XXI…

XXI

Gherardi sat for two or three minutes in absolute silence. Only the twitching of his eyelids and a slight throbbing in the muscles of his throat showed with what difficulty he suppressed his rising fury. But his astute and crafty powers of reasoning taught him that it would be worse than ridiculous to give way to anger in the presence of this cool, determined man, who, though he spoke with a passion which from its very force seemed almost to sound like "the mighty wind" which accompanied the cloven tongues of fire at the first Pentecost, still maintained his personal calm,--that immovable calmness which is always the result of strong inward conviction. A dangerous man!--yes, there was no doubt of that! He was one of those concerning whom Emerson wrote, "let the world beware when a Thinker comes into it." Aubrey Leigh was a thinker,--and more than that, he was a doer. He was of the strong heroic type of genius that turns its dreams into facts, its thoughts into deeds. He did not talk, in common with so many men, of what they considered OUGHT to be done, without exerting themselves to DO it;--he was sincerely in earnest, and cared nothing for any personal loss or inconvenience he might suffer from carrying out his intentions. And Gherardi saw that there was little or no possibility of moving such a man from the firm ground of truth which he had elected to stand on. There is nothing so inconvenient in this world as an absolutely truthful person, who can both speak and write, and has the courage of his convictions. One can always arrange matters with liars, because they, being hampered by their own deceits, are compelled to study ways, means, and chances for appearing honest. But with the man or woman who holds truth dearer than life, and honour more valuable than advancement, there is nothing to be done, now that governments cannot insist on the hemlock-cure, as in the case of Socrates. Gherardi, looking furtively under his eyelids at Leigh's strong lithe figure, and classic head, felt he could have willingly poisoned or stabbed him. For there were, and ARE great interests at stake in the so-called "conversion of England,"--it is truly one of the largest financial schemes ever set afloat in the world, if those whose duty it is to influence and control events could only be brought to see the practical side of the matter, and set a check on its advancement before it is too late. Gherardi knew what great opportunities there were in embryo of making large fortunes;--and not only of making large fortunes but of obtaining incredible power. There was a great plan afoot of drawing American and English wealth into the big Church-net through the medium of superstitious fear and sentimental bigotry,--and an opposer and enemy like Aubrey Leigh, physically handsome, with such powers of oratory as are only granted to the very few, was capable of influencing women as well as men--and women, as Gherardi well recognised, are the chief supporters of the Papal system. Uneasily he thought of a certain wealthy American heiress whom he had persuaded into thinking herself specially favoured and watched over by the Virgin Mary, and who, overcome by the strong imaginary consciousness of this heavenly protection, had signed away in her will a million of pounds sterling to a particular "shrine" in which he had the largest share of financial profit. Now, suppose she should chance to come within the radius of Leigh's attractive personality and teaching, and revoke this bequest? Deeply incensed he sat considering, yet he was conscious enough of his own impotency to persuade or move this man a jot.

"I am very sorry," he said at last without raising his eyes, and carefully preserving an equable and mild tone of voice, "I am sorry you are so harsh in your judgments, Mr. Leigh;--and still more sorry that you appear to be bent on opposing the Roman Catholic movement in England. I will do you the justice to believe that you are moved by a sincere though erroneous conviction,--and it is out of pure kindness and interest in you that I warn you how useless you will find the task in which you have engaged. The force of Rome is impregnable!--the interpretation of the Gospel by the Pope infallible. Any man, no matter how gifted with eloquence, or moved by what he imagines to be truth-(and alas! how often error is mistaken for truth and truth for error!)--must be crushed in the endeavour to cope with such a divinely ordained power."

"The Car of Juggernaut was considered to be divinely ordained," said Aubrey, "And the wretched and ignorant populace flung themselves under it in the fit of hysterical mania to which they were excited by the priests of the god, and so perished in their thousands. Not THEY were to blame; but the men who invented the imposture and encouraged the slaughter. THEY had an ideal;--the priests had none! But Juggernaut had its end--and so will Rome!"

"You call yourself a Christian?" asked Gherardi, with a touch of derision.

"Most assuredly I do," replied Aubrey, "Most assuredly I am! I love and honour Christ with every fibre of my being. I long to see that Divine Splendour of the ages stand out white and shining and free from the mud and slime with which His priests have bespattered Him. I believe in Him absolutely! But I can find nowhere in His Gospel that He wished us to turn Religion into a sort of stock-jobbing company managed by sacerdotal directors in Rome!"

"What do you know about the 'sacerdotal directors' as you call them, of Rome?" asked Gherardi slowly, his eyes narrowing at the corners, and his whole countenance expressing ineffable disdain, "Do you think we give out the complex and necessary workings of our sacred business to the uneducated public?"

"No, I do not," replied Aubrey, "For you keep the public in the dark as much as you can. Your methods of action are precisely those of the priests of ancient Egypt, who juggled with what they were pleased to call their sacred 'mysteries' in precisely the same way as you do. Race copies race. Roman Christianity is grafted upon Roman Paganism. When the Apostles were all dead, and their successors (who had never been in personal touch with Christ) came on to the scene of action, they discovered that the people of Rome would not do without the worship of woman in their creed, so they cleverly substituted the Virgin Mary for Venus and Diana. They turned the statues of gods and heroes into figures of Apostles and Saints. They knew it would be unwise to deprive the populace of what they had been so long accustomed to, and therefore they left them their swinging censers, their gold chalices, and their symbolic candles. Thus it is that Roman Catholicism became, and is still, merely a Christian form of Paganism which is made to pay successfully, just as the feasts and Saturnalia of ancient days were made to pay as spectacular and theatrical pastimes. I should not blame your Church if it declared itself to be an offshoot of Paganism at once,--Paganism, or any other form of faith, deserves respect as long as its priests and followers are sincere; but when their belief is a mere pretence, and their system degenerates into a scheme of making money out of the fond faiths of the ignorant, then I consider it is time to protest against such blasphemy in the presence of God and all things divine and spiritual!"

Gherardi had listened to these words very quietly, his countenance gradually relaxing and smoothing into an amiable expression of forbearance. He looked up now at Aubrey with a smile that was almost benignant.

"You are quite right, Mr. Leigh!" he said gently, "I begin to understand you now! I see that you have studied deeply, and you have thought still more. If you will continue your studies and your thinking also, you will see how difficult it is for us to move as rapidly with the times as you would have us do. You must remember that it would be quite possible for Holy Mother Church to rise at once to the high scientific and psychical position you wish her to adopt, if it were not for the mass of the ignorant, with whom one must have patience! You are a man in the prime of life--you are zealous--eager for improvement,--yes!--all that is very admirable and praiseworthy. But you forget the numerous and widely differing interests with which we of the Church have to deal. For the great majority of persons it would be useless, for example, to give them lessons on the majesty of God's work in the science of Astronomy. They would be confused, bewildered, and more or less frightened out of faith altogether. They must have something tangible to cling to--for instance,"--and he pressed the tips of his fingers delicately together, "there are grades of intelligence just as there are grades of creation; you cannot instruct a caterpillar as you instruct a man. Now there are many human beings who are of the caterpillar quality of brain--what are you to do with them? They would not understand God as manifested in the solar system, but they would try to please some favourite Saint by good conduct. Is it not better that they should believe in the Saint than in nothing?"

"I cannot think it well for anyone to believe in a lie," said Aubrey slowly, taken aback despite himself by Gherardi's sudden gentleness, "There is a magnificent simplicity in truth;--truth which, the more it is tested, the truer it proves. Where is there any necessity of falsehood? Surely the marvels of nature could be explained with as much ease as the supposed miracles of a Saint?"

"I doubt it!" answered Gherardi smiling, "You must admit, my dear sir, that our scientific men are a great deal too abstruse for the majority;--in some cases they are almost too abstruse for themselves! You spoke just now of the priests of Egypt;--the oracles of Memphis were clear reading compared to the involved sentences of some of our modern scientists! Scientific books are hard nuts to crack even for the highly educated; but for the uneducated, believe me, the personality of a Saint is much more consoling than the movements of a star. Besides, Humanity must have something human to love and to revere. The infinite gradations of the Mind of God through Matter, appeal to none but those of the very highest intellectual capability."

Aubrey was silent a moment, then he said,

"But even the most ignorant can understand Christ,--Christ as He revealed Himself to the world in perfect beauty and simplicity as 'a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' There needs no Vatican, no idolatry of the Pope, no superstitious images, no shrines of healing and reliquaries to explain His sublime intention!"

"I am afraid, Mr. Leigh, you entertain a very optimistic view of mankind," said Gherardi, "Unfortunately Christ is not enough for many people. Christ was an Incarnation of God, and though He became Man he 'knew not sin.' He therefore stands apart; an Example, but not a Companion. There are a certain class of sinners who like to think of Saints;--human beings constituted like themselves, who have committed errors, even crimes, and repented of them. This is a similar spirit to that of the child who catches hold of any convenient support he can find to guide his first tottering steps across the floor to his mother,-the Saint helps the feeble-footed folk to totter their way towards Christ. I assure you, our Church considers everything that is necessary for the welfare of its weakest brethren."

"Yes,--I grant you that it is full of subtle means for approaching and commanding the ignorant," said Aubrey. "But to the intellectual forces it offers no progress."

"The intellectual forces can clear their own way!" declared Gherardi, rising to his full imposing height, and beaming sovereign benevolence on his visitor, "and can, if they choose, make their own Church. This is the age of freedom, and no restraint is placed on the action of the intellectually free. But the ignorant must always form the majority; and in their ignorance and helplessness, will do wisely to remain like obedient children under the sway of Rome!"

Aubrey rose also, and could not forbear an involuntary glance of reluctant admiration at the stately figure and commanding attitude of the man who confronted him with such a pride in the persistent Jesuitical conviction that even a Lie may be used in religion for the furtherance of conversion to the Truth.

"I do not see," Gherardi went on, smiling blandly, "why after all, you should not be received by the Holy Father. I will try to arrange it for you. But it would avail you very little, I imagine, as he is not strong, and would not be capable of conversing with you for more than a few minutes. I think it would serve your purpose much more to carefully study the movements, and the work of what you call 'the stock-jobbing company of sacerdotal directors,'" and here his smile became still more broadly benevolent, "and take note of their divisions and subdivisions of influence which extend from the very poorest and most abandoned to the very highest and most cultured. You will then understand why I maintain that Rome as a power is impregnable;--and why some of the more far-sighted and prophetic among us look upon the Conversion of England as an almost accomplished fact!"

Aubrey smiled; but he was not without the consciousness that from his own particular point of view Gherardi had some excuse for his belief.

"According to your own written opinions," went on Gherardi, "for I have read your books,--the Church of England is in a bad way. Its Ritualistic form is very nearly Roman. Some of your Archbishops confess to a liking for incense! You admit that the stricter forms of Protestantism do not comfort the sick soul in times of need; well, what would you Socialists and Freethinkers have? Would you do without a Church altogether?"

"No," said Aubrey quickly, "But we would have a purified Church,--a House of Praise to God--without any superstition or dogma."

"You must have dogma," said Gherardi complacently, "You must formulate something out of a chaos of opinion. As for superstition, you will never get rid of that weakness out of the human composition. If the Church gives nothing for this particular mood of man to feed on, man will invent something else OUTSIDE the Church. My dear sir, we have thought of all these difficulties for ages! In religion one cannot appeal solely to the intellect. One must touch the heart--the emotions. Music, painting, colour, spectacle, all these are permitted us to use for the good purpose of lifting the soul of a sinner to contemplate something better than himself. Women and little children enter the Church as well as men,--would you have THEM find no comfort? Must a woman with a broken heart take her sorrows to the vast Silence of an unreasonable God among universes of star systems? Or shall she find hope, and a gleam of comfort in a prayer to a woman of the same clay as herself in the person of the Virgin Mary? And remember, there is something very beautiful in the symbol of the Virgin as applied to womanhood! The Mother of God! Does it not suggest to your poetical mind that woman is destined always to be the Mother of the God?--that is, mother of the perfect man when that desirable consummation shall be accomplished?"

"I have never doubted it.'" said Aubrey, "The Mother of Christ is to me a symbol of womanhood for all time!" Gherardi smiled.

"Good! Then in spite of your denunciations you come very near to our faith'"

"I never denied the beauty, romance, or mysticism of the Roman Catholic Faith," said Aubrey, "If it were purified from the accumulated superstition of ages, and freed from intolerance and bigotry, it would perhaps be the grandest form of Christianity in the world. But the rats are in the house, and the rooms want cleaning!"

"In every house there are those rats--in every room there is dirt!" said Gherardi, "Presuming that you speak in a moral sense. What of your Houses of Parliament? What of the French Senate? What of the Reichstag? What of the Russian Autocracy?--the American Republic? In every quarter the rats squeal, and the dirt gathers! The Church of Rome is purity itself compared to your temporal governments! My dear sir," and approaching, he laid a kindly hand on Aubrey's arm, "I would not be harsh with you for the world! I understand your nature perfectly. It is full of enthusiasm and zeal for righteousness,--your heart warms to the sorrows of the human race,--you would lift up the whole world to God's footstool; you would console--you would be a benefactor--you would elevate, purify, rejuvenate, inspire! Yes! This is a grand mood--one which has fired many a would-be reformer before you,--but you forget! It is not the Church against which you should arm yourself--it is the human race! It is not one or many religious systems with which you should set yourself to contend--it is the blind brutishness of humanity!" As he spoke, his tall form appeared to tower to an even greater height,--his eyes flashed, and the intellectual pride and force of his character became apparent in every feature of his face. "If humanity in the mass asked us for Christ only; if men and women would deny themselves the petty personal aim, the low vice, the crawling desire to ingratiate themselves with Heaven, the Pharisaical affectation of virtue--if they would themselves stand clear of 'vain repetition' and obstinate egoism, and would of themselves live purely, the Church would be pure! May I venture to suggest to you that men make the Church, not the Church the men? We try to supply the spiritual needs of the human being, such as his spiritual needs at present are,--when he demands more we will give him more. At present his needs are purely personal, and therefore low and tainted with sensuality,--yet we drag him along through these emotions as near to the blameless Christ as we can. When he is impersonal enough, unselfish enough, loyal-hearted enough, to stand face to face with the glorious manifestation of the Deity unaided, we can cast away his props, such as superstitious observances, Saints and the like, and leave him,--but then the Millennium will have come, and there will be new heavens and a new earth!"

He spoke well, with force and fervour, and Aubrey Leigh was for a moment impressed. After a slight pause however, he said,

"You admit the ignorance of human beings, and yet--you would keep them ignorant?"

"Keep them ignorant!" Gherardi laughed lightly. "That is more than any of us can do nowadays! Every liberty is afforded them to learn,--and if they still remain barbarous it is because they elect to be so. But OUR duty is to look after the ignorant more than the cultured! Quite true it is that the Pope lost a magnificent opportunity in the Dreyfus affair,--if he had spoken in favour of mercy and justice he would have won thousands of followers; being silent he has lost thousands. But this should be a great satisfaction to you, Mr. Leigh! For if the Holy Father had given an example to the Catholic clergy to act in the true Christian spirit towards Dreyfus, the Conversion of England might have been so grafted on enthusiastic impulse as to be a much nearer possibility than it is now!"

Aubrey was silent.

"Now, Mr. Leigh, I think you have gained sufficient insight into my views to judge me with perhaps greater favour than you were inclined to do at the beginning of our interview," continued Gherardi, "I assure you that I shall watch your career with the greatest interest! You have embarked in a most hopeless cause,--you will try to help the helpless, and as soon as they are rescued out of trouble, they will turn and rend you,--you will try to teach them the inner mysteries of God's working, and they will say you are possessed of a devil! You will endeavour to upset shams and hypocrisies, and the men of your press will write you down and say you are seeking advertisement and notoriety for yourself. Was there ever a great thinker left unmartyred? Or a great writer that has not been misunderstood and condemned? You wish to help and serve humanity! Enthusiast! You would do far better to help and serve the Church! For the Church rewards; humanity has cursed and killed every great benefactor it ever had INCLUDING CHRIST!"

The terrible words beat on Aubrey's ears like the brazen clang of a tocsin, for he knew they were true. But he held his ground.

"There are worse things than death," he said simply.

Gherardi smiled kindly.

"And there are worse things than life!" he said,

"Life holds a good many harmless enjoyments, which I am afraid you are putting away from you in your prime, for the sake of a mere chimera. But--after all, what does it matter! One must have a hobby! Some men like horse-racing, others book-collecting,--others pictures,--and so forth--you like the religious question! Well, no doubt it affords you a great many opportunities of studying character. I shall be very happy--" here he extended his hand cordially, "to show you anything that may be of interest to you in Rome, and to present you to any of our brethren that may assist you in your researches. I can give you a letter to Rampolla--"

Aubrey declined the offered introduction with a decided negative shake of his head.

"No," he said, "I know Cardinal Bonpre; that is enough!"

"But there is a great difference between Rampolla and Bonpre," said Gherardi, with twinkling eyes, "Bonpre is scarcely ever in Rome. He lives a life apart--and has for a long while been considered as a kind of saint from the privacy and austerity of his life. But he has heralded his arrival in the Eternal City triumphantly--by the performance of a miracle! What do you say to this?--you who would do away with things miraculous?"

"I say nothing till I hear," answered Aubrey, "I must know what the nature of the so-called miracle is. I am a believer in soul-forces, and in the exhalation of spiritual qualities affecting or influencing others: but in this there is no miracle, it is simply natural law."

"Well, you must interview the Cardinal yourself," said Gherardi indulgently, "and tell me afterwards what you think about it, if indeed you think anything. But you will not find him at home this morning. He is summoned to the Vatican."

"On account of the miracle?--or the scandal affecting the Abbe Vergniaud?" asked Aubrey.

"Both matters are under discussion, I believe," replied Gherardi evasively, "But they are not in my province. Now, can I be of any further service to you, Mr. Leigh?"

"No. I am sorry to have taken up so much of your time," said Aubrey, "But I think I understand your views--"

"I hope you do," interrupted Gherardi, "And that you will by and by grasp the fact that my views are shared by almost everyone holding any Church authority. But you must go about in Rome, and make enquiries for yourself . . . now, let me see! Do you know the Princesse D'Agramont?"

"No."

"Oh, you must know her,--she is a great friend of Donna Sovrani's, and a witty and brilliant personage in herself. She is rather of your way of thinking, and so is out of favour with the Church. But that will not matter to you; and you will meet all the dissatisfied and enthusiastic of the earth in her salons! I will tell her to send you a card."

Aubrey said something by way of formal acknowledgment, and then took his leave. He was singularly depressed, and his face, always quick to show traces of thought, had somewhat lost its former expression of eager animation. The wily Gherardi had for the time so influenced his sensitive mind as to set it almost to the tune of the most despairing of Tennyson's "Two Voices",

"A life of nothings, nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth, To that last nothing under earth."

What was the use of trying to expound a truth, if the majority preferred a lie?

"Will one bright beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancelled in the world of sense?"

And Gherardi noted the indefinable touch of fatigue that gave the slight droop of the shoulders and air of languor to the otherwise straight slim figure as it passed from his presence,--and smiled. He had succeeded in putting a check on unselfish ardour, and had thrown a doubt into the pure intention of enthusiastic toil. That was enough for the present. And scarcely had Aubrey crossed the threshold--scarcely had the echo of his departing footsteps died away--when a heavy velvet curtain in the apartment was cautiously thrust aside, and Monsignor Moretti stepped out of a recess behind it, with a dignity and composure which would have been impossible to any but an Italian priest convicted of playing the spy. Gherardi faced him confidently.

"Well?" he said, with a more exhaustive enquiry expressed in his look than in the simple ejaculation.

"Well!" echoed Moretti, as he slowly advanced into the centre of the room, "You have not done as much as I expected you would. Your arguments were clever, but not--to a man of his obstinacy, convincing."

And sitting down, he turned his dark face and gleaming eyes full on his confrere, who with a shrug of his massive shoulders expressed in his attitude a disdainful relinquishment of the whole business.

