
 funeral march was wafted to the ears of this 
 servant of the sanctuary, and as the dirge of the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 43 
 
 dead grew nearer, the warning tone of its 
 desolate wail, awakened him to his senses. 
 
 A soldier of the State was passing through 
 the busy Boulevard to the deathless quiet of 
 an honored grave. 
 
 And he—a soldier of the Holy Cross—to 
 what did his wanderings tend ? 
 
 This question smote his conscience, as he lay 
 listening to the mournful movement, already 
 melting in the distance. The sting of the in¬ 
 terrogation delivered him, for a time, from the 
 fascinating sway to which he had uncon¬ 
 sciously submitted. A shame he scarcely 
 recognized assailed him. He dumbly felt he 
 was in danger. Of what, he instinctively dis¬ 
 dained to ask; nevertheless in obedience to the 
 force of custom, when oppressed with vague 
 emotions that escaped his comprehension, he 
 quickly crossed himself. 
 
 In making the sacred sign, the embrace of 
 the dead was broken. This act recalled him 
 
44 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 to a sense of the actual facts around him, and he 
 realized that for many moments no signal of 
 existence had reached him from the life he 
 sought to save. 
 
 Indignant at the long delay in the arrival of 
 assistance, he abandoned himself to one last 
 desperate effort to revive the dying babe. 
 
 Believing the increase of peril to the infant 
 due to the cessation of his prayers, he grasped 
 more closely the casket of human clay, and 
 concentrating all his will upon the one precious 
 possibility of saving the unseen, he passed 
 through prayer into a state of pious beatitude, 
 and thence into cataleptic trance. 
 
 Man and priest had disappeared. The som- 
 nipathist had reappeared with all the possibili¬ 
 ties of wonder which that implies. 
 
 >$: i}c 
 
 The silence seemed to deepen, and even the 
 sibilant fly to rest, as the roseate radiance of 
 the early evening illumined this motionless 
 group. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 45 
 
 Stark—and in mocking contrast with the 
 merry motion of the motes swirling in the 
 flecks of sunlight shining through the blinds— 
 a feminine form, in ghastly beauty stretched, 
 was couched twixt man and beast. 
 
 The coverings of the bed slipping from her 
 shoulders, half bared the marvellous modelling 
 of her pearly, girlish breast. 
 
 The hound, resting his great jaw upon the 
 first soft undulations of her breathless bosom, 
 watched the cruel stillness of her features with 
 sad and wistful eyes. 
 
 The man’s head, bowed by his absorbing 
 commune with the spirit, reclined against the 
 firm young flesh of her lovely shoulder with 
 the confiding abandon of a child. 
 
 Gradually an ashen pallor crept over the 
 Father’s face. The skin tightened slowly upon 
 his worn features. His eyes sunk into their 
 sockets, the lids lifting enough to unveil the 
 lower edges of the iris. The ghastliness of the 
 
4 6 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 priest’s appearance became more corpse-like 
 than that of the body he held in his stiffen¬ 
 ing arms. Each moment he seemed sinking 
 more deeply into death, while her aspect soft¬ 
 ened with a growing look of life. 
 
 The living was passing into twilight—the 
 dead was nearing dawn. 
 
 Suddenly the dog started. Up went his 
 head, with a side-long turn exceedingly in¬ 
 quisitive, his eyes focused intently on the 
 woman’s form. 
 
 An almost imperceptible vibration was pass¬ 
 ing through her frame. All at once it was 
 convulsed by a violent throe, which frightened 
 the hound into a half sitting posture, every 
 fibre of his flesh turning rigid with alarm. 
 
 Something unearthly was happening. Some¬ 
 thing vague and dreadful, transfixing, with a 
 formless fear, the lone almost paralyzed spec¬ 
 tator of this nondescript occurrence. 
 
 His crouching body drawn back, his head 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 47 
 
 outstretched and strained, the brute’s eyes 
 roamed, askant, as though he felt some shadow 
 hovering in the sunshine above the bed of 
 death. 
 
 With electric velocity, the horror reached an 
 awful climax; driving the dog into a corner, 
 his eyes ablaze with phosphorescent light, he 
 yelped in abject fear. 
 
 First, a tremor had appeared upon the 
 woman’s lips, then her nostrils quivered. Fi¬ 
 nally, as though struck by some terrific current 
 from an invisible galvanic pile, her eyes flew 
 open with a ghastly .stare, her whole form 
 writhed and twisted, her knees jerked up and 
 met her shivering chin, a sickening guttural 
 gurgigation issued from her throat, her jaw 
 gyrated, she gasped hideously, shrieked and 
 fell back limp, relaxed, breathing, but uncon¬ 
 scious, across the body of her motionless com¬ 
 panion. 
 
 The dead was living. The living quiet and 
 livid as the dead. 
 
48 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Bare, and in closest contact, the coverings in 
 wild disorder half thrown from their limbs, 
 reposed a living man and woman, who had 
 never yet exchanged a single word or .sign of 
 recognition. 
 
 ^ 
 
 The brank of a bell rang through the house. 
 
 The dog, encouraged by a familiar sound, 
 sprang to the open window with a bark. 
 
 A man at the gate was impatient for admit¬ 
 tance. The delayed response annoyed him. 
 He rang more sharply. Surprise succeeded 
 irritation, and anger both, as his summons 
 still remained unanswered. With an oath, he 
 pulled the gong again. Its dismal clatter died 
 away unheeded as before. 
 
 Puzzled and enraged, the stranger sought 
 some means of scaling the tall iron fence. 
 
 It was evident he had come on business that' 
 was pressing, for his movements were decided 
 and alert. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 49 
 
 He noticed that the gate to the adjoining 
 grounds was open and the wall between the 
 garden of the villa and its neighbor of only 
 medium height. With a hasty glance about 
 him, to see if he were watched, he hurried 
 through the neighboring gateway. With a 
 cat’s agility, he passed the barrier of brick, 
 and striding to the house, sought entrance at 
 the front and rear without success. 
 
 Finally he climbed a trellis work leading to 
 a window at the top of the veranda. 
 
 He was greeted by a joyful bay from the 
 waiting hound, who plainly knew the resolute 
 intruder. Attracted by this rejoicing, he hur¬ 
 ried to the window of the room,—where primal 
 innocence lay powerless to escape the desecrat¬ 
 ing stare of vulgar eyes. 
 
 After warding off the animal’s too demon¬ 
 strative caresses, he was about to vault into the 
 chamber when, his glance falling on the bed, 
 he paused, rooted to the spot. 
 
50 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 For a minute he gazed stupefied, then re¬ 
 covering his faculties, he burst into a loud and 
 ribald laugh. 
 
 The revolting vocal insult was checked by 
 some malevolent inspiration, which doubtless 
 pleased him, for with a malicious smile, he 
 quickly drew a packet from his pocket and 
 flung it at the priest. 
 
 The dreamer started, turned, and, not even 
 yet fully aroused from his anomalistic cerebra¬ 
 tions, he flung his arm across the bosom of his 
 comatose companion. 
 
 The malefic spy greeted the guileless Father’s 
 action with a coarse guffaw, and then descend¬ 
 ing as he came, in haste, he ran through the 
 gateway—which he could open from within— 
 and slamming its iron grating, with manifest 
 contempt, he strode swiftly toward the “ Bois,” 
 his brain alert with pitiless determination. 
 
 As he rushed on, he was stopped by a stri- 
 dant voice, crying : 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 51 
 
 ‘ 1 Pouska ! Pouska ! ’ ’ 
 
 Turning he saw a coupe held up abruptly in 
 the middle of the street. A woman was just 
 alighting. He recognized her. She ran 
 toward him. He increased his pace. The 
 woman shouted : 
 
 “Stay! Madame is dying! Dead, per¬ 
 haps ! ’ ’ 
 
 Pouska langhed back : 
 
 ‘ * By my faith ! A new name for the old 
 sin. I shall remember it, Clarisse ! ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Come back, and see. ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ I have seen ! A sight to make the devil 
 blush ! ’ ’ 
 
 “ Come back, I say ! Monsieur de Vaugar 
 must know. ’ ■ 
 
 With a frightful oath, Pouska shouted in 
 return : 
 
 “Ho! Don’t fear ! He shall know !’’ 
 
 Quickly turning the corner, the mocker dis- 
 app -..red. 
 
52 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HUMIRATION MOST ABJECTEY HUMAN. 
 
 Cearisse looked into space—dumbfounded. 
 
 A strong hand fell upon her shoulder, a 
 stern voice saying: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Come ! come !—be quick ! ’ ’ 
 
 “ At once—Monsieur.” 
 
 The woman had returned. She unlocked 
 the gate, and hurriedly led the way. As she 
 neared the house, she stopped in the path be¬ 
 fore the porch, exclaiming with a shudder : 
 
 * ‘ Ah God ! how still it is ! ” 
 
 The doctor, realizing the peril of delay, 
 shouted with impatience : 
 
 “ Open, at once ! ” 
 
 The woman obeyed. 
 
 If the inteiloper’s blow had slain the somni- 
 pathist, he might have had good reason to be 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 53 
 
 grateful to him who struck it. As it was, it 
 awoke him to a life which w T as forever changed 
 by the unfolding of events that followed. 
 
 Fate, Providence, Nature, accident—which¬ 
 ever one may choose to call it—played wanton 
 work with the consciousness of this singular 
 character. 
 
 The velocity of cerebral energy, as the brain 
 passes from its unconsciousness into its con¬ 
 scious activity, is incalculably great. 
 
 Between the precise second when Ambrose 
 Bonnard was struck by the package of the spy, 
 and the arrival of the doctor, there could not 
 have elapsed more than five minutes, and yet, 
 during that little time he had lived through an 
 age of asomatous emotions. 
 
 The first sense, he afterwards remembered, 
 impressed him, .simply, with a meaningless 
 repose. 
 
 Gradually he felt himself evironed by a glor¬ 
 ious, golden mist. An ethereal, delicious, 
 
54 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ardor penetrated every pore. Delicate vibra¬ 
 tions glided through his flesh—deepening into 
 pulses he failed to understand—strengthening 
 into throbbings that drenched his .soul with 
 rapturous sense. 
 
 Seraphic music rose through long crescendo 
 measures into resonance divine, then swept, 
 fading, into silence quivering with supernal 
 peace. Peace, where self—by self-extinction 
 —found self-perfection in the Un-self—God. 
 
 He had found the Ever. The other was 
 the None. That dim memory the phantom, 
 whose delusions Almightyness designed to 
 make All-lovingness more clear. 
 
 A fresh phase supervened. 
 
 In this realm of the Reconciled—the Nirv¬ 
 ana of the Vedas—another life than his, yet 
 one most wholly his, grew out of his, and took 
 form besides him. This life held him in a 
 folding intimate and chaste ; wrought a sweet 
 entrancement that flooded every faculty with 
 infinity of force. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 55 
 
 Ages—eons—passed, and yet this permeating 
 union grew more absolute and strong ; expand¬ 
 ing into delectations more unbounded and 
 complete. 
 
 Alas ! to Entities yet earthly even Eternity 
 hath an end. 
 
 Such Archangelic joys only the consumated 
 manhood of Celestial essence could endure. 
 
 His paradise was shattered by a shock of 
 of phrensied bliss. 
 
 Felicity passed into transport—transport 
 into ecstacy where agony became delight— 
 culminating in a spasm transcendant, sove¬ 
 reign, supreme. 
 
 Omnipotence throbbed through every fibre ! 
 
 Was he the atom—becoming the All ? 
 
 Was he the man—absorbing God ? 
 
 Had the colossal throe of Time arrived ? 
 
 Was this the Ultimate Consummation ? 
 
 No ! it was annihilation—the return to non¬ 
 existence. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 56 
 
 A tornado of horror succeeded the beatific 
 serenity of Nirvana grace. 
 
 The immeasurable spaces were falling apart! 
 
 The eternal ages were shrinking, backward, 
 into one obliterating flash of worthless time. 
 
 Monstrous absurdity ! 
 
 A stupendous illusion ; begotten by the last 
 mental paroxysm which occurs when the indi¬ 
 vidual is torn from the Universal, and sweeps 
 from a completely spiritual into a partially 
 physical state of existence. 
 
 A mighty convulsion rent the very founda¬ 
 tions of his being, and ,then, with a great sob, 
 like the cry of the new born, the somnipathist 
 fell into physical—that is self-consciousness. 
 
 He was cast from Eternity into time ;—from 
 the Elemental, and the Real into the formal, 
 and the phantasmal;—from Heaven to earth 
 —the only abode of Hell. 
 
 The crash, of this prodigious antithesis, 
 stunned him. He lay dazed, panting, trembling, 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 57 
 
 prostrate, weak, and—for a second—helpless 
 as a babe at its first breath. 
 
 For a little span the priest abandoned him¬ 
 self to that false sense of well-being which 
 weakness feels in rest. 
 
 Presently his body began to tingle with a 
 subtle influx of new force. His contact with 
 the living he did not yet perceive, but the 
 polar principle of nature wrought its puissant 
 work. His nervous centres soon were loaded 
 with a potency bewildering to the simple man. 
 He mistook this elemental movement for some 
 miraculous presence, pervading him in order 
 to preserve the child. He was lost in gratitude 
 for the benignant visitation, when he was 
 suddenly transfixed, by a dread suspicion. 
 
 Had the corpse breathed ? 
 
 He could not move. He dared not open his 
 eyes. He lay shivering from head to foot with 
 smothering emotions, the cause of which he 
 was too dazed to faintly comprehend. 
 
58 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 A soft sigh stirred the air. 
 
 He stiffened with an awful fear! 
 
 ‘ ‘ Leo—Leo—Leo! ’ ’ 
 
 This name, whispered weakly, but in tender- 
 est tones, floated through the room. 
 
 It stung every faculty of the holy father into 
 tumultuous life. His eyes stared. He turned 
 —glared at the body—and started from it wdth 
 a scream of horror. 
 
 “ My God it lives! ” 
 
 To the ignorant servant the dead had 
 become an “it.” To the superstitious ascetic, 
 
 k 
 
 the living fell into a neuter—far more absolute 
 than death. 
 
 With deep moans of anguish he shrank 
 beside the bed—crushed beneath a morbid 
 shame. 
 
 He—the celibate—had violated his most 
 sacred vows—had clasped the carnal—been 
 invaded by its fiendish fire—been polluted by 
 its passional poison—been quickened by its 
 quivering quintessence! 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 59 
 
 The sin of sins—and woe of woes was his! 
 
 With throes of spirit—no common clod can 
 comprehend—this angelic victim of ascetic 
 craze, grovelled, groaning, on the floor. 
 
 The hound lapped his naked feet with 
 sympathetic cries, unconsciously performing 
 the most touching sacrament. 
 
 An audacity that was divine had wrought 
 humiliation most abjectly human, upon the 
 stern believer in the sin of sex. 
 
 The creed-crushed man thought God less 
 
 tender than a dog. 
 
 Surely there was more of the Christ in the 
 sympathetic tongue of the hound than in the 
 theistic teachings of the monk! 
 
6o 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A CRUSHING CREED. 
 
 The shame of the anchorite cut him adrift 
 from all hope; plunged him into the bottom¬ 
 less pit of an appalling despair. The foul 
 falsehoods, which had been deeply implanted 
 in the impressionable nature of the child, now 
 agonized the man with the conviction that he 
 had committed that awful, mysterious, inex¬ 
 plicable, but eternally blighting, act—“the 
 unpardonable sin. ’ * 
 
 How many of the noblest and most innocent 
 of human beings have been driven into Bedlam 
 by this diabolic idea; a conception of priestly 
 cunning, intended to terrorize the race, and 
 force from the fears of men the tribute essential 
 to keep alive the wrecking rule of the self- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 61 
 
 elected middleman—of a wretched man-made, 
 God! 
 
 The treachery of Judas to Jesus was a saintly 
 deed, compared to the betrayal of the Christ 
 which ecclesiasticism has perpetrated for cen¬ 
 turies, by the propagation of this crafty lie. 
 
 Why should God devise a sin of whose 
 nature he kept men completely ignorant, and 
 yet for whose unconscious, and unintentional 
 commission He could provide no saving 
 pardon ? 
 
 And yet, many of the most brilliant minds 
 in Christendom have been so overthrown, by 
 the persistent repetition to their childhood of 
 this dastard doctrine, that they have not only 
 accepted this colossal insult to God’s decency, 
 but have become such moral cowards that they 
 dared not discuss the mystery, for fear they 
 should, thereby, unwittingly commit the sin. 
 
 What iniquitous audacity to heap such horror 
 upon a helpless, and long-trusting humanity! 
 
62 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 What a heartless requital of its unquestion¬ 
 ing confidence! 
 
 What a crime of crimes to proclaim—in the 
 hallowed name of the meek messenger of 
 absolute and boundless I y ove—a doctrine whose 
 perfection of cruelty the most demoniac and 
 artful hatred could not possibly surpass. 
 
 i{c 
 
 The sound of footsteps, upon the path out¬ 
 side, checked the torments of the self-accused. 
 
 Some one at the lower door, thundered: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Open at once! ’ ’ 
 
 The priest recognized the doctor’s voice. In 
 an instant he was thrilled by a resurrecting 
 thought; the dazzling light of a divine hope 
 flooded the dark abyss of his despair! 
 
 How magnificent such a mercy, to send such 
 an inspiration to his shame! 
 
 The sin might not be the pardonless mon¬ 
 strosity he feared. 
 
 He dared to hope, for Heaven had shown 
 him a long and cruel process of purgation. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 63 
 
 This was the penance his self-contempt pre¬ 
 scribed. 
 
 The doctor and the peasant were at hand. 
 They should witness his iniquity. They should 
 behold his nakedness, and cover him with 
 contempt. They should drive him forth, an 
 outcast, forever, from the love or confidence of 
 men. A desolate life time of martyrdom to 
 scorn and contumely, might atone for his 
 criminal forgetfulness of the vileness of human 
 flesh. 
 
 All perception of the noble motive that had 
 spurred him to his act was buried, beneath his 
 mad horror at the carnal touch. He believed 
 that touch had stirred into fury the polluting 
 flames of hell. Nothing less than long years 
 of human loathing could purge him from their 
 taint. 
 
 The door below was opening; all his hopes 
 of happiness on earth were on the verge of 
 irreparable destruction. 
 
6 4 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 A less heroic will than this would have 
 recoiled, cringing and terrified, from this 
 approaching ruin. He—on the contrary— 
 rose with a cry of gratitude—stood erect- 
 naked—in an attitude of fearless triumph— 
 waiting to welcome the stings, the taunts, the 
 revilings, which were to cleanse him from his 
 sin. 
 
 How magnificent his presence as he loomed 
 in that broad light, with leonine dignity! The 
 head of an apostle, upon the form of an Apollo! 
 The transfigured face of a saint, shining with 
 the radiant beauty of self annihilation, above 
 the lithe and superb body of an athlete! 
 
 What a glorious sire of a glorious race he 
 might have been, but for the vicious views of 
 nature’s virtue! This sublime union of animal 
 force and divine affection, sought to be loathed, 
 despised, execrated, by the fellow mortals 
 whom he loved so truly, and for whose salva- 
 he would willingly have suffered unutterable 
 pangs. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 65 
 
 Footsteps were flying up the stairs! 
 
 Oh! monstrous price of mercy—for the 
 tender crime of love! monstrous creed that 
 exacts it! 
 
 Oh sycophantic fear!—that sues for or 
 accepts, the lightest favor of such a friend! 
 
 And yet Ambrose the hero-hearted—was the 
 prey of this crushing creed! 
 
66 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HUMAN AFFECTION AND FIENDISH FAITH. 
 
 EET us hold on to time, and turn the pages 
 back. 
 
 When Clarisse finally succeeded in reaching 
 Eefort, she broke into superabundant excla¬ 
 mations. 
 
 “ On sir ! don’t let it grow too late ! Hurry ! 
 Something horrible has happened ! He says 
 you must come, and come quickly ! ’ * 
 
 “ Who’s he? ” growled the doctor. 
 
 “It’s Father Ambrose, and he told me— ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ That’s enough ! I’ll go with you at once. ’ ’ 
 
 The doctor knew the zealous slave of sor¬ 
 row well, and never failed to respond, most 
 promptly, to all of his appeals. He ordered 
 his coachman to drive to his house, and entered 
 his carriage with Clarisse, 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 6 7 
 
 Once at home he speedily secured a large 
 valise of medicines and lances,—then hastened 
 to the villa. Long as it took to arrive, and 
 carefully as he questioned the servant, he 
 failed to draw anything from her which could 
 help him to conjecture the character of the* 
 case he was about to undertake. 
 
 Two facts, alone, were obvious. 
 
 First—some extraordinary calamity had oc¬ 
 curred. 
 
 Second—a .suspicious mystery, involving 
 either misfortune, crime, or both, was con¬ 
 nected with this occurrence. 
 
 Mystery, however, was no affair o£ his. 
 
 For misfortune the Priest. 
 
 For crime—the Police. 
 
 For calamity—the Leech. 
 
 The last, only, belonged to him. He would 
 cope with that shortly, but would not permit 
 any other possibilities to disturb him in the 
 least. 
 
68 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Little did he imagine, as he hastened to that 
 stranger’s house, how absorbing this mystery, 
 with its grief and crime, was to become. Lit¬ 
 tle did he suppose that its abnormal features 
 were to open a new realm of thought to him, 
 and to lead to the investigations of facts, 
 which were destined, ultimately, to startle the 
 scientific world. 
 
 As Lefort entered the villa, he was greeted 
 by Bonnard’s cry of welcome to the coming 
 sliame, on which he dared to count for the sal¬ 
 vation of his soul. While the doctor failed to 
 recognize the voice of his young friend, his 
 practiced ear detected, instantly, the discord¬ 
 ant tint of madness in the tones that startled 
 him. 
 
 Clarisse stood stunned, still holding the 
 door open. 
 
 The doctor—slinging the .surgical case sus¬ 
 pended at his side from his shoulder—ex¬ 
 claimed ! 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 69 
 
 “What’s that?” 
 
 “I don’t know sir.” Replied Clarisse, 
 shuddering. 
 
 “That was a madman’s voice.” Muttered 
 the physician to himself. 
 
 The unnerved female heard him, and, over¬ 
 powered by the long continued agitation of the 
 day, burst into lamentations. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Saints save us ! What more ? Is there 
 no end to this ? Has the Tord no mercy ? ’ ’ 
 
 “Where is the sufferer? Interrupted the 
 surgeon, sternly. “Cease these cries, and 
 answer, or I will leave the house at once. ’ ’ 
 
 Cowed by his manner, and terrified at the 
 idea of his desertion, the maid turned, half 
 fainting, to the stairway, and crept, with 
 blanched face and tremulous reluctance up the 
 stairs. 
 
 As Tefort followed her, his thoughts came 
 thick and fast. Had there been murder here ? 
 Was it the work of a maniac ? Was he still at 
 
70 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 large, and waiting for another victim ? They 
 reached the landing. The woman paused, as¬ 
 tonished to find the hallway empty. 
 
 “ Go on. What now? ” asked the doctor, 
 rendered uneasy in spite of himsel by his own 
 reflections, and the fear-ridden hesitations of 
 the girl. 
 
 Clarisse, moving forward, said, with bated 
 breath : 
 
 “ They’re gone ! ” 
 
 The words had scarcely fallen from her lips, 
 when Tefort, for the first time in his life, felt 
 the touch ot terror. 
 
 As Clarisse arrived in front of the chamber 
 door she threw up her hands, with a frantic 
 scream, and fell senseless. The doctor rushed 
 forward to lift her up ; the door of the bed¬ 
 room was shut with a terrific bang ; the sound 
 of a key turning in the lock was heard, and 
 a voice of hopeless misery from within, 
 moaned out these puzzling words : 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 71 
 
 “No no! Damnation first! Damnation 
 forever !’’ 
 
 As the priest stood, eager to greet ignominy, 
 and grateful for disgrace,—courting a martyr¬ 
 dom which God alone could recognize, and 
 which man would be sure to regard with ridic¬ 
 ule, or scorn,—a thought flashed through his 
 brain which made redemption for himself ap¬ 
 pear an infamy. 
 
 While awaiting the curse of the coming 
 servant, and the revolt of his dearest friend, 
 
 his eyes fell upon the bed. The sight of that 
 still unconscious beauty, reminded him that 
 his humiliation would befoul her name, and 
 blast the life which Providence might yet per¬ 
 mit her to live upon this earth. This thought 
 cut him to his spirit’s core. Its agony awoke 
 that comiseration for others which is the surest 
 sign of oneness with God. 
 
 Just as Clarisse appeared in front of the 
 chamber door, the priest’s face was frightfully 
 
7 2 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 distorted by the torture of an excruciating 
 spiritual pang. 
 
 The sight of that face struck the superstiti¬ 
 ous servant to the floor. 
 
 Before the doctor could discover him, Bon¬ 
 nard sprang to the door, closed it with lighten¬ 
 ing velocity, and cried, out of the vast depths 
 of his Christ-like heart: 
 
 ‘ ‘ No no ! Damnation first! Damnation 
 forever ! ’ ’ 
 
 The thought of the abandoned mother had 
 converted the martyr into a man. 
 
 A precious, human affection—had balked a 
 fiendish faith. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A SOUE FOR A SOUE. 
 
 Everything occurred so quickly, and with 
 such an inexplicable mystery, that even the 
 ready Eefort was at; fault. 
 
 Trained rationalist as he was, for a moment 
 his imagination got the better of his judgement. 
 
 He had only heard from Clarisse of her 
 mistress; now he realized the horrible truth. 
 The husband was a maniac ; he had fatally 
 injured his wife, and probably murdered the 
 priest. 
 
 Yes, it was the sight of the monster, covered 
 with the blood of his last victim, that had de¬ 
 prived the servant of her senses. All this 
 was as clear to him as though he had been the 
 witness of both crimes. He saw the insane 
 
74 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 assassin, knife in hand, reeking with blood, 
 and believed it was only a question of a few 
 minutes—seconds perhaps—when the madman 
 would appear and attack whomever he might 
 see. 
 
 For his own safety he had no concern, for he 
 felt that confidence in his own prowess which 
 the intrepid always possess. 
 
 For the helpless creature on the floor he ex¬ 
 perienced the liveliest anxiety. He dared 
 not desert her to secure assistance. 
 
 What should he do ? 
 
 He paused an instant in deep reflection, and 
 then, with an impatient toss of the head which 
 said, “there’s no use! It must be done!’’ 
 he raised and threw the .servant, with the ease 
 of an athlete, over his shoulder and started 
 down the stairs, intending to bear his burden 
 to the safety of the street. 
 
 He reached the hallway below and had his 
 hand upon the knob of the front door, when a 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 75 
 
 voice said, in a tone of the most imperative 
 authority : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Come back ! ’ * 
 
 Lefort flung open the door, standing with 
 every nerve braced for flight, and asked : 
 
 “Who calls ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ I ! Father Ambrose ! ’ ’ sternly replied 
 the voice. 
 
 He did not recognize in the tense tones that 
 reached him, the tender voice of the kindly 
 man whose devotion to suffering had so com¬ 
 pletely conquered his materialistic aversion to 
 the priest. 
 
 The experienced doctor, knowing the cun¬ 
 ning of mania, believed the use of the priest’s 
 name a ruse on the part of the maniac, to en¬ 
 tice him into danger. 
 
 Withdrawing the key of the front door from 
 the inside, he shouted loudly, so as to drown 
 any sound his action might produce. 
 
 “Very good. I will be with you in a mo¬ 
 ment. ’ * 
 
76 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 He was thrusting the key into the lock, 
 preparatory to closing and fastening the door 
 from the outside, when the voice cried out 
 nearer and louder : 
 
 “You must come at once! there’s not an 
 instant to lose ! ’ ’ 
 
 The physician looked up. 
 
 Upon a landing of the stairway stood the 
 priest, in his long, impressive, black frock, 
 with an air so terrible and commanding that it 
 was difficult to recognize, in the majestic fig¬ 
 ure, the meek and lowly priest who had passed 
 so long unnoted by the world. 
 
