Our Middle Ages produced a cultivated, industrious and civilised people like none other in the world; they had in them the materials for the building of a great nation; but foreign architects came in who hastily ran up this edifice; those first few years of existence that astound you with the splendour of novelty, and among whose ruins we are still groping." Gabriel forgot all his prudence in the ardour of discussion.

He felt no fear of Silver Stick, with his manner of an inquisitor incapable of reasoning.

He wished to convince him; he felt all the fervour, all the irresistible impulse of his proselytising days, without trying in any way to disguise his feelings from consideration of the atmosphere surrounding him.

Don Antolin listened to him in astonishment, fixing on him his cold glance.

The others listened, feeling confusedly the marvel that such ideas should be enunciated in the cloister of a cathedral.