"You have not," pursued Moretti deliberately, "grasped anything like the extent of this man Leigh's determination and indifference to results. Please mark that last clause,--indifference to results. He is apparently alone in the world,--he seems to have nothing to lose, and no one to care whether he succeeds or fails;--a most dangerous form of independence! And in his persistence and eloquence he is actually stopping--yes, I repeat it,--stopping and putting a serious check on the advancement of the Roman Catholic party. And of course any check just now means to us a serious financial loss both in England and America,--a deficit in Vatican revenues which will very gravely incommode certain necessary measures now under the consideration of His Holiness. I expected you to grasp the man and hold him,--not by intimidation but by flattery."

"You think he is to be caught by so common a bait?" said Gherardi, "Bah! He would see through it at once!"

"Maybe!" replied Moretti, "But perhaps not if it were administered in the way I mean. You seem to have forgotten the chief influence of any that can be brought to bear upon the heart and mind of a man,--and that is, Woman."

Gherardi laughed outright.

"Upon my word I think it would be difficult to find the woman suited to this case!" he said. "But you who have a diplomacy deeper than that of any Jew usurer may possibly have one already in view?"

"There is now in Rome," pursued Moretti, speaking with the same even deliberation of accent, "a faithful daughter of the Church, whose wealth we can to a certain extent command, and whose charm is unquestionable,--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein--"

Gherardi started. Moretti eyed him coldly.

"You are not stricken surely by the childlike fascination with which this princess of coquettes rules her court?" he enquired sarcastically.

"I?" echoed Gherardi, shifting his position so that Moretti's gaze could not fall so directly upon him. "I? You jest!"

"I think not!" said Moretti, "I think I know something about women--their capabilities, their passions, their different grades of power. Sylvie Hermenstein possesses a potent charm which few men can resist, and I should not wonder if you yourself had been occasionally conscious of it. She is one of those concerning whom other women say 'they can see nothing in her'. Ah!" and Moretti smiled darkly, "What a compliment that is from the majority of women to one! This woman Sylvie is unique. Where is her beauty? You cannot say--yet beauty is her very essence. She cannot boast perfection of features,--she is frequently hidden away altogether in a room and scarcely noticed. And so she reminds me of a certain flower known to the Eastern nations, which is difficult to find, because so fragile and small that it can scarcely be seen, but when it is found, and the scent of it unwittingly inhaled, it drives men mad!"

Gherardi looked at him with a broadly wondering smile.

"You speak so eloquently," he said, "that one would almost fancy--"

"Fancy nothing!" retorted Moretti quickly, "Fancy and I are as far apart as the poles, except in the putting together of words, in which easy art I daresay I am as great an adept as Florian Varillo, who can write verses on love or patriotism to order, without experiencing a touch of either emotion. What a humbug by the way, that fellow is!--" and Moretti broke off to consider this new point--"He rants of the honour of Italy, and would not let his finger ache for her cause! And he professes to love the 'Sovrani' while all Rome knows that Pon-Pon is his mistress!"

Gherardi wisely held his peace.

"The Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein is the little magic flower you must use;" resumed Moretti, emphasising his words with an authoritative movement of his hand, "Use her to madden Aubrey Leigh. Bring them together;--he will lose his head as surely as all men do when they come under the influence of that soft deep-eyed creature, with the full white breast of a dove, and the smile of an angel,--and remember, it would be an excellent thing for the Church if he could be persuaded to marry her,--there would be no more preaching then!--for the thoughts of love would outweigh the theories of religion."

"You think it?" queried Gherardi dubiously.

"I know it!" replied Moretti rising, and preparing to take his departure, "But,--play the game cautiously! Make no false move. For--understand me well, this man Leigh must be silenced, or we shall lose England!"

And with these last words he turned abruptly on his heel and left the apartment.

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XXII

Cardinal Felix Bonpre sat alone in the largest and loneliest room of the large and lonely suite of rooms allotted to him in the Palazzo Sovrani,--alone at a massive writing table near the window, his head resting on one hand, and his whole figure expressive of the most profound dejection. In front of him an ancient silver crucifix gleamed in the flicker of the small wood fire which had been kindled in the wide cavernous chimney--and a black-bound copy of the Gospels lay open as if but lately consulted. The faded splendour of certain gold embroidered hangings on the walls added to the solemn and melancholy aspect of the apartment, and the figure of the venerable prelate seen in such darkening gloom and solitude, was the crowning completion of an expressive and pathetic picture of patient desolation. So might a martyr of the Inquisition have looked while the flames were getting ready to burn him for the love of the gentle Saviour; and something of the temper of such a possible predecessor was in the physically frail old man, who just now was concentrating all the energies of his mind on the consideration of a difficult question which is often asked by many hearts in secret, but is seldom voiced to the public ear;--"Christ or the Church? Which must I follow to be an honest man?"

Never had the good Cardinal been in such a strange predicament. Living away from the great centres of thought and action, he had followed a gentle and placid course of existence, almost unruffled, save by the outside murmurs of a growing public discontent which had reached him through the medium of current literature, and had given him cause to think uneasily of possible disaster for the religious world in the near future,--but he had never gone so far as to imagine that the Head of the Church would, while being perfectly conscious of existing threatening evils, deliberately turn his back to appeals for help,--shut his ears to the cry of the "lost sheep of the House of Israel", and even endeavour, with an impotence of indignation which was as pitiable as useless, to shake a rod of Twelfth-century menace over the advancement of the Twentieth!

"For the onward movement of Humanity is God's work," said the Cardinal, "And what are we--what is even the Church--when it does not move side by side in perfect and pure harmony with the order of Divine Law?"

And he was bitterly troubled in spirit. He had spent the whole morning at the Vatican, and the manner of his reception there had been so curiously divided between flattery and reproach that he had not known what to make of it. The Pope had been tetchy and querulous,--precisely in such a humour as one naturally expects so aged a man to be when contradicted on any matter, whether trivial or important. For with such advanced years the faculties are often as brittle as the bones, and the failing powers of the brain are often brought to bear with more concentration on inconsiderable trifles than on the large and important affairs of life. He had questioned the Cardinal closely concerning the miraculous cure performed at Rouen, and had become excessively angry when the honest prelate earnestly disclaimed all knowledge of it. He had then confronted him with Claude Cazeau, the secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen, and Cazeau had given a clear and concise account of the whole matter, stating that the child, Fabien Doucet, had been known in Rouen since his babyhood as a helpless cripple, and that after Cardinal Bonpre had prayed over him and laid hands on him, he had been miraculously cured, and was now to be seen running about the city as strong and straight as any other healthy child. And Bonpre listened patiently;--and to all that was said, merely reiterated that if the child WERE so cured, then it was by the special intervention of God, as he personally had done no more than pray for his restoration. But to his infinite amazement and distress he saw plainly that the Holy Father did not believe him. He saw that he was suspected of playing a trick,--a trick, which if he had admitted, would have been condoned, but which if he denied, would cause him to be looked upon with distrust by all the Vatican party. He saw that even the man Cazeau suspected him. And then,--when the public confession of the Abbe Vergniaud came under discussion,--the Pope had gathered together all the visible remains of physical force his attenuated frame could muster, and had hurled himself impotently against the wall of opposing fact with such frail fury as almost to suggest the celebrated simile of "a reed shaken with the wind". In vain had the Cardinal pleaded for Vergniaud's pardon; in vain had he urged that after all, the sinner had branded himself as such in the sight of all men; what further need to add the ban of the Church's excommunication against one who was known to be within touch of death? Would not Christ have said, "Go, and sin no more"? But this simple quotation from the Gospels seemed to enrage the representative of St. Peter more violently than before, and when Bonpre left the Holy Presence he knew well enough that he was, for no fault of his own, under the displeasure of the Vatican. How had it all come about? Nothing could have been simpler than his life and actions since he left his own Cathedral-town,--he had prayed for a sick child,--he had sympathised with a sorry sinner,--that was all. And such deeds as these were commanded by Christ. Yet--the Head of the Church for these same things viewed him with wrath and suspicion! Wearily he sat, turning over everything in his mind, and longing, with a weakness which he fully admitted to his own conscience, to leave Rome at once and return to his own home, there to die among his roses at peace. But he saw it would never do to leave Rome just yet. He was bound fast hand and foot. He was "suspect"! In his querulous fit the Pope had ordered Claude Cazeau to return to Rouen without delay, and there gather further evidence respecting the Cardinal's stay at the Hotel Poitiers, and if possible, to bring the little Fabien Doucet and his mother back to Rome with him. Pending the arrival of fresh proof, Bonpre, though he had received no actual command, knew he was expected to remain where he was. Weary and sick at heart, the venerable prelate sighed as he reviewed all the entangling perplexities, which had, so unconsciously to himself, become woven like a web about his innocent and harmless personality, and so absorbed was he in thought that he did not hear the door of his room open, and so was sot aware that his foundling Manuel had stood for some time silently watching him. Such love and compassion as were expressed in the boy's deep blue eyes could not however radiate long through any space without some sympathetic response,--and moved by instinctive emotion, Cardinal Felix looked up, and seeing his young companion smiled,--albeit the smile was a somewhat sad one.

"Where have you been, my child?" he asked gently, "I have missed you for some hours."

Manuel advanced a little, and stood between the pale afternoon light reflected through the window, and the warmer glow of the wood fire.

"I have been to the strangest place in all the world!" he answered, "The strangest,--and surely one of the most wicked!"

The Cardinal raised himself in his chair, and bent an anxious wondering look upon the young speaker.

"One of the most wicked!" he echoed, "What place are you talking of?"

"St. Peter's!" answered Manuel, with a thrill of passion in his voice as he uttered the name, "St. Peter's,--the huge Theatre misnamed a Church! Oh, dear friend!--do not look at me thus! Surely you must feel that what I say is true? Surely you know that there is nothing of the loving God in that vast Cruelty of a place, where wealth and ostentation vie with intolerant officialism, bigotry and superstition!--where even the marble columns have been stolen from the temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the names of Isis and Jupiter wrought in the truthful stone;--where theft, rapine and murder have helped to build the miscalled Christian fane! You cannot in your heart of hearts feel it to be the abode of Christ; your soul, bared to the sight of God, repudiates it as a Lie! Yes!"--For, startled and carried away by the boy's fervour, Cardinal Felix had risen, and now stood upright, making a feeble gesture with his hands, as though seeking to keep back the crushing weight of some too overwhelming conviction,--"Yes--you would silence me!--but you cannot!--I read your heart! You love God . . . and I--I love Him too! You would serve Him!--and I--I would obey Him! Ah, do not struggle with yourself, dear and noble friend! If you were thrice crowned a martyr and saint you could not see otherwise than clearly--you could not but accept Truth when Truth is manifested to you,--you could not swear falsely before God! Would the Christ not say now as He said so many centuries ago--'My House is called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves!' Is it not truly a den of thieves? What has the Man of Sorrows to do with all the evil splendour of St. Peter's?--its bronzes, its marbles, its colossal statues of dead gods, its glittering altars, its miserable dreary immensity, its flaring gilding and insolent vulgarity of cost! Oh, what a loneliness is that of Christ in this world! What a second Agony in Gethsemane!"

The sweet voice broke--the fair head was turned away,--and Cardinal Felix, overcome by such emotion as he found it impossible to explain, suddenly sank on his knees, and stretched out his arms to the young slight creature who spoke with such a passion and intensity of yearning.

"Child!" he said, with tremulous appeal in his accents, "For God's sake'--you who express your thoughts with such eloquence and fervent pain!--tell me, WHO ARE YOU? My mind is caught and controlled by your words,--you are too young to think as you do, or to speak as you do,--yet some authority you seem to possess, which I submit to, not knowing why; I am very old, and maybe growing foolish in my age--many troubles are gathering about me in these latter days,--do not make them more than I can bear!"

His words were to himself incoherent, and yet it seemed as if Manuel understood them. Suffering himself to be clasped for a moment by the old man's trembling hands, he nevertheless gently persuaded and assisted him to rise, and when he was once more seated, stood quietly by his side, waiting till he should have recovered from his sudden agitation.

"Dear friend, you are weary and troubled in spirit," he said tenderly then, "And my words seem to you only terrible because they are true! If they grieve you, it is because the grief in your heart echoes mine! And if I do think and speak more seriously than I should, it is for the reason that I have been so much alone in the world,--left to myself, with my own thoughts of God, which are not thoughts such as many care for. I would not add to your sorrows,--I would rather lighten them if I could--but I feel and fear that I shall be a burden upon you before long!"

"Never!" exclaimed Bonpre fervently, "Never a burden on me, child! Surely while I live you will not leave me?"

Manuel was silent for a little space. His eyes wandered from the Cardinal's venerable worn features to the upstanding silver crucifix that gleamed dully in the glow of the wood-embers.

"I will not leave you unless it is well for you that I should go," he answered at last, "And even then, you will always know where to find me."

The Cardinal looked at him earnestly, and with a searching interrogation,--but the boy's face though sweetly composed, had a certain gravity of expression which seemed to forbid further questioning. And a deep silence fell between them,--a silence which was only broken by the door opening to admit Prince Sovrani who, pausing on the threshold, said,

"Brother, if you will allow yourself to be disturbed, Angela would like to see you in her studio. There are several people there,--her fiance, Varillo among the number,--and I think the girl would be glad of your presence."

The Cardinal started as from a dream, and rose from his chair.

"I will come at once--yes--I will come," he said, "I must not be selfish and think only of my own troubles!" He stood erect,--he was still in the scarlet robes in which he had made his appearance at the Vatican, and they fell regally about his tall dignified form, the vivid colour intensifying the pallor of his thin features. A servant entering at the moment with two large silver candelabra ablaze with lights, created an effect of luminance in the room that made him appear to even greater advantage as an imposing figure of ecclesiastical authority, and Prince Pietro looked at him with the admiring affection and respect which he, though a cynic and sceptic, had always felt for the brother of his wife,--affection and respect which had if anything become intensified since that beloved one's untimely death.

"You were well received at the Vatican?" he said tentatively.

"Not so well as I had hoped," replied the Cardinal patiently--"Not so well! But the cloud will pass. I will go with you to the studio,--Manuel, will you stay here?"

Manuel bent his head in assent; he had just closed the before open copy of the Gospels, and now stood with his hand upon the Book.

"I will wait till you call me, my lord Cardinal," he replied.

Prince Pietro then led the way, and Cardinal Bonpre followed, his scarlet robes sweeping behind him with a rich rustling sound, and as the two entered the large lofty studio, hung with old tapestries, and panelled with deeply carved and gilded oak, the room which was Angela Sovrani's special sanctum, all the persons there assembled rose from their different sitting or lounging attitudes, and respectfully bent their heads to the brief and unostentatious benediction given to them by the venerable prelate of whom all present had heard, but few had seen, and everyone made way for him as Angela met and escorted him to a seat on one of the old, throne-like chairs with which the Sovrani palace was so amply supplied. When he was thus installed, he made the picturesque centre of a brilliant little scene enough,--one of those vivacious and bright gatherings which can be found nowhere so perfectly blended in colour and in movement as in a great art-studio in Rome. Italians are not afraid to speak, to move, to smile,--unlike the Anglo-Saxon race, their ease of manner is inborn, and comes to them without training, hence there is nothing of the stiff formality and awkward gloom which too frequently hangs like a cloud over English attempts at sociality,--and that particular charm which is contained in the brightness and flashing of eyes, creates a dazzling effect absolutely unknown to colder northern climes. Eyes,--so potent to bewitch and to command, are a strangely neglected influence in certain forms of social intercourse. English eyes are too often dull and downcast, and wear an inane expression of hypocrisy and prudery; unless they happen to be hard and glittering and meaningless; but in southern climes, they throw out radiant invitations, laughing assurances, brilliant mockeries, melting tendernesses, by the thousand flashes, and make a fire of feeling in the coldest air. And so in Angela's beautiful studio, among the whiteness of classic marbles, and the soft hues of richly falling draperies, fair faces shone out like flowers, lit up by eyes, whose light seemed to be vividly kindled by the heat of an amorous southern sun,--Venetian eyes blue as a cornflower, Florentine eyes brown and brilliant as a russet leaf in autumn, Roman eyes black as night, Sicilian eyes of all hues, full of laughter and flame--and yet among all, no sweeter or more penetratingly tender eyes than those of Sylvie Hermenstein ever shot glances abroad to bewilder and dazzle the heart of man. Not in largeness, colour or brilliancy lay their charm, but in deep, langourous, concentrated sweetness,--a sweetness so far-reaching from the orb to the soul that it was easy to sink away into their depths and dream,--and never wish to wake. Sylvie was looking her fairest that afternoon,--the weather was chilly, and the close-fitting black velvet dress with its cape-like collar of rich sables, well became her figure and delicately fair complexion, and many a spiteful little whisper concerning her went round among more showy but less attractive women,--many an involuntary but low murmur of admiration escaped from the more cautious lips of the men. She was talking to the Princesse D'Agramont, who with her brilliant dark beauty could afford to confess ungrudgingly the charm of a woman so spirituelle as Sylvie, and who, between various careless nods and smiles to her acquaintance, was detailing to her with much animation the account of her visit to the Marquis Fontenelle before leaving Paris.

"He must be very epris!" said the Princesse laughing, "For he froze into a rigid statue of virtue when I suggested that he should escort me to Rome! I did not wait to see the effect of my announcement that YOU were already there!"

Sylvie lowered her eyes, and a faint colour crimsoned her cheeks.

"Then he knows where I am?" she asked.

"If he believes ME, he knows," replied Loyse D'Agramont, "But perhaps he does not believe me! All Paris was talking about the Abbe Vergniaud and his son 'Gys Grandit', when I left, and the Marquis appeared as interested in that esclandre as he can ever be interested in anything or anybody. So perhaps he forgot my visit as soon as it was ended. Abbe Vergniaud is very ill by the way. His self-imposed punishment, and his unexpected reward in the personality of his son, have proved a little too much for him,--both he and 'Grandit' are at my Chateau," here she raised her lorgnon, and peered through it with an inquisitive air, "Tiens! There is the dear Varillo making himself agreeable as usual to all the ladies! When does the marriage come off between him and our gifted Sovrani?"

"I do not know," answered Sylvie, with a little dubious look, "Nothing is contemplated in that way until Angela's great picture is exhibited."

The Princesse D'Agramont looked curiously at the opposite wall where an enormous white covering was closely roped and fastened across an invisible canvas, which seemed to be fully as large as Raffaelle's "Transfiguration".

"Still a mystery?" she queried, "Has she never shown it even to you?"

Sylvie shook her head.

"Never!" and then breaking off with a sudden exclamation she turned in the direction of the door where there was just now a little movement and murmur of interest, as the slim tall figure of a man moved slowly and with graceful courtesy through the assemblage towards that corner of the studio where the Cardinal sat, his niece standing near him, and there made a slight yet perfectly reverential obeisance.

"Mr. Leigh!" cried Angela, "How glad I am to see you!"

"And I too," said the Cardinal, extending his hand, and kindly raising Aubrey before he could complete his formal genuflection, "You have not wasted much of your time in Florence!"

"My business was soon ended there," replied Aubrey. "It merely concerned the saving of a famous religious picture--but I find the modern Florentines so dead to beauty that it is almost impossible to rouse them to any sort of exertion . . ." Here he paused, as Angela with a smile moved quickly past him saying,

"One moment, Mr. Leigh! I must introduce you to one of my dearest friends!"

