XXVII…

XXVII

Society soon learned the news of the Countess Hermenstein's betrothal to the "eccentric Englishman," Aubrey Leigh,--and with its million tongues discussed the affair in all tones,--most people preferring to say, with the usual "society" kindness, that--"Leigh was not quite such a self-sacrificing idealist as he seemed to be,--he was going to marry for money." Some few ventured to remark that Sylvie Hermenstein was charming in herself and well worth winning,--but the more practical pooh-poohed this view of the case at once. "Pretty women are to be had by the score," they said, "It is the money that tells!" Aubrey Leigh caught these rumours, and was in a manner stung by them,--he said very little however, and to all the congratulations he received, merely gave coldly civil thanks. And so the gossips went to work again in their own peculiar way, and said, "Well! She will have an iceberg for a husband, that is one thing! A stuck up, insolent sort of chap!--not a bit of go in him!" Which was true,--Aubrey had no "go." "Go" means, in modern parlance, to drink oneself stupid, to bet on the most trifling passing events, and to talk slang that would disgrace a stable-boy, as well as to amuse oneself with all sorts of mean and vulgar intrigues which are carried on through the veriest skulk and caddishness;--thus Aubrey was a sad failure in "tip-top" circles. But the "tip-top" circles are not a desirable heaven to every man;--and Aubrey did not care much as to what sort of comments were passed on himself, provided he could see Sylvie always "queen it" over her inferiors in that graceful, gracious way of conquest which was her special peculiarity and charm. Among her friends no one perhaps was happier in Sylvie's happiness than Angela Sovrani; her nature was of that rare quality which vibrates like a harp to every touch, and the joy of others swept over her with a gladness which made her more glad than if she had received some priceless boon for her own benefit. Florian Varillo was exceedingly angry at the whole affair,--and whenever Sylvie's betrothal was spoken of he assumed an expression of pained and personal offence which was almost grotesque.

"Such a marriage is ridiculous!" he declared,--"Everyone can see how utterly unsuited the two are in tastes, habits and opinions! They will rue the day they ever met!"

And not all the gentle remonstrances of his own fiancee Angela, could soothe his ruffled humour, or make him accept the inevitable with grace. Angela was exceedingly troubled and puzzled by his almost childish waywardness,--she did not yet understand the nature of a man who was to himself all in all, and who could not endure the idea that any woman whom he personally condescended to admire should become the possession of another, no matter how completely that woman might be beyond his own reach. Poor Angela! She was very simple--very foolish indeed;--she never imagined it could be possible for a man to carry on five or six love-affairs at once, and never be found out. Yet this was the kind of life her "ideal" found the most suitable to his habit and temperament,--and he had made a mental note of Sylvie Hermenstein as one whom he proposed to add to his little list of conquests. So that her engagement of marriage to one who, though reserved in manner and without "go," was yet every inch a gentleman, and a determined opposer of sophistry and humbug, had considerably disturbed his little plans, and the unsettlement of anything he had set his heart upon greatly displeased him. He generally had his own way in most things, and could not at all comprehend why he was not to have it now. But among all the people who discussed the intended marriage there were two who were so well satisfied as to be almost jubilant, and these were the Monsignori Moretti and Gherardi. These worthies met together in one of the private chambers set apart for the use of the Papal court in the Vatican, and heartily congratulated each other on the subjugation and enthralment of Aubrey Leigh, which meant, as they considered, the consequent removal of a fierce opponent to the Roman Catholic movement in England.

"Did I not tell you," said Moretti, as he untied some papers he had been carrying, and sat down at a table to glance over them, "Did I not tell you that when all other arguments fail, the unanswerable one of woman can be brought in to clinch every business?"

Gherardi, though in a way contented, was not altogether so sure of his goal. He remembered, with an uncomfortable thrill of doubt, the little skirmish of words he had had with the fair Sylvie in the Pamphili woods.

"You take your thoughts for deeds, and judge them as fully accomplished while they are still in embryo!" he said, "It is true that the engagement of marriage is settled,--but can you be certain that in religious matters the wife may not go with her husband?"

"What!" exclaimed Moretti, opening his dark eyes quickly, as a flash of hell-fire illumined them at the very idea, "Do you suggest that Sylvie Hermenstein,--the last of her race--a race which, back to its earliest source, has been distinguished for its faithful allegiance to Mother-Church, and has moreover added largely to the Papal revenues--could be otherwise than our obedient and docile daughter? Per la Santissima Madonna!--if I thought she could turn against us her marriage should never take place!"

And he brought his fist down with a fierce blow on the papers before him.

"The marriage should never take place!" echoed Gherardi, "How could you prevent it?"

"The Pope himself should intervene!" said Moretti, with increasing fury, losing a little of his self-control, "Gran Dio! Conceive for a moment the wealth of the Hermensteins being used to promulgate the reformer Leigh's threadbare theories, and feed his rascal poor! Do you know what Sylvie Hermenstein's fortune is? No, I suppose you do not! But I do! She tries to keep it a secret, but I have made it my business to find out! It is enormous!--and it is ever increasing. With all the fanciful creature's clothes and jewels and unthinking way of living her life, she spends not a quarter, nor half a quarter of her income,--and yet you actually venture to suggest that her power is so slight over the man who is now her promised husband, that she would voluntarily allow him to use all that huge amount of money as he pleased, OUTSIDE the Church?"

Moretti spoke with such passionate insistence that Gherardi thought it prudent not to irritate him further by argument. So he merely said,

"You expect her to persuade him to embrace our faith?"

"Naturally!" answered Moretti, "And she can, and will do so. If she cannot or will not, she must be MADE to do so!"

He bent over his papers again and rustled them impatiently, but his hand trembled. The pale December sunlight glittered through a stained-glass window above him, and cast deep violet rays about his chair,--Gherardi stood where the same luminance touched his pale face with a crimson glow as of fire.

"This is a busy morning with us," said Moretti, without looking up, "The excommunication of Denis Vergniaud will be pronounced to-day,--and, what is even more important,--Cardinal Bonpre is summoned by His Holiness's command to wait upon him this afternoon, bringing the boy,--that boy who is always with him--"

"Ah, there is a history there!" interrupted Gherardi, "It should be remembered that this boy was a witness of the miracle in Rouen, and he was also present at the Vergniaud scandal in Paris--he should have been sent for ere now. He, more than anyone, must surely know how the miracle was accomplished,--for the worthy Felix tells me he is 'wise beyond his years'!"

"So! His wisdom will be put to the test to-day!" said Moretti coldly, "Do you not think it strange"--here he raised his eyes from his papers, "and somewhat incriminating too--always supposing the miracle is a case of conspiracy--that no trace has been discovered of the man Claude Cazeau?"

Gherardi had moved to a book-case, and was standing close to it, turning over a vellum-bound manuscript.

"Yes--the whole business looks as black as murder!" he said.

Moretti looked at him sharply.

"Murder? You suppose--"

"That Claude Cazeau has been murdered? Certainly I suppose it! It is more than a week now since we heard that he had mysteriously disappeared, and still there is no news. What can it be but murder? But I do not for a moment suppose that our good Saint Felix is concerned in it!"

And he smiled, turning over the vellum volume carelessly.

Moretti knitted his dark brows.

"No--no!" he said musingly, "That would not be possible! Cardinal Bonpre is not that kind of man--he would rather bear the heaviest weight of punishment for himself than allow another to suffer. That I KNOW of him;--and though I do not admire his extreme views on this point, and do not think them politic, I give him full credit for this particular and uncommon form of--eccentricity!"

"Or Christianity!" said Gherardi, still smiling.

Moretti pushed aside his papers, and leaning his head on one hand frowned meditatively at the amethyst light which streamed radiantly through the jewel-like window above him. "Yes--or Christianity, if you like!" he said, "For Christianity pur et simple, WOULD be eccentricity. In its primitive simplicity it is an impossible creed. Founded by the Divine it needs divine beings to comprehend and follow it,--beings not of this world nor addicted to the things of this world. And to exist in the world, made of the world's clay, and the world's inherited associations, and yet not be of it, is to be judged crazed! True, there have been saints and martyrs,--there are saints and martyrs now, unknown and unheard of, but nevertheless consumed by flames more cruel perhaps than those which physically burn the flesh;--idealists, thinkers, dreamers, heralds of future progress,--and how are they estimated? As madmen all! To be human, and yet above humanity, is the supreme sin! For that very affront the multitude cried out, 'Not this man, but Barabbas!' And to this day we all prefer Barabbas to Christ. Hence the power of the Church!"

Gherardi put back the volume he had been glancing at, on its shelf, and looked at his confrere with a certain amount of admiring respect. He had been long an interested student of the various psychological workings of Moretti's mind,--and he knew that Moretti's scheming brain was ever hard at work designing bold and almost martial plans for securing such conversions to the Church as would seriously trouble the peace of two or three great nations. Moretti was in close personal touch with every crowned head in Europe; he was acquainted more closely than anyone alive with the timidities, the nervous horrors, the sudden scruples, the sickening qualms of conscience, and the overwhelming fears of death which troubled the minds of certain powerful personages apparently presenting a brave front to the world,--and he held such personages in awe by the very secrets which they had, in weak moments, entrusted to him. Gherardi even was not without his own fears,--he instinctively felt that Moretti knew more about himself than was either safe or convenient.

"We all live for Barabbas," pursued Moretti, an ironical smile playing on his thin lips, "Not for Christ! Barabbas, in the shape of the unscrupulous millionaire, robs the world!--and we share the spoils, pardon his robberies, and set him free. But whosoever lives outside Dogma, serving God purely and preaching truth,--him we crucify!--but our Robber,--our murderer of Truth, we set at liberty! Hence, as I said before, the power of the Church!"

Carried away by his thoughts, he rose, and pacing the room, talked more to himself than to Gherardi.

"The Church supports the robber, because he is always a coward and cannot stand alone. The murderer of his fellow-men's good name is naturally a liar, and fears lest his lies should find him out. Fear! That is the keynote on which we of Rome play our invincible march of triumph! The Church appeals to the ignorant, the base, the sensual, the false, and the timorous; and knowing that they never repent, but are only afraid, retains them by fear!--fear, not love! Christ taught love--but hate is the more popular virtue! Hence again, the power of the Church!"

"Your argument is perfectly orthodox!" said Gherardi, with a smile.

"Hate is a grand, a strong quality!" went on Moretti, "It makes nations, it builds up creeds! If men loved one another what should they need of a Church? But Hate!--the subtle sense which makes the ultra-respectable thank God that he is not as other men are!--the fierce emotion which almost touches ecstacy when the wronged individual thinks his enemy will go to hell!--the fine fever which sets father against son, creed against creed, nation against nation!--hate is the chief mainspring of human motives! From hate and envy spring emulation and conquest--and we of the Church encourage the haters to hate on! They make Us!--they emulate each other in the greed of their gifts to us, which give them notoriety and advertise their generosity,--WE fan the flame and encourage the fury! For the world must have a religion--it crucified Christ, but the Church, built up in His name, takes just and daily revenge for His murder! We do not save--we kill! We do not rescue--we trample down! We humiliate,--we crush wherever we can, and it is well and fitting we should do so! For Humanity is a brute beast, and serves us best under the lash. Rome made many a blunder in the old days of barbarity and ignorance--but now we have a thousand forces put into our hands instead of one or two,--forces to terrorise--forces to compel!--and the power of Rome wielded by the Popes of the days to come, shall be indeed a power irresistible!"

He stood enrapt,--his hand upraised, his eyes flashing, then recalling himself, turned abruptly on Gherardi with an impatient gesture.

"You can repeat all this," he said sarcastically, "in your next eloquent discourse with Aubrey Leigh! It will save you the trouble of thinking! His influence with the English masses will be but a brief phenomenon,--the blind and brutal stupidity of the people he seeks to serve will soon dishearten and discourage him, and then he will come to us through his wife, and his conversion will be a triumph worth winning,--a step in the right direction. And now to other matters. These papers," and he sat down at the table once more, "are, I think, sufficiently in order to be placed before His Holiness. But you may as well look through them with me first. Later on, the affair of Cardinal Bonpre will occupy all our time . . ."

"It is an 'affair' then?" asked Gherardi, "The 'saint' is in trouble?"

"All 'saints' get into trouble!" answered Moretti, "It is only sinners who receive honour! Cardinal Bonpre has made the fatal mistake of reading Jesus Christ's Gospel instead of Church Doctrine! His creed is Love,--his duty, as I have just explained to you, if he would be a faithful son of the Church, is Hate!"

"Love forms no part of your nature then?" asked Gherardi, hardly knowing why he put the question, yet curious as to the answer.

"I am of the world!" replied Moretti coldly, "And I hate accordingly. I hate, and in my hate, aspire to crush those who in turn hate me! That is the human code, and one that must be strictly practised by all who would rule mankind. Never do anything for those who can do nothing for you! Firmly oppose those who oppose you! Revenge yourself on those who despitefully use you! We do revenge ourselves,--and we reward all who help us to our revenge! For example, Denis Vergniaud has cast opprobrium on his calling, and made a scandal and a shame of the Church before his congregation in Paris;--we excommunicate him! It is no use, but we do it on principle. And we are still unable to explain away, or offer any excuse for Cardinal Bonpre's mistake in condoning and pardoning his offence. Therefore it follows as you say, that the 'saint' is in trouble!"

"Notwithstanding the miracle?"

"Notwithstanding the miracle!" echoed Moretti, "For the miracle is doubtful. The Holy Father is not satisfied of its truth. Yes--there is no doubt about it, Saint Felix is in trouble! It would be better for him had he never come out of his long retirement. But perhaps he was compelled to look after his Rouen foundling!"

A smile flickered faintly over Gherardi's face, but he said not a word in answer. Discovering an error in one of the documents he was examining, he called Moretti's attention to it, and the conversation drifted to everyday trivial subjects. But the thoughts of both men were elsewhere, and not even the news received that morning of the bequest of one hundred thousand pounds to the Shrine of Lourdes from a deluded believer in the miraculous Virgin there, absorbed so much of their reflective brain powers as the imminent trial--for it was little else--of Cardinal Bonpre, in the presence of the boy to whom he so openly gave his confidence and protection.

Meanwhile, the good Felix himself was very sorely troubled. During his sojourn in Rome, he had grown thinner and paler, and the fine, spiritual delicacy of his features had become more intensified, while his clear blue eyes shone from under their deeply arched brows with a flashing luminance that was almost unearthly. Often, when about to enter his room with unthinking haste, his brother-in-law, Prince Pietro, would see him kneeling before his crucifix absorbed, one might almost say entranced, in prayer. And he would softly move away again with a deep sense of awe, and a feeling that some higher power than any on earth, sustained the venerable prelate, and inspired both his words and actions. But with all his patient, sometimes passionate prayer, earnest meditations, and constant study of the Gospels, the Cardinal himself was more or less heavy-hearted,--and his Master's phrase--"My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death!" was one which he often breathed in the solitude and extremity of his own position. The news of the disappearance of Claude Cazeau had materially added to his difficulties--and now he had been commanded, with a certain peremptoriness in the summons, to wait upon the Sovereign Pontiff in a private audience, bringing with him the boy who could, or would give no further account of himself than that of a world's waif and stray. Prepared for this visit and arrayed in all the splendour befitting his rank in the Church, the gentle old man looked paler and more fragile than ever, and the vague trouble he felt at the express injunction laid upon him concerning Manuel, showed itself in the deep furrows of anxiety marked upon his brow, and the pain in his thoughtful eyes. Prince Pietro's own man-servant had assisted him to dress for the impending ceremonial, and just as the last folds of his regal attire were being set in place a knock was heard at the door of his apartment, and Prince Pietro himself entered.

"A telegram for you, brother Felix," he said, "I have brought it myself, thinking it may perhaps immediately concern your visit to the Pope to-day."

The Cardinal, with a gentle word of thanks, opened the envelope handed to him.

"Praise be to God!" he said simply, as he read its contents, "Vergniaud has passed to the Higher tribunal!"

And he crossed himself reverently on brow and breast.

"Dead?" exclaimed Sovrani.

