"Do you doubt my will or ability to protect you, my daughter? Beneath my roof no danger can assail."
"We have fully decided to go from here, and further reasoning or entreaty would be vain; accept, however, my thanks for your proffered kindness."
"Girl, you have gone too far! Hear me while I am placable, for I tell you now, without my consent, you cannot—shall not leave here."
"You have neither right nor power to detain me."
"Have I not? I swear, if you do not hear and abide by what I say, your father's soul will remain forever in purgatory, where it justly belongs."
"How dare you make so miserable a threat?" said the calm, clear voice of Mary, who had approached unobserved.
"Cursed believer in a cursed creed, what do you here? Begone, or dread the vengeance I shall surely inflict on so blasphemous and damnable a heretic!"
Winding her arm tightly about Florence's waist, she replied—"'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay;' and though I have never injured you, Padre—even if I had, it ill becomes a consecrated priest to utter such language, or so madly to give vent to passion."
"Silence!" thundered the Padre, livid with rage; "I will compass heaven and earth rather than you shall escape me."
"Come, Florry, this is no place for us now; even the churchyard is not sacred. Come home."