‘Something new has happened? O Ambrose, what is it?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied; ‘that is, little or nothing. The Inquisition has begun, that is all.’
‘What do you mean?’
He gave a curious laugh.
‘The clodhoppers of Fensea have, in their small way, the instinct of Torquemada. The weasel is akin to the royal tiger. My Christian congregation wish to deliver me over to the moral stake and faggot; as a preliminary they have written to my Bishop.’
‘Of what do they complain now?’
‘That I am a heretic,’ he answered with the same cold laugh.’ Conceive the ridiculousness of the situation! There was some dignity about heresy in the old days, when it meant short shrift, a white shirt, and the auto-da-fé. But an inquisition composed of Summerhayes the grocer, Hayes the saddler, and Miss Rayleigh the schoolmistress; and, instead of Torquemada, the mild old Bishop of Darkdale and Dells!’
She laughed too, but somewhat anxiously. Then she said tenderly, with a certain worship—
‘You are too good for such a place. They do not understand you.’
His manner became serious in a moment.