"Marry you, in short," replied the priest, "marry you to this fair Isabel of Brienne. Well, my son, I see no impediment--no harm therein. If you have well considered the matter," he added with a laugh, "and have determined to take upon yourself the holy estate of matrimony, far be it from me to prevent you, although I must say, that it was in gracious consideration and providence for our temporal as well as spiritual happiness that our holy church exacted from us an oath not to enter into the condition you so much covet; however, I will put the couples round your necks, and then you must run along the road together as you can; but where shall it be?" he continued. "Tell me the whens and the hows, for that is very needful."
Bernard de Rohan explained to him as much as he judged needful. Indeed, what he was obliged to explain put his plans completely in the power of the priest. Nevertheless, he did not anticipate any evil on that account. All of us, wise and simple alike, are more or less guided in our dealings with our fellow-creatures by various other principles than the dictates of mere reason. The most suspicious man, the most cautious man, will, from time to time, place confidence where it is least deserved, from some motives to which his judgment would refuse its assent. The calm and deliberate politician, who has frustrated many of the cabinet knaves of Europe, and concealed his thoughts from the penetrating eye of diplomacy, has often betrayed his secret to a pretty face, and sometimes let it fall into possession of a roguish valet.
But Bernard de Rohan was neither a very cautious nor a very suspicious man. His nature was frank and confiding; and, wherever he showed himself reserved, he was rendered so by the effect of reason and deliberate consideration. In the present instance he was forced to trust the priest, and he trusted him without regret or hesitation; for there was something in good Father Willand's face and demeanour which was frank and kindly, and, to say sooth, Bernard de Rohan had conceived a prepossession in his favour, which might or might not be justified. He thought, too, that, although his own memory of the good priest's features might have faded in the lapse of many years, and though those features themselves must have been much changed by time since he had seen them--he thought, too, that they were not wholly without some corresponding traces on the tablets of remembrance. Memory has her instincts, too; and often, though we cannot recollect the why or the wherefore, the time or the circumstances regarding an object suddenly presented to us, we feel that it is connected with pleasant or unpleasant things in the past; that there have been causes to love, or hate, or fear a person whose very name and being we have forgotten. Thus was it with Bernard de Rohan and Father Willand; for, though he knew not where they had met before, though he was not sure that they ever had met, he was sure that if they had, there had existed good cause to hold the priest in some esteem.