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From this time she was never absent from the services, returning languid, and with the luminous eyes of a seer; and the Capuchin's burning words haunted her; certain of his images stirred her to ecstasy. She grew irritable, and she seemed to have conceived a feeling of anger and contempt for every one and everything around her.
This was a Capuchin of great girth and capacity, who sat under a chestnut tree, secluded from observation, and was at that time engaged in dyeing his beard. The Capuchin's employment was precisely what I have stated, though all probability is against it. I was curious enough to watch him and could make no mistake.
It was an anchorite's bony head fitted with a Capuchin's beard and adjusted to a herculean body. I don't mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt. And thus with Falk, who was a strong man.
There was nothing surprising in their not having chemises, for the chemise is a scarce article in Spain, but the idea of pleasing God by wearing a Capuchin's habit struck me as extremely odd. I will here relate an amusing adventure which befell me on my way. At the gate of a town not far from Madrid I was asked for my passport. I handed it over, and got down to amuse myself.
Pallet endeavouring to unravel the Mystery of the Treatment he had received, falls out of the Frying-pan into the Fire. Nevertheless, Pallet was still confounded and chagrined by one consideration, which was no other than that of his having been so roughly handled in the chamber, belonging, as he found upon inquiry, to the handsome young lady who was under the Capuchin's direction.
It was not in him to change his very sleek black coat for a Capuchin's filthy cassock, nor his pleasant parsonage for some dirty hole in Rome. And it was better so both for him and others. There are but few, very few, to whom it is given to be a Huss, a Wickliffe, or a Luther; and a man gains but little by being a false Huss, or a false Luther, and his neighbours gain less.
"But the prisoners are Catholics; surely they are permitted the offices of the Church at such a time?" A hard look swept across the Capuchin's pale, ascetic face. "Oh, ay! I had quite forgotten," he explained bitterly. "They enjoy the ministrations of Father Cassati, of our Order, as representative of Holy Church." "Pouf!" I muttered gloomily. "It is bad to have the guard-lines drawn so closely.
The Capuchin's tales, told in the Piedmontese jargon, and seasoned with strange allusions and boisterous laughter, were of little interest to Odo, who would creep into the ingle beside Bruno and beg for some story of his ancestors.
For the past week, during which she had attended the Capuchin's mission in the cathedral, she had spent the days visibly in the expectation of the sermon of the evening; and she went to hear it with the rapt exaltation of a girl who is going to her first rendezvous of love.
There are always some guests who can not avail themselves of their invitations; and upon this vague chance I had staked my play. Besides, I was determined to disappear before the hour of unmasking. I wasn't going to take any unnecessary risks. I was, then, fairly secure under my Capuchin's robe. Out of my mind slipped the previous adventures of the evening.
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