"What mean you?"
"That the remorse you felt for your abandoned faith upset your mental energies. Venus Urania should not have been enacted by a Christian."
"You have discovered my secret then; but I am a Christian no longer."
"Oh! do not say that, Chione; say, rather, you will repent, do penance. Chione, you cannot at will cast away faith. The effect those words produced on you show that you still believe."
"The devils believe and tremble," muttered the unfortunate woman; "yet it is not faith they have."
"But you are not yet a reprobate—are not yet beyond recall. Chione, I, Magas, entreat you, do not lie to your God. You cannot deceive him, and for his power, does not your past illness make you tremble for the future?"
"What means this altered tone, Magas?" said Chione bitterly. "Are you turned against me? Ah! I see how it is! Two years of absence, two years of illness, have done their work. Man's constancy is of a summer day; the winter comes, he freezes with the cold; for the love within no longer glows, no longer sends the blood rushing through the veins with a warmth that defies exterior cold. Some other form fresher than this frame impaired by sickness hath replaced Chione in your heart. You come to bid me farewell. Farewell, Magas."
Deceived by her feigned calmness, Magas rose. "Again, Chione, I entreat you to return to the religion you have abandoned."
"And do penance at the church door in sackcloth and ashes? Is that your meaning? Will you be there to see me beg the prayers of the faithful as they pass in to the mysteries from which I am excluded?"
This was said with an inconceivable mixture of sarcasm and bitterness.