The retort was such a one as Samson the Heretic would have rent with the splendid sincerity of his scorn. To Rosamunde, numb and lonely as she was, there yet appeared a grim pharisaical humour in the perfumed piety of this complacent prelate, decreeing the eternal fate of God-given souls. Could this lapwing, this piping swan, so far deceive himself and others as to claim the power of final pardon or of endless punishment? Rosamunde awoke at the thought with an echo of Samson’s strenuous eloquence in her memory.
“Priest,” she said very calmly, “we of La Vallée Joyeuse have been taught that a man’s soul speaks face to face with the Living God. Here we have hired no spiritual chapmen to trade and barter with our prayers. I claim my daughtership before Christ our Lord. Sure am I, that even as Mary of Bethany sat before God’s face, so may I serve Him without bribing the hirelings of a degenerate Church.”
Bishop Jocelyn set his finger tips together, elevated his eyebrows, suffered a slight smile to play upon his lips.
“Madame,” he said to her, “it is easy for me to know that you have been deceived by plausible and disastrous doctrines. It is easy to impose on women, seeing that they catch the reflection of any bold man’s mind. They answer men, as tides the moon.”
“There you are in error,” she retorted. “My conscience stands upon the mountain-top, and shuns not the light. I believe what I believe. I know my own heart.”
“Ah,” he said, with something of a sigh, “you are obdurate, my daughter, obdurate to the point of death. I fear there is but little hope for you. Well, well, I have played my part.”
He rang his silver hand bell, and a captain in full chain harness came in through a side door with a company of archers at his back. The men stood to their arms. Such were the justiciaries employed by the Church.
“Madame,” said Jocelyn with vigour, changing instantly his persuasive pose, “recant your heresy, or the stake awaits you. Come. Are you prepared to burn?”
She looked at him mutely, doubtingly, pale to the lips. The heavy breathing of the guards fanned the stagnant air. Above her hung the churchman’s face, contending passions playing thereon, like a red sunset through a cloud. The loneliness and despair cried out in her; the flesh rose up against the spirit.
“Is this your mercy?” she asked him, breathing fast.