"Beyond all doubt," I answered. "So sure am I, and so sure have I been, that such is the case, that, only yesterday, I contemplated bringing him to the middle of that bridge and throwing him over into the river, after giving him fair warning of my intention." "My son!" exclaimed the Confessor, recoiling with a look of involuntary horror; but, the moment after, he recovered himself, cast his eyes down upon the ground, and muttered a short prayer. "Of course," I added, seeing the surprise painted on his countenance, "I did not propose to do so without giving him every fair equality. You did not suppose, I trust, father, that I would take him by surprise?" "God forbid, my son, that you should do such an act at all," replied the Confessor: "the time will come when you will think better." He said nothing more upon that subject, however, governing his own feelings with wonderful control; but, from that day forward, I seldom failed to meet with Father Ferdinand in some part of my morning's walk; and I saw that the words I had spoken with regard to Gaspard de Belleville had never been forgotten. Gently and cautiously, but firmly and perseveringly, he applied himself to change opinions and prejudices which my early habits had rendered almost a part of my nature. At first he would take an opportunity of descanting generally upon the value of human life, as the most precious gift of God; and, at various times, he put it in a thousand different points of view; each tending to show that it was an inestimable gift, which no creature had a right to take from another, except in those cases which God himself had pointed out. Now, he represented it as the space allotted to a sinner for repentance; now, as the means of conferring benefits on others,--rearing and supporting a family,--and doing the will of the Almighty. Now, he showed it as the crowning and especial gift of God--a thing alike beyond man's comprehension and his efforts, which he could, indeed, take away, but which he could never restore. Now, he would display the horrors that would oppress that man, who, on a supposed injury, had taken the life of another, if ever he were to discover that his passion or his judgment had deceived him, and that no injury had really been done, or that it had been attributed to an innocent person. Now, he would carry his view beyond this world, and represent the agony that the murderer's soul must suffer, when, in addition to the weight of the crime itself, he felt loaded with all the unrepented sins which his hand had prevented his victim from atoning upon earth. Then, again, he would return and awaken every human sympathy; display the sweet ties broken, the dear hopes destroyed, the noble careers cut short, by such deeds: he would represent loves and affections that we know not of, bright but secret aspirations, joys and good deeds concealed from every eye, ended for ever, as the punishment of some trifling fault or idle folly; and, in