"To this world, yes!" answered Bonpre, "He died peacefully last night. This message is from his son."

A faint ironical smile flickered over Sovrani's dark features.

"The ban of excommunication has not been declared!" he said, "It will be a somewhat belated announcement!"

Cardinal Bonpre folded the telegram, ready to take with him to the Vatican.

"The Church can excommunicate even the dead!" he said sorrowfully, "If such an extreme measure is judged politic it will doubtless be carried out!"

"Wonderful Christian charity," murmured Sovrani under his breath, "to excommunicate a corpse! For that is all they can do. The Soul of the man is God's affair!"

Cardinal Bonpre answered nothing, for just then the young Manuel entered the room, in readiness to accompany his venerable protector and friend to the Vatican, and the old man's eyes rested upon him with a wistful, wondering trouble and anxiety which he could not conceal. Manuel smiled up at him--that rare and beautiful smile which was like sunshine in darkness--but the Cardinal's sad expression did not alter.

"The Abbe Vergniaud is no more," he said gently, as the boy drew near, "His sins and sufferings are ended!"

"And his joys have begun!" answered Manuel, "For he set his life right with the world before he left it!"

"Child, you talk as a very wise man might!" said Prince Sovrani, his rugged brows smoothing into a kindly smile. "But the unfortunate Abbe is not likely to be judged in that way. It will be said of him that he scandalized the world before he left it!"

"When truth is made scandal, and right is made wrong," said Manuel, "It will surely be a God-forgotten world!"

"WILL be? I think it is already!" said Prince Pietro. "It is said that the patience of the Almighty is unwearied,--but I do not feel sure of that in my own mind. Science teaches us that many a world has been destroyed before now,--and sometimes I feel as if our turn were soon coming!"

Here the man-servant having completely finished arranging the Cardinal's attire, made respectful obeisance and left the room, and the Cardinal himself proceeded into the adjoining salon, where he found his niece Angela waiting to see him.

"Dearest uncle," she said, making her pretty genuflection as he approached her, "I must ask you to forgive me for coming to your rooms just now when your time is so much taken up, and when I know you have to go to the Vatican,--but I want to tell you one thing that may perhaps please you,--my picture is finished!"

"Finished!" echoed the Cardinal--then tenderly taking her hands, he added, "I congratulate you, dear child, with all my heart!--and I pray that the reward of your long and patient toil may be worthy of you. And when are we to see your work?"

"To-morrow!" answered Angela, and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled, "I shall be busy all today arranging it for exhibition in the best light. To-morrow morning Florian is to see it first,--then my father will come, and you--and Manuel!" and she smiled as she met the boy's gentle look,--"And Queen Margherita has promised to be here at mid-day."

"Florian first! And then your father!" said Prince Pietro, with a touch of melancholy in his tone, "Ah well, Angela mia!--I suppose it must always be so! The lover's love--the stranger's love,--is greater than the love of years, the love of home! Yet sometimes, I fancy that the lover's love often turns out to be a passing impulse more than a real truth, and that the home-love reasserts itself afterwards with the best and the holiest power!"

And not trusting himself to say more, he abruptly left the room. Angela looked after him, a little troubled. The Cardinal took her hand.

"He is your father, dear girl!" he said gently, "And he cannot but feel it hard--at first--to be relegated to a second place in your affections."

Angela sighed.

"I cannot help it!" she said, "Florian is my very life! I should have no ambition--no joy in anything if he did not love me!"

Over the Cardinal's fine open face there came an expression of great pain.

"That is idolatry, Angela!" he said gravely, "We make a grievous mistake when we love human beings too deeply,--for they are not the gods we would make of them. Like ourselves, they are subject to sin, and their sins often create more unhappiness for us than our own!"

"Ah! But we can save our beloved ones from sin!" answered Angela, with a beautiful upward look of exaltation,--"That is love's greatest mission!"

"It is a mission that cannot always be fulfilled"--said the Cardinal sorrowfully,--then, after a pause he added--"The Abbe Vergniaud is dead."

"Dead!" And Angela turned very pale. "His son--"

"His son sends the message--" and he handed her the telegram he had received. She read it, and returned it to him,--then made the sign of the cross.

"May he rest in peace!" He died true!"

"Yes, he died true. But remember, child, neither Truth nor Love are spared their crown of thorns. Love cannot save--would that it could! It may warn--it may pray--it may watch--it may hope,--but if despite its tenderness, the sinner sins, what can love do then?"

"It can pardon!" said Angela softly.

Deeply moved, the good Felix took her hand and patted it gently.

"Dear child, God grant your powers of forgiveness may never be put to the test!" he ejaculated fervently. "The one unforgivable sin according to our Lord, is treachery;--may THAT never come your way!"

"It can never come my way through Florian!" answered Angela smiling,--"and for the rest--I do not care!"

Manuel stood by silently, with thoughtful, downcast eyes--but at these last words of hers he raised his head and looked full at her with a touch of melancholy in his straight regard.

"Ah, that is wrong!" he said, "You SHOULD care!--you MUST care for the rest of the world. We must all learn to care for others more than ourselves. And if we will not learn, God sometimes takes a hard way of teaching us!"

Angela's head drooped a little. Then she said,

"I DO care for others,--I think perhaps my picture will prove that for me. But the tenderness I have for the sorrows of the world is impersonal; and perhaps if I analysed myself honestly, I feel even that through my love for Florian. If he were not in the world, I am afraid I should not love the world so much!"

The Cardinal said no more, for just then a servant entered and announced that His Eminence's carriage was in waiting. Angela bending low once more before her uncle, kissed his apostolic ring, and said softly--"To-morrow!"

And Manuel echoed the word, "To-morrow!" as she bade them both a smiling "addio" and left the apartment. When she had gone, and he was left alone with his foundling, the Cardinal stood for a few minutes absorbed in silent meditation, mechanically gathering his robes about him. After a pause of evident hesitancy and trouble, he approached the boy and gently laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"Manuel," he said, "Do you understand whom it is that you are going to see?"

"Yes," replied Manuel quickly, "The Head of the Church. One who holds an office constituted by man long after Christ. It was founded upon the name and memory of the Apostle Peter, who publicly denied all knowledge of His Master. That is how I understand the person I am to see to-day!"

Cardinal Bonpre's face was a study of varying expressions as he heard these words.

"My child, you must not say these things in the Pope's presence!"

Manuel lifted his radiant eyes with a look of calm confidence.

"Dear friend, you must trust me!" he said, "They have sent for me, have they not, to this place you call the Vatican? They desire to see me, and to question me. That being so, whatever God bids me say, I will say; fearing nothing!"

A strong tremour shook the Cardinal's nerves,--he essayed to find words of wisdom and instruction, but somehow language failed him,--he felt blinded and strengthless, and warned by this impending sense of feebleness, made an instant effort to brace himself up and master the strange fainting that threatened to overwhelm him as it had frequently done before. He succeeded, and without speaking again to Manuel, but only bending one earnest look upon him, he quitted his rooms and proceeded slowly down the great marble staircase of the Palazzo Sovrani,--a staircase famous even in Rome for its architectural beauty--Manuel stepping lightly at his side--and reaching his carriage, entered it with his foundling, and was rapidly driven away.

Arrived at the Vatican, the largest palace in the world, which contains, so historians agree in saying, no less than eleven thousand different apartments with their courts and halls and corridors, they descended at the Portone di Bronzo,--the Swiss Guard on duty saluting as the Cardinal passed in. On they went into the vestibule, chilly and comfortless, of the Scala Pia;--and so up the stone stairs to the Cortile do San Damaso, and thence towards the steps which lead to the Pope's private apartments. Another Guard met them here and likewise saluted,--in fact, almost at every step of the way, and on every landing, guards were on duty, either standing motionless, or marching wearily up and down, the clank, clank of their footsteps waking dismal echoes from the high vaulted roofs and uncarpeted stone corridors. At last they reached the Sala Clementina, a vast unfurnished hall, rich only with mural decorations and gilding, and here another Guard met them who, without words, escorted the Cardinal and his young companion through a number of waiting-rooms, made more or less magnificent by glorious paintings, wonderful Gobelin tapestries, and unique sculptures, till they reached at last what is called the anti-camera segreto, where none but Cardinals are permitted to enter and wait for an audience with the Supreme Pontiff. At the door of this "Holy of Holies" stood a Guarda Nobile on sentry duty,--but he might have been a figure of painted marble for all the notice he took of their approach. As they passed into the room, which was exceedingly high and narrow, Monsignor Gherardi rose from a table near the window, and received the Cardinal with a kind of stately gravity which suitably agreed with the coldness and silence of the general surroundings. A small lean man, habited in black, also came forward, exchanging a few low whispered words with Gherardi as he did so, and this individual, after saluting the Cardinal, mysteriously disappeared through a little door to the right. He was the Pope's confidential valet,--a personage who was perhaps more in the secrets of everybody and everything than even Gherardi himself.

"I am afraid we shall have to keep you waiting a little while," said Gherardi, in his smooth rich voice, which despite its mellow ring had something false about it, like the tone produced by an invisible crack in a fine bell, "Your young friend," and here he swept a keen, inquisitive glance over Manuel from face to feet, and from feet to face again, "will perhaps be tired?"

"I am never tired!" answered Manuel.

"Nor impatient?" asked Gherardi with a patronising air.

"Nor impatient!"

"Wonderful boy! If you are never tired or impatient, you will be eminently fitted for the priesthood," said Gherardi, his lip curling with a faint touch of derision, "For even the best of us grow sometimes weary in well-doing!"

And turning from him with a movement which implied both hauteur and indifference, he addressed himself to Bonpre, whose face was clouded, and whose eyes were troubled.

"The unfortunate affair of our friend Vergniaud will be settled to-day," he began, when the Cardinal raised one hand with a gentle solemnity.

"It is settled!" he returned, "Not even the Church can intervene between Vergniaud and his Maker now!"

Gherardi uttered an exclamation of undisguised annoyance.

"Dead!" he ejaculated, his forehead growing crimson with the anger he inwardly repressed--"Since when?"

"Last night he passed away," replied the Cardinal. "according to the telegram I have just received from--his son. But he has been dying for some time, and what he told me in Paris was no lie. I explained his exact position to you quite recently, on the day you visited my niece at her studio. He had a serious valvular disease of the heart,--he might, as the doctors said, have lived, at the utmost, two years--but the excitement of recent events has evidently proved too much for him. As I told you, he felt that his death might occur at any moment, and he did not wish to leave the world under a false impression of his character. I trust that now the Holy Father may be inclined to pardon him, in death, if not in life!"

Gherardi walked up and down the narrow room impatiently.

"I doubt it!" he said at last, "I very much doubt it! The man may be dead, but the scandal he caused remains. And his death has made the whole position very much more difficult for you, my lord Cardinal! For as Vergniaud is not alive to endure the penalty of his offence, it is probable YOU may have to suffer for having condoned it!"

Felix Bonpre bent his head gently.

"I shall be ready and willing to suffer whatever God commands!" he answered, "For I most faithfully believe that nothing can injure my soul while it rests, as I humbly place it, in His Holy keeping!"

Gherardi paused in his pacing to and fro, and gazed at the frail figure, and fine old face before him, with mingled compassion and curiosity.

"You should have lived in the early days of the Faith," he said, "You are too literal--too exact in your following of Christian ethics. That sort of thing does not work nowadays. Dogma must be maintained!"

"What is dogma?" asked Manuel suddenly.

Gherardi gave him a careless glance.

"Cardinal Bonpre must teach you that in extenso!" he replied, with a little smile--"But briefly,--dogma is an opinion or theory derived from the Gospels, and formulated as doctrine, by the Church."

"An opinion or theory of man, founded on the words of Christ?" said Manuel.

"Just so!"

"But if Christ was divine, should any man presume to formulate a theory on what He Himself said?" asked Manuel. "Are not his own plain words enough?"

Gherardi stared at the young speaker half angrily.

"His own plain words enough?" he repeated mechanically. "What do you mean, boy?"

"I mean," answered Manuel simply, "that if He were truly a Manifestation of God in Himself, as the Church declares Him to be, I WONDER THAT MAN CAN DARE TO FORMULATE MERE DOGMA ON GOD'S OWN UTTERANCE!"

There was a dead pause. After a few minutes of chill silence Gherardi addressed the Cardinal.

"Your young friend has a dangerous tongue!" he said sternly, "You had best warn or command him that he set a guard upon it in the Holy Father's presence!"

"There is no need to either warn or command me!" said Manuel, a smile irradiating his fair face as he met the angry eyes of Gherardi with the full calmness of his own--"I have been sent for, and I am here. Had I not been sent for I should not have come. Now that I have been called to answer for myself I will answer,--with truth and without fear. For what can any man cause me to suffer if I am to myself true?"

Another heavy pause ensued. An invisible something was in the air,--a sense of that vast supernatural which is deeply centered at the core of the natural universe,--a grave mystery which seemed to envelop all visible things with a sudden shadow of premonitory fear. The silence prevailing was painful--almost terrible. A great ormolu clock in the room, one of the Holy Father's "Jubilee" gifts, ticked the minutes slowly away with a jewel-studded pendulum, which in its regular movements to and fro sounded insolently obtrusive in such a stillness. Gherardi abstractedly raised his eyes to a great ivory crucifix which was displayed upon the wall against a background of rich purple velvet,--Manuel was standing immediately in front of it, and the tortured head of the carven Christ drooped over him as though in a sorrow-stricken benediction. A dull anger began to irritate Gherardi's usually well-tempered nerves, and he was searching in his mind for some scathing sentence wherewith to overwhelm and reprove the confident ease of the boy, when the door leading to the Pope's apartments was slowly pushed open to admit the entrance of Monsignor Moretti. Cardinal Bonpre had not seen him since the day of the Vergniaud scandal in Paris,--and a faint colour came into his pale cheeks as he noted the air of overbearing condescension and authority with which Moretti, here on his own ground, as one of the favorites of the Pope, greeted him.

"The Holy Father is ready to receive you," he said, "But I regret to inform your Eminence that His Holiness can see no way to excuse or condone the grave offence of the Abbe Vergniaud,--moreover, the fact of the sin-begotten son being known to the world as Gys Grandit, makes it more than ever necessary that the ban of excommunication should be passed upon him. Especially, as those uninstructed in the Faith, are under the delusion that the penalty of excommunication has become more or less obsolete, and we have now an opportunity for making publicly known the truth that it still exists, and may be used by the Church in extreme situations, when judged politic and fitting."

"Then in this case the Church must excommunicate the dead!" said the Cardinal quietly.

Moretti's face turned livid.

"Dead?" he exclaimed, "I do not believe it!"

Silently Bonpre handed him the telegram received that morning. Moretti read it, his eyes sparkling with rage.

"How do I know this is not a trick?" he said, "The accursed atheist of a son may have telegraphed a lie!"

"I hardly think he would condescend to that!" returned the Cardinal calmly, "It would not be worth his while. You must remember, that to one of his particular views, Church excommunication, either for his father or himself, would mean nothing. He makes himself responsible for his conduct to God only. And whatever his faults he certainly believes in God!"

Moretti read through the telegram again.

"We must place this before His Holiness," he said, "And it will very seriously annoy him! I fear your Eminence," here he gave a quick meaning look at Bonpre, "will be all the more severely censured for having pardoned the Abbe's sins."

"Is it wrong to forgive sinners?" asked Manuel, his clear young voice breaking through the air like a silver bell rung suddenly,--"And when one cannot reach the guilty, should one punish the innocent?"

Moretti scowled fiercely at the fair candid face turned enquiringly near his own.

"You are too young to ask questions!" he said roughly--"Wait to be questioned yourself--and think twice--aye three times before you answer!"

The bright expression of the boy's countenance seemed to become intensified as he heard.

"'Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak!'" he said softly--"'For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you!'"

Moretti flushed angrily, and his hand involuntarily clenched.

"Those words were addressed by our Lord to His Apostles," he retorted--"Apostles, of whom our Holy Father the Pope is the one infallible representative. They were not spoken to an ignorant lad who barely knows his catechism!"

