“Your soul!” repeated the other, again repressing a sneer. “Do not distress yourself, my son, about your soul. It is in very safe keeping, and your superiors are, doubtless, the best judges of its value and eventual destination. In the meantime, do not give way to a far-fetched casuistry, or a morbid delicacy of sentiment. If your heart is in your task, and you go to it willingly, it will be the more easily and the more effectually accomplished. Congratulate yourself, therefore, that your penance is not distasteful as well as dangerous, a torture of bodily weakness, rather than a trial of spiritual strength. Remember, there is no sin of action where there is none of intention. There can be none of intention where a deed is done simply in compliance with the superior’s will. If that deed be pleasurable, it is but so much gained on the chances of the service. Enjoy it as you would enjoy the sun’s rays if you were standing sentry on a winter’s day at the Louvre. It is not for _you_, a simple soldier of the Order, to speculate on your own merits or your own failures, those above you will take care that neither are overlooked. Eat your rations and be thankful. Your duty, first and last, is but to obey!” It will be seen by these phrases, so carefully worded according to the rules of the Order, yet bearing the while a covert sarcasm for his own private gratification, that the real character of Malletort was but little changed, since he intrigued at the council table or drank at the suppers of the Regent. He was a Jesuit priest now in garb and outward semblance; he was still the clever, unscrupulous, unbelieving, pleasure-loving Abbé at the core. So necessary had he become to the Regent as the confidant of his secret schemes, whether their object were the acquisition of a province or the dismissal of a mistress, that he would have found little difficulty in making his peace with his Prince, even after the untoward failure of the Montmirail Gardens, had he chosen to do so. The Regent, maddened with disappointment, and especially sore because of the ridicule created by the whole business, turned at first fiercely enough on his trusty adviser, but found, to his surprise, that the Abbé was beforehand with him. The latter assumed an air of high-minded indignation, talked of the honour of an ancient house, of the respect due, at least in outward courtesy, to a kinswoman of his own, hinted at his fidelity and his services, protested against the ingratitude with which they had been requited, and ended by tendering his resignation, with a request for leave to absent himself from Paris. The result, as usual with the Duke of Orleans, was a compromise. His outraged servant should quit him for a time, but would remain at least faithful in heart to the master who now entreated his pardon. In a few weeks the matter, he thought, would be forgotten, and for those few weeks he must manage his own affairs without the Abbé’s assistance.