He waited, with a curious sense of impatience, and full beating of his heart, answering quite mechanically one or two greetings from Florian Varillo and other acquaintances who knew and recognised him--and then felt, rather than saw, that he was looking into the deep sweet eyes of the woman who had flung him a rose from the balcony of the angels, and that her face, sweet as the rose itself, was smiling upon him. As in a dream he heard her name, "The Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein" and his own, "Mr. Aubrey Leigh"; he was dimly aware of bowing, and of saying something vague and formal, but all the actuality of his being was for the moment shaken and transfigured, and only one strong and overwhelming conviction remained,--the conviction that, in the slight creature who stood before him gracefully acknowledging his salutation, he had met his fate. Now he understood as he had never done before what the poet-philosopher meant by "the celestial rapture falling out of heaven";--for that rapture fell upon him and caught him up in a cloud of glory, with all the suddenness and fervour which must ever attend the true birth of the divine passion in strong and tender natures. The calculating sensualist can never comprehend this swiftly exalted emotion, this immediate radiation of light through all life, which is like the sun breaking through clouds on a dark day. The sensualist has by self-indulgence, blunted the edge of feeling, and it is impossible for him to experience this delicate sensation of exquisite delight,--this marvellous assurance that here and now, face to face, stands the One for whom all time shall be merged into a Song of Love, and upon whom all the sweetest thoughts of imagination shall be brought to bear for the furtherance of mutual joy! Aubrey's strong spirit, set to stern labour for so long, and trained to toil with but scant peace for reward, now sprang up as it were to its full height of capability and resolution,--yet its power was tempered with that tender humility which, in a noble-hearted man, bends before the presence of the woman whose love for him shall make her sacred. All his instincts bade him recognise Sylvie as the completion and fulfilment of his life, and this consciousness was so strong and imperative that it made him more than gentle to her as he spoke his first few words, and obtained her consent to escort her to a seat not far off from the Cardinal, yet removed sufficiently from the rest of the people to enable them to converse uninterruptedly for a time. Angela watched them, well pleased;--she too had quick instincts, and as she noted Sylvie's sudden flush under the deepening admiration of Aubrey's eyes, she thought to herself, "If it could only be! If she could forget Fontenelle--if--"

But here her thoughts were interrupted by her own "ideal",--Florian Varillo who, catching her hand abruptly, drew her aside for a moment.

"Carissima mia, why did you not introduce the Princesse D'Agramont to Mr. Leigh rather than the Comtesse Hermenstein? The Princesse is of his way of thinking,--Sylvie is not!" and he finished his sentence by slipping an arm round her waist quickly, and whispering a word which brought the colour to her cheeks and the sparkle to her eyes, and made her heart beat so quickly that she could not speak for a moment. Yet she was supposed by the very man whose embrace thus moved her, to be "passionless!"

"You must not call her 'Sylvie'," she answered at last, "She does not like such familiarity--even from you!"

"No? Did she tell you so?" and Florian laughed, "What a confiding little darling you are, Angela! I assure you, Sylvie Hermenstein is not so very particular--but there! I will not say a word against any friend of yours! But do you not see she is already trying to make a fool of Aubrey Leigh?"

Angela looked across the room and saw Leigh's intellectual head bending closely towards the soft gold of Sylvie's hair, and smiled.

"I do not think Sylvie would willingly make a fool of anyone," she answered simply, "She is too loyal and sincere. I fancy you do not understand her, Florian. She is full of fascination, but she is not heartless."

But Florian entertained a very lively remembrance of the recent rebuff given to himself by the fair Comtesse, and took his masculine vengeance by the suggested innuendo of a shrug of his shoulders and a lifting of his eyebrows. But he said no more just then, and merely contented himself with coaxingly abstracting a rose out of Angela's bodice, kissing it, and placing it in his own buttonhole. This was one of his "pretty drawing-room tricks" according to Loyse D'Agramont who always laughed unmercifully at these kind of courtesies. They had been the stock-in-trade of her late husband, and she knew exactly what value to set upon them. But Angela was easily moved by tenderness, and the smallest word of love, the lightest caress made her happy and satisfied for a long time. She had the simple primitive notions of an innocent woman who could not possibly imagine infidelity in a sworn love. Looking at her sweet face, earnest eyes, and slim graceful figure now, as she moved away from Florian Varillo's side, and passed glidingly in and out among her guests, the Princesse D'Agramont, always watchful, wondered with a half sigh how she would take the blow of disillusion if it ever came; would it crush her, or would she rise the nobler and stronger for it?

"Many a one here in this room to-day," mused the Princesse, "would be glad if she fell vanquished in the hard fight! Many a man--shameful as it seems--would give a covert kick to her poor body. For there is nothing that frets and irks some male creatures so much as to see a woman attain by her own brain and hand a great position in the world, and when she has won her crown and throne they would deprive her of both, and trample her in the mud if they dared! SOME male creatures--not all. Florian Varillo for instance. If he could only get the world to believe that he paints half Angela's pictures he would be quite happy. I daresay he does persuade a few outsiders to think it. But in Rome we know better. Poor Angela!"

And with another sigh she dismissed the subject from her mind for the moment, her attention being distracted by the appearance of Monsignor Gherardi, who just then entered and took up a position by the Cardinal's chair, looking the picture of imposing and stately affability. One glance of his eyes in the direction of Aubrey Leigh, where he sat absorbed in conversation with the Comtesse Hermenstein, had put the wily priest in an excellent humour, and nothing could exceed the deferential homage and attention he paid to Cardinal Bonpre, talking with him in low, confidential tones of the affairs which principally occupied their attention,--the miraculous cure of Fabien Doucet, and the defection of Vergniaud from the Church. Earnestly did the good Felix, thinking Gherardi was a friend, explain again his utter unconsciousness of any miracle having been performed at his hands, and with equal fervour did he plead the cause of Vergniaud, in the spirit and doctrine of Christ, pointing out that the erring Abbe was, without any subterfuge at all, truly within proximity of death, and that therefore it seemed an almost unnecessary cruelty to set the ban of excommunication against a repentant and dying man. Gherardi heard all, with a carefully arranged facial expression of sympathetic interest and benevolence, but gave neither word nor sign of active partisanship in any cause. He had another commission in charge from Moretti, and he worked the conversation dexterously on, till he touched the point of his secret errand.

"By the way," he said gently, "among your many good and kindly works, I hear you have rescued a poor stray boy from the streets of Rouen--and that he is with you now. Is that true?"

"Quite true," replied the Cardinal, "But no particular goodness can be accredited to any servant of the Gospel for trying to rescue an orphan child from misery."

"No--no, certainly not!" assented Gherardi--"But it is seldom that one as exalted in dignity as yourself condescends--ah, pardon me!--you do not like that word I see!"

"I do not understand it in OUR work," said the Cardinal, "There can be no 'condescension' in saving the lost."

Gherardi was silent a moment, smiling a little to himself. "What a simpleton is this Saint Felix!" he thought. "What a fool to run amuck at his own chances of distinction and eminence!"

"And the boy is clever?" he said presently in kindly accents--"Docile in conduct?--and useful to you?"

"He is a wonderful child!" answered the Cardinal with unsuspecting candour and feeling, "Thoughtful beyond his years,--wise beyond his experience."

Gherardi shot a quick glance from under his eyelids at the fine tranquil face of the venerable speaker, and again smiled.

"You have no further knowledge of him?--no clue to his parentage?"

"None."

Just then the conversation was interrupted by a little movement of eagerness,--people were pressing towards the grand piano which Florian Varillo had opened,--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein was about to grant a general request made to her for a song. She moved slowly and with a touch of reluctance towards the instrument, Aubrey Leigh walking beside her.

"You are a musician yourself?--" she said, glancing up at him, "You play--or you sing?"

"I do a little of both," he answered, "But I shall be no rival to you! I have heard YOU sing!"

"You have? When?"

"The other night, or else I dreamed it," he said softly, "I have a very sweet echo of a song in my mind with words that sounded like 'Ti volglio bene', and a refrain that I caught in the shape of a rose!"

Their eyes met--and what Emerson calls "the deification and transfiguration of life" began to stir Sylvie's pulses, and set her heart beating to a new and singular exaltation. The warm colour flushed her cheeks--the lustre brightened in her eyes, and she looked sweeter and more bewitching than ever as she loosened the rich sables from about her slim throat, and drawing off her gloves sat down to the piano. Florian Varillo lounged near her--she saw him not at all,--Angela came up to ask if she could play an accompaniment for her,--but she shook her bright head in a smiling negative, and her small white fingers running over the keys, played a rippling passage of a few bars while she raised her clear eyes to Aubrey and asked him,--

"Do you know an old Brittany song called 'Le Palais D'Iffry'? No? It is just one of those many songs of the unattainable,--the search for the 'Fortunate Isles', or the 'Fata Morgana' of happiness."

"Is happiness nothing but a 'Fata Morgana'?'" asked Aubrey gently, "Must it always vanish when just in sight?"

His eyes grew darkly passionate as he spoke, and again Sylvie's heart beat high, but she did not answer in words,--softening the notes of her prelude she sang in a rich mezzo-soprano, whose thrilling tone penetrated to every part of the room, the quaint old Breton ballad,

"Il serait un roi! Mais quelqu'un a dit, 'Non!--Pas pour toi! 'Reste en prison,--ecoute le chant d'amour, 'Et le doux son des baisers que la Reine a promit 'A celui qui monte, sans peur et sans retour Au Palais D'Iffry!' Helas, mon ami, C'est triste d'ecouter le chanson sans le chanter aussi!"

Aubrey listened to the sweet far-reaching notes--"Sans peur, et sans retour, au Palais D'Iffry"! Thither would he climb--to that enchanted palace of love with its rainbow towers glittering in the "light that never was on sea or land"--to the throne of that queen whose soft eyes beckoned him--whose kiss waited for him--everything now must be for her--all the world for her sake, willingly lost or willingly won! And what of the work he had undertaken? The people to whom he had pledged his life? The great Christ-message he had determined to re-preach for the comfort of the million lost and sorrowful? His brows contracted,--and a sudden shadow of pain clouded the frank clearness of his eyes. Gherardi's words came back to his memory,--"You have embarked in a most hopeless cause! You will help the helpless, and as soon as they are rescued out of trouble they will turn and rend you,--you will try to teach them the inner mysteries of God's working and they will say you are possessed of a devil!" Then he thought of another and grander saying--"Whoso, putting his hand to the plough, looketh back, is not fit for the Kingdom of God!--" and over all rang the enchanting call of the siren's voice--

"Et le doux son des baisers que la Reine a promit A celui qui monte, sans peur et sans retour Au Palais D'Iffry!"

and he so lost himself in a tangle of thought that he did not observe how closely Monsignor Gherardi was studying every expression of his face, and he started as if he had been awakened from a dream when Sylvie's song ceased, and Sylvie herself glanced up at him.

"Music seems to make you sad, Mr. Leigh!" she said timidly.

"Not music--but sometimes the fancies which music engenders, trouble me," he answered, bending his earnest searching eyes upon her, and wondering within himself whether such a small, slight gossamer thing of beauty, brilliant as a tropical humming-bird, soft and caressable as a dove, could possibly be expected to have the sweet yet austere fortitude and firmness needed to be a true "helpmeet" to him in the work he had undertaken, and the life he had determined to lead. He noted all the dainty trifles of her toilette half doubtingly, half admiringly,--the knot of rich old lace that fastened her sables,--the solitary star-like diamond which held that lace in careless position--the numerous little touches of taste and elegance which made her so unique and graceful among women--and a pang shot through his heart as he thought of her wealth, and his own poverty. She meanwhile, on her part, was studying him with all the close interest that a cultured and refined woman feels, who is strongly conscious of having awakened a sudden and masterful passion in a man whom she secretly admires. A triumphant sense of her own power moved her, allied to a much more rare and beautiful emotion--the sense of soul-submission to a greater and higher life than her own. And so it chanced that never had she looked so charming--never had her fair cheeks flushed a prettier rose--never had her easy fascination of manner been so bewitchingly troubled by hesitation and timidity--never had her eyes sparkled with a softer or more irresistible languor. Aubrey felt that he was fast losing his head as he watched her move, speak, and smile,--and with a sudden bracing up of his energies resolved to make his adieux at once.

"I must be going,--" he began to say, when his arm was touched from behind, and he turned to confront Florian Varillo, who smiled with all the brilliancy his white and even teeth could give him.

"Why must you be going?" asked Varillo cheerily, "Why not stay and dine with my future father-in-law, and Angela, and the eminent Cardinal? We shall all be charmed!"

"Thanks, no!--I have letters to write to England . . ."

"Good-bye!" said the Comtesse Hermenstein at this juncture,--"I am going to drive the Princesse D'Agramont round the Pincio, will you join us, Mr. Leigh? The Princesse is anxious to know you--may I introduce you?"

And without waiting for a reply, as the Princesse was close at hand, she performed the ceremony of introduction at once in her own light graceful fashion.

"Truly a strange meeting!" laughed Varillo, "You three ought to be very good friends! The Comtesse Hermenstein is a devout daughter of the Roman Church--Madame la Princesse is against all Churches--and you, Mr. Leigh, are making your own Church!"

Aubrey did not reply. It was not the time or place to discuss either his principles or his work, moreover he was strangely troubled by hearing Sylvie described as "a devout daughter of the Roman Church."

"I am charmed!" said the Princesse D'Agramont, "Good fortune really seems to favour me for once, for in the space of a fortnight I have met two of the most distinguished men of the time, 'Gys Grandit', and Aubrey Leigh!"

Aubrey bowed.

"You are too kind, Madame! Grandit and I have been friends for some years, though we have never seen each other since I parted from him in Touraine. But we have always corresponded."

"You have of course heard who he really is? The son of Abbe Vergniaud?" continued the Princesse.

"I have heard--but only this morning, and I do not know any of the details of the story."

"Then you must certainly come and drive with us," said Loyse D'Agramont, "for I can tell you all about it. I wrote quite a brilliant essay on it for the Figaro, and called it 'Church Morality'!" She laughed. "Come,--we will take no denial!"

Aubrey tried to refuse, but could not,--the attraction,--the 'will o' the wisp' magnetism of Sylvie's dainty personality drew him on, and in a few minutes, after taking respectful leave of the Cardinal, Prince Sovrani, and Angela, he left the studio in the company of the two ladies. Passing Monsignor Gherardi on the way out he received a wide smile and affable salute from that personage.

"A pleasant drive to you, Mr. Leigh," he said, "The view from the Pincio is considered extremely fine!"

Aubrey made some formal answer and went his way. Gherardi returned to the studio and resumed his confidential talk with Bonpre, while one by one the visitors departed, till at last the only persons left in the vast room were Angela and Florian Varillo, Prince Pietro, and the two dignitaries of the Church. Florian was irritated, and made no secret of his irritation to his fair betrothed, with whom he sat a little apart from the others in the room.

"Do you want a love affair between Sylvie Hermenstein and that fellow Leigh?" he enquired, "If so, it is probable that your desire will be gratified!"

Angela raised her delicate eyebrows in a little surprise.

"I have no wish at all in the matter," she answered, "except to see Sylvie quite happy."

"How very romantic is the friendship between you two women!" said Varillo somewhat sarcastically, "You wish to see Sylvie happy,--and the other day she told me she would form her judgment of me by YOUR happiness! Really, it is most admirable and touching!"

Angela began to feel somewhat puzzled. Petulance and temper were not in her character, and she was annoyed to see any touch of them in her lover.

"Are you cross, Florian?" she asked gently, "Has something worried you to-day?"

"Oh, I am often worried!" he replied;--and had he spoken the exact truth he would have confessed that he was always seriously put out when he was not the centre of attraction and the cynosure of women's eyes--"But what does it matter! Do not think at all about me, cara mia! Tell me of yourself. How goes the picture?"

"It is nearly finished now," she replied, her beautiful violet eyes dilating and brightening with the fervour that inspired her whenever she thought of her work, "I rise very early, and begin to paint with the first gleam of daylight. I think I shall have it ready sooner than I expected. The Queen has promised to come and see it here before it is exhibited to the public."

"Margherita di Savoja is very amiable!" said Florian, with a tinge of envy he could not wholly conceal, "She is always useful as a patron."

A quick flush of pride rose to Angela's cheeks.

"I do not need any patronage, Florian," she said simply yet with a little coldness, "You know that I should resent it were it offered to me. If my work is not good in itself, no 'royal' approval can make it so. Queen Margherita visits me as a friend--not as a patron."

"There now! I have vexed you!" And Florian took her hand and kissed it. "Forgive me, sweetest!--Look at me--give me a smile!--Ah! That is kind!" and he conveyed an expression of warm tenderness into his eyes as Angela turned her charming face upon him, softened and radiant with the quick affection which always moved her at his voice and caress. "I spoke foolishly! Of course my Angela could not be patronised--she is too independent and gifted. I am very glad the Queen is coming!"

"The Queen is coming?" echoed Gherardi, who just then advanced. "Here? To see Donna Sovrani's picture? Ah, that will be an excellent advertisement! But it would have been far better, my dear young lady, had you arranged with me, or with some other one of my confreres, to have the picture sent to the Vatican for the inspection of His Holiness. The Popes, as you know, have from time immemorial been the best patrons of art!"

"My picture would not please the Pope," said Angela quietly, "It would more probably win his denunciation than his patronage."

Gherardi smiled. The idea of a woman--a mere woman imagining that anything which she could do was powerful enough to bring down Papal denunciation! The strange conceit of these feminine geniuses! He could almost have laughed aloud. But he merely looked her over blandly and forbearingly.

"I am sorry," he said, "very sorry you should consider such a thing as possible of your work. But no doubt you speak on impulse. Your distinguished uncle, the Cardinal Bonpre, would be sadly distressed if your picture should contain anything of a nature to bring you any condemnation from the Vatican,--and your father . . ."

"Leave me out of it, if you please!" interrupted Prince Pietro, "I have nothing whatever to do with it! Angela works with a free hand; none of us have seen what she is doing."

"Not even you, Signor Varillo?" enquired Gherardi affably.

"Oh, I?" laughed Florian carelessly, "No indeed! I have not the least idea of the subject or the treatment!"

"A mystery then?" said Gherardi, still preserving his bland suavity of demeanour, "But permit me, Donna Sovrani, to express the hope that when the veil is lifted a crown of laurels may be disclosed for you!"

Angela thanked him by a silent inclination of her head, and in a few minutes the stately Vatican spy had taken his leave. As he disappeared the Cardinal rose from his chair and moving somewhat feebly, prepared to return to his own apartments.

"Dearest uncle, will you not stay with us to-night? Or are you too tired?" asked Angela as she came to his side.

He raised her sweet face between his two wrinkled hands and looked at her long and earnestly. "Dear child!" he said, "Dear brave little child! For you must always be nothing more than a child to me,--tell me, are you sure you are moved by the right spirit in the painting of your picture?"

"I think so!" answered Angela gently, "Indeed, indeed, I think so! I know that according to the teaching of our Master Christ, it is a TRUE spirit!"

Slowly the Cardinal released her, and slowly and with impressive earnestness traced the Cross on her fair brows.

"God bless you!" he said, "And God help you too! For if you work by 'the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter', remember it is the same Spirit which our Lord tells us 'the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.' And to testify of a Spirit which the world cannot receive makes the world very hard to you!"

And with these words he gently leaned on the arm she proffered and left the studio with her, the rich glow and voluminous folds of his scarlet robes contrasting vividly with the simple black gown which Angela wore without other adornment than a Niphetos rose to relieve its sombreness. As she went with her uncle she looked over her shoulder and smiled an adieu to Florian,--he, in his turn lightly kissed his hand to her, and then addressed Prince Pietro, who, with the care of a man to whom expense is a consideration, was putting out some of the tall lamps that had illumined the dusk of the late afternoon.

"The good Cardinal is surely breaking up," he said carelessly, "He looks extremely frail!"

"Young men sometimes break up before old ones!" returned the Prince drily, "Felix is strong enough yet. You dine with us to-night?"

"If you permit--" said Varillo, with a graceful salutation.

"Oh, my permission does not matter'" said Sovrani eyeing him narrowly, "Whatever gives pleasure to Angela must needs please me. She is all that is left to me now in an exceedingly dull world. A riverderci! At eight we dine."

