“Beatrice de Malpas,” he said, “Thou art that child.”
A low cry from Bruno, a more passionate exclamation from Belasez, and the father and daughter were clasped heart to heart.
Chapter Eleven.
What came of it.
“Content to fill Religion’s vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace.”
Cowper.
“Nay, my son, it is of no use. I shall never forsake the faith of my fathers. For this child, if she can believe it,—well: she is more thine than mine,—ay Dios! And perhaps there is this much change in me, that I have come to think it just possible that it may not be idolatry to fancy the Nazarene was the Messiah. How can I tell? We know so little, and Adonai knows so much! But the cowslip is easily transplanted: the old oak will take no new rooting. Let the old oak alone. And there are other things in thy faith, my son,—a maiden whom I should deem it sin to worship, images of stone before which no Jew may bow down, a thing you call the Church, which we cannot understand, but which seems to bind you all, hand and foot, soul and body, as a slave is bound by his master. I cannot take up with those.”
“Nor I,” said Belasez in a low voice.
“Then do not,” was the quiet answer of Bruno. “I shall never ask it of either of you.”