Ambrosia’s mother had again received a visit from Bishop Lonzello. This time he had insisted that his daughter confess in order that she might be forgiven and the curse pronounced against her rendered null. It is possible that the bishop himself believed that the curse held power. Certain it is that the woman feared it and had wept almost constantly since that day that it had been pronounced on Ambrosia. Now she fell in with the idea of Ambrosia confessing and securing release from the curse. She brought the matter before her daughter, who demurred. Then she urged it with such insistence, declaring that filial duty required some reparation on her part, that Ambrosia was touched, and, at the same time, being plagued by the importunity of her mother, consented to confess, and even to confess before the foreign friar, in the church against which she was in rebellion. Indeed, she preferred the foreigner to one of the priests who had long resided in the islands and fallen with its ways.

Behold, then, Ambrosia Lonzello at the cathedral before the confessional in which Violeta was seated. She did not know it, but the moment she entered the confessional the door had been locked behind her by an attendant, at the signal from the officiating priest.

Ambrosia knelt at the confessional, troubled in heart. She felt out of place in a church against which she was in rebellion; and, while feeling that she ought to atone for disrespect shown a father, still she knew not what to say. She knelt in prayer, and as she prayed, the priest within the cell gazed upon her with lustful eyes, studying her points as a sportsman might study the creature he meant to kill and devour. As he looked, the appetite for sex, the fiercest passion that sways mankind, took possession of and began to rage within him. Finally he spoke:

“Daughter, have you been guilty of disloyalty to the holy church? Have you consorted with those who are the enemies of the religion and of their country?”

Naturally, the question, so unexpected, disconcerted the girl kneeling before the cell with her eyes so downcast that she did not see the priest within the cell. Various emotions surged within her. Her first impulse was to deny rebellion to true religion and rush from the church. But she concluded that it were best to remain and admit the thing that had caused her mother sorrow. So she confessed:

“I have met the general of the insurrectionists and am his friend. But I am not an enemy of the true religion.”

“Have you met him at night?”

The girl, although, knowing it compromised her, said softly, “Yes.”

“Late at night or early in the morning?”

Again she faltered as she replied, “Both.”

“Were you two alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did he employ embraces or kisses toward you?”

Still lower, hardly above a whisper, “Yes; but we are engaged.”

“Did he caress you, feeling over your person with his hands—like this?”

The priest’s hands were upon her, and he was taking liberties no other man had ever done. She tried to arise from the cushion where she knelt, but strong arms about her prevented. Then the priest stepped from the confessional and held her in his arms.

“Did he kiss you—like this?” the priest asked. “Did he press you to his bosom—like this?” She was now in his embrace, struggling in vain to free herself. “Nay, do not struggle, little bird. If you grant such favors to enemies of religion, you ought not to refuse them to representatives of the Lord.”

“How can you call yourself a representative of the Lord when you do these things?” she managed to ask between his kisses.

“Why, Chuleta, did not the Holy Ghost overshadow even the blessed virgin? And is it not an honor to be embraced by one who stands, as it were, in the very person of Christ? If you have yielded to the enemy of the Master, ought you not yield to the true representative of the Master, and so make atonement to him?”

For answer, she managed to free one hand and slap his face.

“You do not know the manner of my country,” said the priest, thrusting his hand in her bosom. “The instructions for confession, issued by Saint Liguori, says: ‘Kisses, embraces, squeezing of the hands and similar things not indecent, if done only as marks of affability or benevolence, according to the custom of the country, in an honest way, are not sins.’ Again: ‘To speak, hear, read, write indecent things with a legitimate reason is no sin. Hence, in order to administer the sacrament of penance priests can lawfully hear and read all they wish.’ Tell me what this insurgent did to you.”

The girl wrenched herself away, and, flying to the door, tried to open it. The priest stood and smiled.

“The case is hopeless,” he said. “You might as well confess.”

“Have you no regard for your sacred calling? Have you no regard for this sacred place?” she asked.

“Nothing is more sacred than love,” said he. “Saint Liguori says: ‘Concerning the locality, every external carnal action, although hidden in a sacred place, is a sacrilege. However, cells, a cloister, the vestry, the roof above the church, its door and vestibule, are excluded.’ You see we are excused.”

“Excused! Oh, the wickedness of your heart! I wonder not that Saguanaldo broke away from the church you represent.”

“Nay, child, you misunderstand. If it is given to Peter and his successors to forgive sins, then whatever they may do can be no sin, but is, as it were, the act of God himself. You who think your highest virtue is to love God ought to esteem it an honor that you have provoked the love of God’s representative on earth.”

“Fiend!” shrieked the girl. “Help, help!” The words echoed from the wall, but seemed to penetrate no further.

There was no response, and the priest smiled: “It is foolish to resist the Lord who loves you,” he said. “It is in my power to absolve you from sin, and even to grant you indulgence to commit that which might under other circumstances be sin. Don’t be foolish, child.”

He sought to grasp her in his arms again, but she eluded him. Then he began in a pleading voice:

“Is it my fault that I love you? Why are you not as kind to me as you were to that heretic? You are in the confessional, and I can not only absolve you from sin, but I am also pledged to secrecy. Be kind to me.”

“Oh, loathsome thing, I hate you.”

“But I love you.”

“Love, indeed! You pollute the word, like you do the office you hold and the building here and all else that should be sacred.”

“You know not how I love you. Oh, how I long toward you! ‘Item ordinarie mortalia nabenda sunt escula in ore, seu lingua in ore introducta vel excepta.1’ Are you not, indeed, the bride of Christ?”

“Oh, devil that you are! It is you who have confessed to me, and though you live to be a century of age, confessing every day such villainy as this, I could but hate you worse with every morn, and never could forgive you. If there is hell, where he who burns in lust and anger, burns in flame, then there’s your place. If there is a heaven that hears the voice of innocence, sending the white angels down to give it succor, then will the heaven open now, and white-robed creatures will deliver me. Oh, thou divine Christ, come now and judge between us. Oh, God of purity, deliver me from this, thine enemy.”

“You do not understand. I wish you no wrong. Love is not wrong.”

“Love thinketh no evil.”

“Love is not expressed in words. It never can be told, but in embraces and fondlings. Christ, how I love you and long toward you! ‘Delectatio venerea autem seu carnalisest ca, quea oritur ex commotione spiritum genertioni inservientum et sentitur circa partes genitales.’ You can not comprehend how I am stirred.”

“You know not how you fright me. Oh, sir, I plead with you to let me go. Do not for a moment’s passion damn your own soul and ruin me forever. Show but the manhood that will set me free, and for that manhood’s sake I will say that, though tempted, you had the hardihood to overcome, and I, for that hardihood that won, will be silent as to all you have done and said.”

“What do you think I am? Does the sportsman set the bird free when it chirps? I am not so foolish or so weak.”

“Then let me ask one thing: Did my father deliver me into your hands?”

“Is the Bishop Lonzello your father?”

“He is.”

“Oh, then I understand some things that have been dark. I also have full license now for anything I can do, and you can find no fault in the fault that marked both your parents. Come and give me a kiss, like a good girl, Chuleta!”

“God in heaven, send me protection,” gasped the girl in a faint voice.

A moment later the priest grasped her in his arms, and his lips seized hers in a long, hard, passionate kiss.