"Of course," said Dom Adrian quietly. "It was what you allowed just now. Society may, and must, protect itself."
"What's that got to do with it? These Socialists are not Anarchists. You're not an atheist. And even if you were, what right would the Church have to put you to death?"
"Oh! that's what you're thinking, is it, Monsignor? But really, you know, Society must protect itself. The Church can't interfere there. For it isn't for a moment the Church that punishes with death. On the contrary, the Catholic authorities are practically unanimous against it."
Monsignor made an impatient movement.
"I don't understand in the least," he said. "It seems to me——"
"Well, shall I give you my answer?"
Monsignor nodded.
The monk drew a breath and leaned back once more.
To the elder man the situation seemed even more unreal and impossible than at the beginning. He had come, full of fierce and emotional sympathy, to tell a condemned man how wholly his heart was on his side, to repudiate with all his power the abominable system that had made such things possible. And now, in five minutes, the scene had become one of almost scholastic disputation; and the heretic, it seemed—the condemned heretic—was defending the system that condemned him to a man who represented it as an official! He waited, almost resentfully.
"Monsignor," said the young man, "forgive me for saying so; but it seems to me you haven't thought this thing out—that you're simply carried away by feeling. No doubt it's your illness. . . . Well, let me put it as well as I can. . . ."