“Trengrowse, the minister——” cried Marlowe.
“And this evening I had notice that all who are competent intend to make their Communion next Sunday. This parish has been won for God, Sir Joshua, and at the cost of thirteen deaths. Isn’t it worth it?”
“Father Lascelles, I cannot regard you as sane. You are not only practically admitting your crime, you are disclosing your motives.”
“I beg your pardon, I admit nothing. I acknowledge I prayed to God to visit this people, if necessary, by His secret Death. That is not a crime. Next Sunday I shall tell my people.”
“And have you prayed that the deaths shall cease?” asked Sir Joshua ironically.
“I was doing so when you entered,” replied Lascelles quietly.
“Good God, man, your hypocrisy sickens me. You prate of God’s intervention, and all the time you’ve been sending man after man to death by some foul poison of your own.”
“Sir Joshua—do you believe God commonly works without human intervention?”
“Bah! That is sophistry.”
“You condemn the machinery of justice, the compromise of war, our human evasion of rope and guillotine?”