Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/241

230 your youth, your magnificence, your reign of love and of pleasure?"

She looked him fall in the eyes:—

"Monsignore, you use strange language for a priest. Whatever my fate be, I merit it; not for the things which you quote against me as crime, but for luring to their graves the lives you and your murderers slew last night."

The nerves of his cheeks quivered with agitated wrath; not for his bishopric would he have had it known that he had looked on at the slaughter, and given the death-word at the Villa Antina. She laughed, in the aching bitterness of her heart, and in her dauntless scorn for the foes who had netted her in like a wired bird.

"Ah, that was a noble exploit, beau sire; a gentle and holy duty of an anointed of Christ! The cross has led the van of the slaughterers of life and of liberty many a time; you but followed the mission of priests in all ages,—to sow broadcast war and desolation, and to pile dead bodies by fire or by steel for the glory of God in the mission of peace! Go and kneel with Viana's blood on your head!—go and fill the throne of St. Peter with the murder of patriots heavy on your soul! Go—you have done no more than the men of