 Uefort was astounded. All his suppositions 
 were at fault. The mystery was more per¬ 
 plexing than ever. Gazing nonplussed at 
 Bonnard, he exclaimed : 
 
 “ In the name of Heaven, what’s going on 
 here ? 5 * 
 
 The clergyman coming down the stairway, 
 said coldly : 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 77 
 
 ‘ ‘ Rescue first. Explanation later. ’ ’ 
 
 Then, seeing the searching expression with 
 which the doctor regarded him, he continued 
 quickly, fixing his eyes on Clarisse : 
 
 ‘ ‘ I will help you. We will lay her yonder, ’ ’ 
 pointing, through a curtained archway into a 
 room at one side. 
 
 Without another word, the two men bore 
 the servant into a most inviting boudoir, and 
 laid her upon a Turkish lounge. 
 
 “Is she hurt?” asked the priest anxiously. 
 
 No. It’s a trival case of syncope. Lay her 
 head lower. There, like that. She’ll recover 
 presently of herself. ’ ’ 
 
 “Then follow quickly,” said the Ecclesi¬ 
 astic, turning and striding up the stairs with 
 impatient haste. 
 
 The doctor kept at the priest’s heels, eager 
 for a solution of the enigma that had tor¬ 
 mented him so long. 
 
 He had been struck by the curate’s counten¬ 
 
 ance. 
 
73 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Something out of the ordinary must have 
 happened to have produced so marked a 
 change. An expression of inflexible hardness 
 had taken the place of the gentle serenity, 
 which he had always seen, even under the most 
 trying circumstances, upon the pastor’s patient 
 face. 
 
 As they reached the side of the bed in the 
 chamber above, Ambrose, pointing at the fair 
 unconsciousness upon the pillow, moaned, 
 with an unearthly emphasis : ‘ ‘ The dead has 
 
 been raised at the cost of a soul ! There’s a 
 soul to save though a life be lost!” 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ‘ ‘ WHICH OF THE TWO ? ’ ’ 
 
 Eefort glanced with quick intensity at 
 Bonnard’s face. 
 
 What he saw there piqued his curiosity and 
 puzzled his impatient mind. 
 
 The priest was manifestly much disturbed ; 
 far more indeed than was natural unless he 
 had some personal stake at issue in this house, 
 of which he never yet had hinted, even to 
 him, his nearest friend. 
 
 However, Lefort never sought a confidence. 
 Doubtless at the right moment the confiding 
 man would tell him all. Meantime his im¬ 
 mediate duty was to the half living girl, who, 
 in some peculiar way, was the cause of the 
 young curate’s perturbations. 
 
8o 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Satisfied with this explanation, the doctor 
 tnrned to the task before him and commenced 
 a close examination of what was to prove the 
 most surprising case that had ever reached 
 him during a long and varied career. 
 
 Very brief inquisition aroused the most in¬ 
 tense interest in his scientific mind. 
 
 He saw that he had in hand the treatment 
 of one of those anomalous attacks which break 
 up the monotony of general practice, and open 
 new fields in pathology to the most advanced 
 student of medical art. 
 
 As the investigation proceeded the good man 
 grunted, shook his head, pursed his lips, 
 rubbed his forehead, stroked his chin, and 
 every now and then muttered to himself: 
 
 “Ha! Yes! Humph! I see! Of course! 
 The devil! Incredible! Is it possible ? ’ ’ 
 
 Tucking the clothes about the fair young 
 creature, with a tenderness almost maternal, he 
 exclaimed roughly: 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 8l 
 
 ‘ ‘ L,emaitre must come immediately. ’ ’ 
 
 Bonnard, fixing liis eyes on the motionless 
 form in the bed, inquired: 
 
 “ Well?” 
 
 “ It’s an infernally queer case!” growled 
 L,efort, with his ear at the patient’s waist. 
 The child’s heart is actually stronger than the 
 woman’s, and the confounded little affair beats 
 with a calm and regularity perfectly absurd, 
 considering its parent’s condition. Why, 
 hang it! the mother’s heart is almost silent, 
 though her pulse is quite strong and fully ioo. 
 Her respiration, too, is ridiculously inconsis¬ 
 tent with such a pulse. May I burst if its 
 over eight. ’ ’ 
 
 All this was said with a sort of indignation, 
 as though this irregularity of Nature were an 
 outrage upon his beloved science. 
 
 The priest’s eyes dilated as he learned the 
 strength of the infant’s heart. Looking earn¬ 
 estly at the experienced accoucher, he asked : 
 
82 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “ What’s your decision ?’ 
 
 The curate longed to know what the doctor 
 intended to do regarding those threatened 
 lives. A horrible fear possessed him, and he 
 wished to learn the worst at once. 
 
 The physician, supposing he meant to ques¬ 
 tion him concerning the nature of the com¬ 
 plaint, said: 
 
 “It’s difficult to diagnose correctly. It 
 looks like an acute case of puerperal hysteria.” 
 
 Then, forgetting good manners and the pro¬ 
 fession of his friend, he continued gruffly: 
 
 “ It’s a damned uncertain complaint. Cap¬ 
 ricious, whimsical, irritating! No telling 
 which way it will turn.” 
 
 Putting his hand quickly to his breast 
 pocket he drew out a pad of paper, saying: 
 
 “ I must have assistance. You must go for 
 Temaitre. ’ ’ 
 
 Father Ambrose, by a manifest effort, 
 withdrew his eyes from the patient’s face and 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 83 
 
 gazed steadfastly out of the window. The 
 doctor hastily scribbled the following note: 
 
 My Dear Jacques: Come instantly with Amelie. We shall 
 need her skillful aid. I have a very complicated case of dystocia. 
 
 In the third drawer from the top of my surgical chest you will 
 find the following instruments. 
 
 1 Braun’s Trephine. 
 
 1 Braun’s Cranioclast. 
 
 1 Breisky’s Cephalotribe. 
 
 1 Tarnier’s Basiotribe. 
 
 1 Vectice. 
 
 1 Crotchet, and also my Axis Traction Forceps [Tarnier’s], 
 the longest one. 
 
 We may possibly save both mother and child, but will be 
 lucky if either lives. 
 
 We must be prepared for either embryotomy or the Ceasarian 
 sectiou. I have all the knives necessary for the last operation 
 with me. 
 
 In the closet of my desk you will find a caoutchouc diaphragm, 
 as well as dam and apron. 
 
 Bring a speculum and all the auti-septics, especially the Bi¬ 
 chloride Solution. 
 
 We shall need many sponges and these drugs: 
 
 Chloroform. 
 
 Ether. 
 
 Nitrate of amyl. 
 
 Brandy 
 
 I have all the rest we are likely to require. 
 
 The case is a desperate one, and whatever operation the rela¬ 
 tives may decide upou it is sure to be a long and dangerous one. 
 
 Forget nothing—and hurry—hurry—-hurry ! 
 
 Eefort. 
 
 By the way, you’ll find a Tarnier’s cervical dilator on the shelf 
 in the dispensary. Amelie will know where to find the rubber 
 sheet. 
 
8 4 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 As he completed the writing of these direc¬ 
 tions, the physician held it toward his com¬ 
 panion, commanding him as though he were 
 his servant: 
 
 “ Here ! Be off with this to Jacques !’ 
 
 The priest rose with dignity, and, pointing 
 into the street, said: 
 
 “ Your cab is at the door. Your coachman 
 can take your message.” Then, in a tone of 
 invincible conviction ; ‘ ‘ I must not leave her. ’ ’ 
 
 Tefort glanced searchingly at that sad, set, 
 face then, he started for the door—grumbling : 
 
 “Yes, quite right. Robert will do as well. ’ ’ 
 
 Speeding down the stairs, he hurried out of 
 the house to the garden gate, shouting imper¬ 
 atively to the coachman as he handed him the 
 note: 
 
 ‘ ‘ To Monsieur Temaitre ! Tike lightening ! 
 Tell Mademoiselle Amelie to come prepared 
 for the worst, and hurry back with both of 
 them.” 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 85 
 
 Robert, seizing the paper, sprang upon the 
 seat of his cab, crying : 
 
 “Very well, Monsieur ! ” and started his 
 horse on a wild run. 
 
 “ That’s right! ” howled the doctor, after 
 him —‘ 4 drive for your very life ! ’ ’ 
 
 The cab tore round the corner. The surg¬ 
 eon re-entered the house. 
 
 He found Clarisse, leaning against the side 
 of the curtained archway, watching him with 
 distended eyes and a blanched face. 
 
 His absorption, in a far more pressing attack 
 than hers, had led the medical practitioner to 
 forget the servant. She had recovered, as he 
 knew she would, without extraneous help, but 
 he saw that she was unnerved, and weak, from 
 fear. Her aid was important. He must 
 brace her up and awaken her energies in the 
 interest of her mistress. 
 
 .She was a woman—therefore she had a heart. 
 
 She was a female—therefore fond of flattery. 
 
86 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 An appeal to vanity and affection often con¬ 
 verts the most timid and stupid of women into 
 a heroine! 
 
 He would perform this wonder with Clarisse. 
 
 He began the process in a way that was not 
 long in producing results. 
 
 “ Ha ! My good women,” he cried, cheer¬ 
 ily, “ thank Heaven ! you’re all right at last. 
 Now I have you to help me, I fear nothing.” 
 
 ” But Monsieur-” 
 
 ” There, there ! I know what you’re going 
 to say ! You’re ignorant; you don’t know 
 how to help ; and yet I’ll warrant you’re a lit¬ 
 tle lionness, and full of brains.” 
 
 ‘ * Oh Monsieur ! ’ ’ 
 
 The dulcet dose was already doing its brac¬ 
 ing work. 
 
 “No protests ! I see a strong, brave, 
 heart looking through those great, big, beauti¬ 
 ful eyes of yours. I’d stake my life, that you 
 love your mistress.” 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 87 
 
 “ Oh indeed I do ! ” exclaimed Clarisse, 
 advancing—earnestly. ‘ ‘ Is she alive ? Can 
 she be saved ?” cried the now energetic girl. 
 
 “ Bravo ! I was right. You are a kind, 
 courageous soul, and will wake up and work 
 like a slave to save a life. ’ ’ 
 
 “ Oh ! for that, yes ! Wear my fingers off, 
 anything ! ’ * 
 
 This was said with such genuine enthusiasm 
 that the doctor was delighted. 
 
 “God bless you, child ! The life of your 
 mistress is trembling in the balance. With all 
 my skill, I can do nothing without you. May 
 I count on you?” 
 
 The girl clasped his hand violently in both 
 of hers, and exclaimed passionately : 
 
 “Yes—to the last breath in my body !’’ 
 
 The marvel was achieved; the apparently 
 dull and timorous girl, had become an alert, 
 intelligent, determined woman, ready for the 
 most heroic deeds. 
 
88 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The doctor, exultant, cried : 
 
 “ Follow me ! We will save her now, sure!” 
 
 He was half way up the stairs, when his 
 progress was again arrested by the capricious 
 weakening of Clarisse. 
 
 “One moment, Monsieur!” cried the 
 girl stopping resolutely, with her hand on the 
 newel-post of the bannisters. “I can not, 
 dare not go up there !” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Of what are you afraid ? J ’ 
 
 The woman blurted out: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Of that devil ! ’’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ What devil ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ The horrible naked monster I saw in 
 Madame’s room, just now.” 
 
 Moments were too precious to be wasted in 
 reasoning with such superstitious folly. He 
 must use heroic measures; crush, not coax 
 her fears. With this conviction the physician 
 stared at Clarisse, with penetrating sternness in 
 his eyes. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 89 
 
 “ L,ook you, young woman ! I’m not to be 
 trifled with. There is no devil here, only an 
 angel at the point of death, whom you prom¬ 
 ised to help keep on earth. This nonsense 
 must end. Are you the brave heart I believed 
 you, or only a poor, puling fool, who is terri¬ 
 fied at some silly bugaboo born of her own 
 brain ? ’ ’ 
 
 This speech accomplished its purpose. The 
 girl, with a sudden impatient twist of her 
 body, started up the stairway, saying : 
 
 “Go on, Monsieur. I’ve been an idiot! 
 Hereafter I’ll try to be of use.” 
 
 “Good!” cried Tefort, bounding up the 
 steps like a boy, “ now to work ! ’’ 
 
 They hurried into “ Madame’s room.’’ 
 
 The priest was seated near the bed, with his 
 elbows on his knees, supporting his face in his 
 hands. As the doctor returned, he lifted his 
 head. Clarisse fell back a step with a half 
 suppressed, involuntary cry, looking at Am- 
 
90 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 brose, who rose with the blush of a maiden on 
 his cheeks, and walked to the window. The 
 physician’s quick eye saw this mutual embar¬ 
 rassment, but impatient at anything causing 
 more delay, he said angrily, to the servant: 
 
 ‘ ‘ What now ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ Nothing, Monsieur. What am I to do? ” 
 nervously questioned the girl. 
 
 “ Find a night dress for Madame, take it to 
 the kitchen, heat it as hot as possible, wrap it 
 in a blanket, and return fast as you can.” 
 
 Clarisse flew to the closet, caught a garment 
 from a hook, and hurried from the room. As 
 her steps were heard upon the stairs, the cur¬ 
 ate greeted the doctor with an appealing cry : 
 
 “In the name of pity end this atrocious 
 suspense ! Tell me what is to be done ! ’ ’ 
 
 “ It is not for me to decide.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Who then ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ The husband.” 
 
 ‘ ‘She has none, ’ * 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 91 
 
 Tefort turned quickly. 
 
 Bonnard, horrified at this inadvertant be¬ 
 trayal of the truth, flushed, and stammered : 
 
 “ I mean that—that—he’s not here.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Where is he ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t know.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Can we reach him ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ Not at present.” 
 
 The physician, growing pale, asked anx¬ 
 iously : 
 
 ‘ ‘ And the other relatives ? ’ ’ 
 
 The priest bowed his head, murmuring : 
 
 “I have reason to believe that none are 
 near. ’ ’ 
 
 1 ‘ Great God ! Must I decide then ? ’ ’ 
 shouted the doctor, scowling at his patient. 
 
 “ I don’t understand,” muttered the priest, 
 aghast with a painful suspicion. 
 
 The surgeon pointed at the bed and said in 
 a hoarse voice : 
 
 “Those two lives yonder are at stake. I 
 
92 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 can save but one. It is for the husband to de¬ 
 cide which shall be sacrificed. He cannot be 
 consulted. Delay is death to both. Do you 
 understand now ? ’ ’ 
 
 The curate wrung his hands with a pathetic 
 misery, the extremity of which imcomphre- 
 hensible to the worried witness of the scene. 
 Suddenly, Ambrose threw up his arms; fell on 
 his knees at the side of the bed, and cried 
 aloud in agony : 
 
 “ Merciful Christ ! Which of these prec¬ 
 ious lives can our weak hearts condemn ? ’ * 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 “how evidence can die.” 
 
 Ambrose, broken and exhausted by the 
 storm of emotion which had swept through his 
 ardent being for so long, buried his face in the 
 clothes of the young girl, and sobbed with the 
 uncontrollable passion of a child. That divine 
 paroxysm of the spirit which he suffered at the 
 possibility of eternal pain to either of these 
 living ones, with whom he had just passed 
 through such a strange and binding experi¬ 
 ence, can only be fully understood by a heart 
 in rapport with the boundless compassion 
 which cried to God from Calvary : ‘ ‘ Father 
 forgive them for they know not what they do !” 
 
 Even the doctor, benevolent and brainy as 
 he was, mistook the misery of the priest,— 
 which was really due to the vast power and 
 
94 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 capacity of his love,—for the weakness of 
 madness, or of a secret sin. He was terribly 
 right. He was fearfully wrong! Here, in¬ 
 deed was madness ; here indeed was sin. But 
 the able physician with all his science, was in¬ 
 capable of diagnosing the real nature of these 
 calamities in their connection with the excep¬ 
 tional man whose prostration perplexed him so 
 much. The madness of the honest Ambrose 
 was of that crushing kind which must, inevit¬ 
 ably, be developed when a great, humane, 
 heart believes, with absolute faith, in the 
 diabolical doctrine of eternal hell. 
 
 What did Lefort, the shrewd son of science, 
 the brilliant student of human nature, see in 
 the actions of Ambrose ? 
 
 This intellectual man of the world saw, in 
 what was really the result of the divinest inner 
 life, only the proof that Bonnard was that 
 most depraved of spiritual monsters—a hypo¬ 
 crite. To him the priest’s sobs were simply 
 
FATHKR AMBROSE. 
 
 95 
 
 an unrestrained expression of regret at the 
 prospect of a personal loss. 
 
 This marvelously lovely girl had been the 
 victim of the recreant ecclesiastic’s passion; this 
 doomed child, as yet unborn, was the offspring 
 of the sworn celibate’s secret sin ; of the Phar¬ 
 isaical pietist’s hidden sensuality. To the sci¬ 
 entist the saint had suddenly become the 
 meanest of sinners. With a sagacity highly 
 gratifying to his own amour propre, this wise 
 master of the science of man recalled, and 
 placed in a most denouncing order, all the 
 evidence which his quick observation had col¬ 
 lected of the truth of his conclusion. 
 
 This evidence took the following form: 
 First—the fact that he had been summoned by 
 Bonnard himself; the wild cries that greeted 
 him as he entered the house ; the peculiar se¬ 
 cretiveness and hesitation of Clarisse ; her sud¬ 
 den senselessness; the sharp, angry, slam of 
 the chamber door, which could only have been 
 
96 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 made by Ambrose, who, evidently taken by 
 surprise feared the detection of the truth ; the 
 complete change in the priest’s expression ; 
 his air of authority in this house ; his prompt 
 declaration that this mother was not a wife, 
 and his instant stammering attempt to recall 
 this admission. Then there was his embarrass¬ 
 ment before the servant; her suspicious allus¬ 
 ions to ‘ ‘the naked monster in Madame’s room, ’ ’ 
 and finally the man’s overwhelming and mys¬ 
 terious agony. 
 
 Yes—it was as clear as the sun upon a cloud¬ 
 less day. There was but one explanation of 
 this extraordinary series of suspicious signs. 
 
 The young mother was the curate’s mistress. 
 
 The servant had discovered his shameful 
 secret, and he had still enough of decency to 
 blush in her presence. 
 
 The sweet face of this girlish maternity, on 
 which nature had placed the seal of so singular 
 a purity, had been polluted by the caresses of 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 97 
 
 a paramour, who was an apostate to his holi¬ 
 est vows. Iyefort saw, reasoned and believed, 
 this damnable hideous untruth. 
 
 Such is the facility with which the cleverest 
 minds, and oftentimes the kindest hearts, can 
 arrive at the most false and fearful convictions, 
 from ‘ ‘ trifles light as air. ’ ’ 
 
 Such is the power of appearances. 
 
 Such is the value of mere circumstantial 
 condemnation. 
 
 No wonder slanders succeed so safely and 
 so well; no wonder innocence is crushed so 
 often and with such ease; no wonder real 
 criminals escape, while the guiltless pine in 
 prison, or are coolly murdered by the law! 
 
 Let those who are too ready to believe the 
 worst of their fellow men, remember—how 
 evidence can lie. 
 
9 8 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DOCTOR’S DECISION. 
 
 The doctor’s horrible suspicions took shape 
 and sequence in one-tenth of the time it takes 
 to state them. The first effect of his deceptive 
 conclusion was to arouse a storm of indignant 
 seom- this soon passed off, however, as he 
 witnessed the depth of the priest’s despair, 
 
 ‘ f Nature is stronger than creeds. Passion 
 more potent than piety. These priests are but 
 men, after all, and only the more to be pitied 
 that natural joys are denied them by the cor¬ 
 rupting conventions of clerical life.” Thus 
 musing he opened his medicine case, obtained 
 from it a powerful preparation of Ignatia, and 
 proceeded to mix it with water in a glass. 
 
 The afflicted victim of superstition arose. 
 
father Ambrose. 
 
 99 
 
 His pent up tide of anguish had broken loose 
 and poured out its seething force in tears, 
 What new tests of his faith and fortitude were 
 coming he neither knew nor cared. He be¬ 
 lieved himself resigned to bear any further 
 pang that providence might permit. He was 
 soon to realize how far astray his calculations 
 of his own endurance were. 
 
 Defort, abruptly jarring with his heavy hand 
 the now listless father, extended a glass before 
 him, and said, brutally: “ Drink that! ” 
 
 Bonnard’s lids quivered, then his cleared 
 eyes sought those of his companion in pathe¬ 
 tic surprise. He was vaguely conscious of 
 some antagonism which he could not explain. 
 Defort, scowling, averted his face. 
 
 Ambrose drank in silence, with the meelk 
 docility of a child who scornfully repents some 
 unintentional offense to a friend. When he 
 had drained the glass, he handed it back, 
 glancing appealingly at his old comrade, who 
 
IOO 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 unceremoniously snatched the goblet and 
 passed at once to a dressing room, the door of 
 which stood half open between the window 
 and the bed. It seemed to the sore conscience 
 of the ascetic, as though the doctor in some 
 mysterious way, had learned of his pardonless 
 sin. Feeling the lassitude of a hopeless resig¬ 
 nation, he leaned against the wall at the head 
 of the bed, and turned, with the dumb instinct 
 of some friendless brute, toward the one face 
 in this wide world where he felt sure he should 
 find no sign or shadow of reproach. An al¬ 
 most intimate fellowship seemed in some subtle 
 way to be growing between the deserted and 
 himself. 
 
 Both of them were doomed; she to death; he 
 to damnation. 
 
 As he looked at this mate of his misery, a 
 healthier tint appeared upon her cheeks. His 
 heart leapt with a wild delight. She was 
 growing stronger! Might not the doctor be 
 wrong ? Why should not both be saved ? 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. IOt 
 
 Trembling with joy, he was bending closer 
 to assure himself of her increasing strength, 
 when Clarisse, hurrying into the room, stopped 
 short with a gasp of disgust. He looked up. 
 A sickening shame invaded him at the sight of 
 the sneering maid. Humiliation succeeded the 
 spasm of happiness, which for one fleet flash of 
 time he was permitted to enjoy. 
 
 The priest’s eyes fell before the peasant’s. 
 
 A moment’s silence ensued, during which 
 the man’s natural dignity reasserted itself in 
 the face of this female’s fine contempt. He 
 was a sinner—with an eternal stain upon his 
 soul. What then ? God, not man, should con¬ 
 demn. He would gladly have welcomed the 
 bitterest scorn to wipe his sin away, but now, 
 since that was impossible without besmearing 
 the precious innocence of others, he revolted at 
 the insolence of this peasant who presumed 
 to be his judge. These thoughts bred rebel¬ 
 lion in the breast of this self-abasing man. 
 
102 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Looking straight into the eyes of the con¬ 
 temptuous creature before him,his own gleam¬ 
 ing with indignation, he said in tones of aus¬ 
 tere authority: “ Woman to wosk! How dare 
 you stare while she suffers ? ’ ’ 
 
 Clarisse, crushed by the commanding man¬ 
 ner of the priest, cringed instantly, and said 
 with tremulous meekness: “ Pardon Monsieur. 
 I am awaiting the doctor’s commands.” 
 
 These words recalled Ambrose’s hope. Turn¬ 
 ing to the door of the dressing room he said 
 excitedly: ‘ ‘ Lefort! Doctor! ’ ’ 
 
 Before Bonnard could say more, the physi¬ 
 cian appeared, dragging into the room a toilet 
 stand which he had divested of all its parapher¬ 
 nalia, and interrupted the speaker by grumb¬ 
 ling loudly: “ Well, what now? ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ See! The color is growing in her face! ’ ’ 
 “Good!” cried Lefort, placing the dress¬ 
 ing stand in front of the window. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Do you think she can be saved ? ’ ’ asked 
 Ambrose, eagerly. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 103 
 
 ‘ ‘ She shall be saved! ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Thank God! Thank God! ’ ’ exclaimed 
 the priest, lifting his tear-flooded eyes in an 
 ecstacy of gratitude that both should live. 
 
 Had the faithful fanatic remarked the em¬ 
 phasis of the physician his cry of joy would 
 have been checked. As it was, the doctor’s 
 assurance of the mother’s salvation led him to 
 place implicit confidence in the delivery and 
 rescue of the child. Radiant, with the cer¬ 
 tainty that neither would be lost, he sank into 
 a chair at the foot of the bed, every beat of 
 his heart a benediction to the God who had 
 deigned to heed his prayers. 
 
 The delight of the priest was but another 
 confirmation to the doctor of his false conclu¬ 
 sions, and illy prepared him to understand the 
 struggle that was shortly to ensue between 
 them. 
 
 As the surgeon turned from the table toward 
 the bed, he saw that Clarisse was standing 
 
104 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 upon the opposite side with a bundle in her 
 hands and an expression of blank amazement 
 upon her face. 
 
 The commingling of audacity and delight in 
 the priest were too much for her limited capa¬ 
 city to comprehend. The perplexity however 
 was quickly ended by the energetic directions 
 of Tefort. 
 
 “ Ha! Here at last! ” he snarled. “ Is the 
 blanket still warm ? ’ ’ 
 
 “Yes Monsieur.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ And the night dress ? ’ * 
 
 “ Is hot, also, Monsieur.” 
 
 “ Quick! the blanket around her waist, and 
 the dress over her head! ’ ’ 
 
 The hands of the doctor and the servant 
 were speedily busy, clothing the girlish form 
 in the bed. 
 
 While these two were at work Bonnard was 
 lost in silent supplication of the saints, for as¬ 
 sistance in this hour of supreme suspense. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 105 
 
 A horse galloped rapidly to the gate. 
 
 The doctor ran to the window shouting 
 cheerily, as though a dance instead of a dan¬ 
 gerous operation was about to occur. 
 
 “ They’re here! ” 
 
 Turning with animation to Clarisse, he con¬ 
 tinued: 
 
 “ Now my good girl hurry! L,et them in, 
 and bring me two pails of boiling water as fast 
 as you can.” 
 
 The servant, exceedingly agitated as the 
 sinister moment approached, flew from the room. 
 Eefort commenced the final scrutation which 
 was to determine his decision. Amelie, the 
 doctor’s sister and most skillful assistant, now 
 hastily entered. She was followed by L,emai- 
 tre, her brother’s young apprentice, who car¬ 
 ried in his hands a heavy and terrible-looking 
 bag. 
 
 “Well, Earnest?” murmured Amelie, 
 quietly, leaning across the bed. 
 
io6 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Earnest, completing his examination, placed 
 his ear to the patient’s chest. 
 
 “ Heart action somewhat stronger. Pulse 
 about a hundred and eight. Respiration, 
 now, about fifteen. Temperature abnormally 
 low. ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ What are the chances ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ Possibly one in three.” 
 
 “ For both ? ” 
 
 “ No, for one only.” ^ 
 
 ‘ ‘ What have her relatives decided ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ There are none of her relatives here. I 
 am forced to decide between them myself. ’ ’ 
 
 “ And your decision is-” 
 
 ‘‘ Embryotomy,” said the physician, rais¬ 
 ing his head with a white, stern face. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 107 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE. 
 
 While Amelie was questioning her brother, 
 the priest retired to a seat at the further end of 
 the room near a window and watched vacantly, 
 the fast setting sun. The doctor’s decision to 
 destroy the babe did not reach the ascetic’s 
 ears. 
 
 Eemaitre had hurried instinctively to the 
 dressing stand, upon which he was placing the 
 dreadful objects he took from the bag. At the 
 word ‘ ‘ embryotony ’ ’ he turned to his master 
 and asked : ‘ ‘ which process ? ’ ’ 
 
 “The indications demand basiotripsy,’’ 
 was the physician’s firm reply. 
 
 Amelie had already opened the bed upon the 
 further side, and was spreading the rubber 
 
io8 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 sheet. The apprentice raised the basiotribe, 
 which looked liked some relic of the Inquisition, 
 and unscrewing its terrible clamp, opening its 
 crushing jaws, and unmasking its cruel perfor¬ 
 ator, he annointed it for the sacrifice with an 
 antiseptic oil. 
 
 The surgeon drew from his medicine case a 
 set of knives. 
 
 While all this was proceeding, the priest 
 looked on scarcely conscious, until his atten¬ 
 tion was finally attracted by certain movements 
 of the physicians which indicated that an op¬ 
 eration was about to commence. 
 
 They hastily threw off their coats and vests. 
 
