be read from the chair of our
cathedral-church of Meaux, and of all others occupied by faithful
bishops----"

The face of the peasant-ecclesiastic Teruel lighted with a fierce joy as
he listened.

"We shall yet be able to send the Valois before our tribunals. The Holy
Office shall be set up in France. At last the Edicts of Trent shall be
obeyed. What glory! What joy--to judge a King of France, and send him to
the stake as a heretic, a schismatic, a hater of Holy Church----"

"Softly--softly, Brother Teruel," said Mariana, smiling fixedly. "France
is not our happy Spain. The people there are not accustomed to fires in
the market-places and the smell of burned sacrifice--to the sight of
their parents and children being fagoted for the glory of God. See what
happened in England a few years ago, when our Philip's wife Mary, Queen
of that country, tried to introduce a little--oh, such a very little--of
her husband's methods."

"Here we have no difficulty," said Teruel, from his peasant-bigot's
point of view. "It is God's good method with the world to extirpate the
heretic!"

But the Jesuit answered him truly.

"Make no mistake," he said, tapping the Papal Bull with a plump
forefinger, "you succeed here in Spain, my country and yours, because
the Spaniard, ninety-nine out of a hundred, is wishful that you should
succeed. Our good John Spaniard hates Jews--he despises heretics. To him
they are a foolish remnant. They prosper abominably; they are patient,
unwarlike, easily plundered. Yet they take it upon themselves to offend
the eye by their unnecessary industry. A striped blanket in the shade, a
little wine, a little gossip--and in these later times, since blessed
Ferdinand, a good rollicking _auto de fe_ once a week. These suffice him
when the King does not call our Spaniard to war. They are the very
'bread-and-bull-fights' for which he cried when he was yet a Roman and a
citizen. But in France and in England--even in Italy we must act
otherwise. We attain our end just the same, but without noise. Only one
man somewhere, with a clear brain and an arm that will not fail, drives
a knife--or, when all backs are turned, inverts the bottom of a poison
phial. He gains the martyr's crown, skips Purgatory with a bound, and
finds himself in Paradise!"

The little grey Neapolitan blinked owlishly at Mariana. He was growing
sleepy, and with all his soul he wished this too-wise man would be
silent. But being applied to, he tho