CHAPTER XXIX.

There was a hand laid upon the latch of the door; for doors, even in great houses, had latches to them, dear reader, in that age of simple contrivances; and Constance asked, "Who is there?"

"Open, Constance, open," said the voice of Iola; and her cousin gave her instant admission, holding out her arms to her, and pressing her to her heart, as if she had thought that the companion of her youth was lost to her for ever.

"Have you been disturbed, Constance?" asked her cousin, kissing her cheek.

"Only by your girl, Susan, about a quarter of an hour ago," replied Constance. "I bade her come again in half an hour, and tell my maiden not to sit up for me."

"I have been long, dear cousin," said Iola, "and kept you waiting; but I could not help it; for there was much to say."

"And you have been far," said Constance, gazing at her with inquiring looks; "for your gown is wet with dew--and torn moreover!"

"And my feet too with the brambles," answered Iola, sitting down, and uncovering her fair delicate feet and ancles. "My path has been almost as rough and thorny as that of the world, Constance. See how they have scratched me."

"But what did he say? What advice have you obtained?" demanded Constance, looking with no very serious commiseration at the scratches which streaked the pure white skin of her cousin.

"You don't pity me," said Iola, laughing. "You are a cruel girl."

"If the wounds of the world are not more serious than these, you will not deserve much pity," answered Constance. "I am anxious about graver things, Iola; but you are so light."

"Well, well, I will tell you," answered Iola. "Let me but put on these slippers, and get a little breath; for my heart has been beating somewhat more than needful. What counsel has he given, do you ask? How do you know that it was a man at all?--Well, I will own. It was a man, but an old one, Constance; and now I will tell you what he said. He said that a marriage contracted between infants was not lawful. That it was a corrupt custom which could not be justified, for that a reasonable consent was needful to make a marriage valid, consequently, that I am not bound at all by acts to which I gave no consent--the acts of others, not my own. He says moreover that religion itself forbids me to promise what I cannot perform."

Constance gazed at her with wonder and surprise. The view thus suddenly presented to her was so strange, so new, so contrary to the received notions and opinions of the time, that, at first, all seemed mist and darkness to her.

"This is extraordinary indeed!" she exclaimed. "This is extraordinary indeed! Who can it be, Iola, who thus ventures to set at defiance not merely the opinions of the world at large, but that of lawyers and fathers of the church, who have always held such contracts binding?"

"He says that it is not so," answered Iola. "He gave me many instances in which such contracts, especially between princes and high nobles, have been set at nought, where the church has treated them as things of no value, and lawyers have passed them over with little reverence. But I could tell you more extraordinary things than this, Constance. Men are beginning in this world to look with keen and searching eyes into these received opinions which you talk of, and to ask if they are founded on justice and right, or on ignorance, superstition, and craft. Light is streaming in upon darkness; and there is a day rising, of which I see the dawn, though I may never see the noon."

"I can understand nothing of all this," said Constance. "Dearest Iola, I think your wits must have been shaken by all you have undergone. You speak so wildly and so strangely."

"Nay, nay," said Iola. "I am as calm as you are; and these ideas which I give you, under the promise you have made, never to reveal one word that I tell you, I have long held and shall ever continue to hold."

"I have never had any hint of them before. I have never seen any sign of them," replied Constance; "and yet we have been like sisters from our infancy."

"During the last year, Constance," asked Iola, in a grave and solemn tone, "have you ever seen me kneel down to worship picture of saint, or of virgin, relic, statue, or crucifix?"

Constance put her hand upon her forehead, and gazed at her cousin with a look of bewildered dismay. "I do not know that I have," she said, after a moment's thought; "but I have seen you tell your beads. I have known you confess and receive absolution."

"I have told my beads, Constance," said her cousin; "and at every bead I have said a prayer; but it has been to God the Father, through Christ the Saviour, and I have ever prayed for direction in the right. I have confessed, because there can be no harm in confessing my sins to the ear of a priest as well as to the ear of God; and, if he has pretended to absolve me from sins which God alone can absolve, it is his fault and not mine. I have thought myself little benefitted thereby."

Constance started up, exclaiming, "I will go and pray for you, Iola. I will go and pray for you!"

"Stay yet a while, dear cousin; and then gladly will I ask your prayers," said Iola; "but let them, dear Constance, be addressed to God alone, and not to saints or martyrs. You will ask why. I will show you in a moment. God has himself forbidden it. Look here;" and she drew a small closely written book from her bosom. "This, Constance, is the word of God," she continued, "the book from which priests, and bishops, and popes, pretend to derive their religion. Look what are its injunctions here."

Timidly and stealthily, as if she were committing an act of very doubtful propriety, Constance looked over her cousin's shoulder to the page which Iola held open in the book, and read on with eager and attentive eyes.

"Does it say so?" she asked at length. "Does it say so? What can this mean, Iola? Why should they so deceive us?"

"That I cannot tell," answered Iola; "for no good purpose, doubtless; but that matters little. It is sufficient for me to know that they do deceive us; and, in a matter that concerns my soul's salvation, I will not be deceived. We spoke just before I went, Constance, of mental reservation. You own--you know, that it is neither more nor less than deceit. It is promising without performing, clothing a lie in the garb of truth. What does not follow from such duplicity! Will not they who cheat us, and make a profession of cheating, in one thing, cheat us in many?--Will they not cheat us in all? Often have I thought, before I saw this book, that it was strange man should have the power to forgive sins. We are told that our sins are against God and against man. If against man, the only one who has power to forgive them is the man whom we have offended; if against God, then God only has the power. But all sins are against God, for they are all a violation of his law, and therefore he only can remit them perfectly."

"But he may depute the power to his priests," said Constance.

"What, the Almighty, all-seeing God, depute his power to blind impotent mortals!" exclaimed Iola. "What, depute his power of pardoning me to a drunken, luxurious, sinful priest! You may say that such a man has not the power, and that absolution from him is of no avail. But if you do, dear cousin, you are a heretic; for we are told that it is of avail. But what must be their idea of the great Searcher of all hearts, who believe that he has need of such instruments, chooses them, or uses them. Such is not the picture of Him given in this book. Here, God is God; the Saviour, man and God; the Holy Spirit, the comforter and guide of man from God. There is no other intercessor between man and God but the one, who is man and God, no other guide but the Spirit, proceeding from both Father and Saviour, no other atonement but the death of Christ, no other sacrifice but his."

"I am bewildered," said Constance, bending her head down to her hands and covering her eyes in thought. The next moment, however, she looked up, asking, "Then why do the clergy forbid us to read this book, if it teaches so to know God?"

"Because it is that which condemns them," answered Iola; "they profess that the religion they teach is founded upon this book, and in this