 Lefort stripped his scarf from his neck, un¬ 
 fastened his collar, and freed his brawny 
 throat, rolling his shirts sleeves high up on 
 his arms. He then took from the hands of 
 Temaitre a rubber apron, one loop of which he 
 passed over his head, tying the centre about 
 his waist. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 109 
 
 The suggestion of the butchery so near at 
 hand was revolting. 
 
 The priest realized that something fearful 
 was pending. He advanced with a livid face, 
 and said, looking in horror at the tools of tor¬ 
 ture upon the table : ‘ ‘ are you going to use 
 these ? ’ ’ 
 
 “Some of them.” Growled the preoccu¬ 
 pied operator. 
 
 Ambrose shuddered, staggered slightly, and 
 then steadied himself against a chair, faint 
 and sick at heart. 
 
 Temaitre assisted Amelie in placing the pa¬ 
 tient upon the rubber sheet. 
 
 Lefort went to their aid. 
 
 Clarisse entered with pails of boiling water. 
 Amelie directed her to place them at the foot of 
 the bed, and then whispered : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Now, be quick ! a bowl ! ’ ’ 
 
 The servant slipped hurriedly into the dress¬ 
 ing room; the surgeons placed their subject 
 
IIO 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 in position; Clarisse reappeared with the bowl. 
 
 Amelie took the vessel from the servant’s 
 hands saying : ‘ ‘ Lights ! It will soon be dark. 
 Bring two of the largest lamps you have.” 
 
 The servant sped noiselessly away. 
 
 Amelie filled the bowl half full of hot water. 
 Her brother passed her a bottle and a pair of 
 sponges. She poured a liquid from the vial 
 into the bowl, stirring it with one of the 
 sponges. She was preparing the antiseptic 
 wash for the dangerous wounds they were 
 about to inflict. 
 
 The agonizing moment was at hand. 
 
 An awful .silence settled upon the scene. 
 
 Even the surgeons grew pale and breathed 
 deeply, as their preparations neared an end. 
 
 The young priest, terrified, yet fascinated, 
 stared helplessly at those horrible knives. 
 
 Instants were magnified into ages. 
 
 It was all like a grotesque dream. 
 
 Eefort handed something made of rubber to 
 Lemaitre, saying ; 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ‘ ‘ The dilator. Commence. ’ ’ 
 
 Temaitre slipped the tool into the bowl, and— 
 commenced. 
 
 The brother handed a little syringe to his sis¬ 
 ter and said, with quiet authority : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Hold her pulse and stand ready to use 
 the hyperdermic. At the first sign of weaken¬ 
 ing, inject the brandy.” 
 
 Amelie grasped the patient’s wrist, and 
 stood with ghastly cheeks, pinched lips, and 
 fixed eyes, looking at the subject, ready for 
 the worst. 
 
 The senior surgeon, then said to his appren¬ 
 tice : "now, let’s hurry! I will use the in¬ 
 strument, you hold the body.” 
 
 At this moment Clarisse returned with the 
 lighted lamps, placed them on a stand near 
 the bed, and leaned against the wall, agape 
 with sickening expectations. 
 
 Temaitre began the sponging process. 
 
 Tefort turned to the table and lifted the 
 basiotribe. 
 
112 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Bonnard glided between the doctor and the 
 bed, his hands clasped with pitiful intensity 
 upon his chest, and whispered: “what are 
 you going to do ? ’ } 
 
 “ Commence the operation,” replied the sur¬ 
 geon sternly. 
 
 ‘ 1 What operation ?’ ’ 
 
 “Craniotomy. I am forced to adopt the 
 basiotripsic process and crush the base of the 
 infant’s skull.” 
 
 “What?” cried Ambrose, with a voice 
 full of ringing resonance; murder the child ? ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ No! ’ ’ shouted the doctor, indignant at 
 the word ‘ ‘ murder; ” “I remove an embryon 
 to save a mother. ’ ’ 
 
 The proportions of the priest became impos¬ 
 ing. Trembling with righteous wrath, he 
 struck his fist so forcibly upon the table that 
 the cruel instruments leapt as though in fright, 
 at the same time exclaiming : 
 
 ‘ ‘ I forbid this operation! ’ ’ 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 113 
 
 * * By wliat right ? ’ ’ demanded Tefort with 
 a suppressed scorn that was growing dan¬ 
 gerous. 
 
 ‘ ‘ By the right religion confers upon all her 
 servants to save unbaptized babes from hell! 
 By my sacred right as a father of our Holy 
 Church! ’ ’ 
 
 “ Hypocrite! ” stormed the surgeon; “ con¬ 
 fess the truth! You dare to interfere with the 
 duty of a doctor only as the father of this 
 child! ’ ’ 
 
 Ambrose recoiled, thunderstruck. 
 
 The silent witnesses of the scene, started, and 
 fixed their eyes upon the priest with riveted 
 intentness. 
 
 The extremity of the situation quickened 
 every faculty of the priest’s mind. He be¬ 
 came strangely cold and clairvoyant, without 
 any loss of that quivering intensity which de¬ 
 noted the infinite depths of his resolve. His 
 brain was flooded with illumination. With in- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 114 
 
 conceivable rapidity, he divined the suspicion 
 of the doctor regarding himself, and in his 
 desperation determined to pursue the most au¬ 
 dacious course. Suddenly advancing on the 
 doctor with folded arms, he said, in a tone as 
 tense as steel: “well then, as this infant’s 
 father, I command you to save its life ! ’ ’ 
 Eefort’s muscles grew rigid with rage. Ex¬ 
 tending his arm to clear a passage to his 
 patient, he struck Ambrose brutally upon the 
 side, thundering: “the law accords no par¬ 
 ent’s right to any apostate priest! ’’ 
 
 In a flash the physician was felled to the 
 floor, while the outraged priest with blazing 
 eyes, towered above him. 
 
 The meekness of the monk had fled. The 
 blood of his sire boiled with a soldier’s fury in 
 the veins of the long-suffering saint. 
 
 A soul was at stake ! 
 
 All the powers of Hell could not daunt him 
 now ! 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 115 
 
 Lefort sprang to his feet and flew like a 
 maddened mastiff at the pastor’s throat. 
 
 A doctor’s natural rights had been invaded. 
 The valor of science matched that of super¬ 
 stition. 
 
 The fight of the fanatics began. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 116 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE SAINT BECOMES AN ASSASSIN. 
 
 As Lefort attacked Bonnard he was stag¬ 
 gered by a fearful blow upon the shoulder. 
 
 But for the presence of mind and power of 
 the priest, the doctor might have received dan¬ 
 gerous, if not fatal wonnds. 
 
 The hound, perplexed by the unusual pro¬ 
 ceedings about him, had lain in sullen silence 
 beneath the bed. Roused by the sudden strug¬ 
 gle between the men, he leapt to the assistance 
 of the one with whom his brief association had 
 established a tie, and sprang fiercely upon 
 Eefort. 
 
 With almost instant speed, the left hand 
 of the priest held the physician at arm’s 
 length, while his right caught the dog by 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 117 
 
 the collar and pulled him back upon his 
 own breast, just in time to save the throat 
 of his old friend from the fangs of the fero¬ 
 cious brute. 
 
 The witnesses of this scene stood paralyzed 
 with amazement. 
 
 The awful creed of the ascetic, goading his 
 noble heart into a frantic fear for the safety of 
 the infant’s soul, set free the subtlest forces of 
 his nervous centres and gave him the tendons 
 of a Titan. 
 
 Astonishment at the preternatural strength 
 of the priest checked even the rage of the 
 doctor. The absolute sincerity of the fanatic 
 bestowed a dignity and grandeur upon his su¬ 
 perstition which might well give science pause. 
 
 An unselfish enthusiast is the nearest kin of 
 God. 
 
 As he stood gripping man and beast with 
 hands of adamant, his eyes kindled with un¬ 
 earthly light, Ambrose Bonnard looked a son 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 118 
 
 of God indeed. Awe overwhelmed every other 
 sentiment in those who witnessed his marvel¬ 
 lous mien. The religionist was so possessed 
 by one thought, so animated by one idea, that 
 he was heedless of all else. The purpose which 
 had prompted his every act, grew deeper as 
 his trials increased. The rigidity of a daunt¬ 
 less determination pervaded his whole form, 
 and when at last he broke the spell of silence, 
 the fathomless intensity of his resolve, revealed 
 by his voice, sent a chill through every heart. 
 Still holding doctor and dog in fingers firm as 
 flint, he said : “ my will is God’s will! You 
 —or I—shall instantly deliver this child ! ’ ’ 
 
 The same suspicion .simultaneously thrilled 
 each listener. 
 
 The priest was certainly insane. The idea of 
 the desperate extremities to which his raving 
 might arouse the fanatic, awakened the wildest 
 imaginations in them all. None dared move 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 119 
 
 for fear of consequences impossible to foresee. 
 Now all was explained that had .so puzzled and 
 misled the physician. 
 
 Realizing the uselessness of a struggle with 
 a maniac, the doctor mastered his indignation, 
 and asked, soothingly : “ what do you mean 
 my good friend?” 
 
 “ I mean,” replied the priest, releasing his 
 prisoners, stepping quickly to the table and 
 seizing the sharpest tool he saw, ‘ ‘ that you 
 must do as I dictate, or I will use the knife ; I 
 will free the child ! ’ ’ 
 
 The hound, cowed by the priest’s gaze, 
 slunk once more beneath the bed. 
 
 Clearly the madman would hesitate at noth¬ 
 ing. 
 
 The thought of the mutilation of his patient 
 by the unprofessional hand of the priest, was 
 revolting to Lefort. Unable to restrain his ab- 
 horance, he exclaimed, appealingly : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Would you assassinate a mother ? ’ * 
 
120 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “ Yes—if necessary to save a soul! ” 
 
 The questions were reversed. It was the sur¬ 
 geon’s turn to sue. 
 
 ‘ ‘ But my dear father, you forget that in 
 these cases, man holds the parent the more 
 precious. ’ ’ 
 
 With a fervidness almost furious the zealot 
 declared : “I forget everything except that 
 God claims that child ; that eternal existence 
 outranks the temporal; that the fate of a soul 
 is more vital than that of a body ; that the 
 earth life of the christened mother is the price 
 of a heavenly life to her unchristened babe ! ’ * 
 “What’s this?” cried L,efort ; “you fear 
 that God may doom the sinless unborn ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ None can escape the deadly sin of Adam 
 but those dedicated to God by baptism in the 
 name of His only Son ! ’ ’ 
 
 This was proclaimed with an imperious posi¬ 
 tiveness that stung the ardent radical out of 
 reason. With the rashness of rage he burst 
 into a torrent of intemperate speech. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 121 
 
 “To hell with your creed ! I’m a brute, 
 but better than it ! I save more gladly than it, 
 and no thought of such heartless tyranny shall 
 balk my duty now ! I will rescue this fair 
 young mother, and chance the fate of her child 
 with the priestless power that rules the stars ! ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Infidel ! I forbid you to chance the fate 
 of a soul! ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ I defy your forbiddance ! At the bed of 
 birth the surgeon is a sovereign ! The heart 
 of man decrees it, and the law of the land de¬ 
 clares it! ’ ’ 
 
 * ‘ At the bed of death—God—and his priest 
 —are supreme !—By the rights of my sacred 
 office, I claim a soul for Christ! ’’ 
 
 By the rights of my lawful office, I claim a 
 mother for men ! ’ ’ 
 
 The life-saver, and the soul-saver, had un¬ 
 consciously become Paladins in that hostility 
 which endures forever between a faith born of 
 
122 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 fear for God, and that begotten of love for man. 
 Both were bigots, but well matched. Their 
 breasts held hearts of equal zeal; equal in 
 vigor of conviction, in depth of determination, 
 in scorn of consequences, in unquenchable 
 courage. Both were heroes of the noblest 
 mould. One mystic—one material; one dedi¬ 
 cated to the ideal, the other devoted to the 
 real; ready to destroy one another in order to 
 serve the Humanity which both adored. There 
 in that half-lighted room, they loomed like two 
 Colossii, face to face, regardless of results, 
 each determined to enforce the decree of his 
 own creed. 
 
 The sense of impending disaster weighed so 
 heavily upon the spectators of this struggle 
 that they stood rooted with horror, their facul¬ 
 ties refusing to respond to the demands of the 
 moment. 
 
 The physician knew the desperate nature of 
 religious mania and realized that to save this 
 mother he must imperil his own life, 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 123 
 
 How defend himself without killing the 
 priest ? The madman was armed with a weapon 
 sharpened in mercy to the patient, but all the 
 more dangerous in the hands of rabid reckless¬ 
 ness. 
 
 The tension of the instant was torture. Each 
 felt the inflexible force of the other’s will. 
 Each eyed the other with the proud energy of 
 an angry eagle. 
 
 The tlieist spoke first, asking hoarsely : 
 ‘ ‘ do you refuse to save the child ? ’ * 
 
 “ I do,” replied the atheist, emphatically. 
 
 The fanatic tightened his hold on the knife, 
 advancing as he muttered : 
 
 “ The doctor fails ! The priest must suf¬ 
 fice ! ’ ’ 
 
 The surgeon interposed. 
 
 “ My friend,” he said, in iron tones, “ this 
 young woman is my charge. You shall go no 
 further. ’ ’ 
 
 “So! You defy the will of heaven?” 
 
124 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 cried the sacrificant, and rushing with uplifted 
 knife at the scoffer of sacraments, he shouted 
 in frantic exultation : ‘‘then in Christ’s name ! 
 —for a soul’s sake ! ’ ’ 
 
 Superstition had converted the saint into an 
 assassin. His hand fell with lightening veloc¬ 
 ity, straight for the doctor’s heart. 
 
 The next instant Ambrose was gasping for 
 breath. In another moment he lay uncon¬ 
 scious upon the floor. 
 
 The struggle had ended, but neither science, 
 nor superstition had triumphed. Both were 
 destined to be crushingly rebuked by Nature, 
 which protesting nothing evolves all, and ulti¬ 
 mately achieves on earth a victory for that 
 Eternal Law of Eove—whose rule infallibly 
 secures an Infinite Liberty of Life. 
 
 End of Book I. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 125 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE TRIUMPH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SUB SIUENTIO. 
 
 “ He’s quiet now. Roll up the end of the 
 rug. Here, under his head. So. Eeave the 
 cloth across his chin.” 
 
 Thus the surgeon directed his sister, as he 
 and Kemaitre bent over the prostrate form of 
 the priest. 
 
 Just before Bonnard attacked Kefort, the 
 latter had discovered a possible escape from 
 
 the impending catastrophe. Something he saw 
 upon the table behind the insane ascetic, might 
 
126 
 
 father Ambrose. 
 
 save them both if reached in time* Holding the 
 fanatic with his eye, he succeeded, by a fur¬ 
 tive movement of his finger, in directing the 
 attention of his semi-paralyzed apprentice to 
 the object from which he hoped so much. 
 Fortunately the student understood, and, with 
 stealthy quietness crept, unseen by Ambrose, 
 close to the stand of instruments at his back. 
 
 A few seconds later the priest made his mad 
 lunge at the doctor’s heart. 
 
 The physician swiftly dodged the deadly 
 blow, and, with the inordinate strength of a 
 desperate fear, caught the curate about the 
 neck, seizing his weapon hand and drawing it 
 down upon his hip. At the same instant 
 Temaitre grasped the fighting fanatic upon the 
 other side clapping a chloroformed cloth upon 
 his mouth. The struggle at first was fearful; 
 the drug, alone, enabling the two strong men, 
 with the energetic assistance of Amelie, to con¬ 
 quer the convulsed enthusiast. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 127 
 
 In the turmoil Amelie’s dress was torn from 
 her breast, and her hair shaken about her 
 shoulders. In turning aside to replace her dis¬ 
 hevelled attire she was shocked at the change 
 in the appearance of the patient. With a cry 
 of dismay she flew to her side, screaming ; 
 “ Earnest! Earnest! be quick ! she’s dying ! 
 
 Eefort and his assistant rushed to the bed. 
 The physician, feeling the fast stiffening form, 
 shouted to his sister ; ‘ ‘ hurry with the hyper- 
 dermic ! ’ ’ then to Eemaitre ; ‘ ‘ the nitrate of 
 amyl! quick ! ’ ’ 
 
 While Amelie injected the brandy, her 
 brother held the amyl to the nostrils of the 
 sinking sufferer, Amelie in her haste, punc¬ 
 tured the flesh of the young girl very deeply 
 and was surprised that so severe a cut brought 
 no blood. 
 
 “ Earnest, see ! ” she cried, “ what can this 
 mean ? ’ ’ 
 
 The physician, snatching the syringe from 
 
128 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 his sister’s hand, made a lacerating gash in the 
 patient’s arm. The broken skin curled to¬ 
 gether like the leaf of a sensitive plant, but 
 the wound was bloodless. Tefort, observing 
 this, said, in worried tones : “it may be only 
 the cutaneous ischaemia which so often attends 
 hystero-cateleptic attacks, but I fear it’s some¬ 
 thing worse.” 
 
 Noticing that the amyl produced no effect 
 upon the mucus membrane of the nose, he 
 placed his ear to the woman’s body. Pres¬ 
 ently he lifted his head, and growled: “the 
 heart is inaudible. Respiration has ceased. 
 The reflexes are absent. The amyl is useless 
 and even the knee jerk fails. We must know 
 the worst at once. Quick ! Jacques, the bat¬ 
 tery ! ” 
 
 In less than a minute they applied a strong 
 faradic current with metallic electrodes to the 
 patient’s head. Not a sign of life was left. 
 Tefort withdrew the poles of the battery, say¬ 
 ing : “she’sdead!” 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 X 29 
 
 ** And the child ? ’ * questioned Amelie. 
 
 “ Has but one chance of life.” 
 
 Hastening to the table with the battery, the 
 surgeon commanded: “ Jacques! put the 
 diaphram in place. We must make the caesar¬ 
 ian cut. 
 
 ^ *J> 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 While selecting the knives for his dangerous 
 work the surgeon’s indignation at the loss of 
 the mother, burst forth in bitter speech : ‘ ‘ law 
 and humanity are baffled ! nature sides with 
 superstition; ” 
 
 To these words a whispered reply startled 
 the ears of each. 
 
 “ Nature sides not and slights not.” 
 
 Each turned and looked at the other. There 
 was awe on every face. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Did you hear that ? ’ ’ asked Amelie ner¬ 
 vously. 
 
 ' ‘ Hear what ? ’ ’ requestioned her doubting 
 brother. 
 
130 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “The whisper?” 
 
 “I heard it!” said Eemaitre, with bated 
 breath. 
 
 They instinctively looked at the priest. He 
 remained unmoved upon the floor. 
 
 “Oh! Earnest I’m frightened!” mur¬ 
 mured Amelie, shrinking close to her brother’s 
 side. 
 
 Again that mystic whisper startled their long 
 tried nerves. 
 
 “ Fear ?iot y the triumph of love is at hand.” 
 
 Chilled by a common suspicion they glanced 
 at the form in the bed. As their eyes fell 
 upon its peaceful face the lights rose with a 
 lurid glare, and then in a flash went out. 
 
 Clarisse shrieked and fled from the room. 
 
 Amelie shivered and sank upon her knees. 
 
 Eemaitre clung to a post of the bed, trem¬ 
 bling, and unmanned. Even the heart of the 
 sturdy Eefort quivered with nervous dread. 
 All at once, just over the bed, in the midst of 
 the darkness, appeared a point of violet light. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 131 
 
 Each eye was instantly fixed and fastened 
 by some resistless fascination, upon the dazz¬ 
 ling, motionless mote. Their minds were dazed 
 by the strain of their intentness. Spiral vor¬ 
 tices of luminous ether seemed to form within 
 their brains, converging in cone-like whirls, 
 upon that common, focal point. 
 
 Slowly, calmly, irresistibly, that focus sucketf 
 into its endless centre the whole of their con¬ 
 sciousness. 
 
 The last they ever remembered was the 
 maze of those luminous whirls. 
 
132 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE AWAKENING. 
 
 Earnest Eefort was the first to emerge 
 from the occult condition into which they had 
 all been so subtly inducted, before any of them 
 could realize into what vast void they were 
 drifting. When he returned to consciousness, 
 he found himself seated at a table in the centre 
 of the room with a paper in his hand, which 
 was strongly lighted by the lamp which stood 
 near his shoulder on the stand. Abrupt as the 
 recurrence of cognition was, it appeared per¬ 
 fectly natural for him to find himself in this 
 position. 
 
 His primary mental state as he regained his 
 physical sense, was almost infantile in its 
 docile and unquestioning acceptance of the un- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 *33 
 
 accountable conditions about him. Nothing 
 in the entire succession of exotic events, was 
 more extraordinary than his first waking mood. 
 While his strong mind was exceptionally clear 
 his powerful will remained in singular abey¬ 
 ance. With unhesitating rapidity he per¬ 
 ceived all that he was to do, and just how it 
 should be done, but it never for an instant oc¬ 
 curred to him to discuss the why of, or refuse 
 obedience to the influence of the instant. 
 
 Sight preceded the other senses in the re¬ 
 opening of terrestial cognizance. He saw be¬ 
 fore all else these words, written in a large 
 clear hand upon the paper he was holding. 
 
 “Read. Obey , and you will understand." 
 
 Without a particle of excitement he opened 
 the manuscript and read the following : 
 
 To one most beloved—greeting and congratula¬ 
 tions : From grief that kills, is bom joy that 
 lives forever. The most precious hour that has 
 
134 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 thus far unfolded in this most wondrous of earthly 
 ages, is now. 
 
 One nears birth who is destined to tear the 
 scales from the fear-fettered eyes of superstition, 
 and to inspire a deeper faith, a more zealous 
 energy, and a purer life, for all time to come. 
 
 Let your hearts swell with grateful pride! for 
 to you is given the precious privilege of watching 
 over and guarding the physical welfare of the 
 New Word. 
 
 The story of these marvelous moments shall be 
 recorded that you may the more surely believe in 
 the deathless glory to come. 
 
 Whilst you and Jacques are busy, the hand of 
 Amelie writes these lines. 
 
 Know then these fundamental facts : The child 
 born this night is the fruit of a maiden’s virgin 
 desire, and of a man’s virgin love. 
 
 In the female, passion most potent sprang with 
 frank and joyous spontaniety from affection most 
 profound. 
 
 In the male, affection, stronger than his own re¬ 
 bellious will, grew out of passion the most imper¬ 
 ious and rude. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 135 
 
 In the mother, centuries of loving service have 
 culminated in a hypersensitive unselfishness. 
 
 In the father, centuries of inherited power, ages 
 of domination over others, have evolved the most 
 complete, consistent, uncompromising egoism. 
 
 The race conditions for the advent of an illum¬ 
 inating life, have been unique. The extremity 
 of the oppositions have been infinite. The unity 
 of these oppositions was wrought from the im¬ 
 pulse of a resistless affection, energized by the 
 most virile passion, and has evolved an organiza¬ 
 tion of the richest resources, as well as of the 
 most harmonic order. The last perfecting touch 
 to this temperament, has been given by the shock 
 of the most tragic shame. In time you will 
 understand the consummating power of this pene¬ 
 trating pang. 
 
 An archangelic essence has been called to give 
 the aid of his rare nature to the completion of this 
 vital work. This essence has taken the form of 
 the fanatic, whose zeal for the eternal life of an¬ 
 other, would not hesitate to sacrifice the now of 
 all the world, or the forever of himself. Between 
 this victim of sacredotal doctrine and the child- 
 mother, who is the untrammeled product of true 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 136 
 
 love and free thought, there is a close psychic 
 affinity, which renders his pneuma vitalizing, vi¬ 
 vifying, and restorative, to her stricken cosmic 
 organization. 
 
 This explains the rash innocence of his first 
 impulse, and the close physical contact which 
 you are about to renew between them. 
 
 You and your apprentice are stripping the un- 
 concious priest. 
 
 Now you replace him at her side. 
 
 You have believed this young woman dead. 
 You were mistaken. The same error has led 
 science to send thousands who were in the final 
 stage of carus, to the horrible death of the grave. 
 Decomposition alone, is the sure sign that life 
 may not return. There is a trance whose vice- 
 like grasp holds the inmost molecular centres of 
 life beyond the reach of the most incisive vibra¬ 
 tion which can possibly emanate from any gal¬ 
 vanic battery which science has discovered. The 
 coming one will give the world a unity of atoms, 
 from whose substantial interchanges will flow 
 the most awful and most potent of all motive 
 agencies. This discovery will infallibly detect 
 

 - .'f K> 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 137 
 
 and resurrect the life substance of the natural 
 world in all tissues, whose organic integrity is 
 not absolutely lost. The anima, which this in¬ 
 vention will soon enable science to command, is 
 working at this instant and radiating from the 
 harmonial communion of atom in the bodies of 
 Ambrose and his celestial comrade Constance, 
 who lies at his side. 
 
 Ten minutes have elapsed ! 
 
 The first rythms of the real, are now reaching 
 and reviving the activity of the intra-astral ethers, 
 in the interstitial, neural recesses of the medulla. 
 
 The impact of the primitive impulse is now ex¬ 
 quisitely adjusted to the vital centres of her or¬ 
 ganization. 
 
 The involution of the death tendency is re¬ 
 versed. 
 
 The evolution of the life form re-begins. 
 
 The procession of the microcosmic vortices, in 
 the cerebral tissues, once more proceeds. 
 
 Seventec?i minutes have passed ! 
 
 The tremors commence. 
 
 The life throe convulses. 
 
 The spasm is complete. 
 
 
133 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Again she breathes. 
 
 You do your work splendidly. All the learn¬ 
 ing and skill stored in the gray molecules of your 
 brain are of immense service to us now—you have 
 accomplished a superb reversion—you may rest 
 and wait—nature will work her own way, with¬ 
 out danger to mother or child. 
 
 In less than thirty fleet minutes the beginning 
 of the end is at hand. 
 
 The celestial spheres are pulsating with super¬ 
 nal songs. 
 
 Again the absolute completes a new aspiration 
 in the relative. 
 
 Let all the world-forsaken, love-lost, lie-locked, 
 of the earth, rejoice with boundless joy ! 
 
 Let torrents of blessed tears wash away, for¬ 
 ever, all the foulness and falseness of the unlov¬ 
 ing life! 
 
 The eternal mother is with you ! 
 
 The redeeming daughter comes ! ” 
 
 5jC 5fC 5ft Jfc 5j« S$C 
 
 Here the first communication, which was 
 evidently written by the reader’s sister, ended. 
 
 A coo of delight reached the doctor’s ears. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE, 
 
 139 
 
 He looked up. 
 
 Amelie stood before him, holding a naked 
 female infant, on which she fixed eyes as 
 glassy and mechanical as those of some mon¬ 
 strous manakin. 
 
140 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 STEVNA. 
 
 The new-born’s eyes were wide open, and 
 gazed with a sort of happy wonder, into the 
 dimly lighted spaces before her. The ex¬ 
 quisite little lips were half parted by a smile, 
 and beneath her rosy wee fists, which were 
 held close upon her breast, Eefort saw with 
 astonishment, another manuscript directed to 
 himself. 
 
 The sound of the child’s voice roused his 
 aural sense, and with its reopening, the appre¬ 
 hension of the amazing character of this 
 whole experience rapidly increased. 
 
 Anxiety now attended his observation of his 
 sister’s strange expression, and the surprise of 
 the child’s sudden appearance brought him a 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 141 
 
 partial recognition of the curious mental con¬ 
 dition in which he, himself, still remained. 
 
 A vague uneasiness stole through him. 
 
 The unchanged mechanical attention of 
 Amelie to the child, worried him. He turned 
 to her for explanation and called her by her 
 name. She remained unmoved, but the sound 
 of his own voice suddenly restored his facul¬ 
 ties to their normal activity. 
 
 With a long drawn sigh he awoke to a full 
 consciousness of the extraordinary state of af¬ 
 fairs about him. He felt as though he had 
 just issued from the despotic delusion of some 
 absurd dream. The unusual nature of the 
 circumstances in which he found himself be¬ 
 came completely apparent, and what a moment 
 before appeared perfectly natural, became un¬ 
 natural, to a degree that was positively pain¬ 
 ful. So long as he was to any extent an actor 
 in this preternatural play of incidents, he re¬ 
 mained unperceptive of their abnormality ; but 
 
142 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 his call to Amelie had separated him from all 
 personal association with the peculiar state of 
 the others, and changed the nature of his re¬ 
 lation to his surroundings from that of partici¬ 
 pant, to that of spectator. The moment this 
 reversal was effected, all the old time energy 
 of mind and positiveness of will returned to 
 him. He began to regard his environment 
 with keen and inquisitive glances. 
 