Flonan nodded,--and took his departure, and the Prince for a moment stood hesitating, looking at the great white covering on the wall which concealed his daughter's mysterious work. His tall upright figure stiff and sombre, looked as if cast in bronze in the half light shed by the wood fire,--one lamp was still burning, and after a pause he moved from his rigid attitude of gloomy consideration, and extinguished it, then glancing round to see that all was in order, he left the studio, closing its great oaken door behind him. Five minutes after he had gone a soft step trod the polished floor, and the young Manuel, holding a lighted taper, entered all alone. The flame of the little torch he carried cast a soft golden glow about him as he walked noiselessly through the great empty room, his blue eyes lifted to the marble heads of gods and heroes which occupied their different positions on the gilded and oaken brackets set against the tapestried walls,--and presently he paused in front of Angela's hidden work. It was but a moment's pause, and then, still with the same light step, and the same bright glow reflected from the flame that glittered in his hand, he passed through the room, lifted the velvet portiere at the other end where there was another door leading to the corridor connected with the Cardinal's apartments, and so unnoticed, disappeared.

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XXIII

Meanwhile, the Marquis Fontenelle had been nearly a fortnight in Rome, living a sufficiently curious sort of life, and passing his time in a constant endeavour to avoid being discovered and recognised by any of his numerous acquaintances who were arriving there for the winter. His chief occupation was of course to watch the Comtesse Sylvie,--and he was rewarded for his untiring pains by constant and bewitching glimpses of her. Sometimes he would see her driving, wrapped in furs, her tiny Japanese dog curled up in a fold of her sables, and on her lap a knot of violets, the fresh scent of which came to him like a sweet breath on the air as she passed. Once he almost met her, face to face in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, walking all alone, and reading a book in which she seemed to be deeply interested. He made a few cautious enquiries about her, and learnt that she lived very quietly,--that she received certain "great" people,--especially Cardinals and Monsignori, notably Monsignor Gherardi, who was a constant visitor. But of any closer admirer he never gathered the slightest rumour, till one afternoon, just when the sun was sinking in full crimson glory behind the dome of St. Peter's, he saw her carriage come to a sudden halt on the Pincio and she herself leaned out of it to shake hands with, and talk to a tall fair man, who seemed to be on exceptionally friendly terms with her. It is true she was accompanied in the carriage by the famous Sovrani,--but that fact did not quell the sudden flame of jealousy which sprang up in Fontenelle's mind--for both ladies appeared equally charmed with the fair man, and their countenances were radiant with pleasure and animation all the time they were in conversation with him. When the carriage resumed its round again, the Marquis sauntered by a side path where he could take quiet observation of his apparent rival, who walked past him with a firm light step, looking handsome, happy, and amazingly confident. There was an old man raking the path, and of him Fontenelle asked carelessly,

"Do you know who that gentleman is?"

The gardener looked up and smiled.

"Ah, si, si! Il Signor Inglese! Molto generoso! Il Signor Aubri Lee!"

Aubrey Leigh! A "celebrity" then,--an English author;--not that all English authors are considered "celebrities" in Rome. Italian society makes very short work of spurious art, and closes its doors ruthlessly against mere English "Grub Street". But Aubrey Leigh was more than an author,--he was an influential power in the world, as the Marquis well knew.

"A great religious reformer! And yet a victim to the little Sylvie!" he mused, "Well! The two things will not work together. Though truly Sylvie would captivate a John Knox or a Cromwell. I really think,--I really do begin to think, that rather than lose her altogether, I must marry her!"

And he went back to the obscure hotel where he had chosen temporarily to reside in a meditative mood, and as he entered, was singularly annoyed to see a flaring poster outside, announcing the arrival of Miraudin and his whole French Company in Rome for a few nights only. The name "MIRAUDIN" glared at him in big, fat, red letters on a bright yellow ground; and involuntarily he muttered,

"D--n the fellow! Can I go nowhere in the world without coming across him!"

Irritated, and yet knowing his irritation to be foolish,--for after all, what was the famous actor to him?--what was there in his personality to annoy him beyond the trivial fact of a curious personal resemblance?--he retired to his room in no pleasant humour, and sitting down began to write a letter to Sylvie asking her to be his wife. Yet somehow the power of expression seemed lacking, and once or twice he laid down his pen in a fit of abstraction, wondering why, when he had sought Sylvie as a lover only, he had been able to write the most passionate love phrases, full of ardour and poetry, and now, when he was about to make her the offer of his whole life, his sentences were commonplace and almost cold. And presently he tore up what he had been writing, and paced the room impatiently.

"The fact is I shall make a bad husband, and I know it!" he said candidly to himself, "And Sylvie will make a great mistake if she accepts me!"

He walked to the window and looked out. His hotel was not in a fashionable or frequented quarter of Rome, and the opposite view of the street was anything but enlivening. Dirty, frowsy women,--idle men, lounging along with the slouching gait which is common to the 'unemployed' Italian,--half-naked children, running hither and thither in the mud, and screaming like tortured wild animals,--this kind of shiftless, thriftless humanity, pictured against the background of ugly modern houses, such as one might find in a London back slum, made up a cheerless prospect, particularly as the blue sky was clouded and it was beginning to rain. One touch of colour brightened the scene for a moment, when a girl with a yellow handkerchief tied round her head passed along, carrying a huge flat basket overflowing with bunches of purple violets, and as Fontenelle caught the hue, and imagined the fragrance of the flowers, he was surprised to feel his eyes smart with a sudden sting of tears. The picture of Sylvie Hermenstein, with her child-like head, fair hair, and deep blue eyes, floated before him,--she was fond of violets, and whenever she wore them, their odour seemed to be the natural exhalation of her sweet and spirituelle personality.

"She is much too good for me!" he said half aloud, "To be perfectly honest with myself, I know I have no stability of character, and I cannot imagine myself remaining constant to any woman for more than six months. And the best way is to be perfectly straight-forward about it."

He sat down again, and without taking any more thought wrote straight from the heart of his present humour, addressing her by the name he had once playfully bestowed upon her.

"Enchanteresse! I am here in Rome, and this brief letter is to ask, without preamble or apology, whether you will do me the infinite honour to become my wife. I confess to you honestly that I am not worth this consideration on your part, for I am not to be relied upon. I repose no confidence in myself, therefore I will leave it to you to measure my audacity in making the suggestion that you should place a lifetime's confidence in me. But with all my heart, (as much as I know of it at the present), I desire to show you what respect so poor a life as mine can give to one who deserves all tenderness, as well as trust. If I may hope that you will pardon my past follies and libertinage with regard to you,--if you can love me well enough to wear my not too exalted name, and preserve my remaining stock of honour, summon me to your presence, and I will endeavour, by such devotion and fidelity as in me lies, to atone for whatsoever offence I may have given you previously by my too passionate pursuit of your beauty. Yours, unless you decide my fate otherwise,

"GUY BEAUSIRE DE FONTENELLE."

Thrusting this note into an envelope he hastily sealed it, but decided not to post it till late at night, in order that Sylvie might only receive it with the early morning, when her mind was fresh, and unswayed by any opinions or events of a long day. And to pass the time he strolled out to one of the many "osterie," or wine-houses which abound in Rome,--a somewhat famous example of its kind in the Via Quattro Fontane. Choosing a table where he could sit with his back turned towards the door, so as to avoid being seen by either strangers or possible friends, he took up the Giornale Romano, and ordered a "mezzo-litro" of the "Genzano" wine, for which that particular house has long been celebrated. He sat there about half an hour thus quietly reading,--scarcely hearing the loud voices and louder laughter of the men who came and went around him, when suddenly the name "Sylvie Hermenstein" caught his ear. It was spoken carelessly and accompanied with a laugh. Quietly laying down his newspaper, he sat very still in his chair, keeping his back turned to the groups of wine drinkers who were gathering in large numbers as the evening advanced, and listened.

"The most delicious little bonbon in the whole box! Jolie a craquer!" said a man's voice.

"Chocolat fondant! Garantie tres pure!" cried another, his words being followed by a shout of laughter.

Fontenelle gripped the arm of his chair, and held himself rigid, but ready to spring.

"The Church always knows where to find the prettiest women," said the first man who had spoken, "from the Santissima Madonna downwards! What would become of the Pope if it were not for the women!"

"Bah! The Pope is only one man, but what would become of all the Monsignori?" asked a voice different to the rest in mellowness and deep quality, but with a touch of insolent mockery in its tone.

Another burst of laughter answered him.

Fontenelle turned in his chair and looked at the last speaker, and to his amazement saw the actor, Miraudin. He was leaning carelessly against the wine counter, a half-emptied "fiaschetto" in front of him, and a full glass of wine in his hand.

"The Monsignori would be all desolate bachelors!" he went on, lazily, "And the greatest rascal in the Vatican, Domenico Gherardi, would no longer be the fortunate possessor of the wealth, the influence, and the dear embraces of the fascinating Hermenstein!"

Scarcely had he spoken when the glass he held was dashed out of his hand, and Fontenelle, white with fury, struck him smartly and full across the face. A scene of the wildest confusion and uproar ensued. All the men in the wine-shop crowded around them, and for a moment Miraudin, blinded by the blow, and the wine that had splashed up against his eyes, did not see who had struck him, but as he recovered from the sudden shock and stared at his opponent, he broke into a wild laugh.

"Diantre! Ban soir, Monsieur le Marquis! Upon my life, there is something very strange in this! Fate or the devil, or both! Well! What now!"

"You are a liar and a blackguard!" said Fontenelle fiercely, "And unless you apologise for your insult to the lady whose name you have presumed to utter with your mountebank tongue--"

"Apologise! I! Moi!--genie de France! Never!" retorted Miraudin with an air of swaggering audacity, "All women are alike! I speak from experience!"

White to the lips, the Marquis Fontenelle looked around.

"Are there any MEN here?" he asked, eying the crowd about him with ineffable hauteur.

A young fellow stepped forward. "At your command, Marquis! You served me once--I shall be happy to serve you now!"

Quickly Fontenelle shook hands with this timely friend. He recognised in him a young Italian officer, named Ruspardi, an acquaintance of some years back, to whom he had chanced to be useful in a pressing moment of need.

"Thanks! Arrange everything for me, will you, Ruspardi? And as quickly as possible!"

"It is nearly midnight now," said Ruspardi in a low tone, "Shall we say five or six in the morning?"

"Yes--anything you like--but quickly!"

Then raising his head haughtily, he addressed Miraudin in distinct tones.

"Monsieur Miraudin, you have greatly insulted and falsely slandered a lady whom I have the honour to know. I have struck you for your lie; and consider you worthy of no further treatment save a horsewhipping in public. Gentlemen do not as a rule condescend to meet their paid servants--actors and the like,--in single combat--but I will do you that honour!"

And with these words he bowed haughtily to all present, and left the scene of noisy disorder.

Out in the streets the moonlight lay in broad silver bands, like white glistening ribbon spread in shining strips across the blackness, and there was a moisture in the air which,--dropped as it were fresh, from the surrounding hills,--cooled Fontenelle's flushed face and burning brows. He walked rapidly,--he had a vague, unformed desire in his mind to see Sylvie again if possible. He knew where she lived, and he soon turned down the street where the quaint old central balcony of the Casa D'Angeli thrust itself forward into the moon-rays among the sculptured angels' wings,--and he saw that the windows were open. Pausing underneath he waited, hesitating--full of strange thoughts and stranger regrets. How poor and valueless seemed his life as he regarded it now!--now when he had voluntarily placed it in jeopardy! What had he done with his days of youth and prime? Frittered away every valuable moment,--thrown to the winds every costly opportunity,--spent his substance on light women who had kissed and clung to him one day, and repulsed him the next. Well--and after? His heart beat thickly,--if he could only see Sylvie for a moment! Hush! There was a murmur--a voice--a ripple of sweet laughter; and moving cautiously back into the shadows, he looked up--yes!--there she was--clad in some soft silvery stuff that gathered a thousand sparkles from the light of the moon,--her fair hair caught up in a narrow circlet of diamonds, and her sweet face purely outlined against the dark worn stone of one of the great carved angel-wings. But someone was with her,--someone whom Fontenelle recognised at once by the classic shape of his head and bright curly hair,--the man whom he had seen that very day on the Pincio,--Aubrey Leigh. With a jealous tightening at his heart, Fontenelle saw that Leigh held the soft plume of downy feathers which served Sylvie for a fan, and that he was lightly waving it to and fro as he talked to her in the musical, all-potent voice which had charmed thousands, and would surely not be without its fascination for the sensitive ears of a woman. Moving a little closer he tried to hear what was being said,--but Leigh spoke very softly, and Sylvie answered with equal softness, so that he could catch no distinct word. Yet the mere tone of these two voices melted into a harmony more dulcet and perfect than could be endured by Fontenelle with composure, and uttering an impatient exclamation at his own folly he hastily left his retreat, and with one parting glance up at the picture of fair loveliness above him walked swiftly away. Returning to his hotel he saw the letter that he had written to Sylvie lying on the table, and he at once posted it. Then he began to prepare for his encounter with Miraudin. He dressed quickly,--wrote a few business letters,--and was about to lie down for a rest of an hour or so when the swift and furious galloping of a horse's hoofs awoke the echoes of the quiet street, and almost before he had time to realise what had happened, his friend Ruspardi stood before him, breathless and wild with excitement.

"Marquis, you are tricked!" he cried, "Everything is prepared--seconds,--pistols,--all! But your man--your man has gone!"

"Gone!" exclaimed Fontenelle furiously, "Where?"

"Out of Rome! In a common fiacre--taking his latest mistress, one of the stage-women with him. They were seen driving by the Porta Pia towards the Campagna half an hour ago! He dare not face fire--bully and coward that he is!"

"I will go after him!" said Fontenelle promptly, "Half an hour ahead, you say! Good!--I will catch him up. Can I get a horse anywhere?"

"Take mine," said Ruspardi eagerly, "he is perfectly fresh--just out of the stable. Have you weapons?"

"Yes," and the Marquis unlocked a case, and loading two, placed them in a travelling holder. Then, turning to Ruspardi he shook hands.

"Thanks, a thousand times! There are a few letters here--see to them if I should not come back."

"What are you going to do?" asked Ruspardi, his excitement beginning to cool a little, now that he saw the possible danger into which Fontenelle was voluntarily rushing.

"Persuade the worthy mountebank either to come back or fight at once on whatever ground I find him, and assume to be a gentleman--for once!" said Fontenelle, carelessly. "Addio!"

And without further words he hurried off, and tossing a twenty-franc piece to the sleepy hotel porter who was holding Ruspardi's horse outside, he flung himself into the saddle and galloped away. Ruspardi, young and hotblooded, was of too mercurial a disposition to anticipate any really serious results of the night's adventure;--his contempt for a coward was far greater than his fear of death, and he was delighted to think that in all probability the Marquis would use his riding-whip on Miraudin's back rather than honour him by a pistol shot. And so dismissing all fears from his mind he took Fontenelle's letters in his charge, and went straight out of the hotel singing gaily, charmed with the exciting thought of the midnight chase which was going on, and the possible drubbing and discomfiture of the "celebrated" Miraudin.

Meanwhile, under the flashing stars, and through the sleeping streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste. He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon discovered the force of his governing touch,--the resolve of his urging speed. He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi's hurried description of the route taken by the runaway actor, and felt, rather than saw the outline of the Villa Torlonia, as he rushed past, and the Basilica of St. Agnese Fuori le Mura, which is supposed to cover the tomb of the child-martyr St. Agnes,--then across the Ponte Nomentano, till, two miles further on, in the white radiance of the moon, he perceived, driving rapidly ahead of him, the vehicle of which he was in pursuit. Letting the reins fall loosely on the neck of his straining steed, he raised himself in his stirrups, and by his own movements assisted the animal's now perfectly reckless gallop,--and at last, hearing the flying hoofs behind, the driver of the fiacre became seized with panic, and thinking of possible brigands and how to pacify them, he suddenly pulled up and came to a dead halt. A head was thrust out of the carriage window,--Miraudin's head,--and Miraudin's voice shouted in bad Italian,

"What are you stopping for, rascal! On with you! On with you! Five hundred francs for your best speed!"

Scarcely had he uttered the words when the Marquis gained the side of the vehicle, and pulling up his horse till it almost fell in rearing backwards, he cried furiously,

"Lache! Tu vas te crever sur terre avant je te quitte!"

And he struck his riding-whip full in the actor's face.

Springing out of the fiacre Miraudin confronted his antagonist. His hat was off--and his countenance, marked as it was with the crimson line of the lash, lightened with laughter.

"Again! Monsieur le Marquis, je vous salue!" he said, "Kismet! One cannot escape it! Better to fight with you, beau sire, than with destiny! I am ready!"

Fontenelle at once dismounted, and tied his horse to the knotted bough of a half-withered tree. Taking his pistols out of their holder he proffered them to Miraudin.

"Choose!" he said curtly, "Or use your own if you have any,--but mine are loaded,--take care yours are! Play no theatrical tricks on such a stage as this! "And then he gave a comprehensive wave of his hand towards the desolate waste of the Campagna around them, and the faint blue misty lines of the Alban hills just rimmed with silver in the rays of the moon.

At the first sight of the pistols the driver of the fiacre, who had been more or less stupefied till now, by the suddenness of the adventure, gave a sort of whining cry, and climbing down from his box fell on his knees before Miraudin, and then ran a few paces and did the same thing in front of the Marquis, imploring both men not to fight,--not to get killed, on account of the trouble it would cause to him, the coachman;--and with a high falsetto shriek a lady flung herself out of the recesses of the closed vehicle, and clung to the actor's arm.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! What is it you would do?" she cried, "Be killed out here on the Campagna? and not a soul in sight--not a house--not a shelter? And what is to become of me!--Me!--Me!--" and she tapped her heaving bosom in melodramatic style, "Have you thought of ME?"

"You--you!" laughed Miraudin, tearing off the lace veil which she wore wrapped loosely round her head and shoulders, "You, Jeanne Richaud! What is to become of you? The same fate will attend you that attends all such little moths of the footlights! Perhaps a dozen more lovers after me--then old age, and the care of a third-class lodging-house for broken-down actors!" Here he chose his weapon. "At your service, Marquis!"

Jeanne Richaud, a soubrette, whose chief stock-in-trade had been her large dark eyes and shapely legs, uttered a desperate scream, and threw herself at the feet of the Marquis Fontenelle.

"Monsieur! Monsieur! Think for a moment! This combat is unequal--out of rule! You are a gentleman,--a man of honour!--would you fight without seconds? It is murder--murder--!"

Here she broke off, terrified in spite of herself by the immovability of Fontenelle's attitude, and the coldness of his eyes.

"I regret to pain you, Madame," he said stiffly, "This combat was arranged according to rule between Monsieur Miraudin and myself some hours since--and though it seems he did not intend to keep his engagement I intend to keep mine! The principals in the fight are here,--seconds are, as their name implies, a secondary matter. We must do without them."

"By no means!" exclaimed Miraudin, "We have them! Here they are! You, Jeanne, will you be my second--how often you have seconded me in many a devil's game--and you--cochon d'un cocher!--you will for once in your life support the honour of a Marquis!"

And with these words he seized the unhappy Roman cab-driver by the collar of his coat, and flung him towards Fontenelle, who took not the slightest notice of him as he lay huddled up and wailing on the grass, but merely stood his ground, silently waiting. Mademoiselle Jeanne Richaud however was not so easily disposed of. Throwing herself on the cold ground, thick with the dust of dead Caesars, she clung to Miraudin, pouring out a torrent of vociferous French, largely intermixed with a special slang of the Paris streets, and broken by the hysterical yells when she saw her "protector" throw off his coat, and, standing in his shirt-sleeves, take close observation of the pistol he held.

"Is this your care of me?" she cried, "Mon Dieu! What a thing is a man! Here am I alone in a strange country--and you endanger your life for some quarrel of which I know nothing,--yet you pretend to love me! Nom de Jesus! What is your love!"

"You do well to ask," said Miraudin, laughing carelessly, "What is my love! A passing fancy, chere petite! We actors simulate love too well to ever feel it! Out of the way, jou-jou! Your life will be amusing so long as you keep a little beaute de diable. After that--the lodging-house!"

He pushed her aside, but she still clung pertinaciously to his arm.

"Victor! Victor!" she wailed, "Will you not look at me--will you not kiss me!"

