“My son, I am about to do that which will break my heart. Nay,—God is about to do it. Let me put it thus, or I shall not know how to bear it.”
“I have no wish nor intention to trouble you, my father,” said Bruno hastily. “If I might, now and then, see this child,—to tell truth, it would be a great pleasure and solace to me: for I have learned to love her,—just the years of my Beatrice, just what Beatrice might have grown to be. Yet—if I speak I must speak honestly—give me leave to see Belasez, only on the understanding that I may speak to her of Christ. She is dear as any thing in this dreary world, but He is dearer than the world and all that is in it. If I may not do this, let me say farewell, and see her no more.”
“Thou hast spoken to her—of the Nazarene?” asked Abraham in a low tone.
“I have,” was Bruno’s frank reply.
“Thou hast taught her the Christian faith?”
“So far as I could do it.”
Belasez stood trembling. Yet Abraham did not seem angry.
“Thou hast baptised her, perhaps?”
“No. That I have not.”
“Not?—why not?”