 What he saw shocked his understanding, 
 and for a time led him to believe that he was 
 the victim of a visionary condition, which could 
 only have been produced by the use of some 
 strong drug. With a supreme effort of his 
 will he sought to shake himself free from the 
 fetters of this phantasm, but the more violent 
 his effort to escape its sway, the more absolute 
 became the rule of its reality, till at last, his 
 reason was forced to accept what his senses so 
 incessantly reaffirmed, and he was obliged to 
 acknowledge that he stood in the presence of 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 143 
 
 events whose actuality w r as as positive, as their 
 character was unique. 
 
 Reiterated utterance of Amelie’sname failed 
 to release her from the clutches of the unac¬ 
 countable diathesis into which she had fallen. 
 
 He looked for Temaitre, hoping to secure 
 from him aid, or some solution of these tor¬ 
 menting absurdities. 
 
 As he turned toward the bed the sight that 
 met his eye was bewildering. 
 
 The young woman whom he had pronounced 
 dead, lay there, alive, breathing, and with the 
 flush of fever upon her face. Close to her 
 bare body reposed, what appeared to be the 
 naked corpse of the priest. The clothes were 
 frankly thrown from both forms, and Jacques, 
 with great alertness, was bathing the young 
 mother with alcohol, the fumes of which 
 Tefort now perceived were filling the room. 
 
 Hurrying to the side of his apprentice he 
 cried: 
 
144 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Jacques ! what does this mean ? ’ * 
 
 Lemaitre proved as irresponsive as Amelie, 
 and continued his occupation without the 
 slightest attention to the surgeon’s energetic 
 appeals. 
 
 The distracted man became convinced that 
 his own brains were imposing upon him. He 
 resolved to end, instantly, the preposterous il¬ 
 lusions that mocked his common sense. He 
 seized his hands and wrung their joints with 
 a fierceness that strained their tendons and 
 goaded him into groans of pain. He struck 
 his forehead violently, beside himself at the 
 pranks which his senses seemed to be playing 
 upon his wits. The more thoroughly, how¬ 
 ever, he tested the normality of his own con¬ 
 sciousness, the more he perceived its unim¬ 
 peachable completeness. 
 
 Grasping his assistant by the shoulder, he 
 exclaimed, furiously: “Jacques! I command 
 you to reply ! ’’ With a quick movement of 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 145 
 
 his arm the fragile Lemaitre flung the stalwart 
 Lefort, with stunning force, against the wall. 
 This experience capped the climax of his as¬ 
 tonishment. To longer question the genuine¬ 
 ness of these incredible facts, was more 
 irrational, even, than the facts themselves. 
 Convinced at last of their reality, a desperate 
 desire to master their meaning, supplanted his 
 rebellion at their existence. Stealing cau¬ 
 tiously to the side of the bed, opposite to that 
 where the student still labored, he earnestly 
 watched the man at his work. He saw that 
 the whole person of his apprentice, was under 
 the direction of some influence entirely dis¬ 
 tinct from the individuality of the man him¬ 
 self. His body had become a mere machine, 
 which was played through, and permeated by 
 the intelligence that determined his actions. 
 The same glassiness of stare in the eyes, and 
 the same emotionless mechanicality of motion 
 characterized Jacques that he had observed in 
 
146 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Amelie. He leaned across the body of the 
 priest beneath him, and looked with the most 
 searching scrutiny into Temaitre’s eyes. 
 
 The young man paused in his work, and 
 lifted his eyes as though impelled to do so in 
 order to give Tefort an opportunity of making 
 the most searching investigation of the optical 
 conditions. 
 
 The scientist saw that the pupils were di¬ 
 lated to their fullest extent; that the longi¬ 
 tudinal axis of the eyeballs converged slightly 
 inward, each eye tending, in a minute degree, 
 to turn from the other, like the eyes of a man 
 who is the opposite of cross-eyed. 
 
 Presently, Jacques, moved by a new impulse, 
 drew the coverings over the naked bodies in 
 the bed, walked to the side of his superior, 
 and extended his arm, wdth a movement that 
 invited the physician to feel his pulse. A cur¬ 
 sory examination of the vascular conditions of 
 the man showed a pulse that was extremely 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 147 
 
 slow but of ordinary strength ; while respira¬ 
 tion was scarcely perceptible, the skin being 
 clammy, and the temperature strangely low. 
 Turning from his pupil to look after his sister, 
 the doctor saw that she was still standing by 
 the table with the infant in her arms, pre¬ 
 cisely as he had left her a few minutes before. 
 Crossing to her, he noticed that the cherub 
 had fallen into a peaceful sleep. His attention 
 was this time attracted, with more emphasis 
 than before, to the mannscript which lay be¬ 
 neath the hands of the little one. Quickly 
 disengaging the pages from the embrace of the 
 babe, he observed that it was addressed to him¬ 
 self, in his own hand. 
 
 Irritated by this new evidence of the subor¬ 
 dination of his own individuality to the control 
 of some other will, he opened the package 
 with impatience. 
 
 These words met his eye: 
 
148 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “Do not rebel at what you cannot yet compre¬ 
 hend, for you will rejoice with exceeding glad¬ 
 ness. when all is explained. 
 
 Each of you have been inducted into that 
 subtle Psycho-cosmic schesis which we term, En; 
 a state of profound zootic subjection, which ren¬ 
 ders somatic organisms susceptible to the potent 
 empire of what is called, in the terrestro-astral 
 plane, substantial imitation ; a class of occult ef- 
 fectuants which your friend Charcot, who is at 
 last, interested in the psychological phenomena 
 attending hysterical-neuroses, would probably de¬ 
 scribe as a species of automatic, or spontaneous 
 subjective hypnotism. 
 
 You will find in the manuscripts attached to 
 this communication, a full explanation of the 
 causes, methods and consequences of the exper¬ 
 iences through which we have been passing 
 to-day. These you will read at your leisure, after 
 this night’s work is complete, and you have had 
 sufficient rest from the excitements you have un¬ 
 dergone to restore your mental poise. 
 
 The resuscitation of the mother, has been ef¬ 
 fected through the media supplied by the excep¬ 
 tional organization of Father Ambrose. To ac¬ 
 complish our purpose with the greatest speed and 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 149 
 
 most certain success, it has been necessary to es¬ 
 tablish a close contact between their bodies. 
 
 To us, who have escaped the scortatory imagin¬ 
 ings of terrestrial consciousness, this contact is 
 supremely pure and beneficient. Your eyes would 
 not be permitted to witness it, unless we knew 
 that to your clean manhood it would appear 
 equally free from guile. 
 
 Before entirely completing our work, we have 
 restored your sensorial system to its accustomed 
 relation to your own entity, in order that you 
 might make, for the benefit of science and the 
 confirmation of the life to come, the most exact 
 pathological examination of each of the individ¬ 
 uals now under occult influence. 
 
 We earnestly desire that you should do this 
 with the utmost thoroughness, and as exhaus¬ 
 tively as your present knowledge of nature per¬ 
 mits. The more merciless your scrutiny the more 
 clear the lack of all physiological disturbance will 
 become ; and, thus, the more positive the evidence 
 that they are in no respect diseased or de-natural¬ 
 ized. Proof of this may help to convince you that 
 the puzzling phenomena, attending these indes¬ 
 cribable hours, however unusual, are not in the 
 least unnatural. Before you can properly com- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 150 
 
 mence the investigations requested, it will be 
 necessary for you to obey the following directions : 
 
 You will first take Amelie by the hand and lead 
 her to the side of the priest. You will place 
 Jacques next to her. You will put Amelie’s left 
 hand into Lemaitre’s right. You will join his 
 left hand to the right hand of the priest. You 
 will then take the left hand of the priest in your 
 right and hold Amelie’s right hand with your left. 
 
 When you have accomplished these conjunc¬ 
 tions, we will transmit to you, through Ambrose, 
 the authority which we now possess over the 
 organicrmechanisms of your sister and apprentice. 
 You will know when the transmission is com¬ 
 plete by a sharp pain which will shoot through 
 your right shoulder. From that time you will 
 find each subject entirely surrendered to your 
 control. 
 
 After obtaining this power you will perceive 
 that their cerebral, visceral, and vascular systems, 
 will be as responsive to any suggestion you may 
 make to them, through the organs of sense, as the 
 stops of a musical instrument to the touch of the 
 most expert musician. 
 
 By means of this command you will discover 
 a very large and unsuspected number of faculties, 
 which are latent in the human organism; and 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 *5* 
 
 while experimenting, you will be astounded at 
 the extravagant amount of force which the mole¬ 
 cular activity of the body can discharge, with a 
 very long continued waste, while under the do¬ 
 minion of your submonitions. 
 
 By making minute notes of the results of your 
 present rare experiences, you will be enabled, 
 eventually, to arrive at developments of the 
 greatest consequence to science and philosophy. 
 
 When your investigations are completed, you 
 will conduct Ainelie to a room across the hall and 
 release her from your influence by simply com¬ 
 manding her to pass into a normal sleep. There¬ 
 upon she will retire and awaken, refreshed and 
 well, toward noon to-morrow. 
 
 You will lead hemaitre to the lounge in the 
 boudoir below, and release him in the same man¬ 
 ner as that in which you freed Amelie. 
 
 When 3 r ou have ended j’our occult mastery of 
 these two, you will return and take charge of the 
 young mother who is now undergoing a healing 
 treatment from us through father Ambrose. 
 
 You will find the priest as thoroughly at your 
 disposal as the others will have become, when 
 you have followed the directions herein given, 
 and your experiments with him will result in 
 
*5* 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 revelations of a character so radical as to shock 
 even your emancipated mind. 
 
 After bathing the patient with the alcohol and 
 water which Jacques has been using, you will ap¬ 
 ply the compresses and bandages you are accus¬ 
 tomed to in similar cases, and then bid the priest, 
 who will be in your hypnotic grasp, to rise and 
 dress himself. While dressing you will notice 
 that he will carefully place at one side an open 
 letter, and a sealed package. When you have 
 completed your experiments with the priest you 
 will read the letter. However distasteful it may 
 be to you to learn the secrets of a stranger’s life, 
 you will accede to this request, because the inter¬ 
 ests of this sufferer demand that you shall know 
 everything without ever permitting her to divine 
 that you know anything. The sealed package 
 you will conceal from everyone until the mental 
 condition of your charge justifies her knowledge, 
 and possession, of the secrets it contains. Hav¬ 
 ing read the letter, you will again direct your at¬ 
 tention to Ambrose and for the next twenty-four 
 hours keep him at the side of the sufferer. You 
 will place him in an easy chair, close to the bed, 
 and maintain your command of his curative En, 
 until the dangerous crisis in the neurine condi¬ 
 tion of the mother, which your skill as a physi- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 153 
 
 cian will enable you to detect, has passed, and 
 the processes of the multipolar cells have evi¬ 
 dently recovered from their present confusion. 
 
 On seeking, you will find that the servant has 
 fallen asleep from sheer fatigue, in the hall below. 
 Wake her, soothe her fears, and by sagacious 
 questioning, learn all you can from her concern¬ 
 ing her mistress. 
 
 To-morrow, you can make Amelie and Jacques 
 the witnesses of the entire subjection of father 
 Ambrose to your directions, as a still further con¬ 
 firmation of the preternatural facts concerned with 
 this unparalleled occasion. 
 
 These general directions are sufficient. From 
 the time our indications of your wisest course 
 have been followed your own intelligence will 
 dictate everything that is requisite to restore the 
 health and strength of this beloved parent, and 
 to preserve that of her precious child. 
 
 The future which you are all destined to enjoy 
 together wfill repay a thousand fold for the cares 
 and anxieties through which you are to pass, and 
 for your faithful execution of the requests we 
 herein make to 3’ou. 
 
 This mother and little one are of unspeakable 
 worth to the divine substance of humanity. 
 
154 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 They are thenceforth confided to the tireless 
 care of father Ambrose, Amelie, and yourself. 
 
 A great wrong has been done by the father of 
 this child. 
 
 What that wrong is, why it has been done, and 
 who the wronger is, you will very shortly dis¬ 
 cover ; but under no circumstances should you 
 reveal to those associated with you in cherishing 
 this pair, the identity of the guilty man. 
 
 Two things you must carefully avoid In the 
 future : First: saying or doing anything which 
 may assist anyone to detect the name, or family, 
 of the person whose desertion has brought this 
 noble young girl so near death. Second : you 
 must neither say, nor do, anythere that may in¬ 
 terfere with the revelation of the whole truth, 
 throxigh the natural course of events. Do not 
 forget that absolute passivity must govern your 
 conduct in this entire matter. My death drove 
 the wronger into the deepest depths of material¬ 
 ism. Complete surrender to the convictions of 
 this creed has converted the unfortunate into a 
 remorseless egoist. The philosophy of egoism, of 
 which he is the greatest living master, prompts 
 every thought, impulse, and act of his life. This 
 logos of self-love must be permitted to bring forth 
 its own fruit, the satiating flavor of which is the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 155 
 
 only positive cure for the intellectual and spiritual 
 disease, from which this philosophy springs. 
 
 Fiat Lux! 
 
 You will partially appreciate my relation to the 
 doings of this wondrous day when you learn my 
 name. 
 
 You will believe, and eagerly obey everything 
 we ask, when you know through whom these 
 words are conveyed to you. 
 
 You will treasure those entrusted to you with 
 the same deathless devotion which you have 
 showm to the memory of the unutterably loving 
 one who now guides your hand as you write these 
 lines : the woman whose proudest privilege and 
 most perfect joy is to be : 
 
 Your Eternal Mate, 
 
 Stevna.” 
 
 At the sight of that name Lefort staggered 
 back with a cry of frantic joy, and then sank 
 into the chair at the side of the table, his eyes 
 staring, vacantfy, into space, his lips murmur¬ 
 ing, with awe and ever increasing fervor : 
 
 ‘ ‘ Stevna ! Stevna ! My One ! My All! ’ ’ 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BRONZE CHEST. 
 
 In i860 Earnest Eefort, one of the favorite 
 physicians of fashion, suddenly disappeared. 
 PvUmor declared that he had been called to 
 Moscow by the dangerous illness of some 
 Russian Prince. After a stay of over ten 
 months he returned as mysteriously as he had 
 departed. 
 
 The premature silver in his hair, and the air 
 of mocker > 7 in his manner, which had replaced 
 the frank and candid ways that had always been 
 conspicuously agreeable in the conduct of the 
 young surgeon, w r ere all which the most in¬ 
 quisitive could discover, that seemed asso¬ 
 ciated, in any wise whatever, with his pro¬ 
 longed absence. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 157 
 
 In 1863 an eccentric residence was erected 
 upon the borders of the “Bois,” at Passy. 
 Its peculiarity attracted immediate attention. 
 One portion was exceedingly light and grace¬ 
 ful in design, while another was inconsistently 
 massive in construction and gloomy in appear¬ 
 ance. Not a single window on one side of the 
 sombre wing admitted light into its mysterious 
 interior. Only the doves, for whom a spacious 
 refuge had been prepared in the roof of the 
 main section, could see that this dismal end of 
 the dwelling was flooded with illumination 
 through its roof. Public curiosity was piqued 
 and when it became known that it was 
 to be the future home of Doctor Defort, the 
 cunning ones at the club and in the salons 
 cleverly connected the unexplained disappear¬ 
 ance of the physician with his puzzling little 
 palace. The merry or morbid imagination of 
 these worthy members of the community soon 
 supplied the scandal-loving crowd with a var- 
 
158 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 iety of explanations for the outer architecture 
 of Lefort’s abode, which, had they been ad¬ 
 mitted to the trying test of type, would have 
 filled volumes of startling or salacious tales, 
 and thousands of good people with horror and 
 revolt. 
 
 From the moment of his instalment in his 
 new home, the surgeon inaugurated a series of 
 reunions, w r hich became exceedingly popular 
 among the brilliant men and women of the 
 best circles of society. The witty host ap¬ 
 peared to take a feverish delight in soirees de¬ 
 voted to the freest discussions of social, relig¬ 
 ious, and scientific problems. Everything 
 that concerned the welfare or affected the 
 progress of the race was canvassed in the most 
 unconventional, and at the same time, in the 
 most unaffectedly refined form. Human pas¬ 
 sions and animal functions were as frankly 
 considered as elemental principles or political 
 purposes. This combination of breadth of 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 159 
 
 view, with audacity of treatment and fastid¬ 
 ious decency of diction, gave to those “ noctes 
 ambrosianae ” a rare and wholesome charm. 
 
 The boldest of Lefort’s guests, however, 
 never dared to question their host concerning 
 that quarter of his hospitable home to which 
 they remained permanently uninvited. Only 
 a few of the doctor’s most intimate comrades 
 were permitted to penetrate its remote recesses, 
 and they continued faithful to the confidence 
 which their entrance to its seclusion implied. 
 
 The forbidding attachment to the doctor’s 
 inviting abode, contained his laboratory, sleep¬ 
 ing apartment, and private study. In the 
 latter was deposited the treasure which was 
 the cause of the physician’s reticence and of 
 that ponderous security of construction which 
 gave a prison-like appearance to a portion of 
 his palace. 
 
 There stood in the sanctum adjoining the 
 doctor’s bedroom a long bronze chest resem- 
 
i6o 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 bling a sarcophagus. The exterior of this 
 unique curio was decorated with exquisite art. 
 The morning glory interlaced the ivy vine and 
 both ran over a mass of moss, upon which was 
 strewn with reckless profusion, pansies, came- 
 lias, and forget-me-nots. The apparently ac¬ 
 cidental distribution of these blossoms concealed 
 the cunning deliberation of the floral design 
 about that cryptic case. Two names were 
 deftly interwoven by the seemingly aimless 
 combination of flowers that lay upon the brown 
 sod, whose bronze embrace clasped so securely 
 the secrets of that repository. Even to the 
 sister, who was his closest confident and com¬ 
 rade, this metal box remained a mystery. 
 
 “ It is the vault of a sacred void.” 
 
 These were the only words which he had 
 ever uttered regarding that strangely chiselled 
 chest, and they were said to Amelie with a 
 manner that made further inquisition im¬ 
 possible. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 161 
 
 In verity this coffer, whose exterior was so 
 gaily bedecked with blossoms, was the locker 
 of an awful loss, the coffin of a divine hope, 
 the cradle of a deadly despair, the holy cache 
 of a cruel delight. 
 
 No eye but his, had ever seen the contents 
 of his adytum. It held no tissue of silk or 
 satin ; no grain of gold or carat of precious 
 gem ; not one of those many things— 
 
 “ O’er which, from level stand, 
 
 The low world lays its hand, 
 
 Finds straightway to its mind, can value in a trice.” 
 
 It was devoid of all that market mind would 
 prize, but it was packed with everything that 
 was most precious to the manhood of its 
 owner. 
 
 The busy healer of other’s ills never sought 
 rest, nor awoke to work, without kneeling at 
 this shrine, lifting its ponderous lid, and for a 
 time, losing himself amongst the maze of its 
 sacred memories, absorbing from the passions 
 and pangs which they bestowed, the sole 
 
162 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 sanctification which this inveterate materialist 
 had ever sought or accepted. 
 
 Within this pyx were three compartments. 
 One of them contained letters that were the 
 only record of a divine but utterly reckless 
 love. Another held a hoard of trivial but 
 treasured trinkets. The third, which lay 
 between the other two, garded with its massive 
 walls, the pure white ashes of a suicide. 
 
 The name which this cremated one had 
 borne on earth was—Stevna. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 163 
 
 CAPPTER V. 
 
 THE APPARITION. 
 
 The personal attachments by sturdy temper¬ 
 aments exert an overwhelming influence over 
 the intellectual activity of the individual. A 
 robust brain often summons sufficient volition 
 to resist the assault of a mighty passion, but the 
 most puissant intellect will, ultimately, sur¬ 
 render to the steadfast influence of a supreme 
 affection. 
 
 How frequently men of the highest intell¬ 
 ectual force become the victims of worthless 
 women, and how impossible it is for these 
 men—whose minds have a very ready percep¬ 
 tion of the real value of all other individuals 
 with whom they come in contact—to be taught, 
 even by the most revelatory experience, the 
 
164 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 inferiority of the one who, by some strange 
 fatality, has succeeded in awakening the 
 affection of an exceptionally potent person¬ 
 ality ! 
 
 Could the world have witnessed and under¬ 
 stood the lofty grandeur of the atheist’s love 
 for Stevna Vakoff, all that was worthiest in it 
 would have felt for him a new and lasting 
 reverence. 
 
 Lefort was a man whose intellectual endow¬ 
 ment was so excessive that it had enabled him 
 to distinguish himself w T ith ease in every field 
 of science to which he had given his attention. 
 The imposing proportions of his mind was the 
 attribute which most emphatically impressed 
 the world about him. His scorn of conven¬ 
 tions, his independence of character, his hatred 
 of hypocrisies, his merciless scathing of frauds, 
 the outspoken courage of his convictions, 
 together with his lofty indifference to popu¬ 
 larity, won far less recognition than the force 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 165 
 
 of his mental faculties, whose logic was wont 
 .to deal such staggering blows to superstition 
 and sentimentalism in the cause of materialism 
 and its kindred bigotries. 
 
 Eefort’s* noble nature had known an all- 
 absorbing love for one who was the highest 
 type of woman kind. This love had brought 
 to his life its deepest joy and its most tragic 
 woe. But for the deathless presence of this 
 great affection in the substance of his soul, all 
 the exceptional experiences of that marvellous 
 day of May would have received a very differ¬ 
 ent interpretation by him, from that which 
 their association with the name of the woman 
 he loved impelled his mind to make. But for 
 Stevna, Earnest Eefort would have firmly 
 believed that all the exotic but incontrovertable 
 facts connected with that night, were the result 
 of some subtle vibration, emanating from the 
 abnormal nervous system of the young woman 
 who had just become a mother, and that her 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 166 
 
 hyper-hysteric condition had become so ex¬ 
 cessive as to produce a nervous disease which 
 had contagiously affected every one in contact 
 with her. The name of Stevna, the sight of 
 her face, and of that burning sapphire which 
 was the signal of the great secret between 
 their souls, awakened with overpowering force 
 the long pent up flood of his affections, and 
 fixed forever in his mind, that unchangable 
 conviction of immortality which was there¬ 
 after to influence every thought and act of his 
 life. 
 
 In the tender but terrible hand of love men 
 are but toys. * The lightest touch of its subtle 
 substance inspires the most frantic fear or 
 awakens the wildest hope. The most stubborn 
 will surrenders to the irresistible witchery of 
 its gentle sway. The most positive mind is 
 converted to the faith for which it has the least 
 affinity, by the spontaneous logic of its living 
 light. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 167 
 
 One form of love had transformed a super¬ 
 stitious saint into a willing assassin. Another 
 form of love conjured by an honored name, 
 subdued the imperious will and convinced the 
 unbelieving mind of the most hardened nihi¬ 
 list, rendering him from that hour, the eager 
 ready slave of the extremest occultism. 
 
 The only romance and the chief reality of 
 Lefort’s life was associated with the name of 
 Stevna. For seven years no voice but his, 
 had ever uttered it within hearing of his ear. 
 For seven years no hand but his, had ever 
 written it within sight of his eye. 
 
 On that memorable night of the third of May, 
 as the climax of all the distracting experiences 
 by which his sturdy mind had been assailed, 
 this name, for the first time in all these years, 
 appeared to him by virtue of another will than 
 his own, and under conditions that com¬ 
 manded him to believe that the individuality 
 of the all-precious one so intimately associated 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 168 
 
 with that word still existed ; that her life was 
 again linked with his, and that some great 
 purpose was henceforth to keep them in close 
 communion, almost in conscious contact with 
 each other. 
 
 Torn by a terrible conflict between the 
 dominating doubts of his naturally material 
 mind, and the wild hopes of his worshipping 
 heart, he now murmured with passionate 
 appeal; ‘ ‘ Stevna—if this be true—if Immor¬ 
 tality be not a myth—if you, my mistress— 
 you, the core of my life—still exist, then, in 
 pity’s name I conjure you—come to me !—Let 
 me feel, hear, see you, that I may know, once 
 and forever, that death is a lie, and love an 
 eternal reality !” 
 
 As this low intense cry of his famished heart 
 ended, a pause of breathless silence and sus¬ 
 pense succeeded. Soon a faint luminous veil 
 slowly emerged out of space into the dim 
 illumination of the half-lighted room, and 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 169 
 
 hovered over the body of the priest, who lay 
 with death-like immobility on the bed. Eager 
 and anxious, the obstinate doubter e3^ed in¬ 
 tently that nebulous mist. Gradually, in plain 
 sight, that phosphorescent haze assumed a 
 human form. Presently there stood before 
 him—positive, and dilating with the breath of 
 life—the figure of a woman. As her face 
 became clear, Eefort started forward exclaim¬ 
 ing with an almost frantic delight: * ‘ Prin- 
 cesse !” 
 
 His movement was instantly checked by a 
 signal from the apparition which imperatively 
 forbade approach. Slowfy lifting her hand, 
 this radiant messenger from the relams of the 
 real, extended her arm toward her enraptured 
 
 lover, who then beheld upon her marriage 
 finger a jewel gleaming with intense ultra— 
 
 marine light. With a groan, he recoiled, 
 muttering : “ My God ! The sapphire !” 
 
 At the word the apparition disappeared* 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 170 
 
 Convinced at last of the certainty of Immor¬ 
 tality, and of the ever living love of the noble 
 woman who had awakened the sole absorbing 
 passion of his life, his heart s-welled with a 
 triumphant consciousness of eternity that burst 
 forever the iron bond of despair which had 
 fettered it so long. Tears streamed down his 
 cheeks. Swept away by the sublimity of the 
 convictions which this transcendent experience 
 had forced upon his ever doubting mind, he 
 leaned over the table, his face buried in his 
 arms, and sobbed with an ecstacy as great as 
 the agony 'which a few hours before, had con¬ 
 vulsed his ascetic friend and excited his 
 contempt. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE, 
 
 171 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LOVE THAT CONQUERS SCORN. 
 
 It was a considerable time before the strong 
 man mastered the paroxysm of his passion. 
 
 Those moments of convulsion appeared to 
 recreate the character of Lefort. The cyni¬ 
 cism, bitterness, and harshness of the mater¬ 
 ialistic taint, were swept out of his heart by 
 the lavish torrent of those cleansing tears ; and 
 when at last he rose, his face was aglow 
 with a spiritual grandeur that had never 
 rested there before. The determination of a 
 measureless tenderness animated his will. 
 One single purpose aroused the force of every 
 faculty, and that was to carry out, with the 
 minutest care, each and every one of Stevna’s 
 directions; to accomplish all which her great 
 
172 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 soul could desire ; to be once more her proud 
 and happy slave ! 
 
 The harsh clang of a bell broke upon the 
 solemn stillness of that mystic moment. It 
 seemed to assert all the blatant vulgarity of 
 the material, as distinct from the refinement 
 and exquisite dignity, of the spiritual life. It 
 increased Lefort’s consciousness of the vast 
 importance of the work entrusted to him, by 
 the horror which it inspired at the possibility 
 of any intrusive demand from the flippant 
 world it was his professional duty to serve. 
 
 As the clang of the bell was repeated, the 
 physician hurried from the room to silence the 
 untimely intruder at the gate. In an instant 
 he found himself face to face with Robert, who 
 with much excitement, hastened to inform 
 him through the iron palings of the villa fence, 
 that the head of the great house of Rothschilds 
 was dangerously ill; that doctor Tefort had 
 been sent for in great haste by his most dis- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 173 
 
 tinguished confreres for consultation at the 
 imperial palace of the mighty millionaire. 
 
 Tefort’s reply was characteristic: “Tell 
 them I am kept at a cottage by a more impor¬ 
 tant call.” 
 
 The coachman stared at his master, stupi- 
 fied with astonishment. 
 