"Yet were not the Apostles themselves told," went on Manuel steadily, "to be humble as ignorant children if they would enter the Kingdom of Heaven? And did not Christ say, 'Whoso offendeth one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea!' I am sure there are many such little ones who believe in Christ,--perhaps too, without knowing any catechism,--and even Apostles must beware of offending them!"

"Does this boy follow your teaching in the quoting of Scripture with so glib a tongue?" asked Moretti, turning sharply round upon the Cardinal.

Bonpre returned his angry look with one of undisturbed serenity.

"My son, I have taught him nothing!" he replied, "I have no time as yet--and I may add--no inclination, to become his instructor. He speaks from his own nature."

"It is a nature that needs training!" said Gherardi, smiling blandly, and silencing by a gesture Moretti's threatening outburst of wrath, "To quote Scripture rashly, without due consideration for the purpose to which it is to be applied, does not actually constitute an offence, but it displays a reprehensible disregard and ignorance of theology. However, theology," here he smiled still more broadly, "is a hard word for the comprehension of the young! This poor little lad cannot be expected to grasp its meaning."

Manuel raised his bright eyes and fixed them steadily on the priest's countenance.

"Oh, yes!" he said quietly, "I understand it perfectly! Originally it meant the Word or Discourse of God,--it has now come to mean the words or discourses, or quarrels and differences of men on the things of God! But God's Word remains God's Word--eternally, invincibly! No man can alter it, and Christ preached it so plainly that the most simple child cannot fail to understand it!"

Moretti was about to speak when again Gherardi interrupted him.

"Patience! Patience!" he said soothingly, "Perchance we must say"--this with a flash of derision from his dark crafty eyes, "that a prophet hath arisen in Israel! Listen to me, boy! If Christ spoke as plainly as you say, and if all He preached could be understood by the people, why should He have founded a Church to teach His doctrine?"

"He did not found a Church," answered Manuel, "He tried to make a Human Brotherhood. He trusted twelve men. They all forsook Him in His hour of need, and one betrayed Him! When He died and arose again from the dead, they sought to give themselves a Divine standing on His Divinity. They preached His Word to the world--true!--but they preached their own as well! Hence the Church!"

Moretti's angry eyes rolled in his head with an excess of wrath and amazement.

"Surely some evil spirit possesses this boy!" he exclaimed irately, "Retro me Sathanas! He is a rank heretic--a heathen! And yet he lives in the companionship of Cardinal Felix Bonpre!"

Both priests looked at the Cardinal in angry astonishment, but he stood silent, one wrinkled hand holding up the trailing folds of his scarlet robe,--his head slightly bent, and his whole attitude expressive of profound patience and resignation. Manuel turned his eyes upon him and smiled tenderly.

"It is not the fault of Cardinal Bonpre that I think my own thoughts," he said, "or that I speak as I have spoken from the beginning. He found me lost and alone in the world,--and he sheltered me, knowing not whom he sheltered! Let what blame there is in me therefore be mine alone, and not his or another's!"

His young voice, so full of sweetness, seemed to melt the cold and heavy silence into vibrations of warm feeling, and a sudden sense of confusion and shame swept over the callous and calculating minds of the two men, miscalled priests, as they listened. But before they could determine or contrive an answer, the door was thrown open, and the lean man in black entered, and pausing on the threshold bowed slightly,--then raising his hand with a gesture which invited all to follow him, turned again and walked on in front,--then crossing a small antechamber, he drew aside a long curtain of purple damask heavily fringed with gold, and opened a farther door. Here he stood back, and allowed Cardinal Bonpre to pass in first, attended by Manuel,--Monsignori Gherardi and Moretti followed. And then the valet, closing the door behind them, and pulling the rich curtain across, sat down himself close outside it to be within call when the Holy Father should summon his attendance by means of a bell which hung immediately over his head. And to while away the time he pulled from his pocket that day's issue of a well-known Republican paper,--one of the most anti-Papal tendency, thereby showing that his constant humble attendance upon the Head of the Church had not made him otherwise than purely human, or eradicated from his nature that peculiar quality with which most of us are endowed, namely, the perversity of spirit which leads us often to say and do things which are least expected of us. The Pope's confidential valet was not exempt from this failing. He like the Monsignori, enjoyed the exciting rush and secret risk of money speculation,--he also had his little schemes of self-advancement; and, as is natural to all who are engaged in a certain kind of service, he took care to read everything that could be said by outsiders against the person or persons whom he served. Thus, despite the important capacity he filled, he was not a grade higher than the ordinary butler, who makes it his business to know all the peccadilloes and failings of his master. "No man is a hero to his valet" is a very true axiom,--and even the Head of the Church, the Manifestation of the Divine, the "Infallible in Council," was a mere Nothing to the little man in black who had the power to insist on His Holiness changing a soiled cassock for a clean one.

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XXVIII

There are certain moments in life which seem weighted with the history of ages--when all the past, present and future merge into the one omnipresent Now,--moments, which if we are able to live through them with courage, may decide a very eternity of after-glory--but which, if we fail to comprehend their mission, pass, taking with them the last opportunity of all good that shall ever be granted to us in this life. Such a moment appeared, to the reflective mind of Cardinal Bonpre, to have presented itself to him, as for the second time in ten days, he found himself face to face with the Sovereign Pontiff, the pale and aged man with the deep dark eyes set in such cavernous sockets, that as they looked out on the world through that depth of shadow, seemed more like great jewels in the head of a galvanised skeleton than the eyes of a living human being. On this occasion the Pope was enthroned in a kind of semi-state, on a gilded chair covered with crimson velvet; and a rich canopy of the same material, embroidered and fringed with gold, drooped in heavy folds above him. Attired in the usual white,--white cassock, white skull cap, and white sash ornamented with the emblematic keys of St. Peter, embroidered in gold thread at the ends,--his unhandsome features, pallid as marble, and seemingly as cold,--bloodless everywhere, even to the lips,--suggested with dreadful exactitude a corpse in burial clothes just lifted from its coffin and placed stiffly upright in a sitting position. Involuntarily Cardinal Bonpre, as he made the usual necessary genuflections, thought, with a shrinking interior sense of horror at the profanity of his own idea, that the Holy Father as he then appeared, might have posed to a painter of allegories, as the frail ghost of a dead Faith. For he looked so white and slender and fragile and transparent,--he sat so rigidly, so coldly, without a movement or a gesture, that it seemed as if the touch of a hand might break him into atoms, so brittle and delicate a figure of clay was he. When he spoke, his harsh voice, issuing from the long thin lips which scarcely moved, even in utterance, was startling in its unmelodious loudness, the more so when its intonation was querulous, as now.

"It is regrettable, my lord Cardinal," he said slowly, keeping his dark eyes immovably fixed on the venerable Felix,--"that I should be compelled to send for you so soon again on the same matters which, since your arrival in Rome, have caused me so much anxiety. This miracle,--of which you are declared to be the worker,--though for some inscrutable reason, you persist in denying your own act,--is not yet properly authenticated. And, to make the case worse, it seems that the unfortunate man, Claude Cazeau, whom we entrusted with our instructions to the Archbishop of Rouen, has suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace. Naturally there are strong suspicions that he has met with a violent death,--perhaps at the hands of the Freemasons, who are ever at work conspiring against the Faith,--or else through the intrigues of the so-called 'Christian Democrats,' of whom 'Gys Grandit' is a leader. In any case, it is most reprehensible that you, a Cardinal-prince of the Church, should have permitted yourself to become involved in such a doubtful business. The miracle may have taken place,--but if so, you should have no cause to deny your share in it; and however much you may be gifted with the power of healing, I cannot reconcile your duty to us with the Vergniaud scandal! Since you were here last, I have investigated that matter thoroughly,--I have read a full report of the blasphemous address the Abbe preached from his pulpit in Paris, and I cannot, no I cannot"--here the Pope raised his thin white hand with a gesture of menace that was curiously powerful for one so seemingly frail--"I cannot forgive or forget the part you have taken in this deplorable affair!"

The Cardinal looked up with a touch of pain and protest.

"Holy Father, I strove to obey the command of Christ--'Forgive that ye may be forgiven'!--I cannot be sorry that I did so obey it;--for now the offender is beyond the reach of either punishment or absolution. He must answer for his deeds to God alone!"

The Pope turned his eyes slowly round in his waxenlike head to Gherardi--then to Moretti--and seeing confirmation of the news in their looks, fixed them again as immovably as before upon the Cardinal. The faint shadow of a cold smile flickered on his long slit-like mouth.

"Dead!" he murmured, and he nodded slowly, and beat with one finger on the back of the other hand, as though keeping time mechanically to some funeral march in his brain. "Dead! A fortunate thing for him! An escape from worse than death, so far as this life is concerned! But what of the next?--'where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched!'" And here the representative of St. Peter smiled pallidly. "Dead!--but his works live after him; and his sin-begotten son also lives, to spread his pernicious writings through the world, and incite the already disobedient to further license. Therefore the Church must still publicly condemn his memory, as a warning to the faithful. And you, Cardinal Bonpre, must receive from us a necessary measure of correction, for having pardoned one who in his last discourse to humanity attacked the Church and slandered it. To one of your eminence and reputation, the lesson may seem hard, but a chastening reproof can but purify the spirit, and free it from that pride which apes humility!"

The Cardinal bent his head patiently and remained silent.

Monsignor Moretti advanced a step towards the Papal throne.

"The boy"--he began.

A slight animation warmed the chill lifelessness of the Pope's features. "True! I had almost forgotten!" he said. Then to the Cardinal, "Where is the boy you rescued from the streets, who lives with you, and who witnessed the miracle at Rouen?"

Manuel had till now stood aside, half hidden in the shadow of the crimson damask which, falling from ceiling to floor in rich luxurious folds, draped the corners of the room, but at these words he advanced at once.

"I am here!" he said.

Fronting the Pope, with his fair head thrown back, and his blue eyes flashing with all the soul-light of a swift, unwarped intelligence, he stood,--and the white shrunken figure of the old man in the gilded chair raised itself as if by some interior electric force, slowly, slowly--higher and higher--the deep-set old eyes staring into the brilliant youthful ones--staring--staring till they seemed to protrude and tremble under their shelving brows, like the last sparks of a flame about to fall into extinction. Gherardi made a quick step forward.

"My lord Cardinal!" he said significantly, "Should not your waif and stray have been taught how to comport himself before he came here? He does not kneel to the Holy Father!"

The Cardinal opened his lips to speak, but Manuel stayed him by a slight gesture.

"I may not kneel to any man!" he said, "But to God only! For it is written,' Call no man your Father upon the earth, for One is your Father which is in Heaven. Neither be ye called Masters, for One is your Master, even Christ.' How then," and he came nearer to the Pope's foot-stool, "can you be called 'Father'? or 'Holy'? For there is none Holy but God!"

The deep silence which had fallen like a spell upon them all in the antechamber, fell now with redoubled impressiveness. The Pope, gripping the arms of his gilded chair, forced himself fully upright, and his lips trembled.

"Whence came you, and of what parentage are you?" he asked slowly, enunciating his words with even more than his usual harsh distinctness.

"That is my own secret!" answered the boy--"The Cardinal accepted me without question!"

"Which is but a fresh proof of the Cardinal's unwisdom," said the Pope severely, "And we shall not follow his example in this or in any other matter!" And turning to Moretti he enquired, "Does this boy understand he is here as a witness to the miracle effected at Rouen?"

"As a witness to the Truth--yes! I understand!" said Manuel quickly, before Moretti could answer. "The miracle was no miracle!"

"No miracle!" exclaimed the Pope, moved at last from his usual inflexibility, "Do you hear that, Domenico?" turning excitedly to Gherardi, "No miracle!"

"No miracle!" repeated Manuel, steadily--"Nothing but the law of Nature working in response to the law of God, which is Love! The child was healed of his infirmity by the power of unselfish prayer. Are we not told 'Ask and ye shall receive'? But the asking must be pure! The prayer must be untainted by self-interest! God does not answer prayer that is paid for in this world's coin! No miracle was ever wrought for a fee! Only when perfect love and perfect faith exist between the creature and the Creator, are all things possible!"

A nervous twitching of the Pope's features showed his suppressed irritation at this reply.

"The boy jests with us!" he said angrily, "He defends his benefactor, but he either does not understand, or else is regardless of our authority!"

"What, do you not also believe?" asked Manuel, placing one foot on the first step of the Pope's throne, and looking him straightly in the face, "Do you not even affirm that God answers prayers? Do YOU not pray? Do you not assert that you yourself are benefited and helped--nay, even kept alive by the prayers of the faithful? Then why should you doubt that Cardinal Bonpre has, by his prayer, rescued one life--the life of a little child? Is not your Church built up for prayer? Do you not command it? Do you not even insist upon the 'vain repetitions' which Christ forbade? Do you not summon the people to pray in public?--though Christ bade all who truly sought to follow Him to pray in secret? And amid all the false prayers, the unthinking, selfish petitions, the blasphemous demands for curses and confusion to fall upon enemies and contradictors, the cowardly cryings for pardon from sinners who do not repent, that are sent up to the throne of the Most High,--is it marvellous that one prayer, pure of all self and sophistry, ascending to God, simply to ask for the life of a child should be heard and granted?"

His voice rang through the silence with a pure intonation, unlike any human voice in the world--and as he spoke, the Pope slowly drew back in his chair, further and further away from the young, beautiful face that confronted his own so steadily. The dumb sense of stupefaction that had before possessed Gherardi and Moretti in the presence of this child, seized them again now,--and slow tears welled up into the Cardinal's eyes, as, clasping his withered hands, he waited in fear and awe, listening and wondering,--overwhelmed by the strangeness of the scene. Like a shrunken white mummy set in a gilded sarcophagus, the representative of St. Peter huddled himself together, reflections of the daylight on the crimson hangings around him casting occasional gleams of crimson athwart his bony hands and cadaverous features;--while on the first step of his throne the aerial form of the beautiful boy, with his fair face, full flashing eyes, and radiant hair, stood like an Angel suddenly descended at the portal of the mummy's tomb.

"Faith must surely be weaker in these days than in the days of Christ," continued Manuel, "The disciples were not always wise or brave; but they believed in the power of their Master! You,--with so many centuries of prayer behind you,--will surely not say as John did--'Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us!' Because this miracle is unexpected and exceptional, do you say of your good Cardinal, 'He followeth not us'? Remember how Christ answered,--'Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can speak evil of me!'"

Still the same silence reigned. A shaft of sunlight falling through the high oriel window, touched the boy's hair with a Pentecostal flame of glory.

"You sent for me," he went on, "and I have come! They say I must be taught. Will you teach me? I would know many things! Tell me for one, why are You here, shut away from the cities, and the people? Should you not be among them? Why do you stay here all alone? You must be very unhappy!"

A sudden quivering light illumined the jewel-like dark eyes of the seeming mummy in the chair--its lips moved--but no sound came from them.

"To be here all alone!" went on Manuel, "And a whole world outside waiting to be comforted! To have vast wealth lying about you unused--with millions and millions of poor, starving, struggling, dying creatures, near at hand, cursing the God whom they have never been taught to know or to bless! To be safely sheltered while others are in danger! To know that even kings and emperors are trembling on their thrones because of the evil days that are drawing near in punishment for evil deeds!--to feel the great pulsating ache of the world's heart beating through every hour of time, and never to stretch forth a hand of consolation! Surely this must make you very sad! WILL YOU NOT COME OUT WITH ME?"

With a strong effort the Pope raised himself and looked into the pleading Angel-face. With his sudden movement, Gherardi and Moretti also stirred from their frozen attitudes of speechless amazement, and would have approached, but that the Pope signed them away with so fierce and impatient a gesture that they shrank back appalled. And still he gazed at Manuel as if his very soul were passing through his eyes.

"Come out with you!" he said, in a hoarse, faint whisper--"Come out with you!"

