All this was said with a bitterness and melancholy that were very perceptible; but Gabriel thought of nothing but the blow aimed at his hopes. "And so, Monsieur," he said to the admiral, with bitter anger at his heart, "it was you who denounced me to the superior of the Benedictines, and who, faithful to your uncle's instructions, count, no doubt, upon taking from me, one by one, all the chances which I may still have of finding Diane and seeing her again." "Hold your peace, young man!" cried the admiral, with an unspeakably proud expression. "But I forgive you," he added more gently; "for your passion blinds you, and you have not yet had time to know Gaspard de Coligny." There was so much noble and dignified kindness in the tone in which these words were uttered that all Gabriel's suspicions vanished like mist, and he was deeply ashamed that he had entertained them for one moment. "Pardon me!" he said, stretching out his hand to Gaspard. "How could I ever have thought that you would allow yourself to be led into such intrigues? A thousand pardons, Monsieur l'Amiral!" "Oh, it's all right, Gabriel!" rejoined Coligny; "and I know that your impulses are youthful and pure. No, indeed, I do not mingle in such underhand practices; on the contrary, I despise them and those who have conceived them. In such performances I can see no glory, but only shame for my family; and far from wishing to profit by them, I blush at them. If these men, who build up their fortune by such means, scandalous or not; who, in their haste to gratify their ambition and their greed, never heed the sorrow and the desolation of those who are as good as they; who would even, to arrive a little sooner at their goal, pass over the dead body of their mother-land,--if these men are my kinsmen, it must be the punishment which God inflicts upon me for my pride, and with which He recalls me to humility; it is an encouragement to me to show myself harsh toward myself and just to my neighbors, as a means of redeeming the sins of my relatives." "Yes," rejoined Gabriel, "I know that the honor and virtue of the days of the apostles dwell in your breast, Monsieur l'Amiral; and I beg your pardon once more for having for one moment spoken to you as to one of the fine gentlemen without faith or law whom I have learned too well to despise and detest."