“Of course, you must draw the line somewhere,” began Monsignor.  “Of course——­”

“Where?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said that we must draw the line somewhere.  I ask you where?”

“Well, that, of course, must be a matter of degree.”

“Surely it must be one of principle. . . .  Can’t you give me any principle you would allow?”

The passion of just now seemed wholly gone.  Monsignor had an uncomfortable sense that he had behaved like a child and that this young monk was on firmer ground than himself.  But again he hesitated.

“Well, would you accept this principle?” asked Dom Adrian.  “Would you say that every society has a right to suppress opinions which are directly subversive of the actual foundations on which itself stands?  Let me give an instance.  Suppose you had a country that was a republic, but that allowed that other forms of government might be equally good. (Suppose, for instance, that while all acquiesced more or less in the republic, yet that many of the citizens personally preferred a monarchy.) Well, I suppose you would say it was tyranny for the republic to punish the monarchists with death?”

“Certainly.”

“So should I. But if a few of the citizens repudiated all forms of government and preached Anarchy, well, I suppose you would allow that the government would have a perfect right to silence them?”

“I suppose so.”

“Of course,” said Dom Adrian quietly.  “It was what you allowed just now.  Society may, and must, protect itself.”

“What’s that got to do with it?  These Socialists are not Anarchists.  You’re not an atheist.  And even if you were, what right would the Church have to put you to death?”

“Oh! that’s what you’re thinking, is it, Monsignor?  But really, you know, Society must protect itself.  The Church can’t interfere there.  For it isn’t for a moment the Church that punishes with death.  On the contrary, the Catholic authorities are practically unanimous against it.”

Monsignor made an impatient movement.

“I don’t understand in the least,” he said.  “It seems to me——­”

“Well, shall I give you my answer?”

Monsignor nodded.

The monk drew a breath and leaned back once more.

To the elder man the situation seemed even more unreal and impossible than at the beginning.  He had come, full of fierce and emotional sympathy, to tell a condemned man how wholly his heart was on his side, to repudiate with all his power the abominable system that had made such things possible.  And now, in five minutes, the scene had become one of almost scholastic disputation; and the heretic, it seemed—­the condemned heretic—­was defending the system that condemned him to a man who represented it as an official!  He waited, almost resentfully.

“Monsignor,” said the young man, “forgive me for saying so; but it seems to me you haven’t thought this thing out—­that you’re simply carried away by feeling.  No doubt it’s your illness. . . .  Well, let me put it as well as I can. . . .”