of Gabriel's visit to the farmhouse, these
signals had shaped the course of the ship
towards the extremity of the peninsula of
Quiberon. The people of the district were
all prepared to expect the appearance of
the vessel some time in the evening, and had
their boats ready at a moment's notice to put
off and attend the service. At the conclusion
of this service Père Bonan had arranged that
the marriage of his daughter and Gabriel was
to take place.

They waited for evening at the farm-house.
A little before sunset the ship was signalled
as in sight; and then Père Bonan and his wife,
followed by Gabriel and Rose, set forth over
the heath to the beach. With the solitary
exception of François Sarzeau, the whole population
of the neighbourhood was already
assembled there; Gabriel's brother and sisters
being among the number. It was the
calmest evening that had been known for
months. There was not a cloud in the lustrous
sky—not a ripple on the still surface of
the sea. The smallest children were suffered
by their mothers to stray down on the beach
as they pleased; for the waves of the great
ocean slept as tenderly and noiselessly on their
sandy bed, as if they had been changed into
the waters of an inland lake. Slow, almost
imperceptible, was the approach of the ship
—there was hardly a breath of wind to carry
her on—she was just drifting gently with the
landward set of the tide at that hour, while
her sails hung idly against the masts. Long
after the sun had gone down, the congregation
still waited and watched on the beach.
The moon and stars were arrayed in their
glory of the night, before the ship dropped
anchor. Then the muffled tolling of a bell
came solemnly across the quiet waters; and
then, from every creek along the shore, as far
as the eye could reach, the black forms of the
fishermen's boats shot out swift and stealthy
into the shining sea.

By the time the boats had arrived alongside
of the ship, the lamp had been kindled before
the altar, and its flame was gleaming red and
dull in the radiant moonlight. Two of the
priests on board were clothed in their robes
of office, and were waiting in their appointed
places to begin the service. But there was a
third, dressed only in the ordinary attire of
his calling, who mingled with the congregation,
and spoke a few words to each of the
persons composing it, as, one by one, they
mounted the sides of the ship. Those who
had never seen him before knew by the famous
ivory crucifix in his hand that the priest who
received them was Father Paul. Gabriel
looked at this man, whom he now beheld for
the first time, with a mixture of astonishment
and awe; for he saw that the renowned chief
of the Christians of Brittany was, to all
appearance, but little older than himself.
The expression on the pale calm face of the
priest was so gentle and kind, that children
just able to walk tottered up to him, and held
familiarly by the skirts of his black gown,
whenever his clear blue eyes rested on theirs,
while he beckoned them to his side. No one
would ever have guessed from the countenance
of Father Paul what deadly perils he had
confronted, but for the scar of a sabre-wound,
as yet hardly healed, which ran across his
forehead. That wound had been dealt while
he was kneeling before the altar, in the last
church in Brittany which had escaped spoliation.
He would have died where he knelt,
but for the peasants who were praying with
him, and who, unarmed as they were, threw
themselves like tigers on the soldiery, and at
awful sacrifice of their own lives saved the
life of their priest. There was not a man
now on board the ship who would have hesitated,
had the occasion called for it again, to
have rescued him in the same way.

The service began. Since the days when
the primitive Christians worshipped amid the
caverns of the earth, can any service be
imagined nobler in itself, or sublimer in the
circumstances surrounding it, than that which
was now offered up? Here was no artificial
pomp, no gaudy profusion of ornament, no
attendant grandeur of man's creation. All
around this church spread the hushed and
awful majesty of the tranquil sea. The roof
of this cathedral was the immeasurable
heaven, the pure moon its one great light, the
countless glories of the stars its only adornment.
Here were no hired singers or rich
priest-princes; no curious sight-seers, or
careless lovers of sweet sounds. This congregation
and they who had gathered it
together, were all poor alike, all persecuted
alike, all worshipping alike to the overthrow
of their worldly interests, and at the imminent
peril of their lives. How brightly and tenderly
the moonlight shone upon the altar and
the people before it!—how solemnly and
divinely the deep harmonies, as they chanted
the penitential Psalms, mingled with the
hoarse singing of the freshening night- breeze
in the rigging of the ship!—how sweetly the
still, rushing murmur of many voices, as they
uttered the responses together, now died away
and now rose again softly into the mysterious
night!

Of all the members of the congregation—
young or old—there was but one over whom
that impressive service exercised no influence
of consolation or of peace: that one was
Gabriel. Often, throughout the day, his
reproaching conscience had spoken within him
again and again. Often, when he joined the
little assembly on the beach, he turned away
his face in secret shame and apprehension
from Rose and her father. Vainly, after
gaining the deck of the ship, did he try to
meet the eye of Father Paul as frankly, as
readily, and as affectionately as others met it.
The burden of concealment seemed too heavy
to be borne in the presence of the priest—and
yet, torment as it was, he still bore it! But
when he knelt with the rest of the congregation