 Tefort startled Robert into activity by shout¬ 
 ing savagely : “Be off w T ith my message ! 
 And mark this: don’t dare to return with 
 any call until you hear from me that I am 
 ready to respond.’’ Then, as the servant 
 hesitated, scarcely believing his own ears, the 
 doctor hissed at him impatiently : “ Va’t’en!’’ 
 
 The lackey leapt to his cab ; the sound of a 
 horse’s gallop died in the distance. Lefort, 
 for the first time, looked up and realized the 
 glory of the cloudless, star-packed space above 
 his head, whose remoteness from the minute¬ 
 ness of earth’s agitations seemed so wholly in 
 keeping with the world-forgetting work that 
 lay before him. 
 
174 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 A king of mammon’s realm had appealed in 
 his peril to the surgeon’s skill. How paltry 
 and petty this appeal appeared, in comparison 
 with that of the nameless babe born in the 
 lowly villa of an obscure street ! As Lefort 
 stood alone in the pathway before the house in 
 which he, seemed to have lived a lifetime dis¬ 
 tinctly its own—although but a few hours 
 before he had never heard of its existence— 
 there came upon him a full consciousness of 
 the radical change which had been wrought 
 •within his own spirit, and which was fated to 
 create so wide a difference between his future 
 and his past life. He had been the champion 
 of the manifest and the material; the bitter 
 opponent of all that was not salient to sense 
 and easily reached by reason. He knew now, 
 that his life was destined to be occupied with 
 the occult; that it was dedicated to the investi¬ 
 gation of the mystic ; the search after the 
 subtle ; the pursuit of the spiritual. He knew 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 175 
 
 that seekers after the psychic were regarded 
 with contempt by all of his own fraternity; 
 that they were forced to contend, not only 
 with the prejudices of the social, and the pro¬ 
 fessional worlds, but also with the rascality of 
 that army of charlatans who are so prompt to 
 make a pretext of the mysterious, for the 
 practice of impositions upon the credulity of 
 ignorance. 
 
 He knew well that if he dared to affirm to 
 the scientific world by which he had been so 
 long honored, the existence of such pheno¬ 
 mena as he had just experienced with over¬ 
 powering positiveness, that, in spite of the 
 severity of his professional training and his 
 well-known hatred to humbug, he would be 
 declared a lunatic, or classed with those scien¬ 
 tific smatterers and esoteric sharpers whom he 
 loathed so heartily. Notwithstanding his 
 past repugnance to this field of phenomena, 
 notwithstanding that peril to his future, he 
 
176 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 advanced to the consummation of the work 
 which Stevna had confided to his care not 
 only without fear, but with a glad willingness 
 to endure all the reproach and loss of prestige 
 which such a task might entail upon him. 
 
 In this spirit he re-entered the house, eager 
 to undertake his difficult and dangerous com¬ 
 mission. 
 
 To love he had surrendered all thought of 
 worldly welfare, and, what was a far more 
 magnificent proof of the self abnegation which 
 that miracle worker involves, he had yielded 
 up to love every petty prejudice of his positive 
 mind, against a realm of phenomena which he 
 had always regarded with aversion and con¬ 
 tempt. Tove that conquers scorn, is love 
 transcending all belief, but that born of its 
 own illuminating presence. 
 
 While hurrying to the room above, the 
 doctor discovered Clarisse lying upon the 
 stairs. She was in the profound slumber of 
 
FATHER AMBROSE 
 
 177 
 
 complete exhaustion. The hound reclined 
 lazily at her feet, and eyed him as uncon¬ 
 cernedly as though his presence in the house 
 at that unusual hour, was an occurrence that 
 custom had rendered common. 
 
 In his haste to reach the gate he had passed 
 these motionless ones without notice. He 
 paused, with a fleet surprise at all this, and 
 then sped swiftly to his work. 
 
 Contact with the cool air of the night, and 
 the sight of its soothing serenity, had entirely 
 restored the calm and poise of his mind, with¬ 
 out lessening in the least, however, the 
 consciousness of the actuality of his experi¬ 
 ences, or that conviction of Stevna’s living 
 nearness which inspired him with such a 
 singular newness of purpose. 
 
 As he re-entered the chamber he saw that 
 Lemaitre was carefully replacing the Surgical 
 instruments in the bag. Close upon Amelie’s 
 breast reposed the child. 
 
 -«» 
 
178 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The surgeon paused at his sister’s side, 
 studying the two intently. 
 
 The drift of the physician’s thought as he 
 gazed at the infant, was mortifying to his 
 professional pride. 
 
 Superstition, through the priest, had fanati¬ 
 cally doomed the mother. Science had sum¬ 
 moned the surgeon’s skill to crush and mutilate 
 the mortal part of this exquisite little creature, 
 whose spiritual worth it was impossible for 
 him to adequately estimate. Nature—or that 
 omnipotence of the whole which waits on every 
 part,— and the infinite subtlety of whose per¬ 
 fect providence escapes the scrutiny of finite 
 faculty—had rescued both of these strangely 
 protected ones from the imperious prejudices 
 of priest and leech, by wonderous ways. 
 
 It was with the humility born of reflection 
 such as this, that Earnest Lefort commenced 
 the task, to which wonder gave an interest so 
 great, and love a sanctity so deep. Turning 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 179 
 
 to the manuscript which he had left upon the 
 table, he examined it again, in order to note 
 the directions with exactness. He discovered 
 that it was composed of five separate com¬ 
 munications. The first addressed to him in 
 Amelie’s hand, and the second, addressed to 
 him in his own hand, he had already read. 
 The third, entitled—‘ ‘ Substantial Intimation, ’ ’ 
 and the fourth entitled—“ The New Avatar,” 
 —borne upon their title pages the.se words : 
 
 “ Not to be read until twenty-four hours after the experiences 
 in the villa shall have been completed ; and not to be published 
 until many years of patient experiment shall have prepared 
 Doctor Lefort to present this subject to the world in a manner 
 that shall command the gratitude of the enlightened, and the 
 respect of the sense deluded crowd.” 
 
 The fifth paper was addressed to father 
 Ambrose in the doctor’s hand, and upon this 
 was written the following request : 
 
 " The doctor will please retain this communication until the 
 priest has passed through a normal sleep and awakened in the 
 full possession of his faculties.” 
 
 After concluding a number of experiments 
 
i8o 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 upon Amelie and Jacques, are found the follow¬ 
 ing remarks: 
 
 “ I have done all that previous knowledge and present inven¬ 
 tion could suggest, to thoroughly examine my sister and pupil 
 I have at length relinquished my control of their organisms and 
 passed them into normal sleep. 
 
 The time has arrived for experiment upon the priest, and the 
 observation of its reflex action upon the patient. 
 
 First.—That cerebrations essential to the formulation of origi¬ 
 nal ideas, or exalted inspirations, cannot be induced by any ex¬ 
 terior suggestion. 
 
 Second.—That there is a most vital and significant distinction 
 between that which science has already recognized—as uncon¬ 
 scious cerebration —and that which has been demonstrated to me 
 here—as non conscious cerebration. 
 
 Third.—That the act of generation—and all the wars which 
 affect its awful influence upon Humanity —transcends in importance 
 every problem of progress which is presented by life for the 
 solution of the social scientist. 
 
 Fourth.—That never,—until the ignoble ideas entertained 
 by the unenlightened concerning that act, have been abolished 
 from the brains of the mass—can there be any just hope of 
 lasting, or continuous improvement in the evolution ot man¬ 
 kind. I never grasped till now the grandeur of that simple 
 word—Free-man,—nor understood before the sublime develop¬ 
 ment it announces. 
 
 Who has the right to claim a title that denotes such ages of 
 emancipating mistake and misery, and therefore such a lofty 
 rank in nature, as that much abused word indicates ? 
 
 Fortunately the stenographic training which 
 the doctor had received at school enabled him 
 to record, with considerable accuracy, the 
 utterance of the raphsodic man. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 181 
 
 Curious to test the effect of an interrogation 
 whose suggestion of doubt might possibly goad 
 the bigoted theologian into some new mani¬ 
 festation of original mental energy, the mentor 
 asked : “Was the conception of Christ the 
 result of an immaculate or natural act?” 
 
 This question occasioned the most impetuous 
 outburst from Ambrose, and started him into a 
 whirl of wonder-breeding words. 
 
 As the query entered his ears the curate, at 
 first, grew rigid, then the mindless immobility, 
 into which his face had relapsed, passed into 
 an expression of exaltation which transfigured 
 his features with a beauty impossible to des¬ 
 cribe. After as light pause his head slowly fell 
 upun his breast, and with a voice full of heart¬ 
 seeking sadness, he commenced, in a rythm 
 far less free than that of his former chant—the 
 recital of this strange tirade— 
 
 “ The crudest crosses of Christ are the lies of the Church He 
 loves. 
 
 The fiction regarding his birth is fundamentally false. 
 
183 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Those cravens who shrink from the stain—are already 
 touched with its taint. 
 
 Those who quickly ■wince at a word—must soon taste the woe 
 of the weak. 
 
 Not a thing is vile but man’s thought, for each, in its place, 
 serves the all. 
 
 Every part coinpleteth the whole,—whose perfection depends 
 on the part. 
 
 The worm is a word in His phrase;—Man the volume revealing 
 
 His will.” 
 
 Then the priest strode to the side of the bed, 
 and lifting his hands with a grandeur of grace 
 that thrilled even the unemotional mind of the 
 doctor, he pronounced the following daring 
 declarations: 
 
 ** Oh ! Ears that can hear let them list! 
 
 The astral ethers are ringing with the triumph songs of the 
 just. 
 
 For the Verb of Harmonial Vigor is born to Man this night 1 
 
 She bears the Evangel of Virtue—that saves from dirt and 
 deceit. 
 
 That proveth the naked noble—the secret the source of all 
 sin. 
 
 That strips the sanctum of sex—of concealments befouling its 
 worth. 
 
 That shrives it of every shame—which confession has forced 
 on its flame.. 
 
 That purgeth its passion from lust—exalting its hunger with 
 love. 
 
 That hallows its God-touching clash—and chastens it man¬ 
 making choice. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 183 
 
 Rejoice !—Oh ye children of woe ! 
 
 The tender uplifter hath come—to lighten the load of the 
 low. 
 
 The bearer of blessing is here—to heal the deep wounds of 
 disease ! 
 
 She comes to battle tradition—which denies great Nature her 
 rights. 
 
 To show the betrayal by Church—of the trust of the low-born 
 son. 
 
 The last words were murmured with ca¬ 
 dences of joy most musical and sweet. As 
 their vibrations died away the body of the 
 young father sank softly upon the couch of the 
 New Avatar, and passed into peaceful sleep. 
 
 Mother, child, and guardian, lay close in 
 each other’s arms. 
 
 The sight of their enlacement, conjured in 
 mind of the doctor a vision of Palestine. The 
 mellow light of that Mother-land illumined the 
 scene of the carpenter’s labor, revealing the self- 
 crushing glory of Joseph—the shield of “ man- 
 lawless” love. 
 
 Two facts of deep moment to mankind were 
 established by Lefort’s experiments. 
 
184 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 First.—The human organism was proven to 
 be a mechanism pervaded by forces solely its 
 own, or absolutely distinct from the animating 
 substance with which it is usually associated, 
 and which gives it all that activity rightfully 
 called life. 
 
 Second.—That this mechanism might, under 
 certain peculiar conditions, be surrendered by 
 its normal animus, and pass under the control 
 of influences reaching its centres of cerebration 
 either from the exterior objective world, or 
 from the interior subjective world. 
 
 The scientist’s experiments upon this me¬ 
 chanism, made by outward influence, had 
 resulted in the development of a most impor¬ 
 tant opinion, which was forcibly emphasized 
 by those raphsodies of the religionist which 
 had been produced by the inward influences 
 penetrating his organism from the unseen 
 world. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 185 
 
 This harmony between the declarations of 
 the mystic and the conclusions of the material¬ 
 ist, concerning the vast inport of man’s view 
 of sex and of its noble function,, is profoundly 
 significant. This intense coincidence of con¬ 
 viction, between the substantial moral sense 
 and the logical deductions of somatic research, 
 accentuates the supreme consequences of this 
 fundamental question in social science, and to 
 that system of mental training which, begin¬ 
 ning with boy and girlhood, is destined to 
 deliver the race from that unnatural attitude 
 toward natural function which is chiefly re¬ 
 sponsible for the deepest degradation and the 
 most morbid diseases that now debase man¬ 
 kind. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 186 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RESUSCITATION OF AMBROSE. 
 
 Before the morning light of the fourth of 
 May had gilded the spires of Notre Dame, 
 Eefort had completed his investigations, and 
 had recorded phenomena which outstripped in 
 strangeness everything ever before observed 
 by the trained mind of a scientist. 
 
 The first direction followed by Lefort en¬ 
 abled the Invisible to transmit the command it 
 possessed over Amelie, Jacques, and Ambrose, 
 to the doctor. 
 
 Almost immediately after this had been 
 affected a change took place in the aspect of 
 Ambrose. The character of the alterations 
 occurring in the aspect of the priest, were 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 187 
 
 noted in the order they progressed, with the 
 most conscientious accuracy as follows : 
 
 Pain in shoulder so severe that I dopoed the hands of Amelie 
 and Ambrose, with an involuntary cry. 
 
 Slight change in priest’s state now apparent. The ghastly 
 tint seems to be lessening. Have placed the thermometer in 
 his mouth with great difficult}’ - . Jaws affected with what I 
 should ordinarily suppose, was rigor mortis. 
 
 ***** 
 
 After ten minutes the same resistance from jaws while re- 
 moving thermometer as I encountered in placing it. Tem¬ 
 perature 90 and 7-10. Saliva in mouth stringy, as in early 
 death. 
 
 The skin is mortally damp and cold. Tint perceptibly 
 decreased in pallor. Pulse indiscoverable. Ausculation reveals 
 no indications of activity in lungs or heart. 
 
 Have replaced thermometer. 
 
 ***** 
 
 After sixteen intensely interesting minutes I am completely 
 nonplussed. The cutaneous color proves that the vaso-motor 
 paralysis has passed away, and would distinctly indicate vascu¬ 
 lar activity, but the most careful ausculation does not reveal 
 the slightest movement of the heart, nor the faintest trace of 
 respiration. 
 
 Is the eye a subtler detector than the ear, or is there a mole¬ 
 cular vibration in the blood which may persist, independently 
 of all heart impulse, and which may prevent, for an indefinite 
 time, that coagulation which ensures death? Skiu positively 
 life-like. Circulation at surface seems complete. Muscles no 
 longer rigid, although not yet normally relaxed. Temperature 
 now—96 and 4-10. 
 
 In spite of increase in temperature there is the same perplex¬ 
 ing lack of vital energy throughout the vascular organism. 
 
188 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Three minutes since last note. 
 
 First perceptible motion has occurred. The lids are relaxing 
 md are visibly closing over the iris : which before, was at least 
 Ane third in sight. 
 
 Temperature now—94 and 6-10. 
 
 Still nothing obtained by ausculation. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Forty-two seconds. 
 
 Eids have suddenly risen with convulsive velocity. They are 
 quivering. Pupils completely dilated. Eyeballs partially drawn 
 up into sockets and fixed. There is no sign of Consciousness- 
 
 Temperature increased one tenth. Respiration and pulse 
 still absent. Ausculation reveals a faint, far off, monotonous 
 murmur; so slight, that I am uncertain whether the sound is 
 not the product of my own imagination. 
 
 It has increased until I am positive it is the result of some 
 microcousmic vibration from within. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Ninety seconds. 
 
 Nostrils quivering. 
 
 Great God ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 I thought my experience in the field and in the hospitals had 
 exhausted the possibilities of the horrible. I was mistaken. I 
 can understand madness resulting from such a sight. Every 
 detail will haunt me with the utmost vividness as long as I live. 
 
 If the horrors attending resuscitation are any indications of 
 the pangs the spirit endures by a return to earth life, it is easy 
 to understand the reluctance of those who have passed on to 
 retrace their steps, and natural to believe that nothing—but 
 transcendant love for those still lingering here—could gift them 
 with the God-like courage necessary to face the appalling ex¬ 
 periences which the throes I have just seen in father Ambrose 
 would seem to declare, barred the road to re-appearance in 
 this world. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 189 
 
 Lefort continued as follows : 
 
 “Thirty-eight minutes since the first indication of change in 
 Ambrose was observed. He now lies at the patient’s side, with 
 every appearance of health, but still unconscious. 
 
 Temperature—97 and 9-10. 
 
 Skin moist and cool, but not cold. 
 
 Respiration—19. 
 
 Pulse—58. 
 
 Heart action—regular, and normally vigorous, but slow. 
 
 Eyes open, and, though fixed, evidently fully fitted for the 
 visual function. 
 
 The young mother’s condition is peculiarly interesting. 
 
 Her temperature, pulse, respiration, and heart action are 
 undoubtedly regulated by Bonnard’s for her whole physiological 
 condition and activity is precisely the same. 
 
 There is some profound affinity between these two, and yet 
 my suspicion of their relation is rebuked by Stevna’s words. 
 
 Iam now certain, that so long as I maintain my hypnotic 
 command of the curate, I can control the functional status of 
 the patient. 
 
 There is no need of any anxiety regarding this beautiful 
 creature. She can safely be left to the healing influence of 
 father Ambrose, while I am making my experiments with 
 Amelie and Jacques.” 
 
 Only a mind as searching, a heart as pure, 
 and a conscience as clean as Lefort’s, would 
 have dared to examine those subjects of scien¬ 
 tific investigation as exhaustively as he effected. 
 It was not his sister nor his pupil that he 
 scrutinized, it was Nature—in all her terrible 
 integrity. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 190 
 
 lyocking the door against intrusion, those 
 two human manakins were restored to the 
 unfettered freedom of the primal state, and 
 the play of elemental potencies was tested with 
 the audacity, but immaculate nobility, of a 
 truly scientific mind. 
 
 He now proceeded to examine Ambrose, as 
 faithfully as he had the others. 
 
 Aiming to discover, if it were possible to 
 obtain from the clerical, any expression 
 indicating cerebration that was independent of 
 outward instigation, he ceased to command 
 and sought simply to induce mental activity, 
 by a series of questions. 
 
 After several attempts which evoked no 
 replies that evinced the presence of any new 
 or original thought—it occurred to Lefort to 
 question Ambrose concerning the real meaning 
 and rank of that elemental power in nature 
 called sex. The moment this subject was 
 broached the aspect of the priest was slowly 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 191 
 
 transformed. The light of real intelligence 
 appeared in his eyes for the first time. Pre¬ 
 sently he lifted his head, and, in tones of 
 triumph, burst into this rythmic chant: 
 
 “ In the realm of the Real-life 
 Thus they word the Hypostasis ; 
 
 Thus they poem the time sense 
 The evolving of the princeps 
 By whose potence love takes Life-form 
 
 Long before the birth of Ages, 
 
 God’s nirvana was invaded, 
 
 By a dream of mating love, 
 
 And, half wakened by its wonder 
 God soft whispered to Himself. 
 
 That faint whisper born of mate-love, 
 
 Broke the silence of the spaces, 
 
 Wreck’d the balanced poise of Somos, 
 
 From whose sudden-shattered centre 
 
 Burst the awful circinations 
 
 That first vortexed through the vastneaa. 
 
 Whirling through the neuter plenum 
 The discordant crash of Chaos. 
 
 But the law of that love-whisper, 
 
 Tamed the aimless turmoil clashing 
 Through the raging endlessness, 
 
 And evolved from Anarch’s storming 
 Two completing forms of force, 
 
 By whose power passion’s tempest 
 Ever tends to fruitful peace. 
 
192 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Did distinguish through the void 
 Two unending separations, 
 
 Ever eager to unite ; 
 
 Did determine in the Protos 
 Two close-touching oppositions, 
 
 Each perfecting to the other ; 
 
 Did abolish from the plenum 
 All its primal neuteraess, 
 
 And established in its substance 
 Two supreme potential yearnings, 
 
 Two completing poles of sex, 
 
 From whose commerce flows creation. 
 Their coition breeding cosmos, 
 
 Wedding Essence to Existence, 
 
 Thus begetting consciousness, 
 
 * Through whose many wondrous lenses 
 Streams the light that shows in life-forms 
 Dove is substance of all Daw.” 
 
 This chant was sung with a most weird 
 and impressive emphasis, and proved such an 
 unexpected exhibition of original mental 
 activity that Lefort was startled. He realized 
 how foreign this proem—as Ambrose called it 
 —was to any concept in his own mind, as well 
 as to the faith of the priest himself. He per¬ 
 ceived that he was encountering a phase of 
 cerebration quite different from any which his 
 experiments with the others had produced. He 
 became convinced that this chant was produced 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 193 
 
 by some influence entirely distinct from his 
 own, and which was evidently of a purely 
 subjective character. 
 
 He pursued his inquiries with renewed energy 
 —asking fundamental questions, which, much 
 to his disappointment, elicited nothing from 
 the cerebral mechanism of the priest of any 
 consequence whatever. Suddenly it occurred 
 to him to investigate the religionist concerning 
 a matter of elemental importance to the 
 doctrines he was wont to preach. He sup¬ 
 posed this inquiry would arouse only such 
 cerebrations as the brain of the clergyman, 
 when in its normal conditions, was most 
 accustomed to evolve. He expected to secure 
 a more or less fluent formulation of orthodox 
 platitudes, but was thunderstruck to obtain 
 from him the most fervent expression of ideas 
 denunciatory of the fanatic’s dearest dogmas, 
 and annunciatory of concepts outreaching in 
 radical audacity the dictum of the most 
 heterodox. 
 
194 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FATAL LETTER. 
 
 Before commencing his experiments upon 
 Father Ambrose, Eefort had commanded the 
 hypnotized man to rise and clothe himself. 
 While Bonnard was obeying this injunction 
 the doctor noticed that, (as Stevna had pre¬ 
 dicted,) he placed to one side upon the toilet 
 stand a carefully sealed package and a letter, 
 whose pages he took pains to fold in such a 
 way as to conceal their contents. 
 
 When the priest sank to rest the scientific 
 researches of the physician were necessarily 
 suspended for a time. Feeling fatigued from 
 his long labors the doctor turned to his 
 medicine chest for some stimulant with which 
 to fortify himself for the work still before 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 195 
 
 him. This movement brought the package 
 directly under his eye. He then observed 
 that it consisted of a very large envelope 
 whose edges bore a deep band of mourning, 
 and that it was addressed to—Madame Con¬ 
 stance de Vaugars. The name of Constantine 
 immediately recalled Stevna’s words concern¬ 
 ing the patient. Tefort’s curiosity became 
 intense. The desire to unmask the domestic 
 mystery surrounding this strange case almost 
 equalled that which he had felt to solve the 
 pathological problems which it presented. 
 
 The young mother had been deeply wronged. 
 She had been the victim of one who had been 
 driven into the deepest depths of egoism by 
 the death of Stevna. This much the commu¬ 
 nication of the Invisible had revealed. 
 
 What was the crime, and who was the 
 criminal ? 
 
 Stevna had told him that he was soon to 
 discover, but she had also warned him, in 
 
196 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 emphatic terms, to beware of revealing his 
 discovery even to those most concerned in 
 knowing the truth. As the memory of her 
 words grew vivid, his impatience to compre¬ 
 hend what she meant increased, to an extent 
 which he himself recognized as almost childish. 
 
 He picked up the package, whose seals were 
 yet unbroken, with a dim idea that a closer 
 inspection of its exterior might in some way 
 enlighten him. As he did this he accidently 
 pushed to the floor the letter that lay beside it. 
 Its pages parted. One of them turned over 
 and exposed the handwriting. Its familiarity 
 instantly impressed but puzzled him. He 
 lifted the page for a more certain look at its 
 lines, when these words met his eyes: “ Be¬ 
 lieve me there is but one absolute vice—hypoc¬ 
 risy ; there is but one honest virtue—egoism.” 
 
 The sentiment as well as the conviction that 
 he knew the writer, deepened his desire to 
 comprehend the cause of his patient’s suffering. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 197 
 
 Suddenly he realized that this was the letter 
 Stevna had commanded him to read, urging 
 him to do so however repugnant it might be to 
 him to obtain information clandestinely. She 
 had assured him that the interests of this fair 
 victim necessitated this reading. 
 
 The hope of helping her decided him. He 
 replaced the disarranged pages in their proper 
 order, and read with ever augmenting interest 
 what follows: 
 
 My dear Constance, 
 
 A duty devolves upon me from which every 
 fibre of my brain is shrinking with a cowardice 
 that excites my own contempt. 
 
 I know, now, there is no escape for you for the 
 consequences of my folly, unless I can convert 
 you to that view of life which enables men to con¬ 
 template all the tragic possibilities of human ex¬ 
 istence with a complacency which nothing can 
 disturb. How I am to commend this view to you, 
 or induce you to adopt it, is a problem so difficult 
 of solution that I attack its intricacy with the 
 greatest reluctance, and only because the reports 
 
198 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 made to me by our mutual friend, the Duchess, 
 have convinced me that I must assume the re¬ 
 sponsibilities of the attempt, however repulsive 
 the task may be to me, or however crushing 1 it 
 may be to you. 
 
 I am going to tell you the truth. What the 
 poet calls love is, to the practical philosopher, 
 the most fatal folly that entices or deludes man¬ 
 kind. 
 
 Love that is lavished with uncompromising de¬ 
 votion upon self, is the sole affection that does not 
 beget laughter in the wise. 
 
 This assertion shocks you. 
 
 Before I finish I shall cut you to the heart’s core. 
 
 Egoism is the religion of my life. It is the 
 hidden and unconfessed creed of every one else. 
 There is not a political or ecclesiastical institution 
 that is not secretly instigated by self-interest and 
 self-love alone. Patriotism, piety, even philan- 
 throp}'' are but magniloquent words of self-wor¬ 
 ship. Each man loves his country because it is 
 his. Each adores the God, and believes in the 
 sect, which is associated with his own particular 
 mental limitations. Every act of charity is a 
 deed that is delightful because it exalts, by a sen¬ 
 timental delusion, self-esteem. In a word self- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 199 
 
 worship is the only real worship of the world, 
 although the popular form of this worship, called 
 Christianity, is the most farcical fraud that has 
 ever been perpetrated upon that monster called 
 the mass, “an ass that loves to be deceived and 
 is seldom disappointed. ’ ’ 
 
 Don't be horrified, my child, at this unrestrained 
 statement of the truth. Try to sever all associa¬ 
 tion with this monster and your eyes will be 
 opened. You will see, then, that while Christian 
 institutions profess to adore a divinity that re¬ 
 bukes selfishness, as the sin of sins, they are 
 really devoted to self with a craft, and passion, as 
 amusing to the cynic as it is profitable to the 
 charlatan. They are guilty of a system of false 
 pretense, which, to the fastidious taste of a true 
 philosopher, is as repulsive as a vile odor to the 
 dainty nostrils of une grande dame . Believe me, 
 there is but one absolute vice—hypocrisy. There 
 is but one honest virtue—egoism. 
 
 The one dearest aim of nature is evidently to 
 differentiate, high from low, little from small, 
 great from insignificant, and yet all these ranks 
 exist only in the reasoning consciousness of man. 
 A fly may torture a saint into profanity, may de¬ 
 stroy, with its useless buzz and irritating bite, 
 
200 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 the sublimest flight of the poet’s fancy, or the 
 subtlest analysis of the philosopher’s thought. 
 
 To nature, that fly, which is only a maggot 
 with wings, is the equal, and under certain condi¬ 
 tions, the superior of the highest type of man. 
 
 Nature’s differentiation is accomplished by the 
 desire she implants in each creature to preserve 
 and exalt itself. In every form of animation the 
 mainspring of its existence, and its development, 
 is love of self, and the ambition to secure the 
 supremacy with that self over all other selves. 
 
 You are wondering why I say all this to you 
 now. You will learn presently, but first let me 
 briefly show you that the philosophy of egoism is 
 .the absolute opposite of the folly of egotism. 
 
