Here a groan from the priest, which he could not suppress, was shivered off, by a tremendous effort, into a series of broken coughs, got up in order to conceal his alarm at the fatal progress which Reilly, he thought, was unconsciously making to his own ruin. “Troth,” thought he, “the soldiers were nothing at all to what this will be. There his friends would have found the body and given him a decent burial; but here neither friend nor fellow will know where to look for him. I was almost the first man that took the oath to keep the existence of this place secret from all unless those that were suffering for their religion; and now, by denying that, he has me in the trap along with himself.” A second groan, shaken out of its continuity into another comical shower of fragmental coughs, closed this dreary but silent soliloquy. The bishop proceeded: “You have been inveigled, young man, by the charms of a deceitful and heretical syren, for the purpose of alienating you from the creed of your forefathers.” “It is false,” replied Reilly; “false, if it proceeded from the lips of the Pope himself; and if his lips uttered to me what you now have done, I would fling the falsehood in his teeth, as I do now in yours--yes, if my life should pay the forfeit of it. What have you to do with my private concerns?” Reilly's indignant and impetuous reply to the prelate struck all who heard it with dismay, and also with horror, when they bethought themselves of the consequences. “You are a heretic at heart,” said the other, knitting his brows; “from your own language you stand confessed--a heretic.” “I know not,” replied Reilly, “by what right or authority you adopt this ungentlemanly and illiberal conduct towards me; but so long as your language applies only to myself and my religion, I shall answer you in a different spirit. In the first place, then, you are grievously mistaken in supposing me to be a heretic. I am true and faithful to nay creed, and will live and die in it.” Father Maguire felt relieved, and breathed more freely; a groan was coming, but it ended in a “hem.” “Before we proceed any farther, sir,” said this strange man, “you must take an oath.” “For what purpose, sir?” inquired Reilly. “An oath of secrecy as to the existence of this place of our retreat. There are at present here some of the--” he checked himself, as if afraid to proceed farther. “In fact, every man who is admitted amongst us must take the oath.” Reilly looked at him with indignation. “Surely,” thought he to himself, “this man must be mad; his looks are wild, and the fire of insanity is in his eyes; if not, he is nothing less than an incarnation of ecclesiastical bigotry and folly. The man must be mad, or worse.” At length he addressed him. “You doubt my integrity and my honor, then,” he replied haughtily. “We doubt every man until he is bound by his oath.” “You must continue to doubt me, then,” replied Reilly; “for, most assuredly, I will not take it.”