"Yes!--come out with me!" repeated Manuel, his accents vibrating with a strange compelling sweetness, "Come out and see the poor lying at the great gates of St. Peter's--the lame, the halt, the blind--come and heal them by a touch, a prayer! You can, you must, you shall heal them!--if you WILL! Pour money into the thin hands of the starving!--come with me into the miserable places of the world,--come and give comfort! Come freely into the courts of kings, and see how the brows ache under the crowns!--and the hearts break beneath the folds of velvet and ermine! Why stand in the way of happiness, or deny even emperors peace when they crave it? Your mission is to comfort, not to condemn! You need no throne! You want no kingdom!--no settled place--no temporal power! Enough for you to work and live as the poorest of all Christ's ministers,--without pomp, without ostentation or public ceremonial, but simply clothed in pure holiness! So shall God love you more! So shall you pass unscathed through the thick of battle, and command Brotherhood in place of Murder! Go out and welcome Progress!--take Science by the hand!--encourage Intellect!--for all these things are of God, and are God's gifts divine! Live as Christ lived, teaching the people personally and openly;--loving them, pitying them, sharing their joys and sorrows, blessing their little children! Deny yourself to no man;--and make of this cold temple in which you now dwell selfimprisoned, a home and refuge for the friendless and the poor! COME OUT WITH ME!"

As he thus spoke, with a living, breathing enthusiasm of entreaty, which might have moved even the dry bones in the valley of the prophet's vision to rise up and become a great standing army, the Pope's figure seemed to grow more and more attenuated,--his worn white hands grasping the gilt arms of his chair, looked like the claws of a dead bird--and his face, shrunken and withered, like a Chinese ivory carving of some forgotten idol.

"Come out with me and minister with your own hands to the aged and dying!" pursued Manuel, "And so shall you grow young! Command that the great pictures, the tapestries, the jewels, the world's trash of St. Peter's, be sold to the rich, who can afford to set them in free and open places where all the poorest may possess them! But do not You retain them! You do not need them--your treasure must be sympathy for all the world! Not ONE section of the world,--not ONE form of creed,--but for all!--if you are truly the Dispenser of Christ's Message to the earth! Come--unprotected, save by the Cross! Come with no weapon of defence--'heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils! Freely ye have received, freely give! Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purse,'--come, and by your patience--your gentleness--your pardon--your love to all men, show that 'the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!' Walk fearless in the thick of battles, and your very presence shall engender peace! For the Holy Spirit shall surround and encompass you; the fiercest warriors shall bend before you, as they never would if you assumed a world's throne or a world's sovereignty! Come, uncrowned, defenceless;--but strong in the Spirit of God! Think of all the evil which has served as the foundation for this palace in which you dwell! Can you not hear in the silence of the night, the shrieks of the tortured and dying of the Inquisition? Do you never think of those dark days, ten and twelve hundred years after Christ, when no virtue seemed left upon the earth?--when the way to this very throne was paved by poison and cold steel?--when those who then reigned here, and occupied Your place, led such infamous lives that the very dogs might have been ashamed to follow in their footsteps!--when they professed to be able to sell the Power of the Holy Ghost for so much gold and silver? Remember the words, 'Whoso shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come.' Look back upon the Past--and look out upon the Present! Try to understand the sufferings of the forsaken people!--the pain--the bewilderment--the groping for life in death!--and come out with me! Come and preach Christ as He lived and died, and WAS, and IS! COME OUT WITH ME!"

The dreadful, dumb spell remained unbroken. The loom seemed invested with a strange solemnity--the figures of the human beings in it were like images frozen into rigidity--even Cardinal Bonpre appeared stricken by this mental paralysis, and not a fold of his rich attire stirred with so much as a pulsation of natural breath. Only Manuel seemed truly alive--his slight boyish figure was instinct with ardour--his face was radiant, and his eyes brilliant as stars. And now, withdrawing himself a little from the motionless creature seated stiffly on the Papal throne, with its deep, dark eyes alone giving sign of life by their unwearied stare and feverish glitter, he raised his head with a royal gesture of mingled appeal and warning.

"Come out with me!" he exclaimed, "For there are wonderful things in the world to-day!--wonderful, beautiful, and terrible! Take your share in them, and find God in every glory! For with all the wisdom and the splendour,--with all the flashing light of Heaven poured out upon the darkness of the Sorrowful Star, its people are weary,--they are lost in the confusion and clamour of their own desires--they would fain serve God, but know not where to find Him, because a thousand, aye a million churches stand in the way!--churches, which are like a forest of dark trees, blocking out the radiance of the Sun! God, who manifests His power and tenderness in the making of the simplest leaf, the smallest bird, is lost to the understanding and affection of humanity in the multitude of Creeds! Come out with me,--simple and pure, gentle and strong! Tell all the lost and the wandering that there never was, and never will be but one God supreme and perfect, whose name is Love, whose work is Love!--and whose Messenger, Christ, pronounced the New Commandment Love instead of Hate! Come out with me while it is yet day, for the night cometh when no man can work! Come and lift up the world by your very coming! Stretch out your hands in benediction over kings and beggars alike!--there are other roses to give than Golden ones to Queens! There are poor women who share half they earn with those still poorer--there are obscure lives which in their very obscurity, are forming the angel-nature, and weaving the angel's crown!--look for these in the world--give THEM your Golden Roses! Leave rulers and governments alone, for you should be above and beyond all rulers and governments! You should be the Herald of peace,--the Pardoner of sin, the Rescuer of the fallen, and the Refuge of the distressed! Come out with me, and be all this to the world, so that when the Master comes He may truly find you working in His vineyard!"

Another dead pause ensued. Not a sound, not a breath disturbed the heavy silence which seemed to have grown deeper than before. And Manuel, looking eagerly again and closely into the Pope's face, went on with increasing ardour and passion.

"Come out with me!" he said, "Or if you will not come,--then beware of the evil days which are at hand! The people are wandering to and fro, crossing all lands, struggling one against the other, hoarding up useless gold, and fighting for supremacy!--but 'the day of the Lord shall come like a thief in the night, and blessed is he who shall be found watching!' Watch! The hour is growing dark and full of menace!--the nations are as frightened children, losing faith, losing hope, losing strength! Put away,--put away from you the toys of time!--quench in your soul the thirst for gold, for of this shall come nothing but corruption! Why trifle with the Spirit of holy things? Why let your servants use the Name of the Most High to cover hypocrisy? Why crave for the power of temporal things which passes away in the dust of destroyed kingdoms? For the Power of the Spirit is greater than all! And so it shall be proved! The Spirit shall work in ways where it has never been found before!--it shall depart from the Churches which are unworthy of its Divine inspiration!--it shall invest the oaths of Science!--it shall open the doors of the locked stars! It shall display the worlds invisible;--the secrets of men's hearts, and of closed graves!--there will be terror and loss and confusion and shame to mankind,--and this world shall keep nothing of all its treasures but the Cross of Christ! Rome, like Babylon, shall fall!--and the Powers of the Church shall be judged as the Powers of Darkness rather than of Light, because they have rejected the Word of their Master, and 'teach for doctrine the commandments of men!' Disaster shall follow swift upon disaster, and the cup of trembling shall be drained again to its last dregs, as in the olden days, unless,--unless perchance--you will come out with me!"

With the last words a sort of galvanic shock seemed to be imparted to the rigid figure in the chair. Springing upright suddenly, his voice rang out like a clarion, discordantly yet clearly.

"In the name of God," he cried, "Who and what is this boy! How came he with Cardinal Bonpre? And you, Domenico!--do you stand by and permit this affront to me!--the living Head of the Church! From a child!--a tramp of the streets!--who dares to speak to me!--who dares to reproach, to prophesy--aye, to blaspheme! and teach Me,--"

"As One having authority,--and not as the Scribes!" said Manuel, with one swift flashing glance, which like a shaft of lightning seemed to pierce through flesh and bone,--for, as he met that radiant and commanding look, the jewel-like eyes of the Pope lost their lustre and became fixed and glassy,--he put his hand to his throat with a choking gasp for breath,--and like a dead body which had only been kept in place by some secret mechanical action, he fell back in his chair senseless, his limbs stretching themselves out with a convulsive shudder into stark immovability.

Gherardi started from his stupor, and rushed to his assistance, ringing the bell violently which summoned the valet from the antechamber,--and Moretti, with a fierce oath, pushing Manuel aside, rushed to the chair in which the Pope's fainting figure lay,--all was confusion;--and in the excitement and terror which had overwhelmed Cardinal Bonpre at the unprecedented scene, Manuel suddenly touched him on the arm.

"Follow me!" he said, "We are no longer needed here! Come!--let us go hence!"

Hardly knowing what he did the old man obeyed, trembling in every limb as Manuel, grasping him firmly by the hand, led him from the apartment, and on through the winding corridors of the huge building, out into the open air. No one questioned them,--no one interfered with their progress. Benediction was being sung in one of the many chapels of St. Peter's, and the solemn sound of the organ reached them, softened and mellowed by distance, as they stood on the steps of the Vatican, where the Cardinal, pausing to recover breath and equanimity, gazed at his strange foundling in alarm and bewilderment.

"Manuel!" he murmured feebly, "Child!--what have you done!"

"Only what I am bound to do!" replied Manuel simply, "I have said no more than it is right to say, if Christ's words are true! Dear friend, be at peace! You will not suffer misjudgment long!"

The music stealing out from the distant chapel, floated round them in large circles of solemn melody,--and the glow of sunset lit the clear sky with a warm red radiance, flecked with golden clouds of glory.

"He would not come with me!" said Manuel, with a slight gesture backward to the sombre portals they had just passed, "And he will never come! But YOU will!"

And smiling,--with his fair face turned to the radiant sky,--he rested his hand lightly on the Cardinal's arm as they descended the broad marble steps, and left the great Palace of the Popes together.

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XXIX

While the foregoing scene was taking place at the Vatican, Angela Sovrani, left to herself for some hours, took the opportunity to set her great picture "on view" for the coming morrow. Locking both doors of her studio, she began to arrange the room; her huge canvas was already on a movable easel supplied with wheels, which ran lightly and easily over the polished floor without making any sound. At its summit a brass rod was attached, and on this a curtain of golden-coloured silk was hung, the folds of which at present concealed the painting from view. The top-light of the studio was particularly good on this special afternoon, as the weather was clear, and the Roman sky translucent and bright as an opal, and Angela, as she wheeled her "great work" into position, sang for pure lightness of heart and thankfulness that all was done. In her soul she had the consciousness that what she had produced from her brain and hand was not altogether unworthy. For, though to the true artist, no actual result can ever attain to the beauty of the first thought or ideal of the thing to be performed, there is always the consolation that if one's best and truest feeling has been earnestly put into the work, some touch, however slight, of that ideal beauty must remain. The poet's poem is never so fine as the poet's thought. The thought is from the immortal and invincible soul,--the poem has to be conveyed through the grosser body, clothed in language which must always be narrow and inadequate. Hence the artist's many and grievous limitations. To the eyes of the spirit all things appear transfigured, because lifted out of the sphere of material vision. But when we try to put these "beautiful things made new, for the delight of the sky-children" on paper or canvas, in motionless marble or flexible rhyme,--we are weighted by grosser air and the density of bodily feeling. So it was with Angela Sovrani, iwhose compact little head were folded the splendid dreams of genius like sleeping fairies in a magic cave;--and thoughtful and brilliant though she was, she could not, in her great tenderness for her affianced lover Florian Varillo, foresee that daily contact with his weaker and smaller nature, would kill those dreams as surely as a frost-wind kills the buds of the rose,--and that gradually, very gradually, the coarser fibre of his intelligence mingling with hers, would make a paltry and rough weaving of the web of life, instead of a free and gracious pattern. She never thought of such possibilities--she would have rejected the very idea of them with scorn and indignation. She would have declared that her love for Florian was the very root and source of her art,--that for him she worked--for him she lived. So indeed she believed, in her finely-fervent self-delusion,--but it was not ordained that this glamour should last,--for hers was a nature too rare and valuable to be sacrificed, and the Higher destinies had begun to approve her as precious. Therefore, as is the case with all precious things, the furnace was preparing for the shaping of the gold,--the appointed Angel of her Fate was already hovering near, holding ready the cup of bitterness which all must drain to the dregs, before knowing what it is to drink of "the new wine in the Kingdom of God."

"I wonder," thought the girl now, as she stepped lightly from one corner of her studio to the other, rearranging a vase here--a bust there--and imparting to the whole room that indefinable air of grace and luxury which can only be bestowed by the trained hand of a practised artist,--"I wonder if Florian will be proud? People will certainly talk of my picture,--some will praise and some will condemn; and this mixture of praise and condemnation is what is called Fame. But will my beloved love me more? Will he be glad that I am found worthy in the world's sight?--or will he think I am usurping his place? Ah!" and she paused in her work, looking vaguely before her with thoughtful, wondering eyes, "That is where we women workers have to suffer! Men grudge us the laurel, but they forget that we are trying to win it only that we may wear the rose more fittingly! A woman tries to do a great and a noble thing, not that she may vex of humiliate a man by superiority,--but that she may be more worthy to be his mate and helper in the world,--and also, that her children may reverence her for something more than the mere animal duties of nursing and tenderness. How proud to-day would be any man or woman who could point to Rosa Bonheur and say, 'She was my mother!' And yet perhaps this idea of mine is too fantastic,--the Brownings left a son--and he has nothing of their genius or their enthusiasm."

She moved to the grand piano and set it open; as she did so a thought of Sylvie came across her mind, and she smiled.

"Dear little rose-bud of a woman!" she mused, "How glad I am that she is happy! And how delightful it is to see the pride she takes in Aubrey Leigh!--how she studies his books, and pores over his statistics and theories! I really believe she knows them all by heart! And what wonderful schemes she is building up in her mind for the people in whom he is so interested! What a sensation she will make if she intends to work with her husband as thoroughly and devotedly as her ideas imply! Her marriage will be an immense disappointment to certain persons I could name!" and she smiled, "Dear Sylvie! With all her goodness, and grace and beauty, her name will sound more obnoxious at the Vatican than even the name of Gys Grandit!"

She had lifted a cluster of lilies from a vase to regroup them, and as her thoughts turned in this direction she bent her eyes upon their large white blooms meditatively, and a faint rose flush warmed her cheeks.

"Ce sont des fleurs etranges, Et traitresses, avec leurs airs de sceptres d'anges, De thyrses lumineux pour doigts de seraphins, Leurs parfums sont trop forts, tout ensemble, et trop fins."

"It is strange," she thought, "that I should have corresponded so many months with 'Gys Grandit' through my admiration for his books--and that he should turn out to be the son of poor Abbe Vergniaud! Cyrillon! It is a pretty name! And since we met--since that terrible scene in the church in Paris,--since he knew who I was, he has not written. And, and for his poor father's death . . . I suppose he thought it was sufficient to telegraph the news of the death to my uncle. But I am sorry he does not write to me any more!--I valued his letters--they were such brilliant essays on all the movements and politics of the time. It was just a little secret of mine;--it was pleasant to think I was in correspondence with such a genius. However, he has had so much to think of since then . . ." She set the lilies in their vase again, inhaling their delicious odour as she did so.

"The flowers of the saints and martyrs!" she said, "I do not wonder that the artists chose them for that purpose; they are so white-and pure-and passionless . . ."

A slight crash disturbed her self-communion, and she hastened to see what had fallen. It was a small clay figure of "Eros",--a copy of a statuette found in the ruins of Pompeii. The nail supporting its bracket had given way. Angela had been rather fond of this little work of art, and as she knelt to pick up the fragments she was more vexed at the accident than she cared to own. She looked wistfully at the pretty moulded broken limbs of the little god as she put them all in a heap together.

"What a pity!" she murmured, "I am not at all superstitious, yet I wish anything in the room had come to grief rather than this! It is not a good omen!"

She moved across the floor again and stood for a moment inert, one hand resting lightly on the amber silk draperies which veiled her picture.

"There was no truth at all in that rumour about Florian's 'Phillida';--'Pon-Pon,' as they call her," she thought, "She serves as a model to half the artists in Rome. Unfortunate creature. She is one of the most depraved and reckless of her class, so I hear--and Florian is far too refined and fastidious to even recognise such a woman, outside his studio. The Marquis Fontenelle only wished to defend himself by trying to include another man in the charge of libertinage, when he himself was meditating the most perfidious designs on Sylvie. Poor Fontenelle! One must try and think as kindly as possible of him now--he is dead. But I cannot think it was right of him to accuse my Florian!"

