“You are right!” she said, controlling the quickness of her breathing, and forcing herself to speak calmly.  “I will!  But not in your way!  Not at your command!  You have enlightened me on many points of which I was hitherto ignorant—­and for this I thank you!  You have taught me that the Church, instead of being a brotherhood united in the Divine service of Christ, who was God-in-Man, is a mere secular system of avarice and tyranny!  You pretend to save souls for God!  What do you care for my soul!  You would have me wed a man with fraud in my heart,—­with the secret intent to push upon him the claims of a Church he abhors,—­and this after he has made me his wife!  You would have me tell lies to him before the Eternal!  And you call that the way to salvation?  No, Monsignor!  It is the wealth of the Hermensteins you desire!—­not the immortal rescue or heavenly benefit of the last of their children!  You will support the murderer Varillo in his lie to ruin an innocent woman’s reputation!  You would destroy the honour and peace of an old man’s life for the sake of furthering your own private interests and grudges!  And you call yourself a servant of Christ!  Monsignor, if you are a servant of Christ, then the Church you serve must be the shadow of a future hell!—­not the promise of a future heaven!  I denounce it,—­I deny it!—­I swear by the Holy Name of our Redeemer that I am a Christian!—­not a slave of the Church of Rome!”

Such passion thrilled her, such high exaltation, that she looked like an inspired angel in her beauty and courage, and Gherardi, smothering a fierce oath, made one stride towards her and seized her hands.

“You defy me!” he said in a hoarse whisper.  “You dare me to my worst?”

She looked up at his dark cruel face, his glittering eyes, and shuddered as with icy cold,—­but the spirit in that delicate little body of hers was strong as steel, and tempered to the grandest issues.

“I dare you to do your worst!” she said, half-sobbingly,—­half-closing her eyes in the nervous terror she could not altogether control.  “You can but kill me—­I shall die true!”

With a sort of savage cry, Gherardi snatched her round the waist, but scarcely had he done so when he was flung aside with a force that made him reel back heavily against the wall, and Aubrey Leigh confronted him.

“Aubrey!” cried Sylvie.  “Oh, Aubrey!”

He caught her as she sprang to him, and held her fast,—­and with perfect self-possession he eyed the priest disdainfully up and down.

“So this,” he said coldly, “is the way the followers of Saint Peter fulfil the commands of Christ!  Or shall we say this is the way in which they go on denying their Master?  It is a strange way of retaining disciples,—­a still stranger way of making converts!  A brave way too, to intimidate a woman!”

Gherardi, recovering from the shock of Aubrey’s blow, drew himself up haughtily.