Danger in the Dark - ZseZse

CHAPTER V.
Soliloquy of a Jesuit-Is interrupted by the entrance of a Catholic
Bishop - A. conversation follows upon the prospects of the
Church, and the policy necessary to success.
IN the evening of the same day on which Anna
Maria Gerard received the forged letter, there might
have been seen in a private apartment adjoining a
cathedral, a morose-looking man, habited in black,
and apparently entertaining thoughts of the same color.
His cadaverous face, rigid muscles, contracted brow,
with the fiery sparkle, and viper-like glare of his
small black eyes, would have brought over you a
shudder, and called up thoughts of the midnight
assassin, plotting horrid deeds of murder. Solitary
and alone he sat, fearfully-writhing nnder the weight
of some dark, oppressive thought: like Macbeth, he
seemed striving to nerve resolution, and" bring his
courage to the sticking place j" but unlike the king of
Scotland, he wanted not' a spur to prick the sides of
his intent '- that he already had within his malignant
soul, goading him to desperation. Now and then a
fiendish smile dismally gleamed across his wrinkled
visage, as if reveling in imaginary triumph over
some fallen victim: at length, starting to his feet, with
measured strides he passed to the opposite side of bis
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