The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-16

3 house, she hurried Annabella to the residence
| of Jean-Antoine van Peteghem, the spiritual
| director of her community. The precaution was
not ill-timed, for Richard speedily returned
with the police. His search, of course, was
! vain, and TO keep up the comedy the superior
feigned to he touched with the depth of his
| grief, promised to aid him in tracing his sis
! ter and actually took his address, so as TO be
able TO send news in case she should be so
fortunate as to discover the hiding-place of
the missing girl.
BY this time the affair had created consi-
derable scandal. and IS the pursuers were so
nearly on the track Of the precious convert, it
had evidently become dangerous to afford her
a refuge.
Hersoul was to be saved, however, at all costs,
and the pious couspirators were not disposed
to abandon the prize which had cost them so
much risk and labor. Accordingly, at mid
night. Annabella was taken, carefully guarded,
to a retired spot near the cemetery of EecloO,
where a carriage was in waiting. Before day
light she had been driven to Bruges, and
taken to convent there. The superior,
afraid to receive her. placed her with a trusty
person named John Callaghan, who kept her
until the evening of the 9TH. Then, by the
night boat, he conveyed her TO Ghent, where
after one or two vain attempts to find a
hiding-place for her, he succeeded in lodging
her with Jeanette van liaucOaert, former
pupil of the convent of Melsele, which, it
will be remembered, was the scene of Anna
bellas conversion.
The quarry was now nearly brought to bay
The police had not been idle. and Callaghans
visit TO Ghcnt was suspected TO have some
connection with the disappearance of the alb
Quoted girl. On first examination he eluded
his Questioners, and sent word TO Ghent that
his colleagues there might conform their
stories to his own. The authorities. however
succeeded in proving the falsi,y of his state
ment, and at last he was obliged to confess
the truth Following up the clue thus OBJ
tanned, Richard at length succeeded in recoy-
ering his Iong-lost sister, on the 18th of Janu
ary in the house OF peasant at Gentbrugge.
If all this were not prosaically in evidence
before a court OF Justice in a criminal trial
one would hesitate to believe that such frag-
ment of the twelfth century could he grated
into the nineteenth Nor however guilty
they may be before the law, are the actors in
this strange history personally to blame. any
more than IIindoos who might be concerned
in a suttee. on in driving the car of Juoper-
naut, believing that thereby they were render
ing acceptable service to their Deity. 1t is
the system which is accountable. Priests
and nuns, who had seen the abduction
of the boy Mortara defantly justified 10y the
Nicegerent of Christ might well consider it
their duty to labor for the salvation of the
young Lutheran whom God seemed to have
placed in their hands for that purpose. If
deceit, dissimulaton, and mendacity became
necessary to effect so holy purpose, the
fault was not with them, but with the ire
ligious laws which had deprived them of the
power enjoyed of old to sunder all human
ties in the name OF a blessed Saviour.