Just then she heard a soft knocking. It came from the door at the furthest end of the studio, one which communicated with a small stone courtyard, which in its turn opened out to a narrow street leading down to the Tiber. It was the entrance at which models presented themselves whenever Angela needed them.

"Angela!" called a melodious voice, which she recognised at once as the dearest to her in the world. "Angela!"

She hurried to the door but did not open it.

"Florian!" she said softly, putting her lips close to the panel, "Florian, caro mio! Why are you here?"

"I want to come in," said Florian, "I have news, Angela! I must see you!"

She hesitated a moment longer, and then she undid the bolt, and admitted him. He entered with a smiling and victorious air.

"I am all alone here," she said at once, before he could speak, "Father is at Frascati on some business--and my uncle the Cardinal is at the Vatican. Will you not come back later?"

For all answer, Florian took her in his arms with quite a reverent tenderness, and kissed her softly on brow and lips.

"No, I will stay!" he said, "I want to have you all to myself for a few minutes. I came to tell you, sweetest, that if I am to be the first to see your picture and pass judgment on it, I had better see it now, for I am going away to-morrow!"

"Going away!" echoed Angela, "Where?"

"To Naples," he answered, "Only for a little while. They have purchased my picture 'Phillida et les Roses' for one of the museums there, and they want me to see if I approve of the position in which it is to be placed. They also wish to honour me by a banquet or something of the kind--an absurdly unnecessary affair, but still I think it is perhaps advisable that I should go."

He spoke with an affectation of indifference, but any observer of him whose eyes were not blinded by affection, could have seen that he exhaled from himself an atmosphere of self-congratulation at the banquet proposition. Little honours impress little minds;--and a faint thrill of pain moved Angela as she saw him thus delighted with so poor and ordinary a compliment. In any other man it would have moved her to contempt, but in Florian--well!--she was only just a little sorry.

"Yes, perhaps it might look churlish of you not to accept," she said, putting away from her the insidious suggestion that perhaps if Florian loved her as much as he professed, an invitation to a banquet at Naples would have had no attraction for him as compared with being present at the first view of her picture on the morning she had herself appointed--"I think under the circumstances you had better not see the picture till you come back!"

"Now, Angela!" he exclaimed vexedly, "You know I will not consent to that! You have promised me that I shall be the first to see it--and here I am!"

"It should be seen by the morning light," said Angela, a touch of nervousness beginning to affect her equanimity,--"This light is pale and waning, though the afternoon is so clear. You cannot see the coloring to the best advantage!"

"Am I not a painter also?" asked Varillo playfully, putting his arm round her waist,--"And can I not guess the effect in the morning light as well as if I saw it? Come, Angela mia! Unveil the great prodigy!" and he laughed,--"You began it before we were affianced;--think what patience I have had for nearly two years!"

Angela did not reply at once. Somehow, his light laugh jarred upon her.

"Florian," she said at last, raising her truthful, beautiful eyes fully to his, "I do not think you quite understand! This picture has absorbed a great deal of my heart and soul--I have as it were, painted my own life blood into it--for I mean it to declare a truth and convey a lesson. It will either cover me with obloquy, or crown me with lasting fame. You speak jestingly, as if it were some toy with which I had amused myself these three years. Do you not believe that a woman's work may be as serious, as earnest, and strongly purposeful as a man's?"

Still clasping her round the waist, Florian drew her closer, and pressing her head against his breast, he looked down on her smiling.

"What sweet eyes you have!" he said, "The sweetest, the most trusting, the most childlike eyes I have ever seen! It would be impossible to paint such eyes, unless one's brushes were Raffaelle's, dipped in holy water. Not that I believe very much in holy water as a painter's medium! "He laughed,--he had a well-shaped mouth and was fond of smiling, in order that he might show his even pearly teeth, which contrasted becomingly with his dark moustache. "Yes, my Angela has beautiful eyes,--and such soft, pretty hair!" and he caressed it gently, "like little golden tendrils with a beam of the sunlight caught in it! Is not that a pretty compliment? I think I ought to have been a poet instead of a painter!"

"You are both," said Angela fondly, with a little sigh of rest and pleasure as she nestled in his arms--"You will be the greatest artist of your time when you paint large subjects instead of small ones."

His tender hold of her relaxed a little.

"You think 'Phillida et les Roses' a small subject?" he asked, with a touch of petulance in his tone, "Surely if a small study is perfect, it is better than a large one which is imperfect?"

"Of course it is!" replied the girl quickly--"By smallness I did not mean the size of the canvas,--I meant the character of the subject."

"There is nothing small in the beauty of woman!" declared Varillo, with an enthusiastic air--"Her form is divine! Her delicious flesh tints--her delicate curves--her amorous dimples--her exquisite seductiveness--combined with her touching weakness--these qualities make of woman the one,--the only subject for a painter's brush, when the painter is a man!"

Involuntarily Angela thought of "Pon-Pon," who had posed for the "Phillida," and a little shiver ran over her nerves like a sudden wind playing on the chords of an AEolian harp. Gently she withdrew herself from her lover's embrace.

"And when the painter is a woman, should the only subject for her brush be the physical beauty of man?" she asked.

Varillo gave an airy gesture of remonstrance.

"Carissima mia! You shock me! How can you suggest such a thing! The two sexes differ in tastes and aspirations as absolutely as in form. Man is an unfettered creature,--he must have his liberty, even if it reaches license; woman is his dependent. That is Nature's law. Man is the conqueror--woman is his conquest! We cannot alter these things. That is one reason for the prejudice existing against woman's work--if it excels that of man, we consider it a kind of morbid growth--an unnatural protuberance on the face of the universe. In fact, it is a wrong balance of the intellectual forces, which in their action, should always remain on the side of man."

"But if man abuses his power, may it not be taken from him altogether?" suggested Angela tranquilly, "If man, knowing that a life of self-indulgence destroys his intellectual capacity, still persists in that career, and woman, studying patiently to perfect herself, refuses to follow his example of vice, may it not happen that the intellectual forces may range themselves on the side of right rather than wrong, and invest woman with a certain supremacy in the end? It is a problem worth thinking of!"

Varillo looked sharply at her. Had she heard anything of his private life in Rome?--a life he kept carefully concealed from everyone who might be likely to report his little amusements at the Palazzo Sovrani? A slight, very slight touch of shame pricked him, as he noted the grace of her figure, the dainty poise of her head on her slim white throat--the almost royal air of dignity and sweetness which seemed to surround her,--there was no doubt whatever of her superiority to the women he generally consorted with, and for a moment he felt remorseful,--but he soon dismissed his brief compunction with a laugh.

"No, sweet Angela," he said gaily, "it is not worth thinking of! Believe me! I will not enter into any such profound discussions with you. My present time is too short, and your attractions too many! Why did you slip out of my arms so unkindly just now? Surely you were not offended? Comeback! Come, and we will go up to the great picture as lovers should, together--entwined in each other's arms!--and you shall then draw the mysterious curtain,--or shall I?"

She still hesitated. Then after a pause, she came towards him once more, the soft colour alternately flushing and paling her cheeks, as she laid her hand on his arm.

"You did not answer me," she said, "when I asked you just now if you believed that a woman's work could be as purposeful as a man's--sometimes indeed more so. You evaded the question. Why?"

"Did I evade it?" and Varillo took her hand in his own and kissed it,--"Dolcesza mia, I would not pain you for the world!"

A slight shadow clouded her face.

"You will not pain me," she answered, "except by not being true to yourself and to me. You know how I have worked,--you know how high I have set my ambition for your sake--to make myself more worthy of you; but if you do honestly think that a woman's work in art must always be inferior to a man's, no matter how ardently she studies--no matter even if she has so perfected herself in drawing, anatomy, and colouring as to be admitted the equal of men in these studies--if the result must, in your mind, be nevertheless beneath that of the masculine attainment, why say so,--because then--then--"

"Then what, my sweet philosopher?" asked Florian lightly, again kissing the hand he held.

She fixed her eyes fully on him. "Then," she replied slowly, "I should know you better--I should understand you more!"

An unpleasant twinge affected his nerves, and his eyelids quivered and blinked as though struck by a sudden shaft of the sun. This was the only facial sign he ever gave of the difficulty he at times experienced in meeting the straight, clear glance of his betrothed.

"You would know me more, and love me less? Is that it?" he said carelessly. "My dear girl, why do you press the point? If you will have it, I tell you frankly, I think women are growing very clever, much too clever in fact,--and that the encouragement and impetus given to them in the Arts is a very great mistake. Because they are not all geniuses like my Angela! You are one in a thousand--or rather one in a million,--and for one Angela Sovrani we shall have a world of female daubers calling themselves artists and entering into competition with us, as if we had not already quite enough competition among our own sex! I honestly believe that with very rare exceptions woman's work is decidedly inferior and mediocre as compared to man's."

Quickly Angela disengaged herself from his hold, her lips trembling--her eyes were full of a strange fire and brilliancy,--her slight figure seemed to grow taller as she stood for a moment like a queen, regarding him steadfastly from under her fair, level brows.

"Then come and see!" she said, "I am not proud--I make no boast at all of what I have done--and no one perceives or deplores the faults of my work more than I do--but I know I have not altogether failed!"

She moved away from him and stood opposite her veiled canvas,--then as Florian followed and joined her, with a swift action which had something of defiance as well as grace in it, she swept aside the concealing curtain. Florian recoiled with an involuntary cry,--and then remained motionless and silent,--stricken dumb and stupid by the magnificent creation which confronted him. This Angela's masterpiece! A woman's work! This stupendous conception! This perfect drawing! This wondrous colouring! Fully facing him, the central glory of the whole picture, was a figure of Christ--unlike any other Christ ever imagined by poet or painter--an etherealised Form through which the very light of Heaven itself seemed to shine,--supreme, majestic, and austerely God-like;--the face was more beautiful than any ever dreamed of by the hewers of the classic marbles--it was the face of a great Archangel,--beardless and youthful, yet kingly and commanding. Round the broad brows a Crown of Thorns shone like a diadem, every prickly point tipped with pale fire,--and from the light floating folds of intense white which, cloud-like, clung about the divine Form, faint flashes of the lightning gleamed. Above this grand Christ, the heavens were opened, pouring out a rain of such translucent purity of colour and radiance as never had been seen in any painted canvas before--but beneath, the clouds were black as midnight--confused, chaotic, and drifting darkly on a strong wind as it seemed into weird and witch-like shapes, wherein there were seen the sun and moon revolving pallidly, like globes of fire lost from their orbits and about to become extinct. And among those shifting black films were a crowd of human creatures, floating and falling into unknown depths of darkness, and striking out wild arms of appeal and entreaty and despair,--the faces of these were all familiar, and were the life-like portraits of many of those pre-eminent in the history of the time. Chief among them was the Sovereign Pontiff, waxen and wan and dark-eyed,--he was depicted as fastening fetters of iron round the body of a beautiful youth, laurel-crowned, the leaves of the laurel bearing faint gold letters which spelt the word "Science." Huddled beside him was a well-known leader of the Jesuits, busily counting up heaps of gold,--another remarkable figure was that of a well-known magnate of the Church of England, who, leaning forward eagerly, sought to grasp and hold the garment of the Pope, but was dragged back by the hand of a woman crowned with an Imperial diadem. After these and other principal personages came a confusion of faces--all recognisable, yet needing study to discern;--creatures drifting downwardly into the darkness,--one was the vivisectionist whose name was celebrated through France, clutching at his bleeding victim and borne relentlessly onwards by the whirlwind,--and forms and faces belong to men of every description of Church-doctrine were seen trampling underneath them other human creatures scarcely discernible. And over all this blackness and chaos the supernal figure of the Christ was aerially poised,--one hand was extended and to this a woman clung--a woman with a beautiful face made piteous in its beauty by long grief and patient endurance. In her other arm she held a sleeping child--and mother and child were linked together by a garland of flowers partially broken and faded. Her entreating attitude,--the sleeping child's helplessness--her worn face,--the perishing roses of earth's hope and joy,--all expressed their meaning simply yet tragically, and as the Divine Hand supported and drew her up out of the universal chaos below, the hope of a new world, a better world, a wiser world, a holier world, seemed to be distantly conveyed. But the eyes of the Christ were full of reproach, and were bent on the Representative of St. Peter binding the laurel-crowned youth, and dragging him into darkness,--and the words written across the golden mount of the picture, in clear black letters, seemed to be actually spoken aloud from the vivid color and movement of the painting. "Many in that day will call upon Me and say, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name cast out devils, and done many wonderful works?"

"Then will I say to them, I never knew you! Depart from me all ye that work iniquity!"

As an Allegory the picture was a daring yet sublime reproach to the hypocrisy of the religious world,--as a picture it was consummate in every detail, and would have been freely admitted as a masterpiece of Raffaelle had Raffaelle been fortunate enough to paint it. Still Varillo kept silence. Angela's heart beat so loudly that she could almost hear it in the deep silence of the room. Every fine little nerve in her body was strained--to the utmost height of suspense,--she was afraid to look at her lover, or disturb the poise of his mental judgment by the lightest movement. And he? Thoughts, black as the chaos of cloud she had so powerfully portrayed, were stirring in his soul,--thoughts, base and mean and cowardly, which, gradually gathering force as he dwelt upon them, began to grow and spring up to a devilish height worked into life and being by a burning spark of jealousy, which, long smouldering in his nature, now leaped into a flame. No trace of the wicked inner workings of his mind, however, darkened the equanimity of his features, or clouded the serene, soft candour of his eyes, as he at last turned towards the loving, shrinking woman, who stood waiting for his approval, as simply and sweetly as a rose might wait for the touch of the morning sun. Slowly, and like little pellets of ice, his first words fell from his lips,

"Did you do it all yourself?"

The spell was disturbed--the charm broken. Angela turned very white--she drew a deep breath--and the tension on her nerves relaxed,--her heart gave one indignant bound--and then resumed its usual quiet beating, as with a strong effort she gathered all her dignity and force together, and replied simply,

"Can you ask?"

He looked at her. What an embodied insult to the arrogance of man she was! She!--a mere woman!--and the painter of the finest picture ever seen since Raffaelle and Michael Angelo left the world to work elsewhere. "Chaste as ice, pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny!" In his imagination he saw the world crowning her with imperishable bays--he heard the denunciation of the Vatican and the condemnation of the Churches, thunder uselessly against the grand lesson of her work, while crowds gathered adoringly before the most perfect Christ ever painted!--and he saw her name written up in letters of gold on the scroll of those whom history numbers as immortal! It should not be! It should never be! And again he spoke, enunciating his words with difficulty, for his lips were dry.

"It is very fine! Quite marvellous, in fact!--almost unprecedented! That is why I ask, 'did you do it all yourself?' You must not be offended, Angela! I mean so well! You see the conception--the breadth of treatment--the gradation and tone of colour--are all absolutely masculine. Who first suggested the idea to you?"

Still very pale, breathing quickly yet lightly, and maintaining an air of calm which was almost matter of fact, she answered,--

"No one! Though perhaps, if it is traced to its source, it arose in my mind from seeing the universal dissatisfaction which most intelligent people feel with religion, as administered to them by the Churches. That, and a constant close study of the New Testament, set the thought in my brain,--a thought which gradually expressed itself in this form. So far as any work belongs to the worker, it is entirely my own creation. I am sorry you should have implied any doubt of it!"

Here her voice trembled a little, but she quickly steadied it. He smiled--a little difficult smile--and slipping his right hand between his coat and vest, felt for something he always carried there. It should never be!

"My dear Angela!" he said, with a gracious tranquillity that was almost dignity, "I do not doubt you in the least!--I merely SUGGEST what all the world will SAY! There is not an art-critic alive who will accept this--this extraordinary production--as the work of a woman! It is the kind of thing which might have been produced hundreds of years ago by a great master setting his pupils to work at different sections of the canvas,--but that one woman, painting all alone for three years, should have designed and executed such a masterpiece--yes!--I will admit it is a masterpiece!--is an unheard of and altogether an extraordinary thing, and you must not wonder if competent judges reject the statement with incredulity!"

