the rail at Exeter to take travellers into
Cornwall. I told her we were rather too far
off here to have the correct time-table, and
recommended her to apply for information
to the Devonshire people, when she got to
the end of her journey. She seemed a timid,
helpless kind of woman to travel alone.
Anything wrong in connection with her, sir ? "

"O, no! nothing," said Mr. Orridge,
leaving the station-master and hastening back
to his gig again.

When he drew up, a few minutes afterwards,
at the door of the Tiger's Head, he
jumped out of his vehicle with the confident
air of a man who has done all that could be
expected of him. It was easy to face Mrs.
Frankland with the unsatisfactory news of
Mrs. Jazeph's departure, now that he could
add, on the best authority, the important
supplementary information that she had gone
to Cornwall.

THE MURDER OF THE ARCHBISHOP
OF PARIS.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

SELDOM has a trial excited stronger passions
in Paris than the trial of the Abbé Verger.
I despair of conveying to my readers an
adequate conception of the angry elements in
the storm which raged in the Court of
Assizes on Saturday, the seventeenth of
January. The immense crowds around
the court were but feeble signs of the moral
conflicts agitating all the households of the
French metropolis.

The Verger affair is one of a series. This
scandal is the most picturesque and terrible
of a foul series of ecclesiastical scandals.
Ever since eighteen hundred and fifty-three
there have been midnight masses in Paris
which were deemed too scandalous to be
permitted in the time of Louis Philippe and
the Republic. As far as possible the Siècle
newspaper — in continual war with the
Univers — has confirmed indirectly the worst
rumours in circulation respecting the morals
of the clergy. At the end of autumn
thirty-five persons, most of them said to be
priests, it was whispered, had been arrested
at the Ternes. Subsequently the tribunals
condemned several persons, including Hervé
the musical composer and Alexis Dupont
the chief singer at the sacred festivals. On
New Year's Eve, an unknown man rung at
the door of the apartment occupied at
Courbevoie by a Mademoiselle Sierawski and her
mother. The man asked the young woman
to read a letter addressed to her. While she
was reading it, he stabbed her several times,
and left her for dead. Rumour said the
assassination was attempted because she had
made a declaration to the commissary of
police against the morals of the clergy.

The appearance of Verger prepossessed the
audience in his favour. He was a slender
young man of middle height. He was simply
dressed in black, with a merino stock, without
a shirt collar; and the blackness of his
whole costume set off and made striking the
pale whiteness of his complexion. His paleness
was the pallor of studious youth. His
appearance was what the French call
distinguished. His regular oval face and his high
forehead were covered with dark brown
hair, parted on the left side. His eyes
were those expressive blue eyes which are
black or sparkling according to the emotions
which excite them. His voice was
harmonious, and rich in various tones.

Verger spoke in the dock an autobiography,
which I shall extract from a comparison
of all the fullest newspaper reports, and
by translating as literally and as truly as I
can his exact words, and interposing nothing
but necessary explanations.

Verger says: " I did not gain the favour
of Sister Milanie by my piety, but by my
prettiness as a boy — par ma gentilesse."

She distributed the benefactions of the
Queen Amelie.

"I demand that the notes on my conduct
may be shown, and that my professors at the
seminary may be heard, in order to prove
the falsehood of the witness who says they
did not show me any sympathy."

The result of his notes, as published in the
Droit, prove he had only one superior in
the seminary. He had no eccentricities. He
was very timid, had an amiable air, and his
polite manners prepossessed people in his
favour. The sixty francs from the Sister
Milanie were given.

"Given! do you hear? To buy books,
and I bought them. I was, in fact, the
protégé of Madame de Rochefort, the superior of
the sisters of Neuilly. In a brilliant lecture
which he delivered to us, M. Dupanloup,
who was then combating the university,
said, 'Mes enfans, you must get classical
books in order to maintain the struggle in
the examinations for the bachelor's degree.'
I believed it was necessary to buy as many
books as possible. I asked for sixty francs
from Madame de Rochefort, who gave them
to me, that is abandoned them to my profit.
My father bought the books with me, he
bought not new but second-hand books. He
saved fifteen francs, and, as I must avow
everything, he bought me a pair of pantalons
and an umbrella, because he is poor, very
poor, is my father. I did not take these
books to the seminary, because I knew that
M. Millaut would not put the seminary
stamp upon them. Molière was not bought;
my father and I bought Racine and Pascal,
which are forbidden by the Inquisition."

M. Millaut says, " I also heard a talk of
Molière."

Verger: "No, Pascal."

M. Millaut blamed him for having bought
the history of France by Anquetil, in twenty-two
volumes, and said it was very bad to
dispose of the money of the poor in buying
books of amusement. M. Dupanloup said,