The conviction had been growing in Marzio's mind that it was his duty, for the sake of consistency, to abandon his trade.

The thought saddened him, but the conclusion seemed inevitable.

It was absurd, he repeated to himself, that one who hated the priests should work for them.

Marzio was a fanatic in his theories, but he had something of the artist's simplicity in his idea of the way they should be carried out.

He would have thought it no harm to kill a priest, but it seemed to him contemptible to receive a priest's money for providing the church with vessels which were to serve in a worship he despised.
Moreover, he was not poor.