"It does not matter to me," said Angela, "what they reject or accept. You admit it is a masterpiece--that is enough for me. It is my own work, and you know it is!"

"Dear little one!" he said, laughing forcedly, "How do I know? You have never admitted me into the studio once while you were at work!"

"Florian!"

The exclamation broke from her lips like a cry of physical pain.

"That was a mistake of yours!" he went on recklessly, his eyes beginning to glitter with the fever raging in his mind, "You should not have shut the doors against your lover, my beloved! Nor would you admit your father either! That looks very strange!"

White as a snowflake, yet with blazing eyes, Angela turned upon him.

"Florian!" she said, "Do you--you of all people in the world--you to whom I have given all my love and confidence--mean to suggest that my work is not my own?"

He looked at her, smiling easily.

"Sweet Angela, not I! I know your genius--I worship it! See!" and with a light grace he dropped on one knee, and snatching her hand, kissed it--then springing up again, he said, "You are a great creature, my Angela!--the greatest artist in the world,--IF WE CAN ONLY MAKE THE WORLD BELIEVE IT!"

Something in his voice, his manner, moved her to a vague touch of dread. Earnestly she looked at him,--wonderingly, and with a passionate reproach in her pure, true eyes. And still he smiled, while the fiends of envy and malice made havoc in his soul.

"My glorious Angela!" he said, "My bride, my beautiful one! A veritable queen, to whom nations shall pay homage!" He threw one arm round her waist and drew her somewhat roughly to him. "You must not be vexed with me, sweetheart!--the world is a cruel world, and always doubts great ability in woman! I only prepare you for what most people will say. But I do not doubt!--I know your power, and triumph in it!" He paused a moment, breathing quickly,--his eyes were fixed on the picture,--then he said, "If I may venture to criticise--there is a shadow--there, at the left hand side of the canvas--do you not see?"

She disengaged herself from his clasp.

"Where?" she asked, in a voice from which all spirit and hopefulness had fled.

"You are sad? My Angela, have I discouraged you? Forgive me! I do not find fault,--this is a mere nothing,--you may not agree with me,--but does not that dark cloud make somewhat too deep a line near the faded roses? It may be only an effect of this waning light,--but I do think that line is heavy and might be improved. Be patient with me!--I only criticise to make perfection still more perfect!"

Listlessly she moved closer to the picture, turning away from him as she did so.

"Just the slightest softening of the tone--the finishing touch!" he murmured in caressing accents; while to himself he muttered--"It shall not be! It shall never be!" Then with a swift movement his hand snatched at the thing he always carried concealed near his breast--a flash of pointed steel glittered in the light,--and with one stealthy spring and pitiless blow, he stabbed her full and furiously in the back as she stood looking at the fault he had pretended to discover in her picture! One choking cry escaped her lips--

"Florian--you! YOU--Florian!" Then reeling, she threw up her arms and fell, face forwards on the floor, insensible.

He stood above her, dagger in hand,--and studied the weapon with strange curiosity. It was crimson and wet with blood. Then he stared at the picture. A faint horror began to creep over him. The great Christ in the centre of the painting seemed to live and move, and float towards him on clouds of blinding glory. His breath came and went in uneasy gasps.

"Angela!" he muttered thickly,--"Angela!" She lay prone and horribly still. He was afraid to touch her. What had he done? Murdered her? Oh no!--he had done nothing--nothing at all,--she had merely fainted--she would be well presently! He smiled foolishly at this, still gazing straight at the picture, and holding the sharp blood-stained blade in his hand.

"My love!" he said aloud,--then listened--as though waiting for an answer. And still he stared persistently at the glorious figure of the Christ, till the Divine eyes seemed to flash the fire of an everlasting wrath upon his treacherous soul.

"To destroy the work? Or claim it?" he mused, "Either would be easy! That is, if she were dead!--." he paused,--amazed at his own thought. "If she were dead, it would be easy to swear I had painted the picture! If she were dead!" Again he listened. "Angela!" he whispered.

A door banging in the house startled him from his semi-stupor. His eyes wandered from the picture to the inanimate form lying at his feet.

"Sweet Angela!" he said, a cold smile flickering on his lips, "You were always unselfish! You wished me to be the greatest artist of my time!--and perhaps I shall be!--now YOU are dead! My love!"

A sudden clatter of horses' hoofs and rolling wheels wakened hollow echoes from the great stone courtyard below. It was the Cardinal returning from the Vatican. A panic seized him--his teeth chattered as with icy cold. He sprang swiftly to the door by which Angela had admitted him, and opened it cautiously,--then slinking out, locked it carefully behind him, took the key,--and fled. Once in the street, he never paused till he reached the corner of a dark projecting wall over-looking the Tiber, and here, glancing nervously round lest he should be observed, he flung his murderer's dagger and the key of the studio both into the water. Again he paused and listened--looking up at the frowning windows of the Palazzo Sovrani which could be dimly seen from where he stood. He had not meant to kill Angela. Oh no! He had come to the studio, full of love, prepared to chide her tenderly for the faults in her work,--till he saw that it was faultless; to make a jest of her ambition,--till he realized her triumph! And then,--then the devil had seized him--then--! A scarlet slit in the western horizon showed where the sun had sunk,--a soft and beautiful after-glow trembled over the sky in token of its farewell. A boy came strolling lazily down the street eating a slice of melon, and paused to fling the rind over the wall. The innocent, unconscious glance of the stripling's eyes was sufficient to set up a cowardly trembling in his body,--and turning round abruptly so that even this stray youth might not observe him too closely, he hurried away. And the boy, never regarding him at all, strolled on with the mellow taste of the fruit he had just enjoyed in his mouth, and presently, as if inspired thereby, awoke the slumbering echoes of the street with his high, fluting young treble, singing, "Che faro senza Eurydice!"

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XXX

Meanwhile Cardinal Bonpre had once more reached his own apartments, thankful enough to be there after his difficult experience at the Vatican. But he was neither fatigued nor depressed by what had occurred,--on the contrary he was conscious of an extraordinary vigour and lightness of heart, as though he had suddenly grown young again. Changing his scarlet robes of office for his every-day cassock, he seated himself restfully, and with a deep sigh of relief, in his easy chair near the writing-table, and first of all closing his eyes for a moment, while he silently prayed for guidance to the Supreme Judge of all secret intentions, he called Manuel to his side.

"My child," he said gently, "I want you to listen to me very attentively. I do not think you quite understand what you have done to-day, do you?"

Manuel raised his eyes with a clear look of confidence.

"Yes. I have spoken to the Head of the Church of Rome," he answered,--"That is all. I have said to him, as Christ once said to the very Peter whom he represents, 'Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.'"

The Cardinal regarded him straightly.

"True! But for you, a mere child, to say to the Head of the Church what Christ said to St. Peter, will be judged as blasphemy. I have never urged you, as you know, to tell me who you are, or where you came from. I do not urge you now. For I feel that you have been sent to me for some special purpose--that young as you are, you have been entrusted by a Higher Power with some mission to me--for you possess the spirit of inspiration, prophecy and truth. I dare not question that spirit! Wherever I find it, in the young, in the old, in the wise or the ignorant I give it welcome. For you have uttered not only what I have myself thought, but what half the world is thinking, though you are only one of those 'babes and sucklings out of whose mouth the Lord hath ordained wisdom.' But what you have said at the Vatican will be judged as heresy--and I shall be counted heretic for having permitted you to speak thus boldly."

"Your permission was not asked," said Manuel simply, "I was summoned to the Vatican, but I was not told what to say to the Pope. I spoke as I felt. No one interrupted me. The Pope listened to all my words. And I said no more than is true."

"Truth is judged as libel nowadays in the world," answered the Cardinal, "And we have to confront the fact that we have incurred the displeasure, and have also invited the vengeance of the Sovereign Pontiff. Thus we must expect to suffer."

"Then he who is called the visible Head of Christianity objects to the truth, and is capable of vengeance!" said Manuel, "That is a strange contradiction! But I will suffer whatever he pleases to inflict upon me. You shall suffer nothing!"

The Cardinal smiled gravely.

"My child, I am old, and whatever trouble is in store for me cannot last long. But I must guard you from harm with all the remaining powers of my life. Having constituted myself your protector and defender, I must continue to protect and defend. And so, Manuel, tomorrow or the next day I shall take you away to England. So far, at least, I will defy the powers of Rome!"

His eyes flashed, and his whole person seemed to be invested with sudden strength, dignity and command. He pointed to the crucifix on the table before him.

"He, the Holy One of the Heavens, was crucified for speaking the truth,--I can do no better than follow His divine example! If my soul is stretched on the crossbeams of injustice--if every tender emotion of my heart is tortured and slain--if I am stripped of honour and exposed to contempt, what matter! My glorious Master suffered likewise."

Manuel was silent. He stood near the great chimney where the wood fire burned and crackled, casting a ruddy glow through the room. After a few minutes he turned his fair head towards the Cardinal with an earnest, scrutinising gaze in his expressive eyes.

"Then, dear friend, you are not angry? You do not reproach me for what I have done?"

"Reproach you? I reproach no one!" said Bonpre,--"Least of all, a child! For you speak unconsciously--as genius speaks;--you cannot weigh the meaning of your words, or the effect of what you say on the worldly or callous minds which have learned to balance motives and meanings before coining them into more or less ambiguous language. No!--I have nothing to reproach you with, Manuel,--I am thankful to have you by my side!"

His eyes rested again upon the crucifix for a moment, and he went on, more to himself than to the boy,--

"In the early days of our Lord, He spoke to the wise men in the Temple, and they were 'astonished at his understanding and answers.' But they did not reprove Him,--not then,--on the contrary, they listened. How often in our own days do young children ask us questions to which we cannot reply, and which they themselves perchance could easily answer if they but knew how to clothe their thoughts with speech! For the Spirit of God is made manifest in many ways, and through many methods;--sometimes it whispers a hint or a warning to us in the petals of the rose, sometimes in the radiance of the sunset on the sea, sometimes in the simple talk of a child younger even than you are,--'Except ye become as little children--!"

He paused in his dreamy utterance, and turned in his chair listening. "What is that?" There was a noise of hurrying footsteps and murmuring voices,--that sort of half-muffled confusion in a household which bodes something wrong,--and all at once Prince Sovrani threw open the door of the Cardinal's apartments without ceremony, crying out as he entered,--

"Where is Angela?"

The Cardinal rose out of his chair, startled and alarmed.

"Angela?" he echoed, "She is not here!"

"Not here!" Prince Sovrani drew a sharp breath, and his face visibly paled,--"It is very strange! Her studio is locked at both entrances--yet the servants swear she has not passed out of the house! Besides she never goes out without leaving word as to where she has gone and when she is coming back!"

"Her studio is locked on both sides!" repeated the Cardinal, "But that is quite easy to understand--her picture is unveiled, and no one is to be permitted to see it until to-morrow."

"Yes--yes--" said the Prince Pietro impatiently, "I know all that,--but where is Angela herself? There is no sign of her anywhere! She cannot have gone out. Her maid tells me she was not dressed to go out. She was in her white working gown when last seen. Santissima Madonna!"--and old Sovrani gave a wild gesture of despair--"If any harm has happened to the child . . ."

"Harm? Why what harm could happen? What harm could happen?" said the Cardinal soothingly,--"My dear brother, do not alarm yourself needlessly--"

"Let us go to the studio," interposed Manuel suddenly--"She may not have heard you call her."

He moved in his gentle light way out of the room, and without another word they followed. Outside the studio door they paused, and Prince Sovrani tried again and again to open it, calling "Angela!" now loudly, now softly, now entreatingly, now commandingly, all to no purpose. The servants had gathered on the landing, afraid of they knew not what, and one old man, the Prince's valet, shook his head dolefully at the continued silence.

"Why not break open the door, Eccellenza?" he asked anxiously, "I know the trick of those old locks--if the Eccellenza will permit I can push back the catch with a strong chisel."

"Do so then," replied his master, "I cannot wait--there is something horrible in the atmosphere!--something that chokes me! Quick! This suspense will kill me!"

The old valet hurried away, and in two or three minutes, during which time both Prince Sovrani and the Cardinal knocked and called again outside the door quite uselessly, he returned with a strong iron chisel which he forced against the lock. For some time it resisted all efforts--then with appalling suddenness gave way and flew back, the door bursting wide open with the shock. For one instant the falling shadows of evening made the interior of the room too dim to see distinctly--there was a confused blur of objects,--the carved summit of a great easel,--a gold picture-frame shining round a wonderful mass of colouring on canvas--then gradually they discerned the outline of a small figure lying prone at the foot of the easel, stiff and motionless. With a dreadful cry of despair Sovrani dashed into the room.

"Angela! Angela!"

Falling on his knees he raised the delicate figure in his arms,--the little head drooped inanimate on his shoulder, and with the movement a coil of golden hair became unbound, and fell in soft waves over his trembling hands--the fair face was calm and tranquil--the eyes were closed,--but as the distracted man clasped that inert, beloved form closer, he saw what caused him to spring erect with a terrible oath, and cry for vengeance.

"Murdered!" he exclaimed hoarsely--"Murdered! Brother, come close!--see here! Will you talk to me of God NOW! My last comfort in life--the last gift of my Gita, murdered!"

The affrighted Cardinal tottered forward, and looking, saw that a deep stain of blood oozed over the soft white garments of the lifeless girl, and he wrung his hands in despair.

"My God! My God!" he moaned, "In what have we offended Thee that Thou shouldst visit us with such heavy affliction? Angela, my child!--my little girl!--Angela!"

The servants had by this time clustered round, a pale and terrified group, sobbing and crying loudly,--only the old valet retained sufficient presence of mind to light two or three of the lamps in the studio. As this was done, and the sudden luminance dispersed some of the darker shadows in the room, the grand picture on the easel was thrown into full prominence,--and the magnificent Christ, descending in clouds of glory, seemed to start from the painted canvas and move towards them all. And even while he wrung his hands and wept, the Cardinal's glance was suddenly caught and transfixed by this splendour,--he staggered back amazed, and murmured feebly--"Angela! THIS is her work!--this her great picture, and she--she is dead!"

Sovrani suddenly clutched him by the arm, and drew him close to the couch where he had just laid the body of his daughter down.

"Now, where was this God you serve, think you, when this happened?" he demanded, in a hoarse whisper, while his aged eyes glittered feverishly, and his stern dark face under the tossed white hair was as a frowning mask of vengeance,--"Is the world so rich in sweet women that SHE should be slain?"

Half paralysed with grief, the unhappy Cardinal sank on his knees beside the murdered girl,--taking the passive hand he kissed it, the tears flowing down his furrowed cheeks. Her magnificent picture shone forth, a living presence in the room, but the thoughts of all were for the dead only, and the distracted Sovrani saw nothing but his child's pale, set face, closed eyes, and delicate figure, lying still with the red stain of blood spreading through the whiteness of her garments. None of them thought of Manuel--and it was with a shock of surprise that the Cardinal became aware of him, and saw him approaching the couch, raising his hand as he came, warningly.

"Hush, hush!" he said, very gently, "It may be that she is not dead! She will be frightened when she wakes if she sees you weeping!"

Prince Sovrani caught the words.

"When she wakes!" he cried, "Poor boy, you do not know what you say! She will never wake! She is dead!"

But Manuel was bending closely over the couch, and looking earnestly into Angela's quiet face. Cardinal Bonpre watched him wonderingly. And the old Prince stood, arrested as it were in the very midst of his wrath and sorrow by some force more potent than even the spirit of vengeance. The sobbing servants held their breath--and all stared as if fascinated at the young boy, as after a pause, he took Angela's hand that hung so inertly down, in one of his own, and with the other felt her heart. Then he spoke.

"She is not dead!" he said simply,--"She has only swooned. Let someone fetch a physician to attend her--see!--she breathes!"

