The curate crossed himself. In humility he would bear the charge of hardness of heart. "Power to stir me?" he repeated. "If Your Majesty would think on his power to bring this same savagery to an end! That is his reward offered by Heaven, the reward of bringing holy peace to a stricken land." "Did I not come for that? You only remind me how I have failed." "And why, sire? Because your instruments were not blessed. The French oppressed the Church as well as the people. But now the French are leaving. It is the hand of Providence." "She _said_ he would interpret the will of Heaven!" Maximilian exclaimed. The priest heard, stammered, and went to wreck miserably, as a hypocrite unmasked knows that his next word must sound like hypocrisy. How slyly she had checkmated him! Forseeing his thrust, she had countered his every shift of cunning through this feeble fencer before him. And the mistake he had made, in sending Maximilian to her! For a moment the expression of the apostate Lutheran was very ugly in its baffled rage. But he was too wise a trainer to lose patience utterly. He realized instead that the struggle was harder than any he had yet had with his royal dupe, since now his real antagonist was the young Frenchwoman. "I? I interpret the word of God?" He said it very humbly, with bowed head. "Alas, Your Majesty knows I am the last to presume to that. But there are those who can. There is the Holy Father in Rome, who is infallible. I only know that _he_ told Your Majesty's servant, myself, that a ruler blessed by the Church is an instrument of God. But if the ruler turns his back ere his work is done----" Maximilian's nostrils were dilating strangely, and the consummate tempter hurried on. He exalted the grandeur of the Emperor's task, yet craftily made success appear simple and easy. The forces of "the arch-rebel Benito Juarez" were concentrated in "a horde of impious thieves calling themselves the Army of the North." But Miramon, His Majesty's own general, was hastening to meet them. One decisive battle, and there would be no more rebels. The nation must then recognize that the Empire had sustained itself without French aid. "Of course a few lives will be lost," he quietly sneered, "and we who do not understand may grieve for them, but the ways of Heaven, for its own ends, are inscrutable. Your Majesty knows that others before him, his ancestors, have had to wade through the blood of God's enemies. But Your Majesty's glorious ancestors were fulfilling their destiny. And why should not you, also, sire, you who are the child of destiny?" It was a magic word. Fischer knew his man devilishly well. "But how can I tell," Maximilian demanded petulantly, "that my destiny really lies in Mexico?" "Then your destiny, sire, must lie in Europe, in Austria," was the priest's astounding concession. "After all, a prince's intuitions, being given him by divine revelation, can alone be his guide." Maximilian's eyes flashed.