"No, no; I will do what I say."
"What are you saying—and you a Christian woman?" exclaimed Balsamo with surprising authority in his voice. "Is your creed which bids you return good for evil but a hypocrisy, that you pretend to follow it, and you boast of revenge—evil for good?"
"Oh," replied Lorenza, for an instant struck by the argument. "It is duty, not revenge, to denounce society's enemies."
"If you denounced me as a master in the black art, it would be not be as an offender against society, but against heaven. Were I to defy heaven, which need but comprise me as one atom in the myriads slain by an earthquake or pestilence, but which takes no pains to punish me, why should weak men like myself undertake to punish me?"
"Heaven forgets, or tolerates—waiting for you to reform," said the Italian.
"Meanwhile," said the other, smiling, "you are advised to tolerate your husband, friend and benefactor?"
"Husband? Oh, that I should have to endure your yoke!"
"Oh, what an impenetrable mystery?" muttered the magician, pursuing his thought rather than heeding the speaker.
"Let us have done. Why do you take away my liberty?"