Miraudin wheeled round, and stared at her amazed.

"Kiss you!" he echoed, "Pardieu! Would you care! Jeanne! Jeanne! You are a little mad,--the moonlight is too much for you! To-morrow I will kiss you, when the sun rises--or if I am not here--why, somebody else will!"

"Who is the woman you are fighting for?" she suddenly demanded, springing up from her crouching position with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. Miraudin looked at her with nonchalant admiration.

"I wish you would have looked like that sometimes on my stage," he said, "You would have brought down the house! 'Woman!' No 'woman' at all, but WOMEN! The glamour of them--the witchery of them--women!--the madness of them! Women!--The ONE woman saves when the ONE woman exists, but then,--we generally kill HER! Now, once more, Jeanne,--out of the way! Time flies, and Monsieur le Marquis is in haste. He has many fashionable engagements!"

He flashed upon her a look from the bright amorous hazel eyes, that were potent to command and difficult to resist, and she cowered back, trembling and sobbing hysterically as the Marquis advanced.

"You are ready?" he enquired civilly.

"Ready!"

"Shall we say twelve paces?"

"Excellent!"

Deliberately Fontenelle dug his heel into the ground and measured twelve paces from that mark between himself and his antagonist. Then with cold courtesy he stood aside for Miraudin to assure himself that the measurement was correct. The actor complied with this formality in a sufficiently composed way, and with a certain grace and dignity which Fontenelle might almost have taken for bravery if he had not been so convinced that the man was "acting" still in his mind, and was going through a "part" which he disliked, but which he was forced to play. And with it all there was something indefinable about him--something familiar in the turn of his head, the glance of his eye, the movement of his body, which annoyed Fontenelle, because he saw in all these little personal touches such a strong resemblance to himself. But there was now no time to think, as the moment for the combat drew near. Jeanne Richaud was still weeping hysterically and expostulating with the cab-driver, who paid no attention whatsoever to her pleadings, but remained obstinately on his knees out of harm's way, begging the "Santissima Madonna" and all his "patron saints" to see him safely with his fiacre back to the city. That was all he cared for.

"We have no one to give us a signal," said Miraudin lightly, "But there is a cloud on the moon. When it passes, shall we fire?"

The Marquis bowed assent.

For a moment the moon-rays were obscured,--and a faint sigh from the wind stirred the long dry grass. A bat flew by, scurrying towards the Catacombs of Alexander,--a shadow lay upon the land. The combatants,--so singularly alike in form and feature,--stood rigidly in position, their weapons raised,--their only witnesses a cabman and a wanton, both creatures terrified out of their wits for themselves and their own safety. Swiftly the cloud passed--and a brilliant silver glory was poured out on hill and plain and broken column,--and as it shone, the two shots were fired simultaneously--the two bullets whizzed through the air. A light puff of smoke rose in the moonbeams--it cleared--and Miraudin reeled backwards and fell heavily to the ground. Fontenelle stood upright, but staggered a little,--instinctively putting his hand to his breast. Jeanne Richaud rushed to the side of her fallen lover.

"Victor! Victor!"

Miraudin struggled up to a half sitting position--the blood was welling up thickly from a wound in his lungs. Half suffocated as he was, he made a strong effort to speak, and succeeded.

"Not you--not you!" he gasped, "Do not touch me! Do not come near me! Him!--him!" And he pointed to Fontenelle who still stood erect, swaying slightly to and fro with a dazed far-off look in his eyes--but now--as the frenzied soubrette beckoned him, he moved unsteadily to the side of his mortally wounded opponent, and there, through weakness, not emotion, dropped on his knees. Miraudin looked at him with staring filmy eyes.

"How I have hated you, Monsieur le Marquis!" he muttered thickly, "How I have hated you! Yes--as Cain hated Abel! For we--we are brothers as they were--born of the same father--ah! You start!" for Fontenelle uttered a gasping cry--"Yes--in spite of your pride, your lineage, your insolent air of superiority--YOUR father was MY father!--the late Marquis was no more satisfied with one wife than any of us are!--and had no higher code of honour! YOUR mother was a grande dame,--MINE was a 'light o' love' like this feeble creature!" and he turned his glance for a moment on the shuddering, wailing Jeanne Richaud. "YOU were the legal Marquis--I the illegal genius! . . . yes--genius--!"

He broke off, struggling for breath.

"Do you hear me?" he whispered thickly, "Do you hear?"

"I hear," answered Fontenelle, speaking with difficulty, "You have hated me, you say--hate me no more!--for hate is done with--and love also!--I am--dying!"

He grasped the rank grass with both hands in sudden agony, and his face grew livid. Miraudin turned himself on one arm.

"Dying! You, too! By Heaven! Then the Marquisate must perish! I should have fired in the air--but--but the sins of the fathers . . . what is it?" Here a ghastly smile passed over his features, "The sins of the fathers--are visited on the children! What a merciful Deity it is, to make such an arrangement!--and the excellent fathers!--when all the children meet them--I wonder what they will have to say to each other I wonder . . ." A frightful shudder convulsed his body and he threw up his arms.

"'Un peu d'amour, Et puis--bon soir!'

C'est ca! Bon soir, Marquis!"

A great sigh broke from his lips, through which the discoloured blood began to ooze slowly--he was dead. And Fontenelle, whose wound bled inwardly, turned himself wearily round to gaze on the rigid face upturned to the moon. His brother's face! So like his own! He was not conscious himself of any great pain--he felt a dizzy languor and a drowsiness as of dreams--but he knew what the dreaming meant,--he knew that he would soon sleep to wake again--but where? He did not see that the woman who had professed to love Miraudin had already rushed away from his corpse in terror, and was entreating the cabman to drive her quickly from the scene of combat,--he realised nothing save the white moonbeams on the still face of the man who in God's sight had been his brother. Fainter and still fainter grew his breath--but he felt near his heart for a little crumpled knot of filmy lace which he always carried--a delicate trifle which had fallen from one of Sylvie's pretty evening gowns once, when he had caught her in his arms and sworn his passion. He kissed it now, and inhaled its violet perfume--as he took it from his lips he saw that it was stained with blood. The heavy languor upon him grew heavier--and in the dark haze which began to float before his eyes he saw women's faces, some beautiful, some devilish, yet all familiar,--he felt himself sinking--sinking into some deep abyss of shadows, so dark and dreary that he shuddered with the icy cold and horror, till Sylvie came, yes!--Sylvie's soft eyes shone upon him, full of the pity and tenderness of some divine angel near God's throne,--an angel of sweetness--an angel of forgiveness--ah!--so sweet she was, so childlike, so trusting, so fair, so enticing in those exquisite ways of hers which had pleaded with him, prayed to him, tried to draw him back from evil, and incite him to noble thought; "ways" that would have persuaded him to cleanse his flag of honour from the mud of social vice and folly, and lift it to the heavens white and pure! Ah, sweet ways!--sweet voice!--sweet woman!--sweet possibilities of life now gone forever! Again that sinking,--that icy chill! His eyes were closing--yet he forced himself to open them as he sank back heavily on the turf, and then--then he saw the great white moon descending on him as it seemed, like a shield of silver flung down to crush him, by some angry god!

"Sylvie!--Sylvie!" he muttered, "I never knew--how much I loved you--till-now! Sylvie!"

His eyes closed--a little smile flickered on his mouth for a moment--and then the Shadow fell. And he lay stark and pallid in the moonlight, close to the brother he had never known till the last hour of life had revealed the bond of blood between them. Side by side they lay,--strangely alike in death,--men to whom the possibilities of noble living had been abundantly given, and who had wasted all their substance on vanity. For Victor Miraudin, despite his genius and the brilliancy of his art, was not likely to be longer remembered or mourned than the Marquis Fontenelle. The fame of the actor is even less than that of the great noble,--the actor's name is but a bubble on the air which a breath disperses,--and the heir to a proud house is only remembered by the flattering inscription on his tombstone. Forgotten Caesars, greater than any living monarch, had mixed their bones with the soil where these two sons of one father lay dead,--the bright moon was their sanctuary lamp,--the stars their funeral torches,--the width of the Campagna their bier, and the heavens their pall. And when the two terrified witnesses of the fatal fight realised the position, and saw that both combatants had truly perished, there were no regrets, no lamentations, no prayers, no thought of going for assistance. With the one selfish idea uppermost,--that of escaping immediate trouble--Jeanne Richaud rallied her scattered wits, and dragging the praying and gesticulating cab-driver up from his knees, she bade him mount his box and drive her back to the city. Tremblingly he prepared to obey, but not without unfastening the horse which the dead Marquis had so lately ridden, and taking some trouble to attach it to his vehicle for his own uses.

"For if we do this, they will never know!" he muttered with chattering teeth, "A horse is always a horse--and this is a good animal, more valuable than the men;--and when they find the men that is none of our business. In--in with you, Madama! I will drive you into the city,--that is, if you give me a thousand francs instead of the five hundred your man promised me! Otherwise I will leave you here!"

"A thousand!" shrieked Richaud, "Oh, thief! You know I am a poor stranger--Oh, mon Dieu! Do not murder me!" This, as the driver, having hustled her into the vehicle and shut the door, now shook his dirty fist at her threateningly. "Oh!--what a night of horror! Yes--yes!--a thousand!--anything!--only take me back to Rome!"

Satisfied in his own mind that he had intimidated her sufficiently to make her give him whatever he demanded, the driver who, despite his native cupidity, was seriously alarmed for his own safety, hesitated no longer, and the noise of the dashing wheels and the galloping hoofs woke loud echoes from the road, and dull reverberations from the Ponte Nomentano, as the equipage, with two horses now instead of one, clattered out of sight. And then came silence,--the awful silence of the Campagna--a silence like no other silence in the world--brooding like darkness around the dead.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXIV

The next morning dawned with all the strange half mystical glow of light and colour common to the Italian sky,--flushes of pink warmed the gray clouds, and dazzling, opalescent lines of blue suggested the sun without declaring it,--and Sylvie Hermenstein, who had passed a restless and wakeful night, rose early to go on one of what her society friends called her "eccentric" walks abroad, before the full life of the city was up and stirring. She, who seemed by her graceful mignonne fascinations and elegant toilettes, just a butterfly of fashion and no more, was truly of a dreamy and poetic nature,--she had read very deeply, and the griefs and joys of humanity presented an ever-varying problem to her refined and penetrative mind. She was just now interesting herself in subjects which she had never studied so closely before,--and she was gradually arriving at the real secret of the highest duty of life,--that of serving and working for others without consideration for oneself. A great love was teaching her as only a great love can;--a love which she scarcely dared to admit to herself, but which nevertheless was beginning to lead her step by step, into that mysterious land, half light, half shadow, which is the nearest road to Heaven,--a land where we suffer gladly for another's sorrow, and are joyous in our own griefs, because another is happy! To love ONE greatly, means to love ALL more purely,--and to find heart-room and sympathy for the many sorrows and perplexities of those who are not as uplifted as ourselves. For the true mission of the divine passion in its divinest form, is that it should elevate and inspire the soul, bringing it to the noblest issues, and for this it must be associated with respect, as well as passion. No true soul can love what it does not sincerely feel to be worthy of love. And Sylvie--the brilliant little caressable Sylvie, whose warm heart had been so long unsatisfied, was, if not yet crowned by the full benediction of love, still gratefully aware of the wonderful colour and interest which had suddenly come into her life with the friendship of Aubrey Leigh. His conversation, so different to the "small talk" of the ordinary man, not only charmed her mind, but strengthened and tempered it,--his thoughtful and tender personal courtesy filled her with that serenity which is always the result of perfect manner,--his high and pure ideas of life moved her to admiration and homage,--and when she managed to possess herself of every book he had written, and had read page after page, sentence after sentence, of the glowing, fervent, passionate language, in which he denounced shams and glorified truth,--the firmness and fearlessness with which he condemned religious hypocrisy, and lifted pure Christianity to the topmost pinnacle of any faith ever known or accepted in the world, her feelings for him, while gaining fresh warmth, grew deeper and more serious, merging into reverence as well as submission. She had a book of his with her as a companion to her walk this very morning, and as she entered the Pamphili woods, where she had a special "permesso" to go whenever she chose, and trod the mossy paths, where the morning sun struck golden shafts between the dark ilex-boughs, as though pointing to the thousands of violets that blossomed in the grass beneath, she opened it at a page containing these lines:--

"Who is it that dares assert that his life or his thoughts are his own? No man's life is his own! It is given to him in charge to use for the benefit of others,--and if he does not so use it, it is often taken from him when he least expects it. 'THOU FOOL, THIS NIGHT THY LIFE SHALL BE REQUIRED OF THEE!' No man's thoughts even, are his own. They are the radiations of the Infinite Mind of God which pass through every living atom. The beggar may have the same thought as the Prime Minister,--he only lacks the power of expression. The more helpless and inept the beggar, the greater the responsibility of the Premier. For the Premier has received education, culture, training, and the choice of the people, and to him is given the privilege of voicing the beggar's thought. And not only the beggar's thought, but the thoughts of all in the nation who have neither the skill nor the force to speak. If he does not do what he is thus elected to do, he is but an inefficient master of affairs. And what shall we say of the ministers of Religion who are 'ordained' to voice the Message of Christ? To echo the Divine!--to repeat the grand Ethics of Life,--the Law of Love and Charity and Forbearance and Pity and Forgiveness! When one of these highly destined servants of the Great King fails in his duty,--when he cannot pardon the sinner,--when he looks churlishly upon a child, or condemns the innocent amusements of the young and happy,--when he makes the sweet Sabbath a day of penance instead of praise--of tyranny instead of rest,--when he has no charity for backsliders, no sympathy for the sorrowful, no toleration for the contradictors of his own particular theory--do we not feel that his very existence is a blasphemy, and his preaching a presumption!"

Here Sylvie raised her eyes from the book. She was near an ancient cedar-tree whose dark spreading boughs, glistening with the early morning dew, sparkled like a jewelled canopy in the sun,--at her feet the turf was brown and bare, but a little beyond at the turn of the pathway, a cluster of white narcissi waved their graceful stems to the light wind. There was a rustic bench close by, and she sat down to rest and think. Very sweet thoughts were hers,--such thoughts as sweet women cherish when they dream of Love. Often the dream vanishes before realisation, but this does not make the time of dreaming less precious or less fair. Lost in a reverie which in its pleasantness brought a smile to her lips, she did not hear a stealthy footstep on the grass behind her, or feel a pair of dark eyes watching her furtively from between the cedar-boughs,--and she started with surprise, and something of offence also, as Monsigner Gherardi suddenly appeared and addressed her,--

"Buon giorno, Contessa!"

She rose from her seat and saluted him in silence, instinctively grasping the book she held a little closer. But Gherardi's quick glance had already perceived the title and the name of its author.

"You improve the time!" he said, sarcastically, pacing slowly beside her. "To one of your faith and devotion that book should be accursed!"

She raised her clear eyes and looked at him straightly,

"Is the sunlight accursed?" she said, "The grass or the flowers? The thoughts in this book are as pure and beautiful as they!"

Gherardi smiled. The enthusiasm of a woman's unspoilt nature was always a source of amusement to him.

"Your sentiments are very pretty and poetic!" he said, "But they are exaggerated. That book is on the 'Index'!"

"Yes, of course it would be!" answered Sylvie quietly, "I have often wondered why so much fine literature is condemned by the Church,--and do you know, it occurred to me the other day that if our Lord had WRITTEN what He said in the form of a book, it might be placed on the 'Index' also?"

Gherardi lifted his eyes from their scrutiny of the ground, and fixed them upon her with a look of amazement that was almost a menace. But she was not in the least intimidated,--and her face, though pale as the narcissi she had just seen in blossom, was very tranquil.

"Are you the Comtesse Hermenstein?" said Gherardi then, after an impressive pause, "The faithful, gentle daughter of Holy Church? or are you some perverted spirit wearing her semblance?"

Sylvie laughed.

"If I am a perverted spirit you ought to be able to exorcise me, Monsignor!" she said,--"With the incense of early Mass clinging to you, and the holy water still fresh on your hands, you have only to say, 'Retro me Sathanas!' and if I am NOT Sylvie Hermenstein I shall melt into thin air, leaving nothing but the odour of sulphur behind me! But if I AM Sylvie Hermenstein, I shall remain invincible and immovable,--both in myself and in my opinions!"

Gherardi controlled his rising irritation, and was silent for some minutes, reflecting within himself that if the fair Countess had suddenly turned restive and wayward, it was probably because she was falling in love with the author whose works she defended, and taking this into consideration, he judged it would be wisest to temporise.

"Invincible you always are!" he said in softer tones, "As many unhappy men in Europe can testify!"

"Are you among them?" queried Sylvie mischievously, the light of laughter beginning to twinkle and flash in her pretty eyes.

"Of course!" answered Gherardi suavely, though his heart beat thickly, and the secret admiration he had always felt for the delicate beauty of this woman who was so utterly out of his reach, made his blood burn with mingled rage and passion. "Even a poor priest is not exempt from temptation!"

Sylvie hummed a little tune under her breath, and looked up at the sky.

"It will be a lovely day!" she said--"There will be no rain!"

"Is that the most interesting thing you can say to me?" queried Gherardi.

"The weather is always interesting," she replied, "And it is such a safe subject of conversation!"

"Then you are afraid of dangerous subjects?"

"Oh no, not at all! But I dislike quarrelling,--and I am afraid I should get very angry if you were to say anything more against the book I am reading"--here she paused a moment, and then added steadily, "or its author!"

"I am aware that he is a great friend of yours," said Gherardi gently, "And I assure you, Contessa--seriously I assure you, I should be the last person in the world to say anything against him. Indeed, there is nothing to say, beyond the fact that he is, according to our religion, a heretic--but he is a brilliant and intellectual heretic,--WELL WORTH REDEEMING!" He emphasised the words, and shot a meaning glance at her; but she did not appear to take his hint or fathom his intention. She walked on steadily, her eyes downcast,--her tiny feet, shod in charming little French walking shoes, peeping in and out with a flash of steel on their embroidered points, from under the mysterious gleam of silk flounces that gave a soft "swish," as she moved,--her golden hair escaping in one or two silky waves from under a picturesque black hat, fastened on by velvet ribbons, which were tied in a captivating knot under the sweetest of little white chins, a chin whose firm contour almost contradicted the sensitive lines of the kissable mouth above it. A curious, dull sense of anger teased the astute brain of Domenico Gherardi, as with all the dignified deportment of the stately churchman, he walked on by her side. What was all his scheming worth, he began to think, if this slight feminine creature proved herself more than a match for him? The utmost he could do with his life and ambitions was to sway the ignorant, cram his coffers with gold, and purchase a change of mistresses for his villa at Frascati. But love,--real love, from any human creature alive he never had won, and knew he never should win. Sylvie Hermenstein was richer far than he,--she had not only wealth and a great position, but the joys of a natural existence, and of a perfect home-life were not denied to her. Presently, seeing that they were approaching the gates of exit from the Pamphili, he said,--

"Contessa, will you give me the favour of an hour's conversation with you one afternoon this week? I have something of the very greatest importance to say to you."

"Can you not say it now?" asked Sylvie.

"No, it would take too long,--besides, if walls have ears, it is possible that gardens have tongues! I should not presume to trouble you, were it not for the fact that my business concerns the welfare of your friend, Mr. Aubrey Leigh, in whose career I think you are interested,--and not only Mr. Leigh, but also Cardinal Bonpre. You will be wise to give me the interview I seek,--unwise if you refuse it!"

"Monsignor, you have already been well received at my house, and will be well received again,"--said Sylvie with a pretty dignity, "Provided you do not abuse my hospitality by calumniating my FRIENDS, whatever you may think of myself,--you will be welcome! What day, and at what hour shall I expect you?"

Gherardi considered a moment.

"I will write," he said at last, "I cannot at this moment fix the time, but I will not fail to give you notice. A riverderci! Benedicite!"

