“My parents came of a race of kings!” she answered.  “All my ancestors were proud, and of a temper unknown to this petty day.  They resented a wrong, they punished falsehood and treachery, and they took a life for a life.  Your generation tolerates every sin known in the calendar with a smile and a shrug,—­you have arrived at the end of your civilization, even to the denial of Deity and a future life.”

“That is not the end of our civilization, Princess,” said Gervase, working away intently, with eyes fixed on the canvas as he talked.  “That is the triumphal apex, the glory, the culmination of everything that is great and supreme in manhood.  In France, man now knows himself to be the only God; England—­good, slow-pacing England—­is approaching France in intelligence by degrees, and I rejoice to see that it is possible for a newspaper like the Agnostic to exist in London.  Only the other day that excellent journal was discussing the possibility of teaching monkeys to read, and a witty writer, who adopts the nom de plume of ‘Saladin,’ very cleverly remarked ’that supposing monkeys were able to read the New Testament, they would still remain monkeys; in fact, they would probably be greater monkeys than ever.’  The fact of such an expression being allowed to pass muster in once pious London is an excellent sign of the times and of our progress towards the pure Age of Reason.  The name of Christ is no longer one to conjure with.”

A dead silence followed his words, and the peculiar stillness and heaviness of the atmosphere struck him with a vague alarm.  He lifted his eyes,—­the Princess Ziska met his gaze steadily, but there was something in her aspect that moved him to wonderment and a curious touch of terror.  The delicate rose-tint of her cheeks had faded to an ashy paleness, her lips were pressed together tightly and her eyes seemed to have gained a vivid and angry lustre which Medusa herself might have envied.

“Did you ever try to conjure with that name?” she asked.

“Never,” he replied, forcing a smile and remonstrating with himself for the inexplicable nature of his emotions.

She went on slowly: 

“In my creed—­for I have a creed—­it is believed that those who have never taken the sacred name of Christ to their hearts, as a talisman of comfort and support, are left as it were in the vortex of uncertainties, tossed to and fro among many whirling and mighty forces, and haunted forever by the phantoms of their own evil deeds.  Till they learn and accept the truth of their marvellous Redemption, they are the prey of wicked spirits who tempt and lead them on to divers miseries.  But when the great Name of Him who died upon the Cross is acknowledged, then it is found to be of that transfiguring nature which turns evil to good, and sometimes makes angels out of fiends.  Nevertheless, for the hardened reprobate and unbeliever the old laws suffice.”

Gervase had stopped the quick movement of his “fusin,” and looked at her curiously.