 Egotism is simply self assertion. It implies 
 bad manners, and every folly which can possibly 
 be induced by vanity, which is the father of every 
 vice. It is the vicious counterfeit of the virtue of 
 egoism. It admires but never masters self. Its 
 religion is self-respect, self-improvement, self 
 emaciation. Egoism is akin to the best form of * 
 stoicism. It has no affinity whatever with sen¬ 
 sualism, or any other system of ideas which sacri¬ 
 fices development to delight—will to wantonness. 
 With this explanation of the creed, which is the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 201 
 
 key to my character, you may be able to under¬ 
 stand why I have been and must continue to be 
 cruel to you. Perhaps, too, you will perceive that 
 I inflict an immeasurable misery upon myself, 
 and that I do it because I realize that the integrity 
 of my own identity necessitates this relentless 
 course. 
 
 Now then to descend from philosophy to facts. 
 
 Precisely three years ago, you and I started on 
 a bridal trip. What a glorious May day it was ! 
 What a contrast to this on which I banish forever 
 the most precious but perilous delight of life! 
 What a vast desolation now ! What a boundless 
 exultation then ! At that hour I seemed to own 
 earth, heaven, and all they held and meant. To¬ 
 day that seductive seeming has passed away, 
 leaving me possessor of nothing but myself. The 
 knowledge of that possession, however, is better, 
 even in all its present bitterness, than the sorcery 
 of that sw^eet illusion of one year ago. I recall 
 that past now, to make the pain of this present 
 more acute. The more cruelly these pangs cut 
 me to the quick the more surely shall I be de¬ 
 livered from all touch of that annihilating lie 
 called love. On the first of May 1870, I had 
 gained complete possession of the one woman who 
 
202 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 could thrill me with a desire that stung into ac¬ 
 tivity all the passionate pulses of my egoistic 
 being. The sight, sound, touch of you, seemed 
 to convert me into a God, gifting me -with a sense 
 of power as vast as the potence, that poises and 
 directs the stars. The pride I experienced in pos¬ 
 sessing you, transcended, in triumphal joy, any 
 which a Caesar could have felt in entering Rome 
 with the captured kings of a hundred nations in 
 his train. I had met and won, what I once be¬ 
 lieved was merely a sentimental fiction : namely, 
 a spotless innocence. I had attained to what I 
 would have sworn, once, was the impossible. 
 The immaculate was mine ! A mind most glori¬ 
 ous. A heart most pure. A body superbly per¬ 
 fect. A face celestial. Eyes flooded with mystic 
 illuminations which stirred the soul into exulta¬ 
 tions most unearthly. Lips whose sweet seduc¬ 
 tive curves enraptured all the sense. Lips loaded 
 with an endless wealth of tenderness and mirth, 
 on whose provoking lines played an archness as 
 artless as an angel’s, prophesying such infinite 
 possibilities of naive and noble passion that they 
 set every globule of the blood aflame; and yet 
 lips revealing an innocence so sacred and supreme, 
 that they awed and ruled the very tempest which 
 that magic mouth aroused 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 203 
 
 All this glory, throbbing with the magnificent 
 vigor of youth and enwrapped in the glamour of a 
 divine virginity; all this exquisite beauty, which 
 the wealth of the world could not buy, nor the 
 wars of the ages win—all this priceless treasure 
 so unattainable to others, belonged to me—was 
 mine—my very own. 
 
 Great God!—The thought of it almost over- 
 conies me now! 
 
 For a year I fled, with my Eden, here and there 
 and everywhere, pursued by a horrible phantom, 
 by a tormenting fear of losing what I prized with 
 a passion so absorbing and intense. The black 
 uncertainty of the future shadowed the gorgeous 
 sunshine of those fleeting hours. 
 
 No man ever knew two years so joyous sad—- 
 so bitter sweet—so blissfully agonizing—as those 
 first great years when we swept through the 
 world like two free birds, speeding wherever fancy 
 beckoned, carried by our own caprice from the 
 rugged highlands of Scotland to the beautiful in¬ 
 tervales of the Danube—from the glaciers of the 
 Chamounix to the scorching sands of Africa—from 
 the barren peaks of Norway to the fertile plains of 
 Spain—from the dreamy shores of the Caspian 
 to the storm-clad coast of the Baltic—from the 
 
204 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 languorous wine farms of fair Italy to the nerve 
 stinging steeps of Siberian Mines—from the 
 palaces of living Emperors to the catacombs of 
 ancient kings—from the meeting house of the 
 puritan to the mosque of the sensuous Turk—from 
 the song-filled cathedrals of Christian Europe to 
 the solemn silence of the Egyptian temples, which 
 await—in the gloomy grandeur of a long tried 
 hope—that resurrection of the dead which their 
 priests were wont to prophesy so positively to the 
 Pharaohs, whose mummies lie, swathed in spicy 
 cerements, within their tombs. 
 
 Ah ! w T hat years of sensuous joy and intellectual 
 delight! Tasting every pleasure—studying every 
 theme ! Sense and mind equally alert to enjoy or 
 to learn. Absorbing history amidst historic 
 scenes. Gratifying every wholesome appetite 
 with the fruit of every known clime. Living all 
 we dreamed—dreaming all we lived. Testing 
 and analyzing life at every point at which its 
 myriad pulses appeared upon the surface of the 
 social form. Seeking the solution of the mighty 
 riddle both from nature and from man. Fearing 
 nothing—daring all. Eagerly pursuing knowl¬ 
 edge in the sanctum of the saint, or the slum of 
 the revolting sinner—in the halls of wealth and 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 205 
 
 idleness, or in the lowly homes where labor never 
 ends,—in the palaces of priestcraft, or the purlieus 
 of crime. 
 
 Two years so God-like—yet so human—that 
 their mere memory is enough to set me mad again 
 with the reawakened flames of their myriad de¬ 
 sires. 
 
 But no! To surrender, and return to you, 
 would be to abdicate forever, all the sovereignty 
 of my own entity. Another taste of life with you 
 would thrill like a potent poison through every 
 tissue of my longing nerves—would steal into the 
 subtlest recesses of my person—paralyzing all the 
 vigor of my own volition—annihilating all the 
 substance of my inmost self! 
 
 Two years passed. We returned to Paris, and 
 hid our happiness in the unpretentious villa, 
 where j’ou are waiting for me, now. 
 
 We had seen nearly all that was worth seeing 
 in this world. Little remained that we might 
 care to consider, except the unknown within our 
 selves. It seemed as though we had become in¬ 
 timately acquainted with every one but each other. 
 A new continent was to be explored, and all our 
 future incursions were to occur within the realm 
 of each other’s consciousness. At last, we were to 
 
206 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 roam, at pleasure through each other’s hearts, 
 and trail the intricacies and bjways of the valves 
 and plains and chasms in each other’s character. 
 We had been so busy living, and learning of other 
 lives, that life, and the meaning of its mystery, 
 had escaped us. At the Passy villa we were, 
 finally, cut off from all creation but ourselves, 
 and fatally forced, by our voluntary exile from 
 the world, to face and find each other out. I be¬ 
 lieved that none but eagles could endure utter 
 isolation, and they, only, because they live in the 
 unfettered freedom of the upper air. Separation 
 from society—I said to myself—is the severest 
 test to which lovers can submit. When I took 
 the house in the Rue de la Faizanverie, I felt sure 
 that a few months, weeks, days perhaps, would 
 tire out our joy—would reveal the finiteness of 
 each other’s knowledge—the littleness of each 
 other’s life—the minuteness of each other’s mind 
 —the paucity of each other’s personality—the 
 petty limitations of each other’s love. 
 
 I, now, confess I caged you at the villa confi¬ 
 dent that the time had now come to loosen the 
 ties between us. Certain that before long we 
 should grow weary of our nest—gradually become 
 bored—then irritated—then rebellious—and, at 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 2 07 
 
 last, so thoroughly satiated with each other’s 
 society that we should summon the courage to be 
 frank, and set each other free—without regret— 
 without scandal—without a spasm, except of hap¬ 
 piness in the new found liberty to live apart. 
 
 I thought I had exhausted all the resources of 
 your nature. Long as I had known—much as I 
 had seen you—I discovered that I scarcely com¬ 
 prehended you at all. Seclusion developed new 
 traits—wonderful powers. 
 
 While we were flitting, you revealed only a de¬ 
 lightful capacity for enjoyment, a ravishing 
 faculty for appreciating and responding to all the 
 poetic and philosophic suggestions of the scenes 
 through which we passed. The moment we 
 alighted upon one particular spot to stay, you 
 began to build a nest more novel, more fascina¬ 
 ting, and more bewilderingly beautiful, than any 
 other spot on earth. Every day brought a new 
 revelation of the inexhaustible charm of your 
 character. 
 
 While traveling, only your judicial and critical 
 talent was displayed, but once permanently fixed 
 in a house—which you called your home—and the 
 word seemed to endow you with a vigor and ac¬ 
 tivity which were simply astounding. Your crea- 
 
208 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 tive genius, then, asserted itself, inevery direction 
 that adds to the beauty, interest' or enjoyment 
 of home. Music, painting, pcetry, cookery—it 
 did not matter which j^ou undertook—you proved 
 your prowess, showing yourself an adept in the 
 kitchen as well as the salon and the study. 
 
 I never left you, for an hour, that I was not 
 greeted upon my return with some new creation 
 revealing either the insight of a sybil—the inspir¬ 
 ation of an artist—or the betwitching home sense 
 of an enthusiastic housewife. At the end of the 
 first month, I began to realize that every instant 
 spent apart from you w r as an annoyance to me. 
 Strange to say, I was fearfully bored everywhere 
 but in my own home. Before the second month 
 had passed I knew you were becoming an imper¬ 
 ious necessity to me. I seemed to live only in ? 
 by, through and for you. When three months 
 had gone all self-deception ceased. I saw for the 
 first time, clearly, convincingly, that you were 
 no longer the object of my desires but of my de¬ 
 votion. A strange and terrible reversal had 
 slowly and insidiously occurred in the attitude of 
 my entity toward yours. During the earlier 
 time of oil: companionship you had been but the 
 means of conferring all sorts of physical and in- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 209 
 
 tellectual delights upon me. Three months at 
 home had completely changed all this. I no lon¬ 
 ger sought you as the servant of my selfishness, 
 but as the mistress of my soul. 
 
 Once you had been to me merely a precious 
 possession—a treasure all my own. By some 
 magic, whose subtlety had evaded my perception, 
 I suddenly found myself no longer the winner 
 and owner but the worshiper and slave. The 
 tumult this conviction aroused within me passes 
 all description. You may partly conceive of the 
 meaning of this discovery to one of raj'- temper¬ 
 ament and birth, when you learn—what you 
 probably never suspected—that I am a member of 
 one of the proudest Imperial families in Europe ; 
 that if I live long enough I may be called upon to 
 accept the responsibilities and wield the power of 
 of a throne. Yet, I, whose royal blood had ruled 
 a continent, I had become the mere property, the 
 willing serf of a brilliant little plebian—a gifted 
 Americane—a child, almost, in years—whom I 
 had stolen from her school ! The idea was pre¬ 
 posterous, but the reality was positive, unim¬ 
 peachable, not to be denied. At first I scouted 
 such a possibility. At first I was forced to 
 acknowledge the actuality. 
 
210 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 From the moment I knew that this was abso¬ 
 lutely the truth, there arose a struggle between 
 my will and its worship that was diabolic in its 
 energy. The effort to resist your seductions, and 
 rescue myself from the enchantment of your per¬ 
 sonal influence, made me almost insane. I have 
 always been proud of my self-mastery. I once 
 imagined that I possessed the faculty of suppress¬ 
 ing the expression of any emotion, however 
 strong. 
 
 The last month with you tested my ability to 
 mask misery, with a smile to an extent I never 
 supposed possible. Only once did I betray any 
 sign of the battle within me. I shall never 
 forget that occasion. You had just sung to me a 
 song which you had written and composed. It 
 celebrated the agony of the Magdalen at the tomb 
 of the Christ. Its beauty entranced, while its 
 truth tortured me. Its expression of despair 
 seemed the cry of my own lost identity, and 
 awoke such an infinity of anguish within me that, 
 for a moment, I was dazed. 
 
 As you finished the song, you turned and saw 
 something in my face that frightened you. You 
 suddenly threw yourself upon my breast and 
 wound your arms about my neck, crying, with a 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 211 
 
 terror full of tenderness : “ Oil my darling! what 
 is it ? Wh}^ do you stare so strangely ? ’ ’ 
 
 That cry, those winding limbs, that heaving 
 bosom, so heavy-laden with passionate love, 
 overcame me. I was suffocated. I felt bound by 
 bonds I was too abject to attempt to break. 
 
 In a moment of overpowering revolt I dashed 
 you from me. You fell to the floor with a look of 
 grieved amazement upon your face, so pathetic 
 that it completely unmanned me. In an instant I 
 had raised and placed you upon the lounge—had 
 fallen at your feet—was weeping upon your 
 breast. 
 
 It was the first time I had ever caused you a 
 single instant’s pain. The act inspired ire with 
 horror—crushed me with shame—overcame me 
 with grief and forced tears—yes actually forces 
 tears from my eyes—the eyes of a man who would 
 have sworn that nothing could have ever made 
 him weep again. 
 
 You were fearfully startled. You could not 
 understand, but you lost all sense of my brutality 
 in your misery at my condition. In less than a 
 minute I had recovered my self-possession, but it 
 was many hours before I could soothe your fears 
 or partially laugh away your sorrow. When at 
 
212 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 last you slept, and lay with the blessed peace of 
 oblivion upon your face, I stole from the house 
 and wandered into the darkest corners of the 
 ‘ * Bois’ ’ overwhelmed with the consciousness of 
 my own slavish condition. Long hours of self- 
 counsel, convinced me there was but one of two 
 things to do. I must either murder or flee from 
 you—bury or banish you, forever, from my life. 
 
 I decided to do the latter. I foolishly fancied 
 that absence might cure me of my disease and 
 enable me to return, some day, to renew the joys, 
 without fear of the dangers, which our glorious 
 intercourse contained. With the resolution to 
 leave you came a longing for one last taste of life 
 with you. I determined that we should have one 
 more week together and that it should be the 
 grand climax of our existence. 
 
 With a fiendish fervor I planned the programme 
 of those final days. 
 
 What a week it proved! I abandoned myself 
 to the leading of n^ love, with the recklessness 
 of a man who knew that this was to be the end of 
 the world to him. What vibrations of sense— 
 what inspirations of mind—what supreme agita¬ 
 tion of soul ! I discovered, in myself, a genius 
 for enjojmient that was a revelation. I surren- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 213 
 
 dfcred to it absolutely and revelled in the absorb- 
 tion of all my anima by you. Great God ! how I 
 adore you! 
 
 The slavery of a great love is the sublimes! 
 luxury of life. But it is a luxury that is easily 
 converted into a necessity, and then one’s identity 
 is destroyed forever. The Heaven of hashish is 
 sheol itself, compared with the intoxication of 
 self-annihilation which that much used, but little 
 understood vrord, implies. 
 
 The grandest excitement of the senses that the 
 lustiest passion can produce, is a pigmy exper¬ 
 ience when contrasted with that elementally 
 opposite state of consciousness—that persistent 
 inebriety of the being—that complete debauchery 
 of the spirit—that never ending orgie of the 
 essence—called love. 
 
 With what an infamous velocity that marvel¬ 
 ous week disappeared ! The last hour arrived 
 before I had time to realize or comprehend the 
 ineffable splendor of the first. Ah ! that final day 
 and night! 
 
 So long as either of us possesses the flimsiest 
 remnant of a mind, the memory of the 15th, of 
 July 1867, will remain to amaze and thrill us. 
 
 The end came. 
 
214 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 At dawn on the morning of the 16th of July, I 
 looked upon you for the last time. You lay, 
 half naked, with the awesome repose of a happy 
 innocence upon your face. I pressed a parting 
 kiss upon your forehead. You turned and mur¬ 
 mured in your dreams with a music which will 
 haunt my ears forever, these simple, silly words: 
 “Yes dear, yours!—all yours!” 
 
 I turned and fled. Not a tear in my eye. My 
 skin cold as ice, but all the inner membranes of 
 my body dry as parchment. Inwardly I was con¬ 
 sumed with the heat of hell. I was strangled. It 
 seemed as though invisible fingers of red hot steel 
 held me by the throat, with a touch as firm as 
 flint and as stinging as the bite of an asp. The 
 extremity of the physical pain was a mercy to 
 to me. I blessed the partial effacement it occa¬ 
 sioned of the full meaning of that last moment. 
 If I had been the most infamous criminal in 
 history the excruciating anguish of that depart¬ 
 ure would have amply punished me for all my 
 sins. I passed out of that paradise like a phan¬ 
 tom. I *seemed, to myself, a ghost. I did not 
 walk, I glided away. The silence was that of a 
 sepulchre. I could not hear my own footfalls. 
 The doors I opened and closed were noiseless. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 215 
 
 Everything* seemed muffled. Nature appeared to 
 hold her breath. I would have given an eternal 
 existence to scream but I knew that if you 
 wakened and uttered one retaining word my power 
 to resist would have been paralyzed—that my 
 will would be eternally lost in 3 r ours. 
 
 The next two months are a blank to me. I dis¬ 
 covered later that I had gone like a man in a 
 trance to the nurse of my infancy, to the cottage 
 of my foster-mother, a peasant who lived a 
 thousand miles from Paris. From the time her 
 motherly arms embraced me I became unconscious. 
 Fever followed, and I did not recover mind or 
 memory until autumn was well advanced. 
 
 I will not dwell upon the convalescence, or the 
 return of the memory that recreated my desire— 
 and fear—of you. I have said enough to prove 
 that if I have been cruel to you I have been 
 equally cruel to myself. 
 
 Before permitting myself to enjoy that last 
 glorious week with you, I had seen our dear friend 
 Diane and confided to her my resolve. You know 
 her unquestioning devotion to me. She promised, 
 with streaming eyes, to obey me implicitly. It 
 was to her I entrusted the delicate and difficult 
 task of explaining my mysterious departure, and 
 
216 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 of gradually loosening the ties that had grown so 
 strong between us. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 16th of July, she was 
 to call upon you, and say that I had been sum¬ 
 moned away on business of the utmost importance; 
 that I had not the courage to bid you farewell; 
 that affairs which could not be explained, made it 
 impossible for us to communicate except through 
 the Duchess. I know, from her, with what frantic 
 grief you received this news. I know, from her, 
 with what deathless faith you still await my 
 return. It is all too frightful to endure. I will 
 keep you in suspense no longer. Know, then, 
 first—that every letter you have sent me through 
 Diane remains unopened. I have not dared to 
 read them. I feared their influence as a drunkard 
 fears the wine that is his destruction, and that he 
 cannot resist. I have known only too well, that 
 a single taste of intercourse with you, even in the 
 form of a letter, would cause a relapse into love 
 which would end completely all my self-control. 
 For this reason I have overcome the temptation 
 to take one glance at your communications. 
 They will be returned to you in a package which 
 will be confided to the care of Pouska, whom you 
 will remember as our courier while we were 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 2 17 
 
 travelling. He is my foster-brother, and he it 
 was who guided me, to the hamlet of his mother, 
 the day I fled from you. The package, wdiich he 
 has promised to deliver to you, alone contains a 
 certificate of my death, a document which will 
 free you socially, and leave you at liberty to 
 secure peace and happiness with some one more 
 clear of worldly fetters than I, and more worthy 
 of the privilege of becoming your slave. 
 
 You will also find in this package my last will, 
 and thus learn that you are the heiress of three 
 million francs. 
 
 Who I really am you have never known, and 
 can never know. When you receive this I shall 
 already be well advanced on my way to a land 
 you are least likely to think of visiting. It is 
 useless for you to endeavor to trace me, and if 
 you ever loved me, or if yon care to save your¬ 
 self from complete social ruin—even earthly ex¬ 
 istence, perhaps—do not hesitate to accept the 
 perfect system of deceptions by which I have 
 arranged to protect our past, and to provide for 
 your future. 
 
 Only one thing more remains to be said. I 
 must have a confession which you may not 
 
218 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 survive. If it strikes you dead at once it may be 
 better for both of us. However merciless it may 
 prove to you, or however disgraceful to me, 
 nothing must delay this confession now. 
 
 Constance, there is nothing that tests the 
 stamina of my will so remorselessly as this ne¬ 
 cessity, which I now face, of making myself con¬ 
 temptible to you. There was a time when I 
 would rather have parted with life than have lost 
 the flattering distinction of being the sole object 
 of your devotion. It has taken months of absence 
 from you to enable me, even now, to tear myself 
 from that place in your heart which your worship¬ 
 ing passion once assigned me, but the time has 
 come when I must do this without flinching, and 
 I swear to you that it is the last unselfish act of 
 which I shall ever again be guilty. 
 
 From the first moment that I met you I have 
 deceived you. 
 
 Our marriage was a farce. It was morganat¬ 
 ic, and of no legal value whatever. 
 
 You have never been—can never be, my wife. 
 
 I am trembling like a craven. 
 
 I did not know till now that the curse of 
 cowardice rested on the race of the man whom 
 you have known, only, as L,EO de Vaugars. 
 
 May ist, 1868. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 219 
 
 The sight of that signature produced a pecul- 
 iar effect upon Lefort. He stared at it in a 
 semi-stupor, for at least one minute, stunned 
 by the suspicion which struck his mind. As 
 this suspicion gradually increased, amazement, 
 for a moment, outran every other emotion. 
 When the full certainty of the truth was de¬ 
 veloped he sprang from his chair—exclaiming, 
 with an intense and terrible rage: “ It is! It 
 must be! Teo! Prince Vakoff! that arch 
 fiend; that modern Lucifer! ” 
 
 Crushing the letter in his hand, he dashed it 
 furiously upon the table, and, striding to the 
 side of the bed, he gazed at the young mother 
 with emotions no pen can express. 
 
 The sight of that chaste and noble face 
 deeply moved him. His countenance, which, 
 at first, was disfigured by a frown of almost 
 brutal ferocit3% gradually lost its look of hate. 
 The high-bred beauty of the patient, with its 
 pathetic unconsciousness and grace, cast a spell 
 
220 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 upon the passionate man. Presently he mut¬ 
 tered: “ Another life wrecked by that mon¬ 
 ster!” 
 
 An expression of yearning tenderness suc¬ 
 ceeded his savage glance. He bent over the 
 form in the bed, murmuring: “ My comrade! 
 my poor little comrade in despair! From this 
 hour my very life is yours. I will scheme, 
 struggle, sin, if necessary to right your wrong. 
 Ah! I will never desert ou! X will love and 
 cherish you—as surely as I will punish him! ” 
 
 Tears stood in his eyes. He stooped low, 
 and kissed the victim’s forehead, with a rever¬ 
 ence that foretold the faithful devotion of all 
 the years to come. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE EAST COMMAND. 
 
 In the years preceding the day when Lefort, 
 responding to the call of Father Ambrose, had 
 hastened to the villa with Clarisse, his interest 
 in life had been little more than that which a 
 desire for achievement occasions in an ener¬ 
 getic mind. Society presented certain terrible 
 problems which organized wrong seemed to 
 defy him to solve. This defiance had given 
 Lis existence its chief delight. It quickened 
 his innate love of conquest. To wrest from 
 nature the secrets which she most carefully 
 concealed; to pluck out the heart of her mys¬ 
 tery, and expose the principles that underlay 
 
222 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 and overrule her every act; to discover and 
 use her own powers against herself; that is, to 
 acquire such a complete command of her 
 methods that he could force her to rescue from 
 her own inevitableness, the victims eternally 
 provided by time for the merciless operation of 
 her laws; all this constituted a purpose worthy 
 of his will, and the steadfast pursuit of this 
 aim enabled him to escape the ennui and dis¬ 
 gust which the inanity, or insanity, of society 
 would otherwise have brought a temperament 
 as impatient of pettiness, or wrong, as that of 
 this sorrow-stricken man. 
 
 Only twelve hours had passed since he had 
 crossed the threshold of the villa, and yet, as 
 the light of the new dawn stole into his eyes, 
 he felt as though he was commencing a new 
 career in another world. 
 
 How serve this unfortunate? How soften 
 the blow which he felt sure would assail her 
 when she returned to consciousness ? To be 
 
 t 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 223 
 
 effectually helpful it was necessary that he 
 should learn everything possible regarding her 
 antecedents, and the events that led up to, and 
 caused this dangerous crisis. At that moment 
 he barely knew enough to understand that it 
 was the sudden realization of the infamous 
 wrong which had been done her, that had 
 thrown her supersensitive organization into 
 such an exceptional condition. In spite of the 
 intense and long continued activity of his 
 mind, he did not feel, as yet, any effect from 
 the unceasing strain which his efforts had put 
 upon his vitality. The discovery of Leo’s 
 connection with the case, had stung into the 
 wildest energy every faculty he possessed. He 
 was resolved to know, and to do, all in his 
 power to alleviate the cruelty of the future to 
 this afflicted child, and also to leave nothing un¬ 
 attempted which might enable him to adequately 
 punish the crime which had been committed, 
 by the man whom he, evidently, had some 
 powerful reason to hate. 
 
224 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 So eager had he become to learn all the 
 facts, that he could not rest an instant, until 
 his curiosity had been partially appeased. Who 
 could most speedily impart the information he 
 desired? Clarisse might know all. Would 
 she tell what she knew ? He decided to test 
 her at once. 
 
 He was about to seek and awake the sleep¬ 
 ing woman when he remembered that he had 
 not fully carried out Stevna’s directions re¬ 
 garding Constance and Ambrose. Curbing 
 his impatience, he made a final examination of 
 the physical condition of the young mother, 
 tenderly bathed and rebandaged her feverish 
 body, and then endeavored to rouse the priest 
 intending to seat him in the chair at the side of 
 the bed, before questioning Clarisse. 
 
 To his dismay, he found the father inaccessi¬ 
 ble to his influence, and beyond his power to 
 impress. He had relapsed into a state of trance 
 with which the doctor no longer felt the 
 courage to cope. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 22 5 
 
 Worried and perplexed, Tefort cudgeled 
 his brains to determine how he should deal 
 with this new dilemma. 
 
 The loss of his hypnotic command of the 
 curate’s organization, was not only a surprise, 
 but also a cause of the deepest regret to him; 
 for it prevented the exhibition of that excep¬ 
 tional phenomena which Stevna had asked him 
 to afford Amelie, and Jacques, the opportunity 
 to examine. He had counted upon the per¬ 
 sistence of his power over the priest, to demon¬ 
 strate to his companions the positive existence 
 of a new and vast field of most important facts. 
 
 While striving to think of some means of re¬ 
 establishing his influence over Ambrose, his 
 tormenting reflections were arrested in a man¬ 
 ner that once more filled him with awe. The 
 whisper which a few hours before had startled 
 all of them, again reached his ears, repeating 
 the very words which had ushered in that ab¬ 
 normal state of unconscious activity through 
 which they had all passed. 
 
226 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Nature sides not—and slights not. ’ ’ 
 
 Softly but clearly the sound of this sentence 
 broke the intense stillness of the hour. Tefort 
 stared about him, wondering no longer at the 
 assertion of the phrase but at the mystery sur¬ 
 rounding its utterance. As he turned his head 
 he saw that Ambrose had risen, and was fa¬ 
 cing the ghastly gray light of the early dawn. 
 He noticed that the father’s lips were trembling. 
 Presently their aimless motions became method¬ 
 ical, whispering: “ Fear not. The triumph 
 of love is at hand.” 
 
 Instantly, the scientist perceived that 
 Ambrose was influenced to repeat the former 
 phrases, in order to reveal to him the means 
 which had been employed to form the whispers 
 which had first been heard. He saw, at last, 
 that while the father was lying upon the floor 
 with the chloroformed cloth upon his chin, he 
 had passed into a trance, and under the con¬ 
 trol of the power then operating. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 227 
 
 The whole proceeding was gradually be¬ 
 coming distinct to the surgeon’s mind. Bon¬ 
 nard was the wonderful instrument through 
 which this entire series of exotic occurrences 
 had been evolved. This conviction relieved 
 the examiner’s anxiety. Through the priest— 
 who was the focal-physical cause of the pre¬ 
 ceding events he would learn the course he 
 must pursue, in order to secure, from the 
 others, some sort of confirmation of this un¬ 
 paralleled phenomena. Humbly seeking direc¬ 
 tions from the unseen, the proud materialist 
 interrogated the senseless machine at his side. 
 
