'Do not say such things,' replied Marc in a gentle, entreating way, seeking to pacify her. 'How can you repeat such monstrous words, you who used to be so intelligent and so kind-hearted? Is it true, then, that error is so contagious that it may obscure the soundest minds? Just think a little. You know all; Simon is innocent; and to leave him still in penal servitude would be frightful iniquity--a source of social rottenness which would end by destroying the nation.' 'No, no!' she cried, with a kind of mystical exaltation; 'Simon is guilty--men of recognised holiness accused him, and accuse him still; and to regard him as innocent it would be necessary to discard all faith in religion, to believe God Himself capable of error! No, no! he must stay at the galleys, for on the day of his release nothing divine, nothing that one may revere, would be left on earth!' Marc was becoming impatient. 'I cannot understand,' said he, 'how we can disagree on so clear a question of truth and justice. Heaven has nothing to do with this.' 'It has. There is no truth or justice outside heaven!' 'Ah! that is the gist of it all--that explains our disagreement and torture! You would still think as I do if you had not set heaven between us! And you will come back to me on the day when you consent to live on earth and show a healthy mind and a sisterly heart. There is only one truth, one justice, such as science establishes under the control of human certainty and solidarity!' Geneviève was becoming exasperated: 'Let us come to the point once and for all,' she retorted. 'It is my religion that you wish to destroy!' 'Yes,' he cried; 'it is against your Roman Catholicism that I fight--against the imbecility of its teaching, the hypocrisy of its practices, the perversion of its worship, its deadly action on children and women, and its social injuriousness. The Roman Catholic Church--that is the enemy of whom we must first clear the path. Before the social question, before the political question, comes the religious question, which bars everything. We shall never be able to take a single forward step unless we begin by striking down that Church, which corrupts, and poisons, and murders. And, understand me fully, that is the reason why I am resolved not to allow our Louise to confess and communicate. I should feel that I was not doing my duty, that I was placing myself in contradiction with all my principles and lessons, if I were to allow such things. And on the morrow I should have to leave this school and cease to teach the children of others, for lack of having both the loyalty and the strength to guide my own child towards truth, the only real and only good truth. Thus I shall not yield on the matter; our daughter herself will come to a decision when she is twenty!'