"Then you ought to know that the Spanish Inquisition was political and national, not Catholic. You ought to know that some of the most disreputable Popes protected such people as the Jews from the fury of fanatics. You ought to know that the long-suffering of the average Bishop in heresy trials was amazing. Read Gairdner. But waive all that. See here, would you hang a murderer?" "Of course." "Then if you honestly b-believed that the teaching of heresy was the murdering of innocent souls, and if you had the power, what would you do to heretics?" Paul's silence was sufficient answer to the old dilemma. "As to actual penalties, the age did not see or feel as ours does. Torture was English law, remember, and boiling alive or pressing to death or breaking on the wheel ordinary legal p-punishments." "Perhaps," said Paul, "but such things were the punishments of crime. Mary burnt Protestants for religion." "Elizabeth r-racked and hung and disembowelled more Catholics than Mary Protestants," retorted Father Vassall. "Besides, ten times, no, thirty times as many suffered for Catholicism under Henry VIII. and Edward VI. than for Protestantism all the way through English history." Paul looked hopelessly round the little room. He saw himself, as it were, hemmed in and overwhelmed by inexorable fact. Besides, it was all so unexpected. Did Claxted know nothing of these as of other things? Why, indeed, had he himself never seen them in this light? "P-Protestantism," went on Father Vassall, "taught that it belonged to every man to pick and choose for himself among doctrines, and it therefore had no m-manner of reason for what it did. Calvin's burning of Servetus at Geneva really outrages d-d-decency. And the P-Pilgrim Fathers burnt more witches in a year in New England than the Catholic Church heretics in pre-Reformation England in a c-century." Paul drew a long breath. "I--I must think," he said confusedly. "I had no idea there was anything on your side." He moved restlessly. "But tell me one thing, don't you teach that all Protestants go to hell?" Hannam laughed outright. But the priest did not. He glanced up sharply. "Don't you evangelicals teach," he demanded with the quickness of a rapier thrust, "that all unbelievers go to hell?" Paul's face was a study. Father Vassall chuckled youthfully as he looked at him. Then his own face changed and his eyes grew tender. "I'm s-sorry," he said, stammering again. "That wasn't q-quite fair. But we do not teach that, and I think you do. No; when you get to P-Purgatory, I'll say to St. Peter: 'Let K-Kestern in; he's a g-g-good boy!'" He stood up and reached for his hat and stick. "Are you going home?" asked Paul. "Might I walk a little way with you?" The priest nodded, and turned for a word with Hannam as Paul went to the door.