 One inquiry was sufficient. The mystic 
 anima, in substantial intimacy with the 
 machine, foresaw all he sought, and supplied 
 more information than the learned scientist 
 would have known how to demand. 
 
 “ Why am I unable, now, to control the or¬ 
 ganization of Father Ambrose ? ” 
 
228 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 This query awakened the full activity of the 
 priest’s body. The whispering ceased and the 
 reply issued from the manikin’s mouth, in a 
 quiet but penetrating tone. 
 
 “Your question concerning the conception 
 of Christ, reached to the very core of that 
 aboriginal error which has misled and debased 
 human nature for ages. An error so radical 
 that it has been almost impossible to reach 
 the race with the wholesome ideals essential 
 for its grandest evolution. The first vulgar 
 thought that was associated with the creative 
 shrine—wherein the Inscrutable performs that 
 miracle of miracles which peoples the universe 
 with sentient creatures—that first indecent 
 thought was the primal sin of prehistoric times. 
 It inocculated humanity with an intellectual 
 poison which gradually ate into the moral sub¬ 
 stance of mankind, and ultimately caused that 
 decay of its manhood which led to the destruc¬ 
 tion of the grandest civilization which has ever 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 229 
 
 existed on earth. The other civilizations, 
 which were evolved later, grew out of the 
 remnants of that primitive enlightenment 
 which was scattered by the revolt of nature at 
 the desecration of her most vital function, but 
 all the civilizations which succeeded, were 
 tainted with the morbid mental virus which 
 first corroded the race. 
 
 ‘ ‘The mysteries of India and Egypt preserved 
 those poisonous ideas of sex which occasioned 
 the development of asceticism and sensualism, 
 the two opposite, and equally vicious, forms of 
 that disease which results from man’s un¬ 
 natural views of nature processes. 
 
 “The spirit in which mankind is conceived is 
 of fundamental importance. The myster}^ 
 thrown about the sexual act, by what is mis¬ 
 called religion, has engendered all sorts of 
 morbid imaginations. These have begotten 
 base ideas, the bred therefrom those deadly de¬ 
 sires which have so degraded the sublimity of 
 
230 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 the creative act. Rot at the root is sure rum to 
 the fruit . A noble humanity must be nobly 
 begotten. The great truths, to be revealed by 
 the new born, will completely reverse the ec¬ 
 clesiastical and social views, which now pre¬ 
 vail throughout Christendom, concerning sex¬ 
 ual relations. Within a century, from the 
 time when the terrible but glorious life of this 
 infant shall have demonstrated these truths, 
 adultery, and all the revolting mental, moral, 
 and physical diseases associated with it, will 
 have passed from the world forever. From 
 that time the evolution of the race, toward 
 that perfection which is destined to endow it 
 with omnipotence, will meet with no barriers 
 that are not essential and helpful. The vast 
 import of your inquiry struck through the or¬ 
 ganism of Ambrose into the spiritual world 
 with which he is so closely allied, and re-estab¬ 
 lished the ties which had bound him to us. 
 From that moment you lost your rapport with 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 231 
 
 him, and, thenceforth, his cerebrations became 
 the result of influence from the intrinsic world, 
 instead of suggestions from the extrinsic world. 
 The maintenance of our relatations with any 
 zootic organization costs us a far greater effort, 
 and a much deeper suffering, than you can 
 conceive of at present. As humanity grows 
 more pure and humane, the pangs we endure, 
 now, in our endeavors to influence its eleva¬ 
 tion, will pass away. Then our visitations 
 will become more frequent, and the progress 
 of civilization towards spiritualization will 
 rapidly increase. 
 
 “The time has come for us to retire from all 
 abnormal interference with the normal course 
 of events. 
 
 “Note well what follows, for these are the 
 last words we shall be able to convey to you, 
 until years have passed, and the awful catas- 
 trophies to come call us imperatively to your 
 side. 
 
232 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “First—for the immediate present. 
 
 “After we have completed this communica¬ 
 tion, the organization of Ambrose will be re¬ 
 passed into 3T>ur control, that you may fully 
 carry out Stevna’s directions. To-morrow 
 you will question Clarisse, and she will tell 
 you much that will add to your astonishment, 
 and put you upon your guard. 
 
 “All that you discover tending to confirm 
 your suspicions of the identity of the Satanic 
 character, who is the self-sire of this holy 
 infant, you will take great care to keep per¬ 
 sistently to 3^ourself. 
 
 “Now—concerning the future. 
 
 “You will become as a brother to this mother, 
 and the principal guardian of her child. The 
 infant’s ph3 r sical welfare is in 3 r our hands—her 
 spiritual fate is ours. You will use every in¬ 
 fluence to keep her from aii3 r contact with the 
 teachings of established religion. Her mind 
 must not be sophisticated by the dogmatic 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 233 
 
 falsities which so easily take root in the cere¬ 
 bral tissues of children. 
 
 “You will prevail upon the mother to give 
 her daughter the name of Sania—a name 
 which signifies sanity, wholeness, or health. 
 You will do this, because her off-spring is the 
 divine messenger of the whole to each and 
 every part, and is born into earth life that she 
 may unfold to mankind—in daring acts—that 
 gospel of spiritual freedom which ensures ab¬ 
 solute physical and moral health. 
 
 ‘ ‘ In the natural order, this child and her 
 mother will have the most startling and event¬ 
 ful careers. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Your part is to watch over and protect them 
 from material injury but under no circum¬ 
 stances must you attempt to interfere with any 
 occurrence—however appalling—that bears 
 upon their mental or emotional life. Passivity 
 in this sphere, will often be extremely painful, 
 and almost impossible to you, but it must be 
 
234 FATHER AMBROSE* 
 
 constant and absolute, no matter what misun¬ 
 derstandings, or separations, it may tempora¬ 
 rily produce.” 
 
 The last communication, received by Lefort, 
 was delivered in a clear but colorless voice, 
 and with a mechanical lack of expression 
 which was entirely unhuman. While this 
 mere vocal telegraph was operating the doctor 
 was busy recording the message it conveyed. 
 As speech ceased he looked up anxious to ask 
 further information regarding Constance, but 
 the change which the appearance of the priest 
 was undergoing, banished all idea of further 
 questioning. 
 
 The corpse-like manikin slowly closed its 
 eyes. Its hands fell limply to its sides. Its 
 head hung down upon its chest. A shudder¬ 
 ing soon vibrated through the whole of its or¬ 
 ganization. Presently its body emitted a 
 peculiar, pungent odor, like the fetid perfume 
 of a poisonous flower. This grew so strong 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 235 
 
 that the physician fell back sickened. A few 
 seconds later this miasnaetic breath passed 
 away, and was succeeded by soft waves of air, 
 as sweet and refreshing as a summer breeze 
 blowing over the new mown meadows of the 
 valley. Suddenly a perfume as pure as that 
 of a lily pervaded the room, and immediately 
 an exquisite violet light enwrapped the whole 
 person of the priest, whose form dilated and 
 Assumed proportions full of marvellous majesty. 
 Gradually the head rose, the whole body grow¬ 
 ing into a grandeur that strangely moved the 
 witness of this transcendant phenomena. The 
 tint of the priest's face became as fair and 
 beautiful as that of a child in all the glory of 
 perfect health. An ineffably tender and win¬ 
 some smile appeared upon his lips. A splendid 
 placidity crept over his brows. His nostrils 
 quivered with a sensitivity indescribably divine 
 —the whole countenance glorified with a grace 
 surpassing the power of words to picture. 
 
2^6 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The eyes slowly opened, and as their 
 precious light shone into those of Lefort he 
 was inundated with a flood of emotions as 
 blessed as they were beyond all understanding. 
 The whole soul of the physician seemed to ex¬ 
 pand into a serene and beatific activity. He 
 lost all consciousness of physical existence, 
 experiencing, at last, the peace-poised potence 
 of spiritual being, and the unmistakable joy of 
 its sublimated life. 
 
 The gaze of those w r ondrous eyes deepened 
 in earnestness—became awful, yet infinitely 
 beneficient in their power. Finally a voice as 
 musical and thrilling as an seolian harp wafted 
 these words into his ears: 
 
 “ Great-hearted hater of wrong, and lover of 
 
 right! Dauntless mocker of lies and servant 
 of truth! Scorner of base strength, and tire¬ 
 less healer of helplessness! To thee whose 
 God-soul hath so often doubted God’s beings— 
 to thee who hath so mercilessly denounced the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 237 
 
 vain sense-God of the world—to thee, a high 
 priest of science, is granted the .sublime glory 
 of guarding the earth-life of the Archangel of 
 religious liberty—the consummating Messiah 
 of the cosmic order. 
 
 “ To thee—I—the all-lover, all-sufferer, con¬ 
 fide the inmost essence of my entity—my soul’s 
 perfection—the celestial mate of my eternal 
 manhood—whom I have dedicated to the dark¬ 
 ness, of the death-life, that the low may be 
 lifted, and the high humbled—that the gentle 
 may become the strong—and the violent, im¬ 
 potent—that the vain and the vulgar may be 
 forever bereft of vigor—and that nature may 
 be restored eternally to her primitive innocence 
 in the heart of man. 
 
 “ To thee, O! brother of my boundless love, 
 I entrust the most sacred treasure of my sub¬ 
 stance. On thee I place the awful responsi¬ 
 bility of the divinest privilege. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Great anguish shall conduct my beloved to 
 
238 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 great achievement. Horrible pangs to super¬ 
 nal perfections. Torturing throes to trans¬ 
 cendent triumphs. 
 
 This is the cross of crosses which we bear 
 once more that humanity may come into its 
 heritage of divinity—that man may become 
 eternally the consort of God. O! to this end 
 cherish and adore this spiritual treasure of the 
 universe! The conversion of the world from 
 a cowardly conventional to a courageously God¬ 
 like life, depends on your fidelity to my all- 
 loving trust. Heed, and hold to your heart’s 
 core this one supreme command: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Guard , but O! do not dare to guide. ’ ’ 
 
 Ambrose kept his eyes on Tefort. Reaching 
 
 % 
 
 back he found automatically the back of an 
 easy chair close by the bed. 
 
 Slowly he suffered himself to drop into it, 
 his gaze still fixed on Tefort. Reaching out 
 his hand he clasped that of the senseless 
 mother. Next his eyelids began to droop. 
 
\ ■ 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 239 
 
 The lips again moved. As if from a distance 
 the words echoed: 
 
 * ‘ Guard , but do not dare to guide. * * 
 
240 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE POLICE, THE PRIESTS, THE DOCTOR AND 
 THE DEAD HOUND. 
 
 Endormation, the condition usually prompted 
 by the master magnetizer on his subject, 
 seemed to creep over the curate until he was 
 completely in its control. Eefort had put forth 
 no conscious effort, yet he knew instinctively 
 that the man, apparently asleep in the easy 
 chair, would wake at his command and resume 
 his normal condition. The mystic anima had 
 relinquished substantial relation with the 
 fleshly envelope and transferred the power of 
 normal resumption to the doctor. 
 
 At this moment a bell-peal resounded 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 241 
 
 through the villa followed by some reverber¬ 
 ating blows on the outer door. 
 
 Tefort hurried to the window. His gaze 
 encountered a small body of men. 
 
 The uniform of the police! The clerical 
 santane! What might this mean? Hurrying 
 first to Lemaitre he unendormed him with a 
 touch and a word. Before a question could be 
 put this command was rapidly emitted:— 
 
 “Wait! Go tend the mother. Pay no heed 
 to the priest.” 
 
 Temaitre was drilled by the habitudes of his 
 calling. He instantly and without question 
 obeyed. 
 
 Next the doctor raised his sister whose 
 revived oral senses received:— 
 
 “No questions. Tend the child.” What 
 had influenced Lemaitre influenced her—she 
 went. Again the bell clanged; again the 
 resounding blows from the outside. 
 
 Rapidly descending the stairs the doctor 
 flung the door wide open. 
 
242 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ‘ ‘ What is it ? Why this damnable noise ? 
 There is sickness here. ’ ’ A Commissaire de 
 Police stepped forward. 
 
 ‘‘ If there was nothing more than sickness 
 Doctor Tefort I’ll regret the noise and soon 
 release you. But there is sin as well as sick¬ 
 ness. My intrusion is necessary.” 
 
 ” I salute you M. le Commissaire Veaurivard. 
 JVous ve?'rons. We shall see. Tieias\ Pere 
 
 Villegant and Abbe Lavegerie. Are you 
 holy Fathers for the sin or for the sickness ? 
 The holy Fathers only shook their heads and 
 sighed. At this instant the doctor’s rapidly 
 roving eyes fell on a man in citizen’s dress who 
 seemed persistently keeping himself in the 
 background. The doctor .swallowed a mighty 
 oath and muttered— : 
 
 ‘ ‘ The prologue is over. The drama begins 
 on the instant,” and the devilish ex-machine 
 is wanting his cue to speak.” 
 
 All this was but a thought flash. To the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 243 
 
 little crowd he merely said: “ Enter gentle¬ 
 men. I am at your service. ’ ’ 
 
 Leading the w 7 ay into a good sized room 
 fitted with oak and leather furniture ; doubt¬ 
 less the dining-room ; he indicated the chair at 
 head of the table to the Commissaire who 
 bowdng took possession of it. His men 
 grouped at the back. The clerical gentlemen 
 took seats on the right and left of the legal 
 functionary and, at once, the proceedings 
 assumed that air of ceremonial importance so 
 dear to the hearts of the French officials. The 
 citizen who had been the corollary of the 
 doctor’s mutterings had lagged behind, closed 
 the street door and remained there, where, 
 however, all that passed in the dining-room 
 was completely audible. 
 
 “Doctor”—Began the guardian of public 
 security—“ I know you well enough to put 
 my questions rapidly and tersely and be sure 
 of replies which are in compliment. Your 
 visit here is ?” 
 
244 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “ Professional.” 
 
 44 Case of?” 
 
 44 Childbirth.” 
 
 “ Father’s name ?” 
 
 44 Doubtful.” 
 
 44 Mother’s name ? ” 
 
 * ‘ The same. ’ ’ 
 
 44 Married ? ’ ’ 
 
 An instant’s delay, then :— 44 They are stran 
 gers to me. ’ ’ 
 
 44 You were sent for by ? ” 
 
 4 4 A femme de chambre as it seems. ’ * 
 
 44 Is the child born ?” 
 
 44 Yes.” 
 
 44 Healthy?” 
 
 44 Yes—mind marvelously so.” 
 
 ‘‘The mother?” 
 
 44 Nous veirons —We shall see later.” 
 
 4 4 Who was in the house when you arrived?’ 
 44 The patient and—a priest.” 
 
 There was a general movement. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ‘ * His name ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ Father Ambrose Bonnard.” 
 
 “ What was he doing here ?” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Would M le Commissaire mind questioning 
 the Father directly ?’ ’ 
 
 Veaurivaud bit his pencil. “ Se fait —yes— 
 Why not.” Turning to the Abbe—“ To you 
 my Father”—waving his hand toward the 
 doctor—“Ask what you will.” Father La- 
 vigerie, an old man, apparently the embodi¬ 
 ment of kindly simplicity, rose and .spoke with 
 a voice that carried in its tones the unusual 
 flurry of'his good old heart. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Monsieur Lefort we are here because an 
 accusation of the most hideous, the most 
 awful nature has been brought against a 
 member of our Holy Church. It is that our 
 well-beloved and trusted Father Ambrose has 
 been seen committing the vile and filthy act !” 
 
 “What act?”—asked the doctor. The old 
 man tremblingly whispered:— “ He has 
 
 broken his oath of chastity.” 
 
246 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Who saw this ?’ * 
 
 From the doorway came the words: '‘I 
 testify.” 
 
 Pouska stood there red, pallid, beetle-browed. 
 
 From the Commissaire:— 
 
 ‘ ‘ Repeat the words of your plaint to me. ’ ’ 
 
 * * I sw 7 ear that I saw the priest Ambrose com¬ 
 mit an act of venery with * * * *” 
 
 “With who?”—from the doctor. The 
 man threw up his head replying with rancorous 
 briskness. “ Oh, some woman upstairs.” 
 
 Again from the doctor:—“ You don’t know 
 her ?” 
 
 “No?” 
 
 “ You are sure ?” 
 
 “ But—yes” and the man Pouska scowled. 
 
 The doctor smiled. 
 
 “You are sure you saw the complete act 
 committed ?’ ’ 
 
 “ Parbleu”—the man laughed coarsely. 
 
 The Commissaire resumed. 
 
 - - •» .4. _v 
 
 a 
 

 J V*r 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 247 
 
 “ Who is in the house now, doctor?” 
 
 My assistant Eamaitre, my sister, the priest, 
 the patient and”—here an expression of great 
 sweetness grew into his face—“a wondrous 
 newly born female child. 
 
 Turning his head to him agento the Com- 
 missaire ordered. 
 
 “ Bring down the priest, Monsieur Eemaitre, 
 Mademoiselle the doctor’s sister. . . 
 
 “ Impossible,” interrupted Eefort. 
 
 * ‘ My sister and Eemaitre are necessary to 
 the sick and the priest is endormed. ” 
 
 “ Endormed?”—echoed several voices. 
 
 “In a mesmeric trance then”—explained to 
 Eefort—“ We must mount upstairs.” 
 
 Veaurivaud arose. ‘ ‘ Since it is necessary. ’ ’ 
 
 To his agents—“Remain and watch the 
 
 • 
 
 door. The holy Fathers and you sir”—to 
 the witness—“will come with us.” Monsieur 
 Eefort, please to lead the way. He did so, 
 the Commissaire and Fathers Villegeant and 
 Eavigerie closing the little procession. 
 
248 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 On entering tlie bedroom the strange con¬ 
 dition of affairs there evidently struck the 
 keepers of morals supernal and terrestrial, 
 alike priest and police. 
 
 The representative of the law gazed on the 
 peaceful scene with an astonishment which, 
 though deftly concealed from ordinal eyes, 
 was evident enough to the doctor, used so long 
 to those hidden narvine signs which no 
 humane can quite suppress. The priests made 
 no attempt to hide their interested astonish¬ 
 ment. In truth the scene was unusual, all 
 augurous of anything except crime or disaster. 
 
 In the bed apparently softly sleeping the very 
 beautiful girl—as she seemed—reclined, her 
 pose serene, breathing with gentle regularity. 
 At her side her hand clasped in his, the priest 
 —to all appearances as fast asleep in the chair 
 as the girl was in the bed. 
 
 Near by sat Mademoiselle L,efort, a dormant 
 
 % 
 
 child in her arms. Ordinarily there is nothing 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 249 
 
 moving in the aspect of a very young sleeping 
 infant. But this little baby girl had features as 
 defined and expressionable as a child of twelve 
 months old. Another abnormality was that its 
 skin was as fair as the sleeping mother’s instead 
 of being, as is customary with newly-born infants 
 sanguineous in hue ; while the little head was 
 covered with curling, sheeny fair hair, fine and 
 shimmering as spun glass. These three faces 
 were nearly in a line. From the budding 
 beauty of the innocent babe the eye gratefully 
 rested on the madonna-like loveliness of the 
 mother, passing thence to the priest on whose 
 fine features was an expression so celestially 
 peaceful that doctor L,efort himself felt strangely 
 moved. 
 
 Temaitre was standing near the tranced 
 Bonnard, gazing at him evidently puzzled. 
 Sympathetically every step lightened, every 
 face softened. Alone the accusing witness, 
 last to enter the bed-room, seemed insensible 
 
250 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 to the tranquil aura which emanated from the 
 three sentient creatures, whose entities were 
 midway between future and present, guarded 
 by that potential but gentle sleep. 
 
 Tefort went to the babe. 
 
 “ Fast asleep, eh ? ” 
 
 “Yes,” replied his sister, answering the 
 question, but looking toward the intruders. 
 
 The doctor put his hand on the little one’s 
 brow for an instant and whispered. “Sleep, 
 sleep.” He then turned to his assistant. 
 
 “ A little puzzled, eh Temaitre? ” 
 
 Temaitre smiled and nodded. 
 
 - “ A ttendez —wait. ’ ’ 
 
 Next he went to the mother. Towering his 
 head he auscultated carefully. As a result of 
 his examination he said to himself: “ Tighter, 
 but still more than sleep.” 
 
 Turning to the Commissaire he said sonor¬ 
 ously: 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 251 
 
 “You can commence questioning Monsieur. 
 You might begin with my assistants. The 
 others are, as you can see—asleep—” here he 
 smiled— ‘ * and 3^011 will find that > r our ques¬ 
 tioning won’t wake them—neither can your 
 will or any thing you can do. As I am any¬ 
 thing but adversative in their connection I may 
 if you wish come to your rescue bye and b> T e. 
 Ordinary sleep is sense-rest; with those three, 
 every somatic atom, the very mendula is 
 latent, inert, torpescent.” 
 
 The Commissaire’s examination of Amelie 
 and Lemaitre was necessarily found with de¬ 
 tails which multiplied surprise with astonish¬ 
 ment at every turn. 
 
 Thus their evidence : They were sent for 
 in breakneck hurry. A dead mother was to 
 yield her living child under the stress of knife 
 and saw. 
 
 Even this paramount decision was coercive, 
 the reverse process having been first selected— 
 
252 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 embryotomy by the process of basiotripsy; but 
 the priest had commanded, had used danger¬ 
 ous means to reverse the conditions of life¬ 
 saving—the child first, then the mother. The 
 struggle between physician and priest, the 
 saver of life and the saver of soul, was des¬ 
 cribed. Then the apparent death of the mother 
 and the decision to attempt the rescue of the 
 child by the caesarian cut—and then—then 
 they seemed ashamed to testify. 
 
 “Well?”—questioned the police official, 
 breathing stentoriously, of hemaitre. 
 
 “He heard a whisper.’’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ What ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Nature sides not nor slights not. ’ ’ 
 
 “ Where did it come from ? ” 
 
 “ I do not know.”—said Temaitre. 
 
 “ What do you say ? ” turning to Amelie. 
 
 “ I confirm that.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ You heard the whisper ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Distinctly. ’ ’ 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 253 
 
 “ You could not trace it ? ’ * 
 
 “No.” 
 
 “What else?” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Another whisper. ’ ’ 
 
 Fear not , the tiiumph of love is at hand . 
 
 ‘ ‘ Then you found out who it was ? ’ * 
 
 “No.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ But that is invraiseniblable. The closest 
 translation would be untruthlike.” 
 
 “ It is true ! ! ” 
 
 This from both Amelie and Iyemaitre with 
 almost frenzied simultaneousness. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Afterwards ? What next ? ’ ’ 
 
 “That is all! ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ All! What mean you ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ I lost consciousness. The next thing I 
 can recall is receiving an order from the doctor. 
 I seemed to wake out of a sleep. The doctor 
 forbade a single question.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ And you Mademoiselle ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ The same—word for word.” 
 
254 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Veaurivaud threw up his hands, and swung 
 himself round to the priest’s who met his 
 questioning gesture with a helpless shrug of 
 the shoulders; their faces were eloquent of 
 dismay nor was nascent appreciation absent. 
 The witness had listened to the gruesome story 
 of the fight eagerly. Now even he seemed 
 abashed. 
 
 The Commissaire resumed his embryonal in¬ 
 quisition. 
 
 “ Dr. Tefort you have heard all this. Is it, 
 can it be true ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ It is true in the minutest scintilla of every 
 particular. ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ But the mother is alive! ’ ’ 
 
 - “ The mother is alive.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ The child too! ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ And the child. ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Can you explain ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ I might relate; I could not make you un¬ 
 derstand. Something has happened outside 
 
FATHER AMBROSE 
 
 255 
 
 the pale of probability: beyond the region of 
 ordinary comprehension; something that will 
 be, or become, independent of your power— 
 civil, or mine—scientific. Will you permit me 
 to put a question or two ? ’ ’ 
 
 Veaurivaud passed his hand impotently 
 across his brow. 
 
 Think! A French commissaire de police 
 feeling helpless and revealing his feelings! 
 
 “Allez allez —go on.” 
 
 “You came here at the instigation of that 
 man ”—indicating the witness Pouska. 
 
 “Yes.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ May I question him ? 
 
 “Yes.” 
 
 The doctor turned to the witness. 
 
 “ Advance my friend.” 
 
 The man moved forward. 
 
 ‘ ‘ What is you name ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ The police have it. ’ ’ 
 
 “ But I have not.” 
 
256 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “ That’s their affair.” 
 
 The doctor smiled. 
 
 “ Your name is Pouska.” 
 
 The man started. 
 
 ‘ ‘ What are you ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ A gentleman.” 
 
 “ You lie—you are a servant in the employ¬ 
 ment of—” 
 
 Pouska blurted out:— 
 
 ‘ ‘ Well I am in the confidence of Monsieur 
 Leo de Vaugars.” 
 
 “ Leo De Vaugars, eh ? ” 
 
 “ Yes.” 
 
 “You probably know then who that lady 
 is?” 
 
 “Yes, his mistress and”—sneering and 
 glancing at the dormant Ambrose— 
 
 ‘ ‘ Others. ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Why did you go to the police ? Why 
 summon the holy fathers ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ Because I was the witness of a brutal act.” 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 257 
 
 ‘ ‘ Then you were actuated by a sense of 
 decency and a regard for public morals ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ Why, certainly.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ Are you sure you had no end to serve ? ’ 9 
 ‘ ‘ What end could I have ? ’ * 
 
 “For instance the defamation of that 
 woman’s character ”—pointing to the mother. 
 
 The man jerked his shoulders up towards 
 his ears. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Mats, tete de Dieu —Why ? ’ ’ 
 
 ‘ ‘ Were you not glad to see what you saw ? ’ ’ 
 “Glad? No. Indignant and disgusted of 
 course. ’ ’ 
 
 Tefort made a gesture and strode forward 
 until he was peering into the man, Pouska’s 
 face and said in a low voice stinging with sar¬ 
 casm. “Why you would lick the feculent 
 mud from your master’s boot and feel no dis¬ 
 gust. What right has a moujik serfe to indig¬ 
 nation ? ’ ’ 
 
258 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Pouska was no ordinary man. He had 
 plenty of brute courage and great nerve con¬ 
 trol, yet at these words though he didn’t start, 
 though not a muscle moved, not an eyelid 
 quivered, his eye-balls protruded out towards 
 the doctor and seemed to flicker. The man 
 remained dumb, motionless. The doctor had 
 seen and was satisfied. Turning to the Com- 
 missaire he said:— 
 
 “ Monsieur le Commissaire, as you know, al¬ 
 most anything, however strange it may seem, 
 is permitted when the life of a human being is 
 menaced. You are informed that the priest 
 there”—gesticulating—“is a lecher and an 
 oath-breaker; that he and the woman there 
 were seen in a condition of complete denudi- 
 tion lying side by side. It is true and —it was 
 necessary .” Swiftly glancing towards Pouska. 
 “ You did not speak of the hound. Had the 
 man there reported accurately he would have 
 told you that an almost moribund woman, a 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 259 
 
 human shell with a living kernel was borrowing 
 vital heat from an unclothed man on one side of 
 her and—parbleu! an unclothed hound on the 
 other. By this time M. Veaurivaud abandoned 
 his usual habit of theory-forming. The case 
 was so astounding. He concluded to listen only 
 and record evidence. The good priests had 
 never done anything but patiently listen; 
 needless to say they were brain-numbed. 
 
 It was almost with lassitude that the Com- 
 missaire asked: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Where is the hound ? ’ ’ 
 
 The huge beast was at length discovered 
 under the bed. No animals quiescence being 
 commented on it was discovered that the dog 
 was dead! At this Pouska seemed unre¬ 
 strainedly troubled. Why ? 
 
26 o 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 the surgeon’s triumph. 
 
 Aee this time every member of the strangely 
 constituted group, except the sleeping or en- 
 dormed, had remained standing. As if flexed 
 by the encounter of so much that was exhaust - 
 ingly perplexive, by common accord all 
 sought chairs, M. Eemaitre obligingly bring¬ 
 ing several from adjoining rooms. Dr. Eefort 
 alone remained erect and, as soon as the others 
 were seated, began almost as if he were de¬ 
 livering a lecture. 
 
