"Roque, my child, are you a kind and compassionate soul—a thorough good Christian?"
"A very good Christian," responded Roque, "though a humble sinner. But methinks such a question comes with ill grace from the mouth of a renegade."
"I will confide in thee, Roque," returned Marien Rufa, "I am an unfortunate woman, and alas! might I hope that my repentance were not too late? Roque, thinkest thou that there is truly a hell as terrible as it is depicted?"
"Worse, worse, a thousand times worse," replied Roque. "All the torments which you may have suffered in the company of—— But do you allow me to abuse your husband safely?"
"As much as you please," answered the gentle spouse.
"Well," resumed Roque, "all the torments which that most abominable, ugly scarecrow of a rascally unbeliever has made you endure, are nothing in comparison to the tortures you are doomed to suffer when you are compelled to leave that miserable carcase, and that time you must be aware cannot be far off. Then consider what a life you will lead in those dark regions, where, by the bye, you will be eternally tormented with the sight and company of your ungracious consort."
"I am sensible of my errors, but if I have sought your confidence, it was with the view of exciting your compassion, not your reproaches."
But Roque had insensibly got into a very oratorical mood, and, without heeding the hag's remonstrances, proceeded:—
"Now, Rufa, consider for a moment, who but the devil could tempt a matron full half a century old, without a sound tooth in her head, the head itself being unsound, to look kindly on the most perfect sample of ugliness, and a ruffian Moor to boot: this is enough to make you despair of salvation—But no, the blessed Virgin forbid! I think, and charitably hope, that by a vigorous course of penance, and wholesome castigation, properly and soundly administered, by a frequent use of discipline, constant fasts, devout prayer, donations to the poor, of whom I am one, and the like pious exercises, I really think your sinful soul may be snatched from the perdition to which it has been brought by that infernal Aboukar, your most confounded lord and master; therefore—"
"Roque," interrupted ruefully Marien Rufa, "whether you are in right earnest or only playing the fool with me, I cannot determine; but my situation is such as to deserve the pity of every good Christian."