With a wild, half-smothered cry Prince Sovrani sprang forward to see for himself if this blessed news was true. He and the Cardinal both, seized with a passionate anxiety, gazed and gazed at the fair beloved face in hope, in fear and longing,--and still Manuel stood beside the couch, stroking the small hand he held with thoughtful care and tenderness. All at once a faint sigh parted the sweet lips,--the bosom heaved with a struggle for breath. Her father fell on his knees, overcome, and hiding his face in his hands sobbed aloud in the intensity of his relief and joy, while the Cardinal murmured a devout 'Thank God!' A few minutes passed, and still the fluttering uncertain breathings came and went, and still Manuel stood by the couch, quietly watchful. Presently the closed eyelids quivered and lifted,--and the beautiful true eyes shone star-like out upon the world again! She stirred, and tried to raise herself, but sank back exhausted in the effort. Then seeing the Cardinal, she smiled,--and her gaze wandered slowly to the bent, white-haired figure crouching beside her, whose whole frame was shaken by sobs.

"Father!" she murmured--"Dearest father! What is it?"

He lifted his tear-stained, agonised face, and seeing that the tender eyes regarding him were full of fear and wonder as well as love, he instantly controlled himself, and rising from his knees, kissed her gently.

"I thought you were dead, my darling!" he said softly--"Hush now--do not speak! Lie quite still! You are hurt a little,--you must rest!--you will be better,--much better presently!"

But Angela's looks had again wandered, and now they were fixed on Manuel. Over her whole face there came a sudden life and radiance.

"Manuel!" she said eagerly--"Manuel, stay with me! Do not leave me!"

Manuel smiled in answer to her appealing eyes, and came nearer.

"Do not fear!" he said--"I will stay!"

She closed her eyes again restfully, and her breathing grew lighter and easier. Just then one of the servants entered with the physician who was accustomed to attend the Sovrani household. His arrival roused Angela completely,--she became quite conscious, and evidently began to remember something of what had happened. The doctor raised her to see where she was injured, and quickly cutting away her blood-stained vesture, tenderly and carefully examined the wound.

"I cannot understand how it is that she is not dead!" he said at last--"It is a miracle! This is a stab inflicted with some sharply pointed instrument,--probably a dagger--and was no doubt intended to be mortal. As it is, it is dangerous--but there is a chance of life." Then he addressed himself to Angela, who was looking at him with wide-open eyes and a most piteous expression. "Do you know me, my child?"

"Oh, yes, doctor!" she murmured faintly.

"Do you suffer much pain?"

"No."

"Then can you tell me how this happened? Who stabbed you?"

She shuddered and sighed.

"No one!--that I can remember!"

Her eyes closed--she moved her hands about restlessly as though seeking for something she had lost.

"Manuel!"

"I am here!" answered the boy gently.

"Stay with me! I am so tired!"

Again a convulsive trembling shook her fragile body from head to foot, and again she sighed as though her heart were breaking,--then she lay passively still, though one or two tears crept down her cheeks as they carried her tenderly up to her own room and laid her down on her simple little white bed, softly curtained, and guarded by a statue of the Virgin bending over it. There, when her cruel wound was dressed and bandaged, and the physician had given her a composing draught, she fell into a deep, refreshing slumber, and only Manuel stayed beside her as she slept.

Meanwhile, down in the studio, Prince Sovrani and the Cardinal stayed together, talking softly, and gazing in fascinated wonder, bewilderment, admiration and awe at Angela's work unveiled. All the lamps in the room were now lit, and the great picture--a sublime Dream resolved into sublime Reality--shone out as much as the artificial light would permit,--a jewel of art that seemed to contain within itself all the colour and radiance of a heaven unknown, unseen yet surely near at hand. The figure and face of the approaching Saviour, instinct with life, expressed almost in positive speech the words, "Then shall ye see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory"!--and if Cardinal Bonpre had given way to the innermost emotions of his soul, he could have knelt before the exalted purity of such a conception of the Christ,--a god-like ideal, brought into realization by the exalted imagination, the holy thoughts, and the faithful patient work of a mere woman!

"This--" he said, in hushed accents--"This must be the cause of the dastardly attempt made to murder the child! Some one who knew her secret,--some one who was aware of the wonderful power and magnificence of her work,--perhaps the very man who made the frame for it,--who can tell?"

Prince Pietro meditated deeply, a frown puckering his brows,--his countenance was still pale and drawn with the stress of the mingled agony and relief he had just passed through, and the anxiety he felt concerning Angela's immediate critical condition.

"I cannot hold the position yet!--" he said, at last--"That is to say, I am too numb and stricken with fear to realize what has happened! See you! That picture is marvellous!--a wonder of the world!--it will crown my girl with all the laurels of a lasting fame,--but what matter is it to me,--this shouting of the public,--if she dies? Will it console me for her loss, to call her a Raffaelle?"

"Nay, but we must not give up hope!"--said the Cardinal soothingly--"Please God, you will not lose her! Be glad that she is not dead,--and remember that it is almost by a miracle that she lives!"

"That is true--that is true!" murmured old Sovrani, ruffling his white hair with one hand, while he still stared abstractedly at his daughter's picture--"You are very patient with me, brother!--you have all the kindness as well as all the faithfulness of your sister,--the sweetest woman the sun was ever privileged to shine on! Well, well! What did you say to me? That this picture must have been the cause of the attempted murder? Maybe,--but the poor hard-working fellow who made the frame for it, could not have done such a deed,--he has been a pensioner of Angela's for many a long day, and she has given him employment when he could not obtain it from others. Besides, he never saw the picture. Angela gave him her measurements, and when the frame was finished he brought it to her here. But he had nothing whatever to do with setting the canvas in it,--that I know, for Angela herself told me. No, no!--let us not blame the innocent; rather let us try to find the guilty."

At that moment a servant entered with a large and exquisitely arranged basket of lilies-of-the-valley, and a letter.

"For Donna Sovrani," he said, as he handed both to his master.

The Prince took the basket of lilies, and moved by a sudden fancy, set it gently in front of Angela's great work. Glancing at the superscription of the letter, he said,--

"From Varillo. I had better open it and see what he says."

He broke the seal and read the following:

"SWEETEST ANGELA,--I am summoned to Naples on business, and therefore, to my infinite regret, shall not be able to see the great picture to-morrow. You know,--you can feel how sorry I am to disappoint both you and myself in a pleasure which we have so long lovingly anticipated, but as the Queen has promised to make her visit of inspection, I dare not ask you to put off the exhibition of your work till my return. But I know I shall come back to find my Angela crowned with glory, and it will be reserved for me to add the last laurel leaf to the immortal wreath! I am grieved that I have no time to come and press my 'addio' on your sweet lips,--but in two or three days at most, I shall be again at your feet. Un bacio di

FLORIAN."

"Then he has left for Naples?" said Bonpre, to whom Prince Pietro had read this letter--"A sudden departure, is it not?"

"Very sudden!"

"He will not know what has happened to Angela--"

"Oh he will be sure to hear that!" said the Prince--"To-night it will be in all the newspapers both of Rome and Naples. Angela's light cannot be hidden under a bushel!"

"True. Then of course he will return at once."

"Naturally. If he hears the news on his way, he will probably be back to-night--" said Sovrani, but his fuzzy brows were still puckered. Some uncomfortable thought seemed to trouble him,--and presently, as if moved by a sudden inexplicable instinct, he took the basket of lilies away from where he had set it in front of his daughter's picture, and transferred it to a side-table. Cardinal Bonpre, always observant, noticed his action.

"You will not leave the flowers there?" he queried.

"No. The picture is a sacred thing!--it is an almost living Christ!--in whom Varillo does not believe!"

The Cardinal lifted his eyes protestingly.

"Yet you let the child marry him?"

Sovrani passed one hand wearily across his brows.

"Let us not talk of marriage," he said--"Death is nearer to us to-day than life! I am opposed to the match--I always have been,--and who knows--who knows what may not yet prevent it--" He paused, thinking,--then turning a solicitous glance on his brother-in-law's frail figure he said--"Felix, you look weary,--let me attend you to your own rooms, that you may rest. We need you with us,--it may be that we shall need you more than we have ever done! Pray for us, brother!--Pray for my Angela, that she may be spared--"

His harsh voice broke,--and tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks.

"See you!" he said, pointing in a kind of despair to the magnificent "Coming of Christ"--"If Raffaelle or Angelo had dared to paint this in their day, the world would be taking a lesson from it now! If it were a modern man's work, that man would be a centre for hero-worship! But that a WOMAN should create such a masterpiece!--and that woman my Angela! Do you know what it means, Felix?--what Fame always means, what it always must mean--for a woman? Just what has already happened,--the murderous dagger-thrust--the coward stab in the back--and the little child's cry of the tender broken heart we heard just now--'Stay with me!--I am so tired!'"

The Cardinal pressed his hand sympathetically, too profoundly moved himself to speak.

"This picture will bring down the thunders of the Vatican!--" went on Sovrani--"And those thunders will awaken a responsive echo from the world! But not from the Old World--the New! The New World!--yes--my Angela's work is for the living present, the coming future--not for the decayed Past!"

As he spoke, he dropped the silken curtain before the picture and hid it from view.

"We will raise it again when the painter lives--or dies!" he said brokenly.

They left the studio, Prince Pietro extinguishing the lights, and giving orders to his servant to put a strong bar across the door they had forced open,--and the Cardinal, feeling more lonely than he had done for many days, owing to the temporary absence of Manuel who was keeping watch over Angela, returned to his own apartments full of grave thoughts and anxious trouble. He had meant to leave Rome at once,--but now, such a course seemed more than impossible. Yet he knew that the scene which had, through himself indirectly, occurred at the Vatican, would have its speedy results in some decisive and vengeful action, if not on the part of the Supreme Pontiff, then through his ministers and advisers, and Bonpre was sufficiently acquainted with the secret ways of the Church he served, to be well aware of its relentlessness in all cases where its authority was called into question. The first step taken, so he instinctively felt, would be to deprive him of Manuel's companionship,--the next perhaps, to threaten him with the loss of his own diocese. He sighed heavily,--yet in his own tranquil and pious mind he could not say that he resented the position his affairs had taken. Accustomed as he was always, to submit the whole daily course of his life to the ruling of a Higher Power, he was framed and braced as temperately for adversity as for joy,--and nothing seemed to him either fortunate or disastrous except as concerned the attitude in which the soul received the announcement of God's will. To resent affliction was, in his opinion, sinful; to accept it reverently and humbly as a means of grace, and endeavour to make sweetness out of the seeming bitterness of the divine dispensation, appeared to him the only right and natural way of duty,--hence his clear simplicity of thought, his patience, plain faith, and purity of aim. And even now, perplexed and pained as he was, much more for the sorrow which had befallen his brother-in-law, than for any trouble likely to occur personally to himself, he was still able to disentangle his thoughts from all earthly cares--to lift up his heart, unsullied by complaint, to the Ruler of all destinies--and to resign himself with that Christian philosophy, which when truly practised, is so much more powerful than all the splendid stoicism of the heroic pagans, to those

"Glorious God-influences, Which we, unseeing, feel and grope for blindly, Like children in the dark, knowing that Love is near!"

Meanwhile Prince Pietro, moved by conflicting sentiments and forebodings which he was unable to explain to himself, and only strongly conscious of the desire to be avenged on his daughter's cowardly assailant, whoever it might be, muffled himself in a well-worn "Almaviva" cloak, his favourite out-door garment, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and so, looking like a fierce old brigand of the mountains, went out, not quite knowing why he went, but partly impelled by a sense of curiosity. He wanted to hear something,--to find something,--and yet he could not agree with himself as to the nature of the circumstance he sought to discover. There was a lurking suspicion in his mind to which he would not give a name,--a dark thought that made him tremble with mingled rage and horror,--but he put it away from him as a hint offered by the Evil One--an insidious suggestion as hideous as it was unnatural. The afternoon had now closed into night, and many stars were glistening bravely in the purple depths of the clear sky,--the air was mild and balmy,--and as he crossed the road to turn down the little side street leading to the Tiber, where Florian Varillo had stood but a few hours previously, a flower-girl met him with a large basket of white hyacinths and held them up to his eyes.

"Ecco la primavera, Signor!" she said, with a smile.

He shook his head, and turned abruptly away,--as he did so, his foot struck against some slight obstacle. Stooping to examine it, he saw it was the empty leathern sheath of a dagger. He picked it up, and studied it intently. It was elaborately adorned with old rococco work, and was evidently the ornamental covering of one of those small but deadly weapons which Italians, both men and women, so often wear concealed about their persons, for the purpose of taking vengeance, when deemed necessary, on an unsuspecting enemy. Slipping the thing into his pocket, the Prince looked about him, and soon recognised his bearings,--he was standing about six yards away from the private back-entrance to his daughter's studio. He walked up to the door and tried it,--it was fast locked.

"Yes--I remember!--the servants told me--both doors were locked,--and from this they said the key was gone,--" he muttered, then paused.

Presently, actuated by a sudden impulse, he turned and walked swiftly with long impatient strides through the more populated quarters of Rome towards the Corso, and he had not proceeded very far in this direction before he heard a frenzied and discordant shouting which, though he knew it did not yet bear the truth in its harsh refrain, yet staggered him and made his heart almost stand still with an agony of premonitory fear.

"Morte di Angela Sovrani!" "Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!" "Morte subito di Angela Sovrani!" "Assassinamento crudele della bella Sovrani!"

Prince Pietro held his breath in sharp pain, listening. How horrible was the persistent cry of the newsvendors!--hoarse and shrill--now near--now far!--

"Morte di Angela Sovrani!"

How horrible!--how horrible! He put his hands to his ears to try and shut out the din. He had not expected any public outcry--not so soon--but ill news travels fast, and no doubt the very servants of his own household were responsible for having, in the extremity of their terror, given away the report of Angela's death. The terrible shouts were like so many cruel blows on his brain,--yet--half-reeling with the shock of them, he still went on his way,--straight on to the house and studio of Florian Varillo. There, he rang the bell loudly and impatiently. A servant opened the door in haste, and stared aghast at the tall old man with the white hair and blazing eyes, who was wrapped in a dark cloak, the very folds of which seemed to tremble with the suppressed rage of the form it enveloped.

"Il Principe Souvrani!" he stammered feebly, falling back a little from the threshold.

"Where is your master?" demanded Sovrani.

"Eccellenza, he has gone to Naples!"

"When did he leave?"

"But two hours ago, Eccellenza!"

Prince Pietro held up the dagger-sheath he had just found.

"This--belongs--to--him--does it not?" he asked slowly, detaching his words with careful directness.

The man answered readily and at once.

"Yes, Eccellenza!"

Sovrani uttered a terrible oath.

"Let me pass!"

The servant made a gesture of protest.

"But--Eccellenza--my master is not here! . . ."

Prince Pietro paying no heed to him, strode into the house, and brusquely threw open the door of a room which he knew to be Varillo's own specially private retreat. A woman with a mass of bright orange-gold hair, half-dressed in a tawdry blue peignoir trimmed with cheap lace, was sprawling lazily on a sofa smoking a cigarette. She sprang up surprised and indignant,--but shrank back visibly as she recognised the intruder, and met the steady tigerish glare of the old man's eyes.

"Where is your lover?" he asked.

"Eccellensa! You amaze--you insult me--!"

"Basta!" and Sovrani came a step nearer to her, his wrath seeming to literally encompass him like a thunder-cloud--"Play me no tricks! This is not the time for lying! I repeat my question--where is he? You, the companion of his closest thoughts,--you, his 'model'--you, Mademoiselle Pon-Pon, his mistress--you must know all his movements. Tell me then, where he is--or by heaven, if you do not, I will have you arrested for complicity in murder!"

She fell back from him trembling, her full red mouth half open,--and her face paling with terror.

"Murder!" she whispered--"Dio mio! Dio mio!"

"Yes--murder!" and the Prince thrust before her wide-opened eyes the dagger-sheath he held--"What! Have you not heard? Not yet? Not though the whole city rings with the news? What news? That Angela Sovrani is dead! That she--my daughter--the sweetest, purest, most innocent and loving of women as well as the greatest and most gifted--has been mortally stabbed in her own studio this very day by some cowardly fiend unknown! Unknown did I say? Not so--known! This sheath belongs to Florian Varillo. Where is he? Tell me at once--if only to save YOURSELF trouble!"

