"And do you not know that you will not convert a man like Ottmar by such means, but simply render him miserable?"
"We wish to make him harmless,--nothing more."
"But you do far worse," cried Cornelia, indignantly. "You bar the path upon which he might become a better man; hurt him back to the cheerless void of a life without a purpose: perhaps even entangle him in fresh snares of falsehood and hypocrisy; and thus destroy a nature which, in its own way, might accomplish great things for the world. Who gives you the right thus violently to interfere with an independent existence?"
"The same right which the government has to punish secular crimes, we, as the representatives of the kingdom of God, possess against him who sins against God and his servants."
"Severinus, when the government chastises, it represents the insulted law, and uses honest means; but you avenge only your own boundless pride, and your weapons are hypocrisy and deceit! Are you better than he whom you punish?"
"Cornelia!" cried Severinus, with flashing eyes, "do you dare say that to me?"
"I have never spoken anything but the truth all my life. You could not expect me to call wrong right; and if God should descend to the earth once more he would judge the zeal of those who commit sin for his honor, and misuse his name for selfish purposes, far more harshly than the errors of the men who have deserted him in form, but not in reality."
"It is only natural that the child of the world should speak in her lover's favor; and I will be patient now, as I have often been before. I cannot ask you to perceive the sublimity of a subordination to the will of a chief, as our order practices it. Our General alone bears the responsibility; God will call him only to an account; and he can lay it aside: for God is higher than the law, and whoever represents him on earth cannot have his acts measured by the standard of earthly justice!"
Cornelia gazed at Severinus long and silently. "You told me a short time ago that you pitied me. Now I must answer you in the same words: Severinus, I pity you! I am not angry; but you will perceive that from this hour our paths must lie apart. If you deal a blow which will destroy Ottmar's honest efforts, it is my duty to be at his side."
"Cornelia, it is in your power to avert this dangerous blow."