"I have gone too far," said Raphael; "I cannot stand upon metaphors. My eggs are already sucked. I have deceived the King, paid neither duty to him nor tithes to the Church upon my cousin's portion. I must marry or burn!" "That you have not paid your tithes to the Church is grave," said the Jesuit, "but the time is not too late. Perhaps you can pay in service. We of the Society need the willing hand, the far-seeing brain more than coined gold--though that, of course, we must have too." "The King's arm is long," said Raphael, "and I fear he thinks I have not done enough for his Armada. This news would end me if it were to come to his ears." "I judge that there will be no such need," purred the Jesuit; "is this cousin of yours by chance a heretic, even as was her father?" Raphael started. His netted fingers let go his knee, which in its turn slowly relaxed and allowed the foot to sink to the ground, as through a dense medium. "I do not understand you, my father," he said, breathing deeply, his eyes fixed on the priest's mild and smiling face. "If your cousin be a Protestant, a heretic," continued the Jesuit, "I do not see that there is any difficulty----" "You mean----?" said Raphael, his face now of a livid paleness. The priest beckoned him a little nearer, placed his lips, still smiling, close to the young man's ear, and whispered two words. "No--no--no!" gasped Raphael, starting back, "not that--anything but that! I cannot--I will not--anything but that!" "Then there is, I fear greatly, no other way!" "None?" "Your soul is the Church's--your body the King's," said the Jesuit; "take care that you offend not both. For such there is no forgiveness, even in the grave. Besides, you could never get a dispensation to marry a heretic. Trust me, my way is the best." "She would return to the Faith," said Raphael, who, though a man of no half measures in his own plottings, yet stood aghast and horrified at what the smiling priest proposed to him. "Never," said Father Mariana; "I know the breed--'proud as a Scot,' say the French, your friends, who know them best. And in nothing prouder or more stubborn than in their heresy and hatred of the Wholesome Discipline of the Church." "I cannot," said Raphael; "after all, she is my cousin--my near and only relative." "If she were the mother who bore you," affirmed the priest, "your duty would be the same. And moreover (though, indeed, it becomes not me to press upon you that which should be your first happiness), has it struck you that you have passed your word to the Señorita Valentine, my niece----?" "The Lady Valentine would have nothing to say to me," cried the young man sharply; "I wed none such!"