he face. But as often as it came to the tug of
wills, this smooth, soft-spoken, smiling priest, with his caressing
voice, was master. And well they knew it. He also.

"I have a niece," Mariana murmured, "one altogether devoted to the
service of the Church and the society. I am, for the present, her
nearest parent as well as her spiritual director----"

"Valentine la Nina?" questioned Teruel. And Frey Tullio said nothing,
only Mariana, ever on the watch, caught the oily southern glitter of his
eyes, wicked little black pools, with scum on each, like cooling gravy.

"Ay, indeed, Valentine la Nina, even as you say," responded the Jesuit
of Toledo calmly; "it is not fair that only men should labour for the
good of Holy Church. Did not Mary, the wife of Herod's steward, and that
other Mary, minister to the Son of the Holy Virgin? It is so written.
If, then, sainted women followed Him in life, watched by His cross, and
prepared His body for burial, surely in these evil times, when the
Church of Peter trembles on its rock, we, who fight for the faith, have
not the right to refuse the ministry of Valentine la Nina or another?"

And so, since Mariana was of Toledo and high in favour with Philip the
King, and with the Archbishop Primate of all Spain, besides being more
powerful than the General of his own Order, Dom Teruel and Frey Tullio
bowed their heads and did as they were commanded.

"Give you the order," said Teruel to Mariana, with a faint, hateful
smile, for he would have preferred Serra, a newly-wetted rope, and a
slow fire.

But this was by no means Mariana's way.

"I but advise," he said. "How can I do otherwise, a poor Jesuit
wanderer, dependent on your bounty for hospitality--I and my niece. I
fear I must claim also a place for her here, when she leaves the house
and protection of the Countess of Livia."

So into the chamber of light and silence went the Abbe John, after his
first examination. He saw around him and above walls and ceilings
painted all over with gigantic human eyes--the pupil of each being
hollow--and watchers were set continually without, or, at least, the
Abbe John thought they were. Within twelve hours he was raging madly
about his cell, striving to reach and shiver those watching eyes
everywhere about him. He kicked at the inlaid pavements. He tried to
tear away from his bed-head and from the foot, those huge, open eyes
with the dark, watchful pupils. But his riding-boots had been removed,