and over again all the events of the day in order,—­his arrival in Rouen,—­his visit to the Cathedral, and the grand music he had heard or fancied he heard there,—­his experience with the sceptical little Patoux children and their mother,—­his conversation with the Archbishop, in which he had felt much more excitement than he was willing to admit,—­his dream wherein he had been so painfully impressed with a sense of the desertion, emptiness, and end of the world, and finally his discovery of the little lonely and apparently forsaken boy, thrown despairingly as it were against the closed Cathedral, like a frail human wreck cast up from the gulf of the devouring sea.  Each incident, trivial in itself, yet seemed of particular importance, though he could not explain or analyse why it should be so.  Meditatively he sat and watched the moon sink like a silver bubble falling downward in the dark,—­the stars vanished one by one,—­and a faint brown-gold line of suggestive light in the east began the slow creation of a yet invisible dawn.  Presently, yielding to a vague impulse of inexplicable tenderness, he rose softly and went to the threshold of the room where his foundling slept.  Holding his breath, he listened—­but there was no sound.  Very cautiously and noiselessly he opened the door, and looked in,—­a delicate half-light came through the latticed window and seemed to concentrate itself on the bed where the tired wanderer lay.  His fine youthful profile was distinctly outlined,—­the soft bright hair clustered like a halo round his broad brows,—­and the two small hands were crossed upon his breast, while in his sleep he smiled.  Always touched by the beauty, innocence and helplessness of childhood, something in the aspect of this little lad moved the venerable prelate’s heart to an unwonted emotion,—­and looking upon him, he prayed for guidance as to what he should best do to rescue so gentle and young a creature from the cruelties of the world.

V.

“He has trusted me,” said the Cardinal,—­“I have found him, and I cannot—­dare not—­forsake him.  For the Master says ’Whosoever shall receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me’.”

The next morning broke fair and calm, and as soon as the Patoux household were astir, Cardinal Bonpre sought Madame Patoux in her kitchen, and related to her the story of his night’s adventure.  She listened deferentially, but could not refrain from occasional exclamations of surprise, mingled with suggestions of warning.

“It is like your good heart, Monseigneur,” she said, “to give your own bed to a stray child out of the street,—­one, too, of whom you know nothing,—­but alas! how often such goodness is repaid by ingratitude!  The more charity you show the less thanks you receive,- -yes, indeed, it is often so!—­and it seems as if the Evil One were in it!  For look you, I myself have never done a kindness yet without getting a cruelty in exchange for it.”