There was no response, and the priest smiled: "It is foolish to resist the Lord who loves you," he said. "It is in my power to absolve you from sin, and even to grant you indulgence to commit that which might under other circumstances be sin. Don't be foolish, child." He sought to grasp her in his arms again, but she eluded him. Then he began in a pleading voice: "Is it my fault that I love you? Why are you not as kind to me as you were to that heretic? You are in the confessional, and I can not only absolve you from sin, but I am also pledged to secrecy. Be kind to me." "Oh, loathsome thing, I hate you." "But I love you." "Love, indeed! You pollute the word, like you do the office you hold and the building here and all else that should be sacred." "You know not how I love you. Oh, how I long toward you! 'Item ordinarie mortalia nabenda sunt escula in ore, seu lingua in ore introducta vel excepta. [11]' Are you not, indeed, the bride of Christ?" "Oh, devil that you are! It is you who have confessed to me, and though you live to be a century of age, confessing every day such villainy as this, I could but hate you worse with every morn, and never could forgive you. If there is hell, where he who burns in lust and anger, burns in flame, then there's your place. If there is a heaven that hears the voice of innocence, sending the white angels down to give it succor, then will the heaven open now, and white-robed creatures will deliver me. Oh, thou divine Christ, come now and judge between us. Oh, God of purity, deliver me from this, thine enemy." "You do not understand. I wish you no wrong. Love is not wrong." "Love thinketh no evil." "Love is not expressed in words. It never can be told, but in embraces and fondlings. Christ, how I love you and long toward you! 'Delectatio venerea autem seu carnalisest ca, quea oritur ex commotione spiritum genertioni inservientum et sentitur circa partes genitales.' You can not comprehend how I am stirred." "You know not how you fright me. Oh, sir, I plead with you to let me go. Do not for a moment's passion damn your own soul and ruin me forever. Show but the manhood that will set me free, and for that manhood's sake I will say that, though tempted, you had the hardihood to overcome, and I, for that hardihood that won, will be silent as to all you have done and said." "What do you think I am? Does the sportsman set the bird free when it chirps? I am not so foolish or so weak." "Then let me ask one thing: Did my father deliver me into your hands?" "Is the Bishop Lonzello your father?" "He is." "Oh, then I understand some things that have been dark. I also have full license now for anything I can do, and you can find no fault in the fault that marked both your parents. Come and give me a kiss, like a good girl, Chuleta!" "God in heaven, send me protection," gasped the girl in a faint voice.