My hero thought over these things, and remembered many a ruse on the
part of Christina and Charlotte, and many a detail of the struggle
which I cannot further interrupt my story to refer to, and he
remembered his father's favourite retort that it could only end in
Rome. When he was a boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now
as he thought of another alternative clear enough to himself, but so
horrible that it had not even occurred to Theobald- I mean the
toppling over of the whole system. At that time he welcomed the hope
that the absurdities and unrealities of the Church would end in her
downfall. Since then he has come to think very differently, not as
believing in the cow jumping over the moon more than he used to, or
more, probably, than nine-tenths of the clergy themselves- who know as
well as he does that their outward and visible symbols are out of
date- but because he knows the baffling complexity of the problem when
it comes to deciding what is actually to be done. Also, now that he
has seen them more closely, he knows better the nature of those wolves
in sheep's clothing, who are thirsting for the blood of their
victim, and exulting so clamorously over its anticipated early fall
into their clutches.
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