It was natural that in the course of these visits she in turn should question him; and as his past rearranged itself beneath her scrutiny he seemed once more to trace the thread of purpose on which its fragments hung. He told her of his connection with the liberals of Pianura, of the situation at court, and of the reason for his prolonged travels. As he talked her eyes conveyed the exquisite sense of her complete comprehension. She saw, before he could justify himself, how the uncertainty of his future, and his inability to act, had cast him adrift upon a life of superficial enjoyment; and how his latent dissatisfaction with this life had inevitably resulted in self-distrust and vacillation. "You wait your hour," she said of him; and he seized on the phrase as a justification of his inactivity and, when chance should offer, a spur to fresh endeavour. Her interest in the liberal cause had been intensified and exalted by her father's death--his martyrdom, as she described it. Like most women possessed of an abstract idea she had unconsciously personified the idea and made a religion of it; but it was a religion of charity and not of vindictiveness. "I should like my father's death avenged by love and not by hate," she said; "I would have it bring peace, not a sword." On one point only she remained, if not hostile yet unresponsive. This was when he spoke of de Crucis. Her manner hardened instantly, and he perceived that, though he dwelt on the Jesuit's tolerant view and cultivated tastes, she beheld only the priest and not the man. She had been eager to hear of Crescenti, whom she knew by name as a student of European repute, and to the praise of whose parochial charities she listened with outspoken sympathy; but the Jesuits stood for the Holy Office, and she had suffered too deeply at the hands of the Holy Office to regard with an open mind any who might be supposed to represent its principles. It was impossible for Odo to make her understand how distinctly, in de Crucis's case, the man predominated over the order; and conscious of the painfulness of the subject, he gave up the attempt to interest her in his friend.