deed. It's for you to hear--you! What was I saying? For you, you
who seek for your poor child a soul-destroying infidel as teacher. Do you
know what that is? A sin against the Holy Ghost--the worst of all crimes.
Such an abomination! You will have a heavy penance imposed upon you in
the confessional."

"It's no sin--no abomination!" replied the smith defiantly.

The angry blood mounted into the monk's cheeks, and he cried:
threateningly: "Oho! The chapter will teach you better to your sorrow.
Keep the boy away from the Jew, or. . . ."

"Or?" repeated the smith, looking Father Benedict steadily in the face.

The latter's lips curled still more deeply, as after a pause, he replied:
"Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you and the
vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and it is
long since a Jew has been burned for an example to many."

These words did not fail to produce an effect, for though Adam was a
brave man, the monk threatened him with things, against which he felt as
powerless as when confronted with the might of the tempest and the
lightning flashing from the clouds. His features now expressed deep
mental anguish, and stretching out his hands repellently towards his
guest, he cried anxiously "No, no! Nothing more can happen to me. No
excommunication, no punishment, can make my present suffering harder to
bear, but if you harm the doctor, I shall curse the hour I invited you to
cross my threshold."

The monk looked at the other in surprise and answered in a more gentle
tone: "You have always walked in your own way, Adam; but whither are you
going now? Has the Jew bewitched you, or what binds you to him, that you
look, on his account, as if a thunderbolt had struck you? No one shall
have cause to curse the hour he invited Benedict to be his guest. See
your way clearly once more, and when you have come to your senses--why,
we monks have two eyes, that we may be able to close one when occasion
requires. Have you any special cause for gratitude to Costa?"

"Many, Father, many!" cried the smith, his voice still trembling with
only too well founded anxiety for his friend. "Listen, and when you know
what he has done for me, and are disposed to judge leniently, do not
carry what reaches your ears here before the chapter no, Father--I
beseech you--do not. For if it should be I, by whom the doctor came to
ruin, I--I. . . ." The man's voice failed, and his chest heaved so
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