aken, sir. So I ask you again how far you intend to thwart and
disobey me."

A kind of despair surged up in the boy's heart--despair at the
fruitlessness of this ironical and furious sort of talk; and with the
despair came boldness.

"Father, will you let me speak outright, without thinking that I mean to
insult you? I do not; I swear I do not. Will you let me speak, sir?"

His father growled again a sort of acquiescence, and Robin gathered his
forces. He had prepared a kind of defence that seemed to him reasonable,
and he knew that his father was at least just. They had been friends,
these two, always, in an underground sort of way, which was all that the
relations of father and son in such days allowed. The old man was curt,
obstinate, and even boisterous in his anger; but there was a kindliness
beneath that the boy always perceived--a kindliness which permitted the
son an exceptional freedom of speech, which he used always in the last
resort and which he knew his father loved to hear him use. This, then,
was plainly a legitimate occasion for it, and he had prepared himself to
make the most of it. He began formally:

"Sir," he said, "you have brought me up in the Old Faith, sent me to
mass, and to the priest to learn my duty, and I have obeyed you always.
You have taught me that a man's duty to God must come before all
else--as our Saviour Himself said, too. And now you turn on me, and bid
me forget all that, and come to church with you.... It is not for me to
say anything to my father about his own conscience; I must leave that
alone. But I am bound to speak of mine when occasion rises, and this is
one of them.... I should be dishonouring and insulting you, sir, if I
did not believe you when you said you would turn Protestant; and a man
who says he will turn Protestant has done so already. It was for this
reason, then, and no other, that I did not answer you the other day; not
because I wish to be disobedient to you, but because I must be obedient
to God. I did not lie to you, as I might have done, and say that I did
not know who the priest was nor where mass was to be said. But I would
not answer, because it is not right or discreet for a Catholic to speak
of these things to those who are not Catholics--"

"How dare you say I am not a Catholic, sir!"

"A Catholic, sir, to my mind," said Robin steadily, "is one who holds to
the Catholic Church and to no other. I mean nothing offensive, sir; I
mean what I said I