"Despite anything that you could have done or said, father, I would have seen to my own salvation. God before the family."
"And do you imagine, my son, that we could be opposed to your welfare?" asked Bridget in an accent of affectionate reproach. "Do you not know how much we love you? Are not all our thoughts dictated by our attachment to you? Can you doubt our affection?"
"Happiness lies in the faith, and the faith comes to us from heaven. There is no welfare outside of the bosom of the Church."
"It would have become you better to answer your mother's kind words with other terms," observed Christian, as he saw his wife hurt and saddened by the harshness of Hervé's words. "If your faith comes from heaven, filial love also is a celestial sentiment; may God forfend that it be weakened in your heart—in fine, may God forfend that Fra Girard's influence over you should tend to pervert, despite himself and despite yourself, your sense of right and wrong."
"I do not understand you, father."
The artisan cast a significant look at Bridget, who, guessing her husband's secret thoughts, felt assailed by mortal anguish.
"I shall explain myself more clearly," Christian continued. "Do you remember a few days ago at the shop when some of our fellow workmen expressed indignation at the traffic in indulgences?"
"Yes, father; and I withered the blasphemous utterances with the contempt that they deserved. Indulgences open the gates of heaven."
"One of our fellow workingmen loudly likened the commerce in indulgences to a theft," Christian proceeded, unable completely to overcome his emotion, while Bridget in vain sought to catch the eyes of her son, who, from the start of this conversation held his eyes nailed to the floor. "Upon hearing so severe an opinion expressed upon the indulgences," Christian added, "you, my son, shouted that all money, even if it proceeded from theft, became holy if devoted to pious works; you said so, did you not? You thereby justified a reprehensible action."
"It is my conviction."