When he went from the
court-room, from the presence of his judges, he was not a free man,
though the dignitaries called him so. Martial Mazurier walked arm in arm
with him, but the world was a den of horrors, a blackened and accursed
world, to the young man who came from prison, free to use his
freedom--as the priests directed!
He went home from the prison with Mazurier. The world had conquered.
Love had conquered,--Love, that in the conquest felt itself disgraced.
He had sold the divine, he had received the human: it was the old
pottage speculation over again. This privilege of liberty from his
dungeon had looked so fair!--but now it seemed so worthless! This
prospect of life so priceless in contemplation of its loss,--oh, the
beggar who crept past him was an enviable man, compared with young
Victor Le Roy, the heir of love and riches, the heir of liberty and
life!
Yes,--he went home with Mazurier. Where else should he go?
Congratulations attended him. He was compelled to receive them with a
countenance not too sombre, and a grace not all thankless, or--or--they
would say it was of cowardice he had saved his precious body from the
sentence of the judges, and given his precious LIFE up to the sentence
of the JUDGE.
Yes,--Martial took him home. There they might talk at leisure of those
things,--and ask a blessing on the testimony of Jesus, made and kept by
them!
Victor Le Roy was too proud to complain now.
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