And he left her abruptly at the gates, walking rapidly in the direction of the Vatican. Full of vague perplexities to which she could give no name, Sylvie went homewards slowly, and as she entered her rooms, and responded to the affectionate morning greetings of Madame Bozier, she was conscious of a sudden depression that stole over her bright soul like a dark cloud on a sunny day, and made her feel chilled and sad. Turning over the numerous letters that waited her perusal, she recognised the handwriting of the Marquis Fontenelle on one, and took it up with a strange uneasy dread and beating of the heart. She read it twice through, before entirely grasping its meaning, and then--as she realised that the man who had caused her so much pain and shame by his lawless and reckless pursuit of her in the character of a libertine, was now, with a frank confession of his total unworthiness, asking her to be his wife,--the tears rushed to her eyes, and a faint cry broke from her lips.

"Oh, I cannot . . . I cannot!" she murmured, "Not now--not now!"

Madame Bozier looked at her in distress and amazement.

"What is the matter, dear?" she asked, "Some bad news?"

Silently Sylvie handed her Fontenelle's letter.

"Dear me! He is actually in Rome!" said the old lady, "And he asks you to be his wife! Well, dear child, is not that what you had a right to expect from him?"

"Yes--perhaps--but I cannot--not now!--Oh no, not now!" murmured Sylvie, and her eyes, wet with tears, were full of an infinite pain.

"But--pardon me dear--do you not love him?"

Sylvie stood silent--gazing blankly before her, with such perplexity and sorrow in her face that her faithful gouvernante grew anxious and troubled.

"Child, do not look like that!" she exclaimed, "It cuts me to the heart! You were not made for sorrow!"

"Dear Katrine,--we were all made for sorrow," said Sylvie slowly, "Sorrow is good for us. And perhaps I have not had sufficient of it to make me strong. And this is real sorrow to me,--to refuse Fontenelle!"

"But why refuse him if you love him?" asked Madame Bozier bewildered.

Sylvie sat down beside her, and put one soft arm caressingly round her neck.

"Ah, Katrine,--that is just my trouble," she said, "I do not love him now! When I first met him he attracted me greatly, I confess,--he seemed so gentle, so courteous, and above all, so true! But it was 'seeming' only, Katrine!--and he was not anything of what he seemed. His courtesy and gentleness were but a mask for licentiousness,--his apparent truth was but a disguise for mere reckless and inconstant passion. I had to find this bit by bit,--and oh, how cruel was the disillusion! How I prayed for him, wept for him, tried to think that if he loved me he might yet endeavour to be nobler and truer for my sake. But his love was not great enough for that. What he wanted was the body of me, not the soul. What I wanted of him was the soul, not the body! So we played at cross purposes,--each with a different motive,--and gradually, as I came to recognise how much baseness and brutality there is in mere libertinism,--how poor and paltry an animal man becomes when he serves himself and his passions only, my attraction for him diminished,--I grew to realise that I could never raise him out of the mud, because he had lived by choice too long in it,--I could never persuade him to be true, even to himself, because he found the ways of falsehood and deceit more amusing. He did unworthy things, which I could not, with all my admiration for him, gloze over or excuse;--in fact, I found that in his private life and code of honour he was very little better than Miraudin,--and Miraudin, as you know, one CANNOT receive!"

"He is in Rome also," said Madame Bozier, "I saw his name placarded in the streets only yesterday, and also outside one of the leading theatres. He has brought all his Parisian company here to act their repertoire for a few nights before proceeding to Naples."

"How strange he should be here!" said Sylvie, "How very strange! He is so like the Marquis Fontenelle, Katrine! So very like! I used to go to the theatre and frighten myself with studying the different points of resemblance! be the rough copy of Fontenelle's,--and I always saw in the actor what the gentleman would be if he continued to live as he was doing. Miraudin, whose amours are a disgrace, EVEN to the stage!--Miraudin, who in his position of actor-manager, takes despicable advantage of all the poor ignorant, struggling creatures who try to get into his company, and whose vain little heads are turned by a stray compliment,--and to think that the Marquis Fontenelle should be merely the better-born copy of so mean a villain! Ah, what useless tears I have shed about it,--how I have grieved and worried myself all in vain!--and now . . ."

"Now he asks you to marry him," said Madame Bozier gently, "And you think it would be no use? You could not perhaps make him a better man?"

"Neither I nor any woman could!" said Sylvie, "I do not believe very much in 'reforming' men, Katrine. If they need to reform, they must reform themselves. We make our own lives what they are."

"Dear little philosopher!" said Madame Bozier tenderly, taking Sylvie's small white hand as it hung down from her shoulder and kissing it, "You are very depressed to-day! You must not take things so seriously! If you do not love the Marquis as you once did--"

"As I once did--ah, yes!" said Sylvie, "I did love him. I thought he could not be otherwise than great and true and noble-hearted--but--"

She broke off with a sigh.

"Well, and now that you know he is not the hero you imagined him, all you have to do is to tell him so," said the practical Bozier cheerfully, "Or if you do not want to pain him by such absolute candour, give him his refusal as gently and kindly as you can."

Sylvie sighed again.

"I am very sorry," she said, "If I could have foreseen this--perhaps--"

"But did you not foresee it?" asked Madame Bozier persistently, "Did you not realize that men always want what they cannot have--and that the very fact of your leaving Paris increased his ardour and sent him on here in pursuit?"

Sylvie Hermenstein was of a very truthful nature, and she had not attempted to deny this suggestion.

"Yes--I confess I did think that if I separated myself altogether from him it might induce him to put himself in a more honourable position with me--but I did not know then--" she paused, and a deep flush crimsoned her cheeks.

"Did not know what?" queried Madame Bozier softly.

Sylvie hesitated a moment, then spoke out bravely.

"I did not know then that I should meet another man whose existence would become ten times more interesting and valuable to me than his! Yes, Katrine, I confess it! There is no shame in honesty! And so, to be true to myself, however much the Marquis might love me now, I could never be his wife."

Madame Bozier was silent. She guessed her beloved pupil's heart's secret,--but she was too tactful to dwell upon the subject, and before the brief, half-embarrassed pause between them had ended, a servant entered, asking,

"Will the Signora Contessa receive the Capitano Ruspardi?"

Sylvie rose from her seat with a look of surprise.

"Ruspardi?--I do not know the name."

"The business is urgent;--the Capitano is the bearer of a letter to the Signora Contessa."

"Remain with me, Katrine," said Sylvie after a pause,--then to the servant--"Show Captain Ruspardi in here."

Another moment, and a young officer in the Italian uniform entered hurriedly,--his face was very pale,--and as the Comtesse Hermenstein received him in her own serene sweet manner which, for all its high-bred air had something wonderfully winning and childlike about it, his self-control gave way, and when after a profound salute he raised his eyes, she saw they were full of tears. Her heart began to beat violently.

"You bring some bad news?" she asked faintly.

"Madama, I beg you not to distress yourself--this letter--" and he held out a sealed envelope,--"was given to me specially marked, among others, by my friend, the Marquis Fontenelle--last right before--before he went to his death!"

"His death!" echoed Sylvie, her eyes dilating with horror--"His death! What do you mean?"

Madame Bozier came quickly to her side, and put a hand gently on her arm. But she did not seem to feel the sympathetic touch.

"His death!" she murmured. And with trembling fingers she opened and read the last lines ever penned by her too passionate admirer.

"SWEETEST SYLVIE! Dearest and purest of women! If you ever receive this letter I shall be gone beyond the reach of your praise or your blame. For it will not be given to you at all unless I am dead. Dead, dear Sylvie! That will be strange, will it not? To be lying quite still, cold and stiff, out of the reach of your pretty warm white arms,--deprived for ever and ever of any kiss from your rose-red lips,--ah, Sylvie, it will be very cold and lonely! But perhaps better so! To-night I saw you, up in your balcony, with someone who is a brave and famous man, and who no doubt loves you. For he cannot fail to love you, if he knows you. God grant you may be happy when I am gone! But I want you to feel that to-night--to-night I love you!--love you as I have never loved you or any woman before--without an evil thought,--without a selfish wish!--to the very height and breadth of love, I love you, my queen, my rose, my saving grace of sweetness!--whose name I shall say to God as my best prayer for pardon, if I die to-night!

FONTENELLE."

Sylvie shuddered as with icy cold . . . a darkness seemed to overwhelm her . . . she staggered a little, and Ruspardi caught her, wondering--at the lightness and delicacy and beauty of her, as he assisted Madame Bozier to lead her to a deep fauteuil where she sank down, trembling in every nerve.

"And--he is dead?" she asked mechanically.

Ruspardi bowed a grave assent. She paused a moment--then forced herself to speak again.

"How did it happen?"

In brief, concise words Ruspardi gave the account of the quarrel with Miraudin,--and Sylvie shrank back as though she had received a blow when she heard that her name had been the cause of the dispute.

"And this morning, hearing no news," continued Ruspardi, "I made enquiries at the theatre. There I found everything in confusion; Miraudin and a soubrette named Jeanne Richaud, had left Rome the previous evening so the box-keeper said, and there was no news of either of them beyond a note from the girl saying she had returned alone to Paris by the first morning train. Nothing had been heard of Miraudin himself;--I therefore, knowing all the circumstances, drove out to the Campagna by the Porte Pia, the way that Miraudin had gone, and the way I bade the Marquis follow;--but on the Ponte Nomentano I met some of the Miserecordia carrying two corpses on the same bier,--two corpses so strangely alike that they might almost have been brothers!--they were the bodies of the Marquis Fontenelle and,--Miraudin!"

Sylvie uttered a low cry and covered her face with her hands.

"Miraudin!" exclaimed Madame Bozier in horrified tones. "Miraudin! Is he killed also?"

"Yes, Madame! Both shots must have been fired with deadly aim. They had no seconds. Miraudin had hired a common fiacre to escape in from the city, and the police will offer a reward for the discovery of the driver. My horse, which my unfortunate friend Fontenelle rode, is gone, and if it could be discovered, its possessor might furnish a clue;--but I imagine it will be difficult, if not impossible to trace the witnesses of the combat. The woman Richaud is on her way to Paris. But by this time all Rome knows of the death of Miraudin; and in a few hours all the world will know!"

"And what of the Marquis Fontenelle?" asked Madame Bozier.

"Madama, I posted all the letters he entrusted to my charge. The one I have brought to the Contessa was enclosed in an envelope to me and marked 'To be personally delivered in case of my death.' But among the letters for the post was one to the Marquis's only sister, the Abbess of a convent in Paris--she will probably claim her brother's remains."

He was silent. After a pause Sylvie rose unsteadily, and detached a cluster of violets she wore at her neck.

"Will you--" her voice faltered.

But Ruspardi understood, and taking the flowers, respectfully kissed the little hand that gave them.

"They shall be buried with him," he said. "His hand was clenched in death on a small knot of lace--you perhaps might recognise it,--yes?--so!--it shall be left as it was found."

And,--his melancholy errand being done,--he bowed profoundly once more, and retired.

Sylvie gazed around her vaguely,--the letter of her dead admirer grasped in her hand,--and his former letter, proposing marriage, lying still open on the table. Her old gouvernante watched her anxiously, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You are crying, Katrine!" she said, "And yet you knew him very little,--he never loved you! I wish--I wish MY tears would come! But they are all here--aching and hurting me--"and she pressed her hand to her heart--"You see--when one is a woman and has been loved by a man, one cannot but feel sorry--for such an end! You see he was not altogether cruel!--he defended my name--and he has died for my sake! For my sake!--Oh, Katrine! For MY sake! So he DID love me--at the last! . . . and I--I--Oh, Katrine!--I wish--I wish the tears would come!"

And as she spoke she reeled--and uttering a little cry like that of a wounded bird, dropped senseless.

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XXV

The death of the famous actor Miraudin was a nine days' wonder, and about a three weeks' regret. He had made no reputation beyond that of the clever Mime,--he was not renowned for scholarship,--he had made no mark in dramatic literature,--and his memory soon sank out of sight in the whirling ocean of events as completely as though he had never existed. There was no reality about him, and as a natural consequence he went the way of all Shams. Had even his study of his art been sincere and high--had he sought for the best, the greatest, and most perfect work, and represented that only to the public, the final judgment of the world might perhaps have given him a corner beside Talma or Edmund Kean,--but the conceit of him, united to an illiterate mind, was too great for the tolerance of the universal Spirit of things which silently in the course of years pronounces the last verdict on a man's work. Only a few of his own profession remembered him as one who might have been great had he not been so little;--and a few women laughed lightly, recalling the legion of his "amours", and said, "Ce pauvre coquin, Miraudin!" That was all. And for the mortal remains of Guy Beausire de Fontenelle, there came a lady, grave and pale, clothed in deep black, with the nun's white band crossing her severe and tranquil brows,--and she, placing a great wreath of violets fresh gathered from the Pamphili woods, and marked, "In sorrow, from Sylvie Hermenstein", on the closed coffin, escorted her melancholy burden back to Paris, where in a stately marble vault, to the solemn sound of singing, and amid the flare of funeral tapers, with torn battle banners drooping around his bier, and other decaying fragments of chivalry, the last scion of the once great house of Fontenelle was laid to rest with his fathers. Little did the austere Abbess, who was the chief mourner at these obsequies, guess that the actor Miraudin, whose grave had been hastily dug in Rome, had also a right to be laid in the same marble vault;--proud and cold and stern as her heart had grown through long years of pain and disappointment, it is possible that had she known this, her sufferings might have been still more poignant. But the secret had died with the dead so far as the world went;--there remained but the Eternal Record on which the bond of brotherhood was inscribed,--and in that Eternal Record some of us do our best not to believe, notwithstanding the universal secret dread that we shall all be confronted with it at last.

Meanwhile, events were moving rapidly, and the net of difficult circumstance was weaving itself round the good Cardinal Bonpre in a manner that was strangely perplexing to his clear and just mind. He had received a letter from Monsignor Moretti, worded in curtly civil terms, to the effect that as the Cardinal's miracle of healing had been performed in France, he, as on Vatican service in Paris, found it his duty to enquire thoroughly into all the details. For this cause, he, Monsignor Moretti, trusted it would suit the Cardinal's convenience to remain in Rome till the return of Monsieur Claude Cazeau, secretary to the Archbishop of Rouen, who had been despatched back to that city on the business connected with this affair. Thus Monsignor Moretti;--and Cardinal Bonpre, reading between the lines of his letter, knew that the displeasure of Rome had fallen upon him as heavily as it did upon the eloquent and liberal-minded Padre Agostino when he made the mistake of asking a blessing from Heaven on the King and Queen of Italy for their works of charity among the poor. And he easily perceived where the real trouble lay,--namely, in the fact of his having condoned the Abbe Vergniaud's public confession. Out of the one thing there was an effort being made to contrive mischief with the other,--and Bonpre, being too frail and old to worry his brain with complex arguments as to the how and why and wherefore of the machinations carried on at the Vatican, resigned himself to God, and contenting his mind with meditation and prayer, waited events patiently, caring little how they ended for himself, provided they did not involve others in any catastrophe. Moreover, there was a certain consolation contained in his enforced waiting,--for his niece Angela had confided to him that the work of her great picture had advanced more swiftly than she had imagined possible, and that it was likely she would be able to show it to her relatives and private friends in the course of a week or so.

"But Florian must see it first," she said, "Of course you know that! Florian must always be first!"

"Yes," and the Cardinal stroked her hair tenderly, while his eyes rested on her with rather a troubled look--"Yes--of course--Florian first. I suppose he will always be first with you, Angela?--after God?"

"Always!" she answered softly, "Always--after God!"

And Felix Bonpre sighed--he knew not why--except that he was always sorry for women who loved men with any very great exaltation or devotion. That curiously tender adoration of a true woman's heart which is so often wasted on an unworthy object, seemed to him like lifting a cup of gold to a swine's snout. He found no actual fault with Florian Varillo,--he was just a man as men go, with nothing very pronounced about him, except a genius for fine mosaic-like painting. He was not a great creator, but he was a delicate and careful artist,--a man against whom nothing particular could be said, except perhaps that his manner was often artificial, and that his conduct was not always sincere. But he had a power of fascinating the opposite sex,--and Angela had fallen a willing victim to his candid smile, clear eyes, charming voice, and courteous ways,--and with that strange inconsistency so common to gifted women, she was so full of "soul" and "over-soul" herself, that she could not imagine "soul" lacking in others;--and never dreamed of making herself sure that it elevated the character or temperament of the man she loved.

"Alas, the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown And, if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring!" [Footnote: Byron]

During the time that matters were thus pending in Rome, Claude Cazeau, well satisfied with himself, and the importance of being entrusted with a special message from the Vatican to the Archbishop of Rouen, returned to the Normandy capital with many ambitious speculations rife in his brain, and schemes for improving the position of confidence with which he had, by the merest chance, and the fluctuations of the Pope's hunxour, been suddenly thrust. He took the Patoux family by surprise on the evening of his arrival in Rouen, and much to his secret satisfaction found Martine Doucet in their company. The children were gone to bed, and the appearance of Cazeau in Papa Patoux's kitchen was evidently not altogether the most agreeable circumstance that could have happened at the Hotel Poitiers. He was civilly received, however, and when he expressed his pleasure at seeing Madame Doucet present, that worthy female lifted her eyes from her knitting and gave him a suspicious glance of exceeding disfavour.

"I do not see what pleasure my company can give you, Monsieur," she said curtly, "I am only a poor marketwoman!"

"But you have been singularly favoured by the protection and confidence of a great Cardinal,--" began Cazeau.

"Protection--confidence--!" echoed Martine snappishly, "Nom de Jesus! What is the man talking about! I never set eyes on the Cardinal in my life. But that he cured my Fabien is enough to make me think of him as a saint for ever,--though it seems there are some that would almost make him out to be a devil for having done a good deed! And ever since my boy was cured I have lived a life of torture and trouble--yes, truly!--torn between two things, our Blessed Lord and the Church! But I am trying my best to keep fast hold of our Lord, whatever the Church may do to me!"

"Dear me!" said Cazeau blandly, turning with a smile and propitiatory air to Patoux who sat silently smoking, "Madame Doucet seems a little--what shall we say?--unduly excited? Yet surely the recovery of her child should fill her with thanksgiving and make her a faithful and devout servant--" "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted Madame Patoux, "Believe me, Martine is thankful enough, and devout enough,--but truly it has been very hard for her to suffer the things that have been said to her of late,--how that the child could never have been really crippled at all, but simply shamming,--how that it was all a trick got up between herself and the priests for the purpose of bringing visitors and their money to Rouen,--for of course since the miracle was noised abroad there have been many pilgrimages to Notre Dame, it having got about that there was some mysterious spirit or angel in one of the shrines,--for look you, our Archbishop, when he came to visit the Cardinal here in this very hotel, distinctly remembers that His Eminence assured him he had heard strange music in the Cathedral, when truly there was no organ unlocked, and no organist on duty,--and then there was something about the boy that His Eminence found lost that night . . ."

"Stop! Stop!" said Cazeau, growing impatient, "Your eloquence is so impressive, Madame, and you say so much that is excellent in one breath, that you must pardon my inferior capacity in not being able to follow you quite coherently! There are conflicting statements, you say--"

"No, there are none," said Patoux himself, drawing his pipe out of his mouth slowly, and looking intently at its well-sucked stem--"It is all the same sort of thing. A child is sick--a child is cured--and it is either God or the Devil who has done it. Some people prefer to think it is the Devil,--some give the praise to God. It was exactly like that whenever our Lord did a good deed. Half the folks said he was God,--the other half that he had a devil. Jerusalem was like Rouen, Rouen is like Jerusalem. Jerusalem was ancient and wicked; Rouen is modern and wickeder,--that's all! As for music in the church, we have only the Archbishop's warrant that the Cardinal ever said anything about hearing music."

"'ONLY' the Archbishop's warrant!" echoed Cazeau meaningly.

"I said 'ONLY', Monsieur!--Make the best of it!" answered Patoux, sticking his pipe into his mouth again, and resuming his smoke with undisturbed tranquillity.

