He therefore saluted Hamilton formally and walked away.
Father Beret's paternal love for Alice,--we cannot characterize it more nicely than to call it paternal,--was his justification for a certain mild sort of corruption insinuated by him into the heart of Farnsworth.
He was a crafty priest, but his craft was always used for a good end.
Unquestionably Jesuitic was his mode of circumventing the young man's military scruples by offering him a puff of fair weather with which to sail toward what appeared to be the shore of delight.

He saw at a glance that Farnsworth's love for Alice was a consuming passion in a very ardent yet decidedly weak heart.

Here was the worldly lever with which Father Beret hoped to raze Alice's prison and free her from the terrible doom with which she was threatened.
The first interview was at Father Beret's cabin, to which, as will be remembered, the priest and Farnsworth went after their meeting in the street.

It actually came to nothing, save an indirect understanding but half suggested by Father Beret and never openly sanctioned by Captain Farnsworth.

The talk was insinuating on the part of the former, while the latter slipped evasively from every proposition, as if not able to consider it on account of a curious obtuseness of perception.