Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/182

 when he sought to purify the Church." He turned and looked at the cowering Fulco. "Go now. I can't talk any longer."

Fulco answered him. He was weeping like a little child. "I can't argue these things. I know too little. But the world can be saved," he repeated. "The Church can be purified."

To Father d'Astier it seemed impossible to remain any longer in the same room with this man who was his son. Turning, he went quickly into the bedroom and, closing the door, bolted it. . . . The room was tiny with only a narrow iron bed covered with coarse blankets. Upon this he flung himself down, feeling that he was ready to die. Fulco knew now. Fulco, his own son, was the only one who knew the truth. He had killed Fulco's faith as he had slaughtered the faith of Fulco's mother. The demon had won a second time. And faith was all that poor Fulco had in the world.

Presently he sat up on the narrow bed. "Tomorrow," he thought bitterly, "I shall go out into the world again and go to dinners and make flattering speeches to rogues and criminals and fools. It is too late now to change. I am too old. And tomorrow no one will know." Again he had betrayed the thing he served.

Tomorrow he would go again to the Villa Leonardo to continue the conversion of that silly woman Mrs. Weatherby, and from her he would get money for the Church. Oh, he had brought money to the Church—thousands, millions of lira and francs and marks and dollars and pounds. He had, he thought, bought himself a place in Heaven by now. He had