Cazeau hummed and hawed,--he was irritated yet vaguely amused too at the singular self-assertion of these common folk who presumed to take their moral measurement of an Archbishop! It is a strange fact, but these same common folk always DO take these sorts of measurements.

"The inconsistencies--(if there are any--) in the story will soon be cleared up," he said, with a benevolent assumption of authority, "At least, I hope so! I am glad to say that I am entrusted with a message to the Archbishop from our Holy Father, the Pope,--and I have also His Holiness's instructions to request you, Madame Doucet, together with your son Fabien, to accompany me back to Rome!"

Martine Doucet bounced up from her chair, and let fall her knitting.

"Me--me!" she cried, "ME go to Rome! Never! Wild horses will not drag me there, nor shall you take my Fabien either! What should I do in Rome?"

"Testify personally to the truth of the Cardinal's miracle," answered Cazeau, gazing coldly at her excited face as though he saw something altogether strange and removed from human semblance. "And bring your child into the Holy Presence and relate his history. It will be nothing but an advantage to you,--for you will obtain a patient hearing, and the priceless boon of the Papal benediction!"

"Grand merci!" said Martine, "But I have lived more than half my time without the Papal benediction, and I can work out the rest of my days in the same way! Look you!--there is a great English Duke I am told, who has an only son sorely afflicted, and he has taken this son to every place in the world where the Church is supposed to work miracles for the healing of the sick and the helpless,--all to no use, for the poor boy is as sick and helpless as ever. How is that? What has the Papal benediction done for him?"

"Woman, your tongue overrules your senses!" said Cazeau, with rising temper, "You rail against the Church like an ungrateful heathen, even though you owe your son's recovery to the Church! For what is Cardinal Bonpre but a Prince of the Church?"

Martine stuck her arms akimbo, and surveyed him disdainfully.

"OH--HE!" she cried, "My tongue overrules my senses, Monsieur Clause Cazeau! Take care that your cunning does not overrule yourself! Did I ever deny the worth and the goodness of Cardinal Bonpre? Though if I were to speak the whole truth, and if I were to believe the nonsense-talk of a child, I should perhaps give the credit of the miracle to the stray boy whom the Cardinal found outside the Cathedral door--"Cazeau started--"For Fabien says that he began to feel strong the moment that little lad touched him!"

"The boy!" exclaimed Cazeau--"The boy!"

A curious silence ensued. Jean Patoux lifting his drowsy eyes gazed fixedly at the whitewashed ceiling,--Madame, his wife, stood beside him watching the changes on Cazeau's yellow face--and Martine sat down to take breath after her voluble outburst.

"The boy!" muttered Cazeau again--then he broke into a harsh laugh.

"What folly!" he exclaimed, "As if a little tramp of the streets could have anything to do with a Church miracle! Martine Doucet, if you were to say such a thing at the Vatican--"

"I have not said it," said Martine angrily, "I only told you what my Fabien says. I am not answerable for the thoughts of the child! That he is well and strong--that he has the look and the soul of an angel, is enough for me to praise God all my life. But I shall never say the Laus Deo at the Vatican,--you will have no chance to trap me in that way!"

Cazeau stared at her haughtily.

"You must be mad!" he said, "No one wishes to 'trap' you, as you express it! The miracle of healing performed on your child is a very remarkable one,--it should not be any surprise to you that the Head of the Church seeks to know all the details of it thoroughly, in order to ratify and confirm it, and perhaps bestow new honour on the eminent Cardinal--"

"I rather doubt that!" interposed Patoux slowly, "For I gather from our Archbishop that the Holy Father was suspicious of some trick rather than an excess of sanctity!"

Cazeau reddened through his pallid skin.

"I know nothing of that!" he said curtly, "But my orders are imperative, and I shall seek the assistance of the Archbishop to enforce and carry them out! For the moment I have the honour to wish you good-night, Monsieur Patoux!--and you also, Mesdames!"

And he departed abruptly, in an anger which he was at no pains to disguise. Personally he cared nothing about the miracle or how it had been accomplished, but he cared very much for his own advancement,--and he saw, or thought he saw, a chance of very greatly improving his position among the ecclesiastical authorities if he only kept a cool head and a clear mind. He recognised that there was a desire on the part of the Pope to place Cardinal Bonpre under close observance and restraint on account of his having condoned the Abbe Vergniaud's confession to his congregation in Paris; and he rightly judged that anything he could do to aid the accomplishment of that end would not be without its reward. And the few words which Martine Doucet had let drop concerning the stray boy who now lived under the Cardinal's protection, had given him a new idea which he resolved to act upon when he returned to Rome. For it was surely very strange that an eminent Prince of the Church should allow himself to be constantly attended by a little tramp rescued from the street! There was something in it more than common,--and Cazeau decided that he would suggest a close enquiry being made on this point.

Crossing the square opposite the Hotel Poitiers, he hesitated before turning the corner of the street which led towards the avenue where the Archbishop's house was situated. The night was fine and calm--the air singularly balmy,--and he suddenly decided to take a stroll by the river before finally returning to his rooms for the night. There is one very quiet bit of the Seine in Rouen where the water flows between unspoilt grassy banks, which in summer are a frequent resort for lovers to dream the dreams which so often come to nothing,--and here Cazeau betook himself to smoke and meditate on the brilliancy of his future prospects. The river had been high in flood during the week, and the grass which sloped towards the water was still wet, and heavy to the tread. But Cazeau limited his walk to the broad summit of the bank, being aware that the river just below flowed over a muddy quicksand, into which, should a man chance to fall, it would be death and fast burial at one and the same moment. And Cazeau set a rather exorbitant value on his own life, as most men do whose lives are of no sort of consequence to the world. So he was careful to walk where there was the least danger of slipping,--and as he lit an excellent cigar, and puffed the faint blue rings of smoke out into the clear moonlit atmosphere, he was in a very agreeable frame of mind. He was crafty and clever in his way,--one of those to whom the Yankee term "cute" would apply in its fullest sense,--and he had the happy knack of forgetting his own mistakes and follies, and excusing his own sins with as much ease as though he were one of the "blood-royal" of nations. Vices he had in plenty in common with most men,--except that his particular form of licentiousness was distinguished by a callousness and cruelty in which there was no touch of redeeming quality. As a child he had loved to tear the wings off flies and other insects, and one of his keenest delights in boyhood had been to watch the writhings of frogs into whose soft bodies he would stick long pins,--the frogs would live under this treatment four and five hours--sometimes longer, and while observing their agonies he enjoyed "that contented mind which is a perpetual feast." Now that he was a man, he delighted in torturing human beings after the same methods applied mentally, whenever he could find a vulnerable part through which to thrust a sharp spear of pain.

"The eminent Cardinal Bonpre!" he mused now; "What is he to me! If I could force the Archbishop of Rouen into high favour at the Vatican instead of this foolish old Saint Felix, it would be a better thing for my future. After all, it was at Rouen that the miracle was performed--the city should have some credit! And Bonpre has condoned a heretic . . . he is growing old and feeble--possibly he is losing his wits. And then there is that boy . . ."

He started violently as a fantastic shadow suddenly crossed his path, in the moonlight, and a peal of violent laughter assailed his ears.

"Enfin! Toi, mon Claude!--enfin!--Grace a Dieu! Enfin!"

And the crazed creature, known as Marguerite, "La Folle", stood before him, her long black hair streaming over her bare chest and gaunt arms, her eyes dilated, and glowing with the mingled light of madness and despair.

Cazeau turned a livid white in the moon-rays;--his blood grew icy cold. What! After two years of dodging about the streets of Rouen to avoid meeting this wretched woman whom he had tricked and betrayed, had she found him at last!

"When did you come back from the fair?" cried the girl shrilly, "I lost you there, you know-and you man-aged to lose ME--but I have waited!--waited patiently for news of you! . . . and when none came, I still waited, making myself beautiful! . . . see!--" And she thrust her fingers through her long hair, throwing it about in wilder disorder than ever. "You thought you had killed me--and you were glad!--it makes all men glad to kill women when they can! But I--I was not killed so easily,--I have lived!--for this night--just for this night! Listen!" and she sprang forward and threw herself violently against his breast, "Do you love me now? Tell me again--as you told me at the fair--you love me?"

He staggered under her weight--and tried for a moment to thrust her back, but she held him in a grip of iron, looking up at him with her great feverish dark eyes, and grasping his shoulders with thin burning hands. He trembled;--he was beginning to grow horribly afraid. What devil had sent this woman whom he had ruined so long as two years ago, across his path to-night? Would it be possible to soothe her?

"Marguerite--" he began.

"Yes, yes, Marguerite! Say it again!" she cried wildly, "Marguerite! Say it again! Sweet--sweet and tenderly as you said it then! Poor Marguerite! Your pale ugly face seemed the face of a god to her once, because she thought you loved her--we all find men so beautiful when we think they love us! Yes--your cold eyes and cruel lips and hard brow!--it was quite a different face at the fair! So was mine a different face--but you!--YOU have made mine what it is now!--look at it! What!--you thought you could murder a woman and never be found out! You thought you could kill poor Marguerite, and that no one would ever know--"

"Hush, hush!" said Cazeau, his teeth chattering with the cold of his inward terror, "I never killed you, Marguerite!--I loved you--yes, listen!" For she was looking up at him with an attentive, almost sane expression in her eyes. "I meant to write to you after the fair,--and come to you . . ."

"Hush, hush!" said the girl, "Let me hear this!--this is strange news! He meant to write to me--yet he let me die by inches in an agony of waiting!--till I dropped into the darkness where I am now! He meant to come to me--oh, it was very easy to come if he had chosen to come,--before I wandered away into all this strangeness--this shadow--this confusion and fire! But you see, it is too late now," and she began to laugh again, "Too late! I have a strange idea that I am dead, though I seem alive--I am in my grave; and so you must die also and be buried with me! Yes, you must certainly die!--when one is cruel and false and treacherous one is not wanted in the world!--better to go out of it--and it is quite easy,--see!--this way!--"

And before he realised her intention she sprang back a step--then drew a knife from her bosom, and with a sort of exultant shriek, stabbed him furiously once--twice--thrice . . . crying out--"This for your lie! This for my sorrow!--This for your love!--"

Reeling back with the agony of her murderous blows he made a fierce effort to tear the knife from her hands, but she suddenly threw it a long way from her towards the river, where it fell with a light splash, and rushing at him twined her arms close about his neck, while her mad laughter, piercing and terrible, rang out through the quiet air.

"Together!" she said, "That day at the fair we were together, and now--we shall be together again! Come!--Come! I have waited long enough!--your promised letter never came--you have kept me waiting a long long while--but now I will wait no longer! I have found you!--I will never let you go!"

Furiously, despite his wounds, he fought with her,--tried to thrust her away from him,--and beat her backwards and downwards,--but she had the strength of ten women in her maddened frame, and she clung to him with the tenacity of some savage beast. All around them was perfectly quiet,--there was not a soul in sight,--there was no place near where a shout for help could have been heard. Struggling still, dizzy, blind and breathless, he did not see that they were nearing the edge of the slippery bank--all his efforts were concentrated in an endeavour to shake off the infuriated creature, made more powerful in her very madness by the just sense of her burning wrong and his callous treachery--when all at once his foot slipped and he fell to the ground. She pounced on him like a tigress, and fastened her fingers on his throat,--clutching his flesh and breathlessly muttering, "Never!--never! Never can you hide away from me any more! Together--together! I will never let you go!--" till, as his eyes rolled up in agony and his jaw relaxed, she uttered a shout of ecstasy to see him die! He sank heavily under her fierce grasp which she never relaxed for an instant, and his dead weight dragged her unconsciously down--down!--she not heeding or knowing whither she was moving,--down--still down!--till, as she clung to his inert body, madly determining not to let it go, she fell,--fast grappling her betrayer's corpse,--into the ominous stillness of the river. The flood opened, as it were, to receive the two,--the dead and the living--there was a slight ripple as though a mouth in the water smiled--then the usual calm surface reflected the moon once more, and there was no sign of trouble. Nothing struggled,--nothing floated,--all was perfectly tranquil. The bells chimed from all the churches in the city a quarter to midnight, and their pretty echoes were wafted across the water,--no other sound disturbed the silence,--not a trace of the struggle was left, save just one smeared track of grass and slime, which, if examined carefully, might have been found sprinkled with blood. But with the morning the earth would have swallowed those drops of human life as silently as the river-quicksand had sucked down the bodies of the betrayed and the betrayer;--in neither case would Nature have any hint to give of the tragedy enacted. Nature is a dumb witness to many dramas,--and it may be that she has eyes and ears and her own way of keeping records. Sometimes she gives up long-buried secrets, sometimes she holds them fast;--biding her time until the Judgment Day, when not only the crime shall be disclosed but the Cause of the crime's committal. And it may chance in certain cases, such as those of men who have deliberately ruined the lives of trusting and loving women, that the Cause may be proved a more criminal thing than the crime!

That night Martine Doucet slept badly, and had horrible dreams of being dragged by force to Rome, and there taken before the Pope who at once deprived her of her son Fabien, and ordered her to be shot in one of the public squares for neglecting to attend Mass regularly. And Jean Patoux and his wife, reposing on their virtuous marital couch, conversed a long time about the unexpected and unwelcome visit of Claude Cazeau, and the mission he had declared himself entrusted with from the Vatican,--"And you may depend upon it," said Madame sententiously, "that he will get his way by fair means or foul! I am thankful that neither of OUR children were subjects for a Church-miracle!--the trouble of the remedy seems more troublesome than the sickness!"

"No, no," said her husband, "Thou dost not judge these things rightly, my little one! God worked the remedy, as He works all good things,--and there would be no trouble about it if it were not for the men's strange way of taking it. Did ever our Lord do a good or a kind deed without being calumniated for it? Did not all those men-fools in Jerusalem go about 'secretly seeking how they might betray him'? That is a lesson for us all,--and never forget, petite, that for showing them the straight way to Heaven He was crucified!"

The next day a telegram was despatched from the Archbishop of Rouen to Monsignor Moretti at the Vatican:--

"Claude Cazeau visited Hotel Poitiers last night, but has since mysteriously disappeared. Every search and enquiry being made. Strongly suspect foul play."

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XXVI

November was now drawing to a close, and St. Cecilia's Day dawned in a misty sunrise, half cloud, half light, like smoke and flame intermingled. Aubrey Leigh, on waking that morning, had almost decided to leave Rome before the end of the month. He had learned all that was necessary for him to know;--he had not come to study the antiquities, or the dark memories of dead empires, for he would have needed to live at least ten years in the city to gain even a surface knowledge of all the Romes, built one upon another, in the Rome of to-day. His main object had been to discover whether the Holy See existed as a grand and pure institution for the uplifting and the saving of the souls of men; or whether it had degenerated into an unscrupulous scheme for drawing the money out of their pockets. He had searched this problem and solved it. He had perceived the trickery, the dissimulation and hypocrisy of Roman priestcraft. He had seen the Pope officiate at High Mass in the Sistine Chapel, having procured the "introduction from very high quarters" which, even according to ordinary guide-books, is absolutely necessary,--the "high quarters" in this instance being Monsignor Gherardi. Apart from this absurdity,--this impious idea of needing an "introduction" to a sacred service professedly held for the worship of the Divine, by the Representative of Christ on earth, he had watched with sickening soul all the tawdry ceremonial so far removed from the simplicity of Christ's commands,--he had stared dully, till his brows ached, at the poor, feeble, scraggy old man with the pale, withered face and dark eyes, who was chosen to represent a "Manifestation of the Deity" to his idolatrous followers;--and as he thought of all the poverty, sorrow, pain, perplexity, and bewilderment of the "lost sheep" who were wandering to and fro in the world, scarcely able to fight the difficulties of their daily lot, and unable to believe in God because they were never allowed to understand or to experience any of His goodness, such a passion of protest arose in him, that he could have sprung on the very steps of the altar and cried aloud to the aged Manager of the Stage-scene there, "Away with this sham of Christianity! Give us the true message of Christ, undefiled! Sell these useless broidered silks,--these flaunting banners;--take the silver, gold, and bank-notes which hysterical pilgrims cast at your feet!--this Peter's Pence, amounting to millions, whose exact total you alone know,--and come out into the highways and byways of the cities of all lands,--call to you the lame, the halt, the blind, the sickly, and diseased,--give comfort where comfort is needed,--defend the innocent--protect the just, and silence the Voce de la Verita which published under your authority, callously advocates murder!"

And though he felt all this, he could only remain a dumb spectator of the Show in which not the faintest shadow of Christianity according to Christ, appeared--and when the theatrical pageant was over, he hurried out into the fresh air half stupefied with the heavy sense of shame that such things could be, and no man found true enough to the commands of the Divine Master to shake the world with strong condemnation.

"Twelve fishermen were enough to preach the Gospel," he thought, "Yet now there cannot be found twelve faithful souls who will protest against its falsification!"

And on St. Cecilia's morning he was in sad and sober mood,--too vexed with himself to contemplate his future work without a sense of pain and disappointment and loneliness. He loved Sylvie Hermenstein, and admitted his passion for her frankly to his own soul, but at the same time felt that a union with her would be impossible. He had seen her nearly every day since their first introduction to each other, and had realised to the height of soul-intoxication the subtle charm of her delicate beauty, and the sweetness of her disposition. But--(there was a but in it,--there always is!) he was not sure of her constancy. The duel between the Marquis Fontenelle and the actor Miraudin had furnished food for gossip at all the social gatherings in Rome, and Sylvie's name, freely mentioned as the cause of the dispute, had been thus given an unpleasant notoriety. And though Aubrey Leigh was far too chivalrous and noble-natured to judge and condemn a woman without seeking for the truth from her own lips, he was indescribably annoyed to hear her spoken of in any connection with the late Marquis. He had a strong desire to ask Angela Sovrani a few questions concerning the affair, but hesitated, lest his keen personal anxiety should betray the depth of his feelings. Then, too, he was troubled by the fact that the Hermenstein family had been from time immemorial devout Romanists, and he felt that Sylvie must perforce be a firm adherent to that faith.

"Better to leave Rome!" he said to himself, "Better to shake off the witchery of her presence, and get back to England and to work. And if I cannot kill or quell this love in me, at any rate it shall serve me to good purpose,--it shall make me a better and a braver man!"

