With a swift and graceful imperiousness, Sylvie suddenly rose and faced him.

“It is time we understood each other, Monsignor,” she said quietly.  “It is no good playing at cross purposes!  With every respect for you, I must speak plainly.  I am fully aware of all you tell me respecting my descent and the traditions of my ancestors.  I know that the former Counts Hermenstein were faithful servants of the Church.  But they were all merely half-educated soldiers; brave, yet superstitious.  I know also that my father, the late Count, was apparently equally loyal to the Church,—­though really only so because it was too much trouble for him to think seriously about anything save hunting.  But I—­Sylvie—­the last of the race, do not intend to be bound or commanded by the trammels of any Church, in the face of the great truths declared to the world to-day!  My faith in God is as my betrothed husband’s faith in God,—­my heart is his,- -my life is his!  From henceforth we are together; and together we are content to go, after death, wherever God shall ordain, be it Hell or Heaven!”

“Wait!” said Gherardi in low fierce accents, his eyes glittering with mingled rage and the admiration of her beauty which he could ill conceal.  “Wait!  If you care nothing for yourself in this matter, is it possible that you care nothing for him?  Have you thought of the results of such rashness as you meditate?  Listen!” and he leaned forward in his chair, his dark brows bent and his whole attitude expressive of a relentless malice—­“Your marriage, without the blessing of the Church of your fathers, shall be declared illegal!—­ your children pronounced bastards!  Wherever the ramifications of the Church are spread (and they are everywhere) you, the brilliant, the courted, the admired Sylvie Hermenstein, shall find yourself not only outside the Church, but outside all Society!  You will be considered as ’living in sin’;—­as no true wife, but merely the mistress of the man with whom you have elected to wander the world!  And he, when he sees the finger of scorn pointed at you and at his children, he also will change—­as all men change when change is convenient or advantageous to themselves;—­he will in time weary of his miserable Christian-Democratic theories,—­and of you!—­yes, even of you!” And Gherardi suddenly sprang up and drew nearer to her.  “Even of you, I say!  He will weary of your beauty—­that delicate fine loveliness which makes me long to possess it!—­me, a priest of the Mother-Church, whose heart is supposed to beat only for two things—­Power and Revenge!  Listen—­listen yet a moment!” and he drew a step nearer, while Sylvie held her ground where she stood, unflinchingly, and like a queen, though she was pale to the very lips—­“What of the friend you love so well, Angela Sovrani, who has dared to paint such a picture as should be burnt in the public market-place for its vile heresy!  Do you think she will escape the wrath of the