"Very simply, I think," replied the poisoner. "I have often remarked, standing by the gate of your convent, or kneeling at the shrines at Notre Dame, a dull, heavy-looking man, pale in the face, strong in the body, and having but little meaning in his eye, except that when before some relic, or the image of some favourite saint, a wild and uncertain fire is seen to beam up but for a moment, and go out again as soon. He seems about twenty years of age; and I met him now just going forth as I came hither." "Oh, yes! I know him well," replied the Prior: "you mean poor Brother Clement; a simple, dull, enthusiastic youth, whose strong animal passions now, most happily for himself, all centre in devotion." A dark and bitter smile curled the lips of René Armandi as he listened to the Prior's account of the person on whom he himself had fixed as a fit instrument for the foul and bloody schemes that were agitated so tranquilly in their strange conclave. "Yes," he said; "yes, stupid he is; wild, visionary, and enthusiastic, he seems to be; and the same animal passions, which once plunged him in brutal lusts and foul debauchery, may now act as a stimulus to drive home the dagger in the cause of the Catholic faith!" The gleaming eyes of the Prior fixed sternly upon the countenance of the poisoner while he spoke; and it seemed that no very Christian feelings were excited in the bosom of the monk by the bitter and sneering tone which the Italian employed. The suggestion, however, which his words had implied, rather than expressed, instantly caught his attention, and diverted his mind towards more important matter. "Ha!" he exclaimed; "ha! think you he could be prevailed upon?" "I have often remarked, reverend father," replied Armandi, who had caught the transitory look of wrath as it had passed over the monk's countenance, and who, being but little disposed to make an enemy of one both powerful and unscrupulous, now spoke in a milder and more deferential tone--"I have often remarked, reverend father, that there are men in whose souls the animal part seems to be so much stronger than the intellectual, that mere appetite drives them on to coarse extremes in everything, however opposite and apparently incompatible. Thus, do we not see," he asked, lowering his tone, as if he suspected that the case he was about to put might be that of his auditor; "do we not see that men, who, in their youth, have given themselves up somewhat too freely to gallantry, and to those fair sins which the church condemns in vain, in after-years wear the bare stones with their bended knees, and tire all the saints in the calendar with penitence and prayer?" "Thou speakest profanely," said the Prior: "is it not natural and just that men, who have great sins to atone for, should do the deeper penance when their conscience is awakened to repentance? But what if it were even as thou wouldst sneeringly imply? How does this affect our Brother Clement?"