"Make no excuse, lady, make no excuse!" answered the Prior. "We labour for the holy church--we labour for the faith; and there is no weapon put within our reach by God, but we have law and licence to use it against the rank and corrupted enemies of the church militant upon earth. Did not the blessed St. Dominick himself say, 'Let the sword do its work, and let the fire do its work, till the threshing-floor of the house of God be thoroughly purged and purified of the husks and the chaff which pollute it?' Did not he himself lead the way in the extirpation of the heretics of old, till the rivers of Languedoc, from their source even to the ocean, flowed red with the foul blood of the enemies of the faith? And shall we, his poor followers, halt like fastidious girls at any means of pursuing the same great object, of obtaining the same holy end? As I hope to reach the heaven that has long received our sainted founder, if this Armandi can find means of accomplishing our mighty purpose, I will embrace him as a brother, and pronounce with my own lips his absolution from all the many sins of his life, on account of that worthy act in defence of the Catholic faith. Shall I call him in?" "By all means!" said the Duchess, seating herself near the table: "by all means! let us hear what he has devised." The Prior of the Dominican, or rather, as it was called in Paris, the Jacobine, convent, proceeded to the door, and made a sign to some one, who, standing at the end of the long passage, seemed to wait his commands; and, after a momentary pause, an inferior brother of the order appeared, introducing the perfumer, habited in the same silks and velvets wherewith we have seen him clothed when visited by Beatrice of Ferrara, about an hour before. With a courtly sliding step, inclined head, and rounded shoulders, Armandi advanced towards the spot where the Duchess was seated; and, after laying his hand upon his breast, and bowing low and reverently, drew back a step beside her chair, as if waiting her commands, with a look of deep humility. The Prior of the Jacobines seated himself at the same time, and looked towards the Duchess, as if unwilling himself to begin the conversation with the worthy coadjutor who had just joined them. Madame de Montpensier, whose acquaintance with Armandi was of no recent date, had not the same delicacy on the subject, but at once began, in the familiar and jocular tone which the light dames of Paris were but too much accustomed to use, towards the smooth minister of evil that stood before her: "Well, pink of perfumers," she said, "let us hear what means your ingenious brain has devised for accomplishing the little object I mentioned to you some days ago."