The veins on the old man's forehead stood out with anger; he
brought his fist heavily down on the table, with a bang that caused
every vessel thereon to ring. A dark-eyed girl, who was listening
in mute terror to the stormy scene, shrank yet more into herself at
this, and cast an imploring look upon the tall stripling whose face
her own so much resembled; but his fiery eyes were on his father's
face, and he neither saw nor heeded the look.

"And have I not forbid--ay, and that under the heaviest
penalties--any child of mine from so much as putting the head
inside one of those vile heretic buildings? Would God they were
every one of them destroyed! Heaven send some speedy judgment upon
those who build and those who dare to worship therein! What wonder
that a son turns in defiance upon his father, when he stuffs his
ears with the pestilent heresies with which the wicked are making
vile this earth!"

Nicholas Trevlyn's anger became so great at this point as well nigh
to choke him. He paused, not from lack of words, but from inability
to utter them; and his son, boldly taking advantage of the pause,
struck in once more in his own defence.

"Father, you talk of pestilent heresies, but what know you of the
doctrines taught within walls you never enter? Is it a pestilent
heresy that Christ died to save the world; that He rose again for
our justification; that He sent the Holy Spirit into the world to
sanctify and gather together a Church called after His name? That
is the doctrine I heard preached today, and methinks it were hard
to fall foul of it. If you had heard it yourself from one of our