onsignor? But really,
you know, Society must protect itself. The Church can't interfere
there. For it isn't for a moment the Church that punishes with
death. On the contrary, the Catholic authorities are practically
unanimous against it."

Monsignor made an impatient movement.

"I don't understand in the least," he said. "It seems to me----"

"Well, shall I give you my answer?"

Monsignor nodded.

The monk drew a breath and leaned back once more.

To the elder man the situation seemed even more unreal and
impossible than at the beginning. He had come, full of fierce and
emotional sympathy, to tell a condemned man how wholly his heart
was on his side, to repudiate with all his power the abominable
system that had made such things possible. And now, in five
minutes, the scene had become one of almost scholastic
disputation; and the heretic, it seemed--the condemned
heretic--was defending the system that condemned him to a man who
represented it as an official! He waited, almost resentfully.

"Monsignor," said the young man, "forgive me for saying so; but
it seems to me you haven't thought this thing out--that you're
simply carried away by feeling. No doubt it's your illness. . . .
Well, let me put it as well as I can. . . ."

He paused again, compressing his lips. He was pale, and evidently
holding himself hard in hand; but his eyes were bright and
intelligent. Then he abruptly began again.

"What's wrong with you, Monsignor," he said, "is that you don't
realize--again, no doubt, owing to your loss of memory--that you
don't realize that the only foundation of society at the present
day is Catholicism. You see we _know_ now that Catholicism is
true. It has reasserted itself finally. Every other scheme has
been tried and has failed; and Catholicism, though it has never
died, has once more been universally accepted. Even heathen
countries accept it _de facto_ as the scheme on which the life of
the human race is built. Very well, then, the man who strikes at
Catholicism strikes at society. If he had his way society would
crumble down again. Then what can Catholic society do except
defend itself, even by the death penalty? Remember, the Church
does not kill. It never has; it never will. It is society that
puts to death. And it is certainly true to say that theologians,
as a whole, would undoubtedly abolish the death penalty to-morrow
if they could. It's an open secret that the Holy Father would do
away with it to