 {< I have said the mother was dying. She 
 was. In any case I apprehend she must have 
 fainted. Eet us suppose that Father Ambrose 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 26l 
 
 discovered her condition and, let us say, de¬ 
 termined to take the mighty risk of acting as 
 he did in the hopes of saving not one life but 
 the two. Well the two lives are saved. 
 Mother and babe both live.” 
 
 Here Pere Favigerie interjected— 
 
 ‘ ‘ If we could only question Father Ambrose 
 himself. ’ ’ 
 
 “ Yes ”—approved the Commessaire— 
 
 “You said you would help us, doctor.” 
 
 “ Can your skill rouse the Father there? If 
 we could get his version of things from him¬ 
 self—” 
 
 ‘ ‘ I think I shall have no difficulty in unen- 
 dorming Father Ambrose, but what he will do 
 or say, what his cerebular condition will be 
 when he is roused I know no more than 3^011 
 3'ourself. He was half mad once. If he 
 awakes he may be wholly mad, or entirely 
 sane. 
 
262 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Going to Ambrose he auscultated carefully 
 and took his pulse. ‘ ‘ Heart action and pulse 
 are both normal. That this is something 
 more than sleep I will immediately convince 
 you. Come yourself M. Veaurivaud to the 
 patient and try and rouse him.” 
 
 Notwithstanding his nervousness Veaurivaud 
 went. He shook the apparently somniferous 
 priest by the arm, pulled him this way and 
 that. Whichever way the body was pulled it 
 went and remained there. All the sustaining 
 muscles and sinews seemed to be elastic and 
 yielding, flexous rather than flaccid, but to 
 shake away the torpor which was regnant over 
 the senses seemed impossible. 
 
 Dr. Lefort watched the futile efforts of 
 Veaurivaud with an amused smile. 
 
 “ Shout in his ears ”—was suggested. 
 
 Veaurivaud looked towards the bed. Lefort 
 understood the action. 
 
 “Don’t be afraid. You won’t wake the 
 other sleepers. Shout in the Father’s ear. You 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 263 
 
 will see it wont disturb him. You might fire 
 off revolvers, guns, even cannon close by his 
 side; it wouldn’t even effect the regularity of 
 his breathing.” Veaurivaud bawled in the 
 priest’s ear; he even went so far as to pull the 
 priest up bodily from his chair and let him fall 
 back into it. In vain. The endormatiou was 
 in no way disturbed. The Commissaire with¬ 
 drew discomforted. 
 
 “Took here”—said the doctor baring 
 Ambrose’s arm and picking up a pair of sharp 
 pointed scissors. ‘ ‘ This would wake any mere 
 sleeper, wouldn’t it ? ” 
 
 With this he jabbed the points of the scissors 
 into the soft flesh of the bared arm frequently 
 to a depth of nearly a quarter of a inch. Not 
 the slightest effect was produced. Drawing 
 down the sleeve Lefort turned to Veaurivaud 
 and asked in a tone that had that a little touch 
 of triumph inseparable from the successful 
 performance of an operation, however puny, 
 by every surgeon;— 
 
264 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 “ Well my friend ? Are you convinced that 
 the man sleeps as you never saw a man sleep 
 before ? The resounding role-call for the 
 famous final judgment wouldn’t wake him. 
 Look here—’ ’ 
 
 With his thumb he lifted an eyelid showing 
 the ball turned up in the socket revealing noth¬ 
 ing but the white which the doctor freely 
 touched with his finger. 
 
 “You can do this with calalepsy but not— 
 but there; you are satisfied, eh? ” 
 
 “ Entirely. That is a kind of sleep I have 
 never seen. I’ve heard of mesmeric sleep and 
 trances but—’ ’ 
 
 “ But being a dealer in cumulative facts 
 the ‘what is’s’ you leave us scientists 
 to dabble in the ‘what may be’s.’ Quite 
 right. Now I think I shall have no difficulty 
 in waking the patient and you shall see all 
 that I do and if you like you shall see if you 
 can arrive at similar results with the mother of 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 265 
 
 the babe there. Let me add that the woman 
 has been more or less in the condition she now 
 is ever since I was called in. I have never 
 yet heard a sound of her voice. I do not know 
 that any of us ever will. My present experi¬ 
 ment will assist me to determine. Now 
 mind I do not know whether I shall presently 
 rouse a raving mad-man or sane human being. 
 That responsibility is with you. ’ ’ 
 
 Going to Father Ambrose he settled him 
 comfortably in the chair laying the head back. 
 Retreating behind the endormeur he passed 
 his hands, the fingers extended, from the 
 region of the heart up over the face and head 
 throwing them out and away right and left. 
 Repeating this action three or four times he 
 blew twice on the priest’s forehead and said:— 
 ‘ * Awake, Father Ambrose!” 
 
 A group of men in a highly tensile condition 
 watched. Curiosity and fright were equally 
 assertive. A little start; the eyelids twitched, 
 
266 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 lifted; the arms were stretched out; a half 
 stifled yawn; the eyes, wide opened, fell on 
 Lefort and, in his ordinary calm voice, Father 
 Ambrose said in a way that was more like 
 somniloquism than speaking— 
 
 “ Ah, doctor. I’m very sorry, but I’m 
 afraid I fell asleep.” 
 
 The tension relaxed: one great breath of 
 relief was taken. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 267 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A PRIEST AND YET A PARENT. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Ah doctor ? Did I fall asleep ? 
 It was very reprehensible! Pray forgive me. ’ ’ A 
 pause, a quick snapping of the eyelids accent¬ 
 uating an expression which indicated a reach¬ 
 ing back of the memory in search of past 
 events ; an illumination of the countenance 
 which spoke as plainly as verbal utterance 
 could have done that the search was successful 
 and the sot disant endormeur continued in 
 anxious tones:— 
 
 “Ah, the patient! Poor creature, how is 
 she?” 
 
268 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Easily, naturally, without taking any note 
 of the other occupants of the room, Father 
 Ambrose rose and bent over the sleeping 
 mother. 
 
 Lefort noticed at once that the tone of voice 
 and manner of the speaker had materially 
 changed. The Father was as Lefort had 
 always known him. Gentle in manner, soft of 
 voice, humble and unassuming—he exchanged 
 glances with his sister and Lemaitre. Ambrose 
 was well known to the police as he was to the 
 Reverend Fathers who were watching him. 
 His present manner was, therefore, only what 
 they expected. What Pouska thought was by 
 no means to be gathered by any examination 
 of his heavy features. 
 
 Ambrose lifted his eyes to Lefort’s. 
 
 “She seems to be sleeping peacefully.” 
 Turning he became aware, evidently for the 
 first time, of added occupants to the room. 
 With his customary sweet smile and out- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 269 
 
 stretched hand he went towards the Fathers 
 with ‘ * Vous id viesperes ? You here my Fathers? 
 and the good Chief of Police.” Next he 
 bowed to Pouska—who it will be remembered 
 he had not seen, so, of course, did not know. ‘ ‘ I 
 am not surprised to see you Monsieur Veauri- 
 vaud nor, indeed, you vies Peres. Strange 
 things have been happening. Some of us 
 here”—his voice and manner growing awe¬ 
 some—“have been holering in the intra- 
 mundane ether ; perhaps indeed on the borders 
 of the Supernal or—crossing himself—the 
 infernal spheres. I am glad you have come 
 dear Fathers. I have been sorely troubled. All 
 is much clouded even yet ‘ ‘ and ’ ’—pressing his 
 palm between his brows—‘ ‘ I fell asleep. Per¬ 
 haps exhausted as well as overcome. But ‘ ‘ the 
 frowning of the brows disappearing—I feel per¬ 
 fectly myself now, doctor. ’ ’ The Commissaire’s 
 eyes had not left Father Ambrose since he had 
 been roused. Veaurivaud now rose and said— 
 
270 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Will you excuse me a moment ? ’ ’ Turning 
 to the priests he added ‘ * good Fathers, would 
 you come with me?” The Fathers Favigerie 
 and Villegeant silently left the room. The Com- 
 missaire followed, closed the door to within 
 an inch or so. Keeping his ear at the space 
 he hurriedly whispered:— 
 
 ‘ ‘ I want to depart from our ordinary methods 
 of procedure. Instead of questioning Ambrose 
 myself I want you to do .so. Treat him please 
 as if you knew nothing, and draw from him his 
 version of all the events here he is cognizant 
 of. * ’ The whispered direction had hardly taken 
 half a minute. They were back in the room. 
 The Fathers Favigerie and Villegeant moved 
 their chairs near to that occupied by Ambrose, 
 Bonnard, placing them so that the three sitters 
 formed the points of a triangle. Ambrose 
 
 faced the Fathers. Favigerie commenced 
 with :—“Mon fils, some very strange and 
 moving events have been taking place here. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 271 
 
 Rumors of them have reached us. Can 
 you tell 11s all about them?” 
 
 “Assuredly good Fathers, willingly and 
 gladly. I have been moved to great fear and 
 my human compassion has been stirred—stirred 
 do I say ? Volcanized is rather the word. 
 Think, good Fathers, the supreme happenings 
 there must have been, when I, a priest, was 
 driven to make an onslaught on my well- 
 beloved friend the doctor there. By Jesu, 
 Fathers”—the utmost pain twitching every 
 facial nerve—‘ ‘ if he had’nt drugged me helpless 
 the savant would be lying there with one of his 
 own dreadful knives in his heart. Fisten’ ’ -then 
 he related, to surely the most attentive knot of 
 listeners that ever hung on the lips of a speaker, 
 the events whose details have already been 
 printed and perused by the reader. A repeti¬ 
 tion would be wearisome to most people even 
 if galvanized by Ambrose’s seemingly inspired 
 language, and touchingly reverential narration. 
 
272 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The inspiration that dictated the 'Story o f the 
 birth of Jesus was not missing in dealing with 
 events which anteceded the entry into this 
 mundane sphere of the New Avatar. Rapidly 
 and concisely he referred to the cries he had 
 heard ; his hurried entry into the house ; his 
 discovery of the perishing human jailor of the 
 living babe. Here his ipissima verba must be 
 quoted. 
 
 “ I am a priest my Fathers and knew but 
 little of the process by which the ceaseless 
 wheel of creation among living things is kept 
 in motion by the motive power whose furnisher 
 is our great God Himself, but I felt that cold 
 was sure death to one if not two of His creatures. 
 I looked at the prostrate mother. There was 
 a great black hound there. He helped me 
 decide, I bore the dying mother here. I 
 bared the sacred human casket. Her body was 
 cold, cold ! Death’s icy fingers were surely on 
 her. In an instant I had stripped, and the 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 273 
 
 hound and I enwrapped her close and were 
 fighting the cold Terror King with our own 
 warm bodies. My Fathers, for a time I felt 
 happy, proud; important as a sentry at some 
 dangerous out-post on whose vigilance de¬ 
 pended— life\ Then “—blushing—” something 
 happened, whose telling is for the confessional 
 alone—it may have been a grace of God—or a 
 devilish, suggestive temptation, but, my 
 Fathers, though a nude woman was in my 
 arms, pressed close to my heart, my body is 
 still the Church’s, ’ ’ and—rising and lifting high 
 his hand—“ may the Almighty strike my life 
 away and mark my soul for everlasting perdi¬ 
 tion if I am not as much, nay more, much more 
 his priest now, even, than I was yesterday!” 
 
 The impression these words created was pro¬ 
 found. 
 
 The spy Pouska trembled from head to foot. 
 
 From the bed proceeded a long drawn sigh 
 which turned all heads in the mother’s direction. 
 
274 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 A smile of ineffable sweetness formed on the 
 somnipathist’s beautiful features, her head 
 turned very slightly towards Ambrose, then 
 towards her child. Ambrose moved rapidly to 
 Miss Lefort and, taking the babe from her 
 arms he laid its little face beside the mother’s 
 whose lips rested on the velvet cheek for the 
 time. 
 
 “ The first time the mother has moved.”— 
 whispered Lefort grasping the Commissaire’s 
 arm. The smile died away. Ambrose carried 
 the child round to the priests resuming—‘ ‘ And 
 yet, my Fathers, I am drawn to this little atom 
 in a way you cannot understand and I cannot 
 explain. This child seems to me, feels to me” 
 —folding it in and with his arms as a mother 
 would—“as if it were my own. My heart 
 teems with a paternal love for it! My Fathers, 
 it is a mystery, a miracle of God! I am a 
 priest and yet I feel a parent! 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 275 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MOTHER SPEAKS. 
 
 Aee this time Pouska had remained a pas¬ 
 sive spectator. A harsh laugh from him now 
 jarred the ears alike of official and clerics : 
 ‘ ‘ The Father’s paternal feelings are not hard to 
 understand!” 
 
 Ambrose turned and looked gently at Pouska 
 seeming to take complete notice of him for the 
 first time. He asked: “Who is this gentle¬ 
 man?” Pouska paused a moment. Evidently 
 making up his mind what was to be his definite 
 course of action. 
 
 ‘ ‘ I am the man who saw you commit the 
 act of shame with the woman yonder. ’’ 
 
276 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Ambrose was undisturbed. ‘ ‘ Ah!’ ’ he said, 
 ‘ ‘ you must have come in while I was insen¬ 
 sible. ’ ’ 
 
 “ There was’lit much of the insensible about 
 your act”—sneered Pouska. Apparently Am¬ 
 brose did not hear. His eyes were on th 
 sleeping child. Softly he went towards the 
 doctor’s sister and, with almost curiously minute 
 care, replaced the child in her arms. “Well 
 gentlemen,” enquired Lefort “what is to be 
 done ?” “ There is only one thing to be done, ’ ’ 
 
 —intruded Pouska—‘ ‘ the priest there will 
 have to suffer the pains and penalties of his 
 act. Representing the owner of this house 
 and the woman there I have only to . . . . ” 
 
 “ Not another word,” commanded Retort, 
 “or I shall inform every one here who is the 
 owner of this house.” 
 
 “There is no secret about that”—blurted 
 out Pouska in a bullying tone. ‘ * My master, 
 Monsieur Reo de Vaugars, is nobody of impor- 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 277 
 
 tance. I’m very sure the police have never 
 heard of him.” The doctor retorted with a 
 smile : ‘ ‘ But I think the police are familiar 
 enough with the name of Prince Vakoff!” 
 
 “Dial de Dieu “—exclaimed Monsieur de 
 Veaurivaud in a tone of excitement at variance 
 with the restraint usually practised by the 
 members of his calling. “Is this the house 
 of Prince Vakoff and is that lady his 
 
 * ‘ This is the house of Prince Vakoff and he is 
 the father of that child”—pointing to the baby, 
 ‘ ‘ How are you going to prove that my 
 master, who I declare to be an ordinary private 
 gentleman, can be any one as important as—” 
 ‘ ‘ Silence! * ’ —thundered the Commissaire— 
 “Monsieur Pouska you are arrested. You 
 have evidence that the man Leo . . . . ” 
 
 All in the room were now startled. The name 
 of Leo was repeated in very soft, but exquisitely 
 musical tones from the bed. The lips of the 
 sleeping mother were parted; the eyelids 
 were twitching. “ Leo, dear Leo !” 
 
278 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The voice still sounded far away. Not alone 
 the eyelids, but all the facial muscles were in 
 movement. Presently reflex nervous action 
 was traceable all over the torse, and, to the ex¬ 
 tremities, next absolute tranquility for some 
 few seconds, a deep sigh and the beautiful eyes 
 opened. They fell first on the police and the 
 Fathers Villegec it and Tavigerie. She smiled 
 sweetly, but said nothing. Then turning her 
 head a little she discovered the child, and for 
 the first time in clear and pure musical tones 
 the true voice was heard. “Ah! my baby! 
 My little baby child!” A smile of ineffable 
 sweetness overspread the delicately lovely 
 features; her arms were stretched out ; the 
 sleeping infant was placed in them, and folding 
 it to her bosom, the musical voice again pro¬ 
 nounced the words —* 1 My child ; my little 
 baby child!’* 
 
FATHER AMBROSE 
 
 279 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE NEW AVATAR. 
 
 How wonderful are the processes of nature 
 even to the ignorant! To the enquirer and 
 student they are necessarily prodigious. It 
 will be remembered that this woman, in a con¬ 
 dition that needed the utmost consideration and 
 care, had been struck senseless by a terrible 
 shock. Her world of love had crumbled into 
 dust; at the same moment dire infamy had 
 descended upon her. She had more than 
 hovered between life and death. She had 
 been a moribund and a resuscitant! Yet on 
 recovering the full measure of her senses the 
 maternal instinct was the first to assert itself. 
 
28 o 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 The greatest of loves had been her’s and had 
 betrayed her ; the sweetest of loves was hence¬ 
 forth a puissant possession, from which, if she 
 were true to the mighty human trust of mater¬ 
 nity, she could be dispossessed. 
 
 “You are glad you have your baby?”— 
 asked Doctor Tefort. 
 
 “Oh, yes doctor; so glad, so very, very 
 glad. ’ ’ She lightly brushed the infant’s cheek 
 and ear with her lips as she uttered that low 
 purring sound which mothers keep for their 
 young. 
 
 ‘ ‘ How did you know I was a doctor? ’ ’ 
 
 She appeared to be gradually remembering. 
 “ I don’t know yet, quite, but you are a doctor 
 and helped my baby into the world and I will 
 always love you for that. And that’ ’—looking 
 up at Miss Tefort—“ is your .sister!’’ 
 
 Constance was now tying on her side the 
 child cradled in her arms. The police, priests 
 and Pouska stood near the bottom of the bed, 
 
FATHER AMBROSE). 
 
 281 
 
 while Ambrose and Temaitre, being on the 
 further side, were behind her. 
 
 “Your voice is very strong, you feel well, 
 don’t you ?” 
 
 “ Quite well. You know I am to be spared 
 all accouchement sickness. You will find when 
 you examine me presently that every organ 
 that was strained, or displaced, is now in its 
 normal condition.” She touched her side— 
 “ You have bound me I see. It was hardly 
 necessary. I have been away with the astral 
 Bygas and they have tended me, but they 
 used your hands, because I’m flesh and they 
 needed flesh hands; and they made you 
 cleverer than you ever were before—and they 
 said you were clever too—but in the boundless 
 univercoelum where I have been there are 
 myriads of Byga healers, and they all concen¬ 
 trated and focused on you while you tended 
 me. Then when you had replaced the strained 
 organs they drenched me with Nirvana, so I am 
 well. The Bygas are good doctors.” 
 
282 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 Fefort smiled and nodded. ‘ ‘ I understand. ’ ’ 
 Glancing at Ambrose lie perceived that the priest 
 who, in common with all present, was an atten¬ 
 tive listener, seemed an aural recipient of 
 expected rather than astonishing revelations. 
 All the others were silent wonderers. 
 
 At this moment Constance for the first time 
 noticed the presence of the Commissaire, 
 the Fathers Villegeant and Lavigerie and 
 Pouska. Her eyes flashed and fixed them¬ 
 selves on him. Placing the infant on the side 
 of the bed nearest Ambrose, and still keeping 
 her eyes on the man she reached out a hand, 
 caught up a large silk shawl that hung over 
 the back of a chair near her, threw it 
 round her and lifted herself with a .single 
 movement high in the bed. Doctor Lefort 
 instantly put out a warning hand, but, then 
 remembering that she had announced herself 
 free from any danger of sudden movement, 
 withdrew his arm. 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 283 
 
 “You here, Pouska. Ah, now I remember 
 everything. It must have been you who 
 brought the Count’s letter?” 
 
 “It was”—surlily acquiesced the man. 
 
 ‘ ‘ How dare you use that tone of insolence 
 to me ? ’ ’ 
 
 1 
 
 “ I—I—saw you ”—blurted Pouska. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Saw me ? Where ? ’ ’ 
 
 “ With the priest.” 
 
 Constance uttered a cry of joy. 
 
 “ Ah, the good priest that saved my life 
 where—ah”—turning, “ )^ou are there good 
 Father. ’ ’ She held her two hands out towards 
 him. Ambrose gave her his hand with a 
 smile. She drew him towards her so that he 
 had to sit on the bed near at her side, kissed 
 the hand she held then laid it on the child.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ So then there is trouble because of the way 
 the holy Father had to .save my life, and that 
 is why the other priests and the Commissaire 
 are here. Pouska the low human dog of a high 
 
284 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 lordly hound brought them.” This was said 
 half to herself. She reclined back on the 
 pillows, adding. “Messieurs, what the Father 
 did was necessary to save my life. There 
 should be no immodesty in the presence of 
 death ; I feel no shame in what the Father did, 
 for—there was no shame . 5 ’ 
 
 At this point Ambrose rose and began speak¬ 
 ing. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Here almost at the birth-act of this child 
 let its work begin. You here shall receive the 
 first import of the mighty mission of that little 
 sleeping child . Know then the world is so 
 vile it needs another Saviour. The first was 
 Christ; there lies the second Saviour, but it is 
 a woman! Her mission is to preach and teach 
 the true religion of human brotherly love. I ' 
 am her guardian, the servant now of a power 
 that will supplant the great church itself! ” 
 Gradually as Ambrose spoke he seemed to gather 
 a strength of utterance and a sublimity of mien 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 285 
 
 v V . • ■ } ' 
 
 that became less and less earthly. He con¬ 
 tinued: “The mother there has told you she 
 has visited the univercoelum of the astral bodies 
 ( and remembers it ! I shall be, in my turn, an 
 [ understanding servant of the unseen inhabi¬ 
 tants of space. The doctor there is one al- 
 I ready, and, together, we have to protect the 
 I mother and rear the child, ministering to the 
 I fleshly envelope while the Astrals use our 
 organs to brain its mind. A few hours ago I 
 was a simple priest.” His voice rang out— 
 “Fathers, that church is inimical to the church 
 of God, the church of Creation. Celibacy is 
 a crime that outrages nature and nature came 
 ' with creation which is God. The New Avatar 
 I there will teach that. The world confounds 
 f the sweetness of modesty with the prurient 
 ' abomination of mock pudicity. The child 
 1 there when grown to woman’s estate in her 
 | own faultless person will show this world what 
 hold the beauty of a perfect woman, clothed 
 
 1 
 
I 
 
 286 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 only with the innocence of exquisite guileless¬ 
 ness, can take on wholesome minds, and the 
 thronged theatre shall feel the supremacy of 
 nature’s master hand and know no lust! ” 
 
 ‘ ‘ The love that makes man wish to help his 
 fellow— She shall teach; the love that makes 
 the rich share his surplus with the needy—- 
 She shall teach; the cleanly wholesomeness of 
 free and natural love— She shall teach; and 
 that marvelous process whereby life springs 
 with convulsive joy from the union of the 
 sexes— She shall teach ! That is the mission 
 of the New Avatar! ” 
 
 The last few sentences were uttered in tones 
 almost of agony, terrible, yet so tender that 
 they sank like the entrancing harmony of a 
 tragic hymn into the uttermost depths of the 
 listeners present. Ambrose stood spell-bound, 
 his eyes wide with worshiping exaltation. As 
 his voice faded into silence Ambrose’s unearthly 
 eyes were raised in ecstasy. Suddenly there 
 
FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 287 
 
 was darkness, an illimitable waste of impene¬ 
 trable blackness. Presently there seemed to 
 be a motion, the blackness began to circinate 
 within itself as it were. The room became 
 charged with agasa, or magnetism, and soon 
 the minutest spark of life conceivable was 
 whirling amidst the blackness. The next 
 moment, as if it had percussed against some 
 obstruction it stopped, scintillated and flashed 
 into a violet light illumining a limitless space, 
 which can only be compared to the heavens on 
 some ice-clear night wherein no star remained. 
 An indescribable disturbance agitated the air; 
 while a perception of sound rather than sound 
 itself wailed in the ears of the listeners, some¬ 
 thing between a long-drawn sigh and the 
 moaning of the wind. Next out of the violet, 
 ether three forms slowly gathered, like gossa- 
 mere cobwebs laid one on the other. Grad¬ 
 ually it was possible to distinguish the nude 
 figure of Ambrose clasping close the naked Con- 
 
288 
 
 FATHER AMBROSE. 
 
 .stance and holding on high in his hand the 
 child. Waves of translucent carmine light < 
 played about the figures as they gradually de¬ 
 veloped, until a vision of the most sublime 
 beauty was completely revealed. A mighty 
 chorus of voices, apparently from some incredi¬ 
 ble distance, out of the circumambient violet- 
 ether barely made audible these words:— 
 
 ‘ ‘ STUDY THE MISSION OF THE NEW 
 
 AVATAR!” 
 
m 
 
 > ,a\v, ,-v; 
 Mmmk . ■>; ;~ 
 
 
 JVteAfe..-* > -"• 
 
 KAYI 
 
 NOVEL. 
 
 VY? 5»»?' 
 
 * 4 r 
 
 *£ 
 
 & 
 
 v. 
 
 • ..<*• - 
 
 
 ,V 
 
 ; 
 
 BOM 
 
 
 eKw . •• •‘■ti." 
 
 
 SB&SNSS 
 
 .OjR 
 
 
 
 ' " • 
 
 
 Ka 
 
 
 .'vK ;> •• 
 
 e'plays “ Paul Kauvar,” “ 
 
 iPr> •■'' p-tVY.*;> jM:{ f*$f 
 
 *£? • >*• 
 
 iter Welch Publishing Company, 
 
 
 ./* 
 
 & 
 
 ' . «i 
 
 -V> i 
 
 
BELT LINE SERIES. 
 
 EACH VOLUME, - - - 50 Cents; Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 The Deshler Welch Publishing Company, 
 
 1441 Broadway, New York. 
 
 IN PREPARATION: 
 
 Where is John Trevanion? 
 
 By Harry St. Maur. 
 
 An American Emperor, 
 
 By John Grosvenor Wilson. 
 
 John Norbury, 
 
 By Deshler Welch. 
 
 The Lost Train, 
 
 And other Train Stories, 
 
 By B. B. Vallentine. 
 
 Formerly editor of “ Puck,” and author of the “ Fitz-Noodle Papers.’ 
 
 Her Experience, 
 
 By Chandos Fulton. 
 
 “Experience is like the stern lights of a ship; illuminating only the track 
 that has been over.” 
 

 
■ I '.T . 
 
 ■ •;: ■ . ' ■> T v' 
 
 r .. _ , ~ '*>&$ 4 
 
 P l- I /\ X' ' .1 / V. # \ «V : C. /\ *X ( : /V 
 
 
 ,*.r) v-w ;-. r.■ : '^- ; ^"''‘^ i !Vi ; ;V : ^v w ■ 
 
 ■ at dansVille; new .tgrk. 
 
 By • 
 
 { For thirty-five years the leading Health Institution in Ainferlda, is under the o^re of 
 regularly educated and experienced physicians, and. Is distinctive in its methods apd character, 
 
 Hillside location in woodland park, overlooking extended views of the famous /Jenesee 
 1 Valley region, unsurpass.ed for healthfutnesS and beauty. Charging walks and drives. Lakes, 
 
 R In' dmintiiihoro -Prat* Pt\cro 
 
 glens and'waterfalls Tip mrinediate. vicinity.. Clear, dry aunospherp. free from fogs 'and 
 ^Palana. Pure spring water-jfrom roekyr heights nearly.identical with that of the noted springs 
 OfdltoiitrexevHle, Prance, Thorough drainage and sewerage. 
 
 i ■ ^Icurhnl'. Vri/vlhr'n IT#Ti 1 -Pf^'Afl'nriuin rurirl- HittoVriii ivi+fn!o‘oo hnutorl »\tr ctnmv. 
 
 o fpr 
 
 , quent lectures andiessons oh Health Topids. Especial provision for quiet and rest, also f 
 recreation, amusement and regular otU-doou life* * ' '■ 
 
 \ Superior cuisitie under supervision of Mrs. Enima P. Ewing; of CfiautaUqua Cooking 
 Ti,o 0 i. ", ■ , , . 
 
 )■ Electric bells, electric lights, safety elevator, telegraph, telephone, open fires, library, 
 
 !■»«ne>/ rtkilv u nit 1-17 ftrinliann# hnattVi imriil 
 
 hod,,via t)el<iw;ai'e f Lackawanna and Western H,H. froni Hew Yotk of Sufftiio ;wtthy 
 ! F01 illustrated pamphlet ami other information address 
 
 ■ T ' *' AMHUE JACKSON, Secretary, : : T ' ; 
 
 P. O. ftox 1865 . 
 
 mm