Gonsalvo smiled. "I know I shall pay the forfeit," he said, "even as those who slew the Inquisitor Pedro Arbues before the high altar in Saragossa, But"--here the smile faded, and the stern set look returned to his face--"I shall not pay more, for a man's triumphant vengeance, than those fiends will dare to inflict upon a tender, delicately nurtured girl for the crime of a mystic meditation, or a few words of prayer not properly rounded off with an Ave."
"True. But then you will suffer alone. She has God with her."
"I can suffer alone."
For that word Carlos envied him. He shrank in terror from loneliness, from suffering, shuddering at the very thought of the dungeon and the torture-room. And just then the first quarter of his hour of grace chimed from the clock of San Vicente. What if he and Pepe should fail to meet? He would not think of that now. Whatever happened, Gonsalvo must be saved. He went on,--
"Here you can suffer alone and be strong. But how will you endure the loneliness of the long hereafter, away from God's presence, from light and life and hope? Are you content that you, and she for whom you give your life, should be sundered throughout eternity?"
"Nay; I am casting my lot in with hers. If the Church curses her (pure and holy as she ever was), its anathema shall fall on me too. If only the Church's key opens heaven, she and I will both stand without."
"Yet you know she will enter heaven. Shall you?"
Gonsalvo hesitated. "It will not be the blood of a villain that will bar my way," he said.
"God says, 'Thou shall not kill.'"
"Then what will he do with Gonzales de Munebrãga?"