"She loves you," said Marcus.
"Yes—but perhaps she will die!" said Leverani, with a shudder.
Marcus struck thrice at the door, which opened and shut as soon as he had passed in with Consuelo and Leverani. The other brethren remained on the portico, until they should be introduced for the initiation. For between the initiation and the final proofs there was always a sacred conversation between the principals and the candidates. The interior of the temple used for these initiations was magnificently adorned, and decorated between the pillars with statues of the greatest friends of humanity. That of Jesus Christ stood in the centre of the amphitheatre, between those of Pythagoras and Plato; Apollonius of Thyana was next to Saint John; Abeilard by Saint Bernard; and John Huss and Jerome of Prague, with Saint Catharine and Joan of Arc. Consuelo did not pause to attend to external objects. Wrapped in meditation, she saw with surprise the same judges who had profoundly sounded her heart. She no longer felt any trouble, but waited, with apparent calmness, for their sentence.
The eighth person, who sat below the seven judges, and who seemed always to speak for them, addressing Marcus, said—"Brother, whom bring you here? What is her name?"
"Consuelo Porporina," said Marcus.
"That is not what you are asked, my brother," said Consuelo; "do you not see me here as a bride, not as a widow? Announce the Countess Albert of Rudolstadt."
"My daughter," said the orator, "I speak to you in the name of the council. You are known no longer by that name; your marriage has been dissolved."
"By what right? by what authority?" said Consuelo quickly, with sudden emotion. "I recognise no theocratic power. You have yourself told me that you recognised no rights but those I gave you freely, and bade me submit merely to paternal authority. Such yours will not be, if it rescind my marriage without my own or my husband's consent. This right neither he nor I have given you."
"You are mistaken, daughter, for Albert has given us the right to decide on both your fate and his own. You yourself did the same, when you opened your heart, and confessed your love of another."
"I confessed nothing, and I deny the avowal you have sought to wrest from me."