"No more of this, I pray," cried Antonio. "If there is some great new fact, let us have it; but let us not hark back to what we have threshed out already." "Very well," she said. "Here is the great new fact. My father. What did I tell you about him? I told you that his next experiment will kill him. But there's only one way of snatching him out of peril. Pardon me for telling you that this abbey is mine. It was bought with my money, and I am, to some extent, mistress of my father's movements in Portugal. If I flatly decline to leave here; if I pension off Mrs. Baxter; and if ... if you do what is right by yourself and by me; then, and only then, will my father come down from the clouds and look facts in the face. If I go back to Lisbon, I go back to kill him." Deeply pained, Antonio raised a hand to stop her. She took a step forward and looked at him with steady eyes, but with trembling lips. "Do you think, do you truly believe, that I would say a thing like this if it were not true?" she demanded in low, quivering tones. "Oh, Antonio, I have always known it. In your heart you despise me. You think I'm so far sunk in shamelessness that I am taking the name of God in vain and concocting lies about my father's life, so as to scare you into marrying me." "Before Heaven, Isabel, I think no such foul thought," he answered solemnly. "But I am puzzled. If this abbey is yours, not his; and if you are mistress of his movements; why not assert your authority without dragging in me? Why not pension off Mrs. Baxter and get a companion from England? Why not despatch a post to Lisbon to-night informing your father that you will be no party to his new scheme, and that you insist on his recruiting quietly here?" "And you?" she demanded. "I? No doubt we should meet sometimes." "No doubt, no doubt," she echoed with scorching scorn. "We should meet sometimes, and talk about the weather. You nearly make me hate you. Have you blood in your veins or water? Have you a heart in your breast or a cold stone? I tell you this is a crime, it is a blasphemy. You call it religion: I call it a black sin against God." Her terrible earnestness challenged Antonio to answer once and for all. "Isabel," he said sternly. "Crime and blasphemy are hard words. You speak of God. I will speak of God too. If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that God has called me to live this life which I am living, and to do this work which I am doing. I am more sure of it than I am of these rocks under our feet. As for your father, God knows that I do not speak heartlessly; but your father's life is in God's hands, not mine. You can rid yourself of Mrs. Baxter and compel him to rest in England without forcing me to break my vows." "Your vows, your precious vows, always your vows!" she cried, in anger and great contempt. "Yes," he retorted instantly, "my vows, always my vows. They are precious to me indeed, and I will beg you not to speak of them lightly."