He had promised to meet the Princesse D'Agramont that morning at the Catacombs of St. Callistus, to see the illumination of the tomb of St. Cecilia, which takes place there annually on the Saint's Feast-Day, and he knew that Angela Sovrani and the Comtesse Hermenstein were to be of the Princesse's party. He was somewhat late in starting, and hired a fiacre to drive him along the Via Appia to his destination, but when he arrived there Mass had already commenced. A Trappist monk, tall and grim and forbidding of aspect, met him at the entrance to the Catacombs with a lighted taper, and escorted him in silence through the gloomy "Oratorium" and passage of tombs,--the torch he carried flinging ghastly reflections on the mural paintings and inscriptions, till, on reaching the tomb of St. Cecilia where the murdered saint once lay, though her remains are now enshrined in the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, the Trappist suddenly left him at a corner to attend to other incoming visitors, and disappeared. Aubrey looked around him, vaguely touched and awed by the solemnity of the scene;--the damp walls on which old Byzantine paintings of the seventh century were still visible, though crumbling fast away,--the glimmering lights,--the little crowd of people pressed together,--the brilliantly illuminated altar,--the droning accents of the officiating priests;--and presently the sound of a boy's exquisite young voice rose high and pure, singing the Agnus Dei. St. Cecilia herself might have been enraptured by such sweet harmony,--and Aubrey Leigh instinctively bent his head, moved strongly by the holy and tender fervour of the anthem. Growing accustomed to the flickering lights, he presently perceived the Princesse D'Agramont a little in front of him,--and beside her were her two friends, Angela Sovrani and Sylvie Hermenstein. Sylvie was kneeling, and her face was hidden. Angela was seated,--and her eyes, full of the radiance of thought and dreaming genius, were fixed on the altar. Gradually he moved up till he reached the rough bench where they were all together--the Princesse D'Agramont saw him at once, and signed to him to take a vacant place next to Sylvie. He sat down very gently--afraid to disturb the graceful figure kneeling within touch of his hand--how devout she seemed, he thought! But as the Agnus Dei ceased, she stirred, and rose quietly,--as quietly as a bent flower might lift itself in the grass after the rush of the wind,--and gave him a gentle salute, then sat down beside him, drooping her soft eyes over her prayer-book, but not before he had seen that they were wet with tears. Was she unhappy he wondered? It seemed impossible! Such a woman could never be unhappy! With beauty, health, and a sunny temperament,--wealth and independence, what could she know of sorrow! It is strange how seldom a man can enter into the true comprehension of a woman's grief, though he may often be the cause of the trouble. A woman, if endowed with beauty and charm, ought never, in a man's opinion, to LOOK sad, whatever she may FEEL. It is her business to smile, and shine like a sunbeam on a spring morning for his delectation always. And Aubrey Leigh, though he could thoroughly appreciate and enter into the sordid woes of hard-worked and poverty-stricken womankind, was not without the same delusion that seems to possess all his sex,--namely, that if a woman is brilliantly endowed, and has sufficient of this world's goods to ensure her plenty of friends and pretty toilettes, she need never be unhappy. Sylvie's tears were therefore a mystery to him, except when a jealous pang contracted his generally liberal and tender soul, and he thought, "Perhaps she is grieving for the Marquis Fontenelle!" He glanced at her every now and again dubiously,--while the service went on, and the exquisite music beat rhythmic waves against the ancient walls and roof of the murdered Saint's tomb,--but her face, fair and childlike, was a puzzle to his mind,--he could never make out from its expression whether she were thoughtful or frivolous. Strange mistakes are often made in physiognomy. Often the so-called "intellectual" face,--the "touch-me-not" dignity--the "stalking-tragedy" manner, covers a total lack of brain,--and often a large-featured, seemingly "noble" face, has served as a mask for untold depths of villainy. The delicate, small face of Nelson suggested nothing of the giant heroism in his nature, and many a pretty, and apparently frivolous woman's face, which suggests nothing but the most thoughtless gaiety, is a disguise for a strong nature capable of lofty and self-sacrificing deeds. There is nothing likely to be so deceptive as a human countenance,--for with the exception of a few uncomfortably sincere persons, we all try to make it disguise our feelings as much as we can.

The service concluded, and St. Cecilia solemnly commended once more to her eternal rest, the people all rose and wandered like black ghosts, through the darkness of the Catacombs, following the flicker of the torches carried by the Trappist monks, who always perform the duty of guides on this occasion,--and, once out in the open air, in the full blaze of the sunshine which had now broken brilliantly through the mist of the previously threatening rain-clouds, Aubrey Leigh saw with pain that Sylvie looked very pale and ill. He ventured to say something solicitous concerning this to the Princesse D'Agramont, whose bright dark eyes flashed over him with an enigmatical look, half wonder, half scorn.

"What strange creatures men are!" she said satirically, "Even you, clever, and gifted with an insight into human nature, seem to be actually surprised that our poor, pretty little Sylvie looks ill! With half Rome declaring that she WAS the mistress of Fontenelle, and the other half swearing itself black in the face that she IS the mistress of Gherardi, she certainly ought to be very happy, ought she not? Indeed, almost dancing with the joy and consolation of knowing how pleasant her 'Society' friends are making her life for her!"

Aubrey's heart beat violently.

"Princesse," he said, in a low tone of vibrating earnestness, "If I thought--if I could think such abominable lies were told of her . . ."

"Chut!" And the Princesse smiled rather sadly,--"It is not like you to 'pretend,' Mr. Leigh--You DO know,--you MUST know--that a coarse discussion over her name was the cause of the duel between the Marquis Fontenelle and that miserable vaurien of the stage, Miraudin,--gossip generously lays the two deaths at her door--and the poor child is as innocent of harm as the lilies we have just seen left to die in the darkness of St. Cecilia's tomb. The fact is, she came to Rome to escape the libertinage and amorous persecution of Fontenelle; and she never knew till the day she heard of his death, that he had followed her. Nor did I. In fact, I asked him to be my escort to Rome, and he refused. Naturally I imagined he was still in Paris. So we were all in the dark,--and as often happens in such cases, when the world does not know whom to blame for a disaster, it generally elects to punish the innocent. All the Saints we have heard about this morning, bear witness to THAT truth!"

Aubrey lifted his eyes and looked yearningly at the sylph-like figure of Sylvie walking a little ahead of him with her friend Angela.

"I thought," he said hesitatingly,--"I confess, I thought there might have been something between her and the late Marquis . . ."

"Of course there was something!" answered the Princesse impatiently, "Oh, mon Dieu! Plus de sottises! There always IS something where Sylvie is, Mr. Leigh! She cannot smile or sing, or turn her head, or raise her eyes, or smell a bunch of violets, without some one of your audacious sex conceiving the idea of making himself agreeable and indispensable to her. And when she will not compromise herself--(is that not your convenient little phrase?)--she is judged much more severely than if she had done so! And do you know why? Because you men can never endure defeat in love-matters! You would rather spread abroad the rumour that you had conquered, than confess that your libertinism had been perceived and repulsed with indignation and scorn! And I will tell you another thing if you do not know it. In the frequent destruction of an innocent woman's reputation. it is a rejected suitor who generally starts the first rumour and hands the lie over to debased women, knowing that THEY may be trusted to keep it up!"

Aubrey flushed, and winced under the lash of her cutting words. "You are very cruel, Princesse!" he said, "Surely unnecessarily bitterly cruel!"

"Cher philosophe, I have loved!" she replied, "And that is why I am cruel. I have loved and have been deceived in love,--and that kind of thing often turns the most patient Griselda into an exceptionally fierce tiger-cat! I am not quite a tiger-cat,--but I confess I do not like one-sidedness in anything, Nature's tendency being to equalise--equalise--till we are all flattened down into one level,--the grave! At the present moment we are treading on a mixture of kings and saints and heroes,--all one soil you see, and rather marshy,--badly in need of draining at all times!" She laughed a little. "Frankly, I assure you, it is to me the most deplorable arrangement that a true woman should be destined to give all the passion and love of her life to one man, while the same man scatters his worthless affections about like halfpence among dozens of drabs! My dear Mr. Leigh, do not frown at me in that tragic way! I am not blaming YOU! I am not in the least inclined to put you in the general category,--at least not at present. You do not look like the ordinary man, though you may be for all that! Expression is very deceptive!" She laughed again, then added, "Think of our sweet Angela, for instance! Unless a merciful Providence intervenes, she will marry Florian Varillo,--and no doubt he will make her invite Mademoiselle Pon-Pon to her house to dine and sleep!"

"She loves him!" said Aubrey simply.

"Yes, she loves him, because she deludes herself with the idea that he is worthy of love. But if she were to find him out her whole soul would indignantly repulse him. If she knew all I know of him, she would rather embrace the mildewy skeleton of San Carlo Borromeo, with the great jewels glistening in his ghastly eye-sockets, than the well-fed, fresh coloured Florian Varillo!"

"If you fear for her happiness, why not warn her?" asked Aubrey.

"Warn her against the one creature she loves in the world?" said the Princesse, "Thanks very much! I would rather not. She would never speak to me again, and I should lose every chance of comforting or helping her when affliction comes--as of course it is bound to come! Each individual man or woman makes his or her own life,--we poor 'friends' can only stand and look on, waiting till they get into the muddle that we have always foreseen, and then doing our best to drag them out of it; but God Himself I think, could not save them from falling into the muddle in the first place. As for Sylvie, I have advised her to leave Rome and go back to Budapest at once."

Aubrey started.

"Why?"

"Why? Can you ask? Because she is misjudged here on account of Fontenelle's death, and calumniated and wronged; because the women hate her for her beauty and wealth, and the men hate her too because she will not flatter them by accepting their ridiculous attentions. She will be much happier in her own home,--such a grand old castle it is!--a cluster of towers and broad battlements, with purple mountains in the background, and tall pine-trees everywhere . . ."

"It must be lonely for her!" said Aubrey quickly, "She is so mignonne--so caressable--so made for love and care and tenderness--" Here he broke off, vexed with himself for having said so much,--and his face flushed warmly. The Princesse stopped in her walk and looked at him straightly.

"Mr. Leigh," she said, "I think--I hope you are an honest man! And do you know the best advice I can give you?"

He answered no word, but his eyes questioned her meaning.

"Remain honest!" she said, smiling an answer to his look, "Be true to your own instincts and highest impulses. Do not allow yourself to be swayed by opinion or rumour; stand clear of both,--and treat even a woman as you would treat a man!--squarely--candidly--faithfully!"

She moved on and rejoined her companions, and Aubrey followed. The Comtesse Hermenstein's carriage was waiting for her, and the Comtesse herself was just entering it with Angela Sovrani as he came up.

"Good-bye, Mr. Leigh," she said gently, extending her hand, "I may not see you again perhaps. I am going home to Buda this week."

"Must you go?" he asked, looking earnestly into the lovely eyes, lovelier than ever in their present sorrowful languor.

"I think so," she answered, "I may wait to see Angela's great picture, but--"

"Do not hurry your departure," said Aubrey, speaking in a softer tone--"Tell me--may I come and see you this evening,--just for a few moments?"

His eyes rested on her tenderly, and at the passion of his glance her own fell.

"If you like--yes," she murmured. And just then the Princesse D'Agramont approached.

"May I drive you home, Mr. Leigh?" she asked.

"Thank you!" And Aubrey smiled as he accepted the invitation.

And presently the carriages started, Sylvie's light victoria leading, and the Princesse D'Agramont's landeau following. Half way back to Rome a picturesque little beggar, whose motley-coloured rags scarcely clothed his smooth brown limbs, suddenly sprang out of a corner where he had been in hiding with a great basket of violets, and threw the whole fragrant heap dexterously into Sylvie's carriage, crying out,

"Bellissima Signora! Bellissima! Bellissima! Un soldo! Un soldo!"

Laughingly Sylvie threw out four or five francs, but Aubrey, carried beyond all prudence by catching a glimpse of Sylvie's pretty head gleaming above the great purple cluster of violets she had caught and held, tossed a twenty-franc piece to the clever little rascal who had by "suiting the action to the word, and the word to the action" as Italians so often do, gained a week's earnings in one successful morning.

And the evening came, misty but mild, with the moon peering doubtfully through a fleecy veil of fine floating vapour, which, gathering flashes of luminance from the silver orb, turned to the witch-lights of an opal,--and Aubrey made his way to the Casa D'Angeli, which in his own mind he called the "Palais D'lffry," in memory of the old Breton song Sylvie had sung. On giving his name he was at once shown up into the great salon, now made beautiful by the picturesque and precious things accumulated there, and arranged with the individuality and taste of the presiding spirit. She was quite alone, seated in a deep easy chair near the fire,--and her dress, of some faint shell-pink hue, clung about her in trailing soft folds which fell in a glistening heap of crushed rose-tints at her feet, making a soft rest for her tiny dog who was luxuriously curled therein. The firelight shed a warm glow around her,--flickering brightly on her fair hair, on her white arms, and small hands where one or two diamonds flashed like drops of dew,--and Aubrey, as he entered, was conscious of an overpowering sense of weakness, poverty of soul, narrowness of mind, incompetency of attainment,--for the tranquillity and sweet perfection of the picture his eyes rested upon--a picture lovelier than even the Gretchen which tempted Goethe's Faust to Hell,--made him doubtful of his own powers--mistrustful of his own worth. In his life of self-renunciation among the poorer classes, he had grown accustomed to pity women,--to look upon them more or less as frail, broken creatures needing help and support,--sometimes to be loved, but far more often to be despised and neglected. But Sylvie, Comtesse Hermenstein, was not of these,--he knew, or thought he knew that she needed nothing. Beauty was hers, wealth was hers, independence of position was hers; and if she had given a smile or nod of encouragement, lovers were hers to command. What was he that he should count himself at all valuable in her sight, even as the merest friend? These despondent thoughts were doubly embittered by the immense scorn he now entertained for himself that he should have been such a fool as to listen for a moment to the silly and malignant gossip circulated among the envious concerning a woman who was admittedly the superior of those who calumniated her. For clearest logic shows that wherever superiority exists, inferiority rises up in opposition, and the lower endeavours to drag the higher down. Such vague reflections, coursing rapidly through his, brain, gave him an air of embarrassment and awkwardness not by any means common to him, as he advanced, and Sylvie, half rising from her chair, greeted him in her turn with a little touch of shyness which sent a wave of soft colour over her face, and made her look ten times prettier than ever.

"I am glad to find you alone--" he began.

"Yes? I am generally alone," answered Sylvie with a little smile--"except for Katrine--she would be here to welcome you this evening, but she has a very bad neuralgic headache--"

"I am very sorry," murmured Aubrey, with hypocritical earnestness, all the while devoutly blessing Madame Bozier's timely indisposition. "She is a great sufferer from neuralgia, I believe?"

"Yes . . ." and Sylvie, to divert the cloud of embarrassment that seemed to be deepening rather than dispersing for them both, rang the bell with a pretty imperativeness that was rather startling to Aubrey's nerves.

"What is that for?" he enquired irrelevantly.

"Only for coffee!"

Their eyes met,--the mutual glance was irresistible, and they both laughed. Sylvia's Arab page entered in response to her summons, a pretty dusky-skinned lad of some twelve years old, picturesquely arrayed in scarlet, and bearing a quaintly embossed gilt salver with coffee prepared in the Arabian fashion.

"Do you like coffee made in this way?" asked Sylvie, as she handed Aubrey his cup.

Aubrey's eyes were fixed on the small white hand that looked so dainty, curled over the trifle of Sevres china that was called a coffee-cup,--and he answered vaguely,

"This way? Oh, yes--of course--any way!"

A faint smile lifted the rosy corners of Sylvie's mouth as she heard this incoherent reply--and the Arab page rolled his dark eyes up at his fair mistress with a look of dog-like affectionate enquiry, as to whether perhaps some fault in his serving had caused that little playful enigmatical expression on the face which he, in common with many others of his sex, thought the fairest in the world. The coffee dispensed and the page gone, there followed a spell of silence. The fire burned cheerily in the deep chimney, and the great logs cracked and spluttered as much as to say, "If these two curious people can find nothing to talk about, we can!" And then, just as luck would have it, a burning ember suddenly detached itself from the rest and fell out blazing on the hearth--Sylvie sprang up to push it back, and Aubrey to assist her,--and then, strange to relate--only the occult influences of attraction know how it happened--the little difficulty of the burning ember brought those two other burning embers of humanity together--for Aubrey, hardly conscious of what he did, caught Sylvie's swaying, graceful figure as she rose from bending over the fire, closely in his arms, with a passion which mounted like a wave to tempest height, and knew no further hesitation or obstacle.

"Sylvie! Sylvie! I love you!--my darling! I love you!--"

No answer came, for there was none needed. Her face was hidden on his breast--but he felt rather than saw the soft white arms and dainty hands moving tremblingly upwards, till they closed round him in the dear embrace which meant for him from henceforth the faith and love and devotion of one true heart through all the sorrows and perplexities as well as the joys and triumphs of life. And when, with his heart beating, and all his pulses thrilling with the new ecstacy that possessed him, he whispered a word or two that caused the pretty golden head to raise itself timidly--the beautiful dark blue eyes to grow darker with the tenderness that overflowed the soul behind them, and the sweet lips to meet his own in a kiss, as soft and fragrant as though a rose had touched them, it was small blame to him that for a moment he lost his self-possession, and drawing her closer in his arms, showered upon her not only kisses, but whispered words of all that tender endearment which is judged as "foolish" by those who have never had the privilege of being made the subject of such priceless and exquisite "fooling." And when they were calmer, and began to think of the possibility of the worthy Bozier suddenly recovering from her neuralgia and coming to look after her pupil,--or the undesired but likely entrance of a servant to attend to the lamps, or to put fresh wood on the fire, they turned each from the other, with reluctance and half laughing decorum,--Sylvie resuming her seat by the fire, and Aubrey flinging himself with happy recklessness in a low fauteuil as near to her as could be permitted for a gentleman visitor, who might be considered as enthusiastically expounding literature or science to a fascinating hostess. And somehow, as they talked, their conversation did gradually drift from passionate personalities into graver themes affecting wider interests, and Aubrey, warming into eloquence, gave free vent to his thoughts and opinions, till noticing that Sylvie sat very silent, looking into the fire somewhat gravely, he checked himself abruptly, fancying that perhaps he was treading on what might be forbidden ground with her whose pleasure was now his law. As he came to this sudden pause, she turned her soft eyes towards him tenderly, with a smile.

"Well!" she said, in the pretty foreign accent which distinguished her almost perfect English, "And why do you stop speaking? You must not be afraid to trust me with your closest thoughts,--because how can our love be perfect if you do not?"

"Sweetheart!" he answered, catching the white hand that was so temptingly near his own, "Our love IS perfect!--and so far as I am concerned there shall never be a cloud on such a dazzling sky!"

She smiled.

"Ah, you talk romance just now!" she said, "But Aubrey, I want our love to be something more than romance--I want it to be a grand and helpful reality! If I am not worthy to be the companion of your very soul, you will not, you cannot love me long. Now, no protestations!" For he had possessed himself of the dear little hand again, and was covering it with kisses--"You see, it is very sweet just now to sit by the fire together, and look at each other, and feel how happy we are--but life does not go on like that. And your life, my Aubrey, belongs to the world . . ."

"To you!--to you!" said Aubrey passionately, "I give it to you! You know the song?--I set my life in your hand Mar it or make it sweet,--I set my life in your hand, I lay my heart at your feet!"

Sylvie rose impulsively, and leaning over his chair kissed his forehead.

"Yes, I know! And I know you mean what you say! I could not imagine you telling an untruth,--not even in making love!" and she laughed, "Though there are many of your sex who think any amount of lies permissible under similar circumstances! And it is just because I have found men such practised liars, that I have the reputation of being heartless. Did you ever think me heartless?"

Aubrey hesitated a moment.

"Yes," he admitted at last, frankly, "I did till I knew better. I was told--"

"Stop! I know all you were told!" said Sylvie, drawing her slim figure up with a pretty dignity as she moved back to her place by the fire--"You were told that I was the cause of the death of the Marquis Fontenelle. So I was, unhappily--but not through my own fault. The actor Miraudin,--known to be one of the most coarse-minded and brutal of men,--slandered me in public,--the Marquis defended me. Hence the combat and its fatal end, which no one has deplored more bitterly than I. Miraudin was never a gentleman,--Fontenelle could have been one had he chosen. And I confess I cared very much for him at one time!"

"You loved him," said Aubrey, trying to master a pang of jealousy.

"Yes! I loved him!--till he proved himself unworthy of love."

There was a silence.

"I tell you all this," said Sylvie then slowly and emphatically, "that you may know me at once as I am. I wish to hide nothing from you. I have read all your books--I know your views of life--your hatred of dissimulation--your contempt of a lie! In your love for me, you must have complete knowledge of my nature, and confidence in my truth. I would never give my life to any man unless he trusted me absolutely,--unless I was sure he felt I was a real helpmate for him. I love you--but I also love your work and your aims; and I go with all your thoughts and wish to share all your responsibilities. But I must feel that you will never misjudge me,--never set me down on the level of mean and small-natured women, who cannot sacrifice themselves or their personal vanities for another's sake. It is not for me to say that the calumnies circulated concerning me are untrue,--it is for my life to show and PROVE they are not! But I must be trusted--not suspected; and if you give me your life as you say, I will give mine to help make yours happier, asking from you in return just your faith--your FAITH as well as your love!"

Like a fair queen she stood, royal in her look, bearing and attitude, and Aubrey bent his head low in reverence before her as he once more kissed her hand.

"My wife!" he said simply.

And the silence that followed was as that of God's benediction on that perfect marriage which is scarcely ever consummated in all the world,--the marriage of two souls, which like twin flames, unite and burn upward clear to Heaven, as One.

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