answered nothing to Claire's
question. Because him also the devil tempted.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE PLACE OF EYES

Two systems were in force in the Street of the Money to convince, to
convert, and to change the stubborn will.

One, the A B C of all inquisitors, consisted of the indispensable rack,
the attractive pulley with the weights for the feet, the useful hooks,
the thumbkins, the red-hot pincers, the oil-bath, and the water-torture.
Dom Teruel and Frey Tullio, with the aid of Serra the Murcian, used
these as a carpenter uses his tools, coldly, and with method.

But the finer mind of Mariana, working for political ends rather than
controverting heresy by mere physical methods, had evolved a more purely
moral torture. A chamber had been set apart, to which no least noise,
either from the street or from the other guests of the Holy Office,
could possibly penetrate. The walls had been specially doubled. Iron
door after iron door had to be unlocked before even a familiar could
enter. In the space between the walls in every side were spy-holes.
Painted eyes looked down from the ceiling, up from the floor. The whole
chamber was flooded day and night with the light of lamps set deep in
niches, so that the prisoner could not reach them. All that he could
ever see was the placing of another light as often as the old burned
low.

"There is," Mariana explained the matter to his associates, "a
compulsion working in the minds of the well-bred and well-born, of those
who have always experienced only pleasantness and happy society,
breathed the airs of wood and mountain, known the comradeship of street
and class-room and _salle-d'armes_. Such cannot long be without someone
to whom to tell their thoughts. For this unclipped gallant, two or three
weeks will suffice. He has the gloss still on his wings. Wait a little.
I have my own way with such. He will speak. He will tell us both who he
is and all he knows! I will turn him inside out like a glove."

"I am not sure," said Teruel, shaking his head; "after the third
fainting on the rack, when they see Serra oiling the great wheel--that
is what few of them can stand. There is virtue in it. It has a
persuasive force--yes, that is the word, a blessed persuasive force, to
make the most stubborn abjure heresy and receive the truth!"

The Jesuit smiled, and waved a plump, womanish hand.

"I have a better means, and a surer!" he said, in gentle reproof.

They looked him in t