"In our solicitude for your recovery we commanded our own physicians to attend you. To them you owe your life. To them, too, we owe our gratitude for that report on your case which reveals the true nature of the malady afflicting you." The low voice vibrated in rhythmic waves through the dead silence of the room. "To them also you now owe this opportunity to abjure the writings which have caused us and yourself such great sorrow; to them you owe this privilege of confessing before us, who will receive your recantation, remit your unintentional sins, and restore you to honor and service in our beloved Church." Josè suddenly came to himself. Recant! Confess! In God's name, what? Abjure his writings, the convictions of a lifetime! "These writings, my son, are not your sane and rational convictions," the Pontiff suggested. Josè still stood mute before him. "You renounce them now, in the clear light of restored reason; and you swear future lealty to us and to Holy Church," the aged Father continued. "Make answer!" commanded one of the Cardinal-Bishops, starting toward the wavering priest. "Down on your knees before the Holy Father, who waits to forgive your venial sin!" Josè turned swiftly to the approaching Cardinal and held up a hand. The man stopped short. The Pontiff and his associates bent forward in eager anticipation. The valet fell back, and Josè stood alone. In that tense mental atmosphere the shrinking priest seemed to be transformed into a Daniel. "No, Holy Father, you mistake!" His voice rang through the room like a clarion. "I do not recant! My writings _do_ express my deepest and sanest convictions!" The Pontiff's pallid face went dark. The eyes of the other auditors bulged with astonishment. A dumb spell settled over the room. "Father, my guilt lies not in having recorded my honest convictions, nor in the fact that these records fell into the hands of those who eagerly grasp every opportunity to attack their common enemy, the Church. It lies rather in my weak resistance to those influences which in early life combined to force upon me a career to which I was by temperament and instinct utterly disinclined. It lies in my having sacrificed myself to the selfish love of my mother and my own exaggerated sense of family pride. It lies in my still remaining outwardly a priest of the Catholic faith, when every fiber of my soul revolts against the hypocrisy!" "You are a subject of the Church!" the Papal Secretary interrupted. "You have sworn to her and to the Sovereign Pontiff as loyal and unquestioning obedience as to the will of God himself!" Josè turned upon him. "Before my ordination," he cried, "I was a voluntary subject of the Sovereign of Spain. Did that ceremony render me an unwilling subject of the Holy Father? Does the ceremony of ordination constitute the Romanizing of Spain? No, I am not a subject of Rome, but of my conscience!"