Moreau's words had come as a surprise to them.

Hitherto they had never known him as other than a bitter critic of their projects of reform and regeneration; and quite lately they had heard, not without misgivings, of his appointment as delegate for a nobleman in the States of Brittany.
But they held the explanation of his conversion.

The murder of their dear colleague Vilmorin had produced this change.

In that brutal deed Moreau had beheld at last in true proportions the workings of that evil spirit which they were vowed to exorcise from France.

And to-day he had proven himself the stoutest apostle among them of the new faith.