"Joseph," he answered me, with an accent extremely pitiful, "indeed I cannot tell you! I am debarred!"
"Debarred or no," I cried, "you must tell me if you have heard anything about my father, or I will break your head with this iron hook!"
He could have taken me up in one hand and shaken me, but it was not with the weapons of an earthly warfare that he was fighting this present battle.
"If so, I must e'en bow to the blast," he said. "I am aware that my actions not being strictly in accordance with canon law, and kept a secret from my bishop, I am a legitimate object of your suspicion."
"Never mind that, Mr. Ablethorpe," I said. "Only tell me as a friend. Remember how I helped you all I could before. If you know anything of my father. I must hear of it, and you must tell me."
He shook his head.
"Indeed, you cannot understand, Joseph," he repeated mournfully. "It is not to be expected that you should. I have not the authority to tell you. It is a sacred thing with me."
With the grasp of one hand I caught hold of the leathern case, and out came the thing he called the monstrance. It had a kind of glass top, which I had lifted up to get at the wafers.
"If you don't tell me," I shouted, "I'll send the whole flying into the Brom Water."
"That would be deadly sin—the sin of sacrilege, Joseph," he answered, trying to get the case from me; but I was too active and too near the wall. "Hold, Joseph—oh, my monstrance—my cibory!"