vow which you made to our master, Ignatius Loyola?
Answer me, unfaithful and disobedient daughter of the Church! Repeat to
me the oath which you took when he received you into the holy Society of
the Disciples of Jesus! Repeat your oath, I say!"

As if constrained by an invisible power, Jane had arisen, and now stood,
her hands folded across her breast, submissive and trembling before her
father, whose erect, proud, and wrathful form towered above her.

"I have sworn," said she, "to subject my own thought, and will, my life,
and endeavors, obediently to the will of the Holy Father. I have sworn
to be a blind tool in the hands of my masters, and to do only what they
command and enjoin. I have vowed to serve the holy Church, in which
alone is salvation, in every way and with all the means at my command;
and I will despise none of these means, consider none trifling, disdain
none, provided it leads to the end. For the end sanctifies the means,
and nothing is a sin which is done for the honor of God and the Church!"

"Ad majorem Dei gloriam!" said her father, devoutly folding his hands.
"And you know what awaits you, if you violate your oath?"

"Earthly disgrace and eternal destruction await me. The curse of all my
brethren and sisters awaits me--eternal damnation and punishment. With
thousands of torments and tortures of the rack, will the Holy Fathers
put me to death; and as they kill my body and throw it as food to
the beasts of prey, they will curse my soul and deliver it over to
purgatory."

"And what awaits you if you remain faithful to your oath, and obey the
commands given you?"

"Honor and glory on earth, besides eternal blessedness in heaven."

"Then you will be a queen on earth and a queen in heaven. You know,
then, the sacred laws of the society, and you remember your oath?"

"I remember it."

"And you know that the holy Loyola, before he left us, gave the Society
of Jesus, in England, a master and general, whom all the brethren and
sisters must serve and submit to, to whom they owe blind obedience and
service without questioning?"

"I know it."

"And you know, likewise, by what sign the associates may recognize the
general?"

"By Loyola's ring, which he wears on the forefinger of his right hand."

"Behold here this ring!" said the earl, drawing his hand out of his
doublet.

Lady Jane uttered a cry, and sank almost senseless at his feet.

Lord Douglas, smiling graciously, raised her in his arms