“Nay, my daughter; love and faith may still minister, and God, the Unchangeable, accept that service from every altar in Venice!  ’The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit,’ it is written in the Holy Book which God hath granted for the comfort of His people.  May peace indeed bring thee its benediction—­the more that thy need is great.”

Was there some strange power of resistance in that fragile, drooping figure which made it difficult to rehearse the argument for Venice with his accustomed mastery?

She listened silently while the learned Counsellor patiently explained that the sentence of Rome was unjust, therefore not incurred and not to be observed by priests nor people; wherefore it was the duty of the Prince to prevent its execution—­of the Prince who, more than any private citizen, is bound to fear God, to be zealous in the faith and reverent toward the priests who are permitted to stand in the place of Christ for the enforcement of his teaching only; but it is also the more the duty of the Prince to eschew hypocrisy and superstition, to preserve his own dignity, and maintain his state in the exercise of the true religion.

But there was no acquiescence in her eyes.

“I thank thee, most Reverend Father, for thy patient teaching,” she said; “but I lack the learning to make it helpful.  Fra Francesco was more simple, and he hath taught me by no arguments; but he, for the exercise of the true religion, hath found it needful to quit Venice, and doth make his pilgrimage to Rome, barefooted, that he may pray the Holy Father, of his grace, to lift this curse from our people.”

“There is that in her face which maketh argument useless,” Fra Paolo said low to his friend Santorio, for he was himself no mean physician, having contributed discoveries of utmost importance to the medical science, “and there is a physical weakness combined with this mental assertiveness which doth make it a danger to oppose her beliefs.  Yet I would I might comfort her, for her soul is tortured.”

“It must be that thou shalt convince her!” Santorio pleaded with him.

Thus urged, Fra Paolo spoke again, in a tone that pity rendered strangely near to tenderness.  “I would not weary thee, my daughter, having spoken the truth which I would fain have thee embrace for thine own healing.  Only this would I remind thee—­that none may be excluded from the Holy Catholic Church if he be not first excluded by his own demerits from Divine Grace.”

She answered nothing, but there was an unspoken argument in her face.

“See’st thou not that those terrors which thou dost fear shall not come upon Venice, since she hath not sinned?  It is this which, for thy peace, we would have thee comprehend.”

“My Father, there is but one whose teaching fitteth my reasoning,” she answered resolutely, “and he hath fled from Venice that he may be free to believe and to practise his religion as our Holy Church doth require, and to plead against our doom, where prayer may be heard, unhindered by the cloud which keepeth us in Venice from God’s favor.  He, being a holy man, hath taught me that the law of obedience to the Supreme Head of the Church may not be transgressed—­that our doom cometh not undeserved—­and my whole heart is sick with fear!”