'No?' asked the captain, grating his teeth. 'Will you bring me a certificate of confession?'
'Not to all is given such greatness of mind as to enable them to change their faith according to the emergencies of the moment,' said Katharine, with a bitterness which the unworthiness of the tempter forced from her naturally mild heart.
'Still scornful!' growled the captain. 'The cup now runs over. To the cellar with this brood of young heretics!' thundered he to his soldiers, who immediately forced the children from the room. 'My children!' shrieked Katharine, making an effort to rush after them; but the captain dragged the unhappy mother back.
'The sands of mercy have run out,' he exclaimed; 'and the hour of vengeance approaches. It is now no longer question of the runaway girl. I have torn from my heart my sinful passion for the heretic, and have to do only with you and your heterodoxy. I give you an hour to consider whether you will return to the bosom of the mother church. If you then obstinately choose to adhere to your erroneous belief, I will probe your breast yet deeper, and by all the saints I swear to you that I will find your heart.'
He left the room. 'Preserve me from desperation, O God!' cried Katharine, pressing her infant to her bosom and sinking powerless to the earth.
CHAPTER X.
When she awoke she was sitting in a chair with her slumbering babe in her arms, and before her stood, with weeping eyes, an old Franciscan monk belonging to the city convent, upon whom she stared with wondering and uncertain glances.
'Calm yourself, dear lady,' said the old man in a friendly tone. 'The cowl I wear may be doubly hateful to you in this heavy hour; but it covers a heart that feels kindly and truly for you. I have heard of your sufferings and have come to bring you succor. I have not forgotten the kind attention and care I received in your house when, six years ago, I came here from Breslau as a mendicant lay brother, and fell fainting before your door. There were indeed hard-hearted Lutherans who chid you for your charity and said you ought not to trouble yourself about the beggarly papist priest,--but you answered that it was your christian duty to succor a fellow christian. That was a noble sentiment, and has ever since remained engraved upon my heart, and I have daily offered up my prayers that God would bless you for it through time and eternity. It is true that by some of my brethren this prayer for a heretic has been considered sinful; but I have answered them, 'Solum de salute Diaboli desperandum,' and that it may please the Lord in his mercy to bring this good woman one day, if even upon her death bed, into the embrace of the only saving church.'
'May God reward your love, my good father,' said Katharine with a feeble utterance. 'A kindly human heart is always deserving of respect and esteem, even though it wander in error.'
'I came not,' answered the monk, 'to hold a controversial discussion with you. My only wish is to warn you of what must necessarily and absolutely be done, if you would save your mortal body, to say nothing of your immortal soul. You must know that it is the irrevocable determination of the emperor that all the protestants in his hereditary dominions shall return to the true faith, and for that sole purpose has he sent his troops to this city. It is true that these soldiers conduct themselves here in a manner which no true catholic can justify, and should one of these so called converters stray into my confessional, he would have a hard time of it. But so it is, and I, a poor feeble monk, have no power to avert the evil. The Jesuits, who hold the emperor's heart in their hands, might and should have prevented it; but they have kindled the fire and poured oil thereon. Wherefore I say, yield to the times, for they are dangerous. Without a certificate of confession your tormentor will not leave you--he dares not, even if he would. I bring you the necessary certificate. The urgency of the moment will not permit a formal confession, and you therefore need only subscribe to these articles. You can send your certificate to count Dohna, and receive in exchange for it one from him, which will relieve you from the presence of these soldiers.'