Overcome by fear, and to do her justice, horror as well, the miserable Pon-Pon threw herself on her knees.

"I swear he has gone to Naples!" she cried--"On my word!--as I live!--I swear it!--he has gone! He seemed as usual,--he was not in any haste--he left no message--he said he would be back in two or three days--he sent flowers to la Donna Sovrani--he wrote to her . . . O Santissima Virgine! . . . I swear to you I know nothing!"

The Prince eyed her with grim attention.

"They are shouting it in the streets--" he said--"Listen!" He held up one hand,--she cowered on the floor--she could hear nothing, and she stared at him in fascinated terror--"They are telling all Rome of the death of my child! First Rome--and then--the world! The world shall hear of it! For there is only one Angela Sovrani,--and earth and heaven cry out for justice in her name! Tell this to the devil who has bought you for his pleasure! I leave the message with you,--tell him that when the world clamours for vengeance upon her murderer, I KNOW WHERE TO FIND HIM!"

With that, he put the dagger-sheath back in his breastpocket with jealous care, and left her where she crouched, shivering and moaning. Walking as in a dream he brushed past the astonished and frightened servant unseeingly, and went out of the house into the street once more. There he paused dizzily,--the stars appeared to rock in the sky, and the houses seemed moving slowly round him in a sort of circular procession. The shouting of the newsvendors which had ceased for a while, began again with even louder persistency.

"Morte di Angela Sovrani!"

"La bella Sovrani!--Assassinamento crudele!"

The old man's heart beat in strong hammer-strokes,--he listened vaguely,--his tall figure shaking a little with the storm pent-up within him, till all at once as if the full realization of the position had only just burst upon him, he uttered a sharp cry--

"Her lover! Her promised husband! One whom she trusted and loved more than her own father! The hope of her life!--the man whose praise was sweeter to her than the plaudits of the whole world!--he--even he--her MURDERER! For even if she lives in body, he has murdered her soul!"

He looked up at the deep starlit heavens, his dark face growing livid in the intensity of his wrath and pain.

"May God curse him!" he whispered thickly--"May all evil track his footsteps, and the terrors of a cursed conscience hound him to his death! May he never know peace by day or night!--may the devils in his own soul destroy him! God curse him!"

He clenched his fist and raised it threateningly,--and gathering his cloak about him tried to walk on,--but there was a black mist before his eyes . . . he could not see--he stumbled forward blindly, and would have fallen, had not a strong arm caught him and held him upright. He turned a dazed and wondering look on the man whose friendly grasp supported him,--then, with an exclamation, made a trembling attempt to raise his hat.

"Il Re!" he murmured feebly--"Il Re!"

King Humbert--for it was he--held him still more closely.

"Courage, amico!" he said kindly--"Courage!--yes--yes!--I know--I have heard the news! All Italy will give you vengeance for your child! We will spare no pains to discover her murderer. But now--you are ill--you are weary--do not try to speak--come with me! Let me take you home--come!"

A great sob broke from the old man's breast as he yielded to his Sovereign's imperative yet gentle guidance, and before he could realize the situation, he was in the King's own carriage, with the King beside him, being rapidly driven back to his own house. Arrived at the Palazzo Sovrani, a strange sight greeted them. The great porte-cochere was wide open, and, pressing through it, and surrounding the stately building at every point was a vast crowd,--densely packed and almost absolutely silent. Quite up to the inner portico these waiting thousands pressed,--though, as they recognised the Royal liveries, they did their best to make immediate way, and a low murmur arose "Evviva il Re!" But there was no loud shouting, and the continued hush was more distinctly recognisable than the murmur. Prince Sovrani gazed bewilderedly at the great throng as the carriage moved slowly through, and putting his hand to his head murmured--

"What--what is this! I do not understand--why are these people here?"

The King pressed his hand.

"All the world honours and loves your daughter, my friend!" he said, "And Rome, the Mother of Nations, mourns the loss of her youngest child of genius."

"No--no, not loss!--she is not dead--" began Sovrani stammeringly,--"I should have told your Majesty--she is grievously wounded--but not dead . . ."

At that moment the carriage stopped. The door of the Sovrani palace was open, and in the centre of a group of people that had gathered within, among whom were Aubrey Leigh, Sylvie Hermenstein, and the Princesse D'Agramont, stood Cardinal Bonpre and Manuel. Manuel was a little in advance of the rest, and as the King and Prince Sovrani alighted, he came fully forward, his eyes shining, and a smile upon his lips.

"She will recover!" he said, "She is sleeping peacefully,--and all is well!" His voice rang clear and sweet, and was heard by everyone on the outskirts of the crowd. The good news ran from mouth to mouth, till all the people caught it up and responded with one brief, subdued, but hearty cheer. Then, without bidding, they began to disperse, and the King, baring his head in the presence of Cardinal Bonpre, gave up his self-imposed charge of old Sovrani, who, faint and feeble, grasped Aubrey Leigh's quickly proffered arm, and leaned heavily upon it.

"He needs care," said Humbert gently,--"The shock has moved him greatly!"

"Your Majesty is ever considerate of the sorrows of others," said the venerable Felix with emotion, "And God will bless you as He blesses all good men!"

The King bowed reverently to the benediction. Then he looked up with a slight smile.

"It is not wise of your Eminence to say so,--in Rome!" he observed,--"But I thank you, and am grateful!"

His keen eyes rested for a moment on Manuel,--and the fair aspect of the boy seemed to move him to a sense of wonder--but he did not speak. With a light salute to all present he re-entered his carriage and was driven away--and Aubrey Leigh led Prince Sovrani into his own library where, when he was seated, they all waited upon him eagerly, the fair Sylvie chafing his cold hands, and the Princesse D'Agramont practically making him drink a glass of good wine. Gradually, warmth and colour and animation came back to his pale features,--his fears were soothed,--his heart relieved, and a smile crossed his lips as he met Sylvie's earnest, anxious eyes.

"What a pretty rosebud it is!" he said softly,--"Full of sunshine--and love!"

With returning strength he gathered up the forces of his native pride and independence and rose from his chair.

"I am well--quite well again now!" he said, "Where is the boy, Manuel?"

"Gone back to Angela," replied the Cardinal, "He said he would watch her until she wakes."

"An angel watching an angel!" then said the Prince musingly, "That is as it should be!" He paused a moment, "The King was very kind. And you, Princesse--and you, bella Contessina!" and he courteously bent over Sylvie's little hand and kissed it,--"You are all much too good to an old man like me! I am strong again--I shall be ready to speak--when Angela bids. But I must wait. I must wait!" He ruffled his white hair with one hand and looked at them all very strangely. "That was a great crowd outside--all waiting to hear news of my girl! If--if they knew who it was that stabbed her--"

"Do you know?" cried Aubrey quickly.

"Per Dio!" And Sovrani smiled, "I thought Englishmen were phlegmatic, and here is one ablaze, and ready to burst like a bomb! No!--I did not say I knew!--but I say, if the crowd had known, they would have lynched him! Yes, they would have torn him to pieces! . . . and he would have deserved it! He will deserve it!--If he is ever found! Come--we will all sup here together this evening--sorrow strengthens the bonds of friendship . . . and I will tell you . . ."

He paused, and again the strange far-off look came into his eyes.

"I will tell you--" he went on slowly--"how I found my Angela lying dead, as I thought--dead at the feet of Christ!"

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XXXI

Meanwhile Florian Varillo had not gone to Naples. He had been turned back by a spectre evoked from his own conscience--coward fear. He was on his way to the station when he suddenly discovered that he had lost the sheath of his dagger. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead as this fact flashed upon him. What had he done with it? Surely he had drawn the weapon out and left the sheath in his breast pocket as usual--but no!--search as he would, he could not find it. It must have dropped on the floor of Angela's studio! If that were so, he would be traced!--most surely traced--as the sheath was of curious and uncommon workmanship, and many of his friends had seen it. He had told everybody he was going to Naples, and of course he would be followed there. Then, he would not go! But he went to the station as if bent on the journey, and took a ticket for Naples. Then, setting down his portmanteau on a bench, he surreptitiously tore off the label on which his name was written, and tearing it up in small bits scattered the fragments on the line. After this, he walked away leisurely, leaving the portmanteau behind him for there was nothing in it by which he could be traced, and sauntered slowly out of the station into the streets of Rome once more. Hailing the first fiacre he saw, he told the driver to take him to Frascati. The man was either lazy or sulky.

"Why not take the train, Signor?"

"Because I wish to drive!" replied Varillo. "What is your fare?"

"Twenty-five francs for half the way!" said the man, showing his white teeth in a mischievous grin.

"Good!"

The driver was surprised, as he had not thought his terms would be accepted. But he made no further demur, and Varillo jumped into the vehicle, his teeth chattering with an inward terror he could not control. "Drive quickly!" he said.

The man shouted an affirmative, and they clattered away through the streets, Varillo shrinking back in the carriage overcome by panic. What a fool he had been!--what a fool! He ought to have told Pon-Pon. If the dagger-sheath were found and taken to his residence, it would be recognised instantly! And all Rome would rise against Angela Sovrani's murderer. Murderer! Yes,--that was what he had chosen to make of himself!

"It was all an impulse," he muttered,--"Just a hot impulse, nothing more! Just a sudden hatred of her which made me stab her! It was enough to make any man angry to see such a picture as that painted by a woman! Her fame would have ruined mine! But I never meant to kill her--no--no, I never meant to kill her!"

Shuddering and whimpering, he huddled himself in a corner of the carriage, and did not dare to look out of the window to see which way he was being driven. He only rallied a little when the wheels moved more quietly and smoothly, and he knew that he was on the open road, and out of Rome. Suddenly, after jolting along a considerable time, the vehicle stopped, and the driver shouted to him. Varillo dashed down the window and put his head out, almost beside himself with rage.

"What are you stopping for! What are you stopping for!" he yelled. "Go on--go on--we are not half way to Frascati yet! Go on, I tell you!"

"Ma-che! Eccellenza, I only stopped to ask a question!"

"What question--what? Is this a time for asking questions?" cried Varillo,--"The night is falling,--I want to get on!"

"But we are going on as fast as we can!" expostulated the driver,--"It is only this--there is an albergo on the way--where we can get food and wine. Would the Eccellenza like to stop there? It is as far as I can go, for I am wanted to-night in Rome."

"Very well--stop where you like--only get on now!" said Varillo, pulling his head in with a jerk. And sinking back in his seat again he wiped his hot face and cursed his miserable destiny. It would have been all right if he had only remembered that sheath! No one would have got on such a track of suspicion as that he, the lover and affianced husband of Angela, was her brutal assassin!

"I wrote a loving letter and sent her flowers," he argued with himself, "when I knew she would be dead! But her father would have got them, and he would have wired to me in Naples, and I should have come back overcome with sorrow,--and then I should have told them all how the picture was a secret between my Angela and myself,--how I had painted the greater part of it, and how she in her sweetness had wished me to surprise the world,--the plan was perfect, but it is all spoiled!--spoiled utterly through that stupid blunder of the sheath!"

Such a trifle! It seemed to him incredible--unjust--that so slight a thing could intervene between him and the complete success of his meditated treachery. For notwithstanding the fact that he had been a great reader and student of books, he now, in this particular hour of his own emergency, completely forgot what all the most astute and learned writers have always expounded to an inattentive world--namely, the fact that crime holds within itself the seed of punishment. Sometimes that seed ripens quickly,--sometimes it takes years to grow,--but it is always there. And it generally takes root in a mere, slight circumstance, so very commonplace and casual as to entirely escape the notice of the criminal, till the network of destiny is woven so closely about him that he can no longer avoid it,--and then he is shown from what a trifling cause the whole result has sprung. Varillo's present state of mind was one of absolute torture, for he felt that whoever found the sheath of his dagger would at once recognise it and declare the owner. If Angela had only been wounded,--if SHE had found it--she would never have given up the name of its possessor,--the miserable man knew her straight, pure soul intimately enough for that!

"If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her own life!" he said--"She was always like that! SHE would never listen to anything that was said against me,--and if she lived, she would love me still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!" and he actually smiled at the thought. "How strangely some women are constituted!--especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it! They are sublime fools!--and so useful to men! We can do anything we like with them. We can ruin them--and they bear their shame in silence. We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,--we can murder them--" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them! Extraordinary!--angelic--superb!--and a wise Fate has ordained that we men shall never sacrifice ourselves for SUCH women, or go mad for the love of them! We love the virago better than the saint; we are afraid of the woman who nags at us and gives us trouble--who screams vengeance upon us if we neglect her in a trifle--who clamours for our money, and insists on our gifts--and who keeps our lives in a perpetual fever of excitement and terror. But the innocent woman we hate--very naturally! Her looks are a reproach to us, and we like to kill her when we can--and we often succeed morally,--but THAT is not called murder. The other way of killing is judged as a crime--and--then--the punishment is death!"

As this word passed his lips in a whisper, he trembled violently. Death! It had a chill sound--yet he had not thought so when he associated it with Angela. For of course Angela was dead. Was she not? Surely she must be--he had driven the dagger straight home!

"She could not possibly live," he muttered--"Not after such a well directed blow. And that amazing picture! If I could but claim it as my work, I should be the greatest artist in the world! It would be quite easy to make out a proof--only that cursed dagger-sheath is in the way!"

He was startled out of his reverie by another stoppage of the carriage, and this time the driver jumped down from his box and came to the door.

"This is as far as I can take you, Signor," he said, looking curiously at his passenger,--"It is quite half way to Frascati. There is the inn I told you of--where those lights are," and he pointed towards the left,--"The carriage road does not go up to it. It is a great place for artists!"

"I am not an artist!" said Varillo brusquely.

"No? But artists are merry company, Eccellenza!--" suggested the driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess of amiability--"And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting place on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there are good-natured!"

"Ah! There are brigands, are there?" said Varillo, getting out of the fiacre and beginning to recover something of his usual composure,--"And I daresay you are one of them if the truth were known! Here is your money." And he gave the man two gold pieces, one of twenty francs, the other of ten.

"Eccellenza, I have no change--"

"I want none!" said Varillo airily,--"You asked twenty-five francs--there are thirty. And now--as you say you have business in Rome, be off with you!"

The man needed no second bidding; delighted with his thirty francs, he called a gay "Buona notte, Signor!" and turning his horse's head jogged down the road at a tolerably smart pace. The horse knew as well as the driver, that the way now lay homeward, and lost no time. Varillo, left to himself, paused a moment and looked about him. The Campagna! How he hated it! Should he pass the night at that albergo, or walk on? He hesitated a little--then made for the inn direct. It was a bright, cosy little place enough, and the padrona, a cheery, dark-eyed woman seated behind the counter, bade him smiling welcome.

Lodging--oh yes! she said, there was a charming room at the Signor's disposal, with a view from the windows which in the early morning was superb! The Signor was an artist?

"No!" said Varillo, almost fiercely--"I am a tourist--travelling for pleasure!"

Ah! Then the view would enchant the Signor, because it would be quite new to him! The room should be prepared at once! Would the Signor take supper?

Yes,--the Signor would take supper. And the Signor went and sat in a remote corner of the common-room, with a newspaper of a week old, pretending to read its contents. And supper was soon served to him,--a tasty meal enough, flavoured with excellent wine,--and while he was drinking his third glass of it, a man entered, tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a heavy cloak, which he only partially loosened as he leaned against the counter and asked for a cup of coffee. But as he caught sight of the dark face, Varillo shrank back into his corner, and put up his newspaper to shield himself from view,--for he saw that the new-comer was no other than Monsignor Gherardi. His appearance seemed to create a certain amount of excitement and vague alarm in the little inn; the padrona evidently knew him well, and hastened to serve him herself with the coffee he asked for.

"Will you not sit down, Eccellentissima?" she murmured deferentially.

"No, I am in haste!" replied Gherardi, glancing carelessly about him--"My carriage waits outside. There is strange news in Rome to-night! The famous artist, Angela Sovrani, has been found in her studio, murdered!"

The padrona uttered a little cry.

"Murdered!"

"So it seems! Here are the papers from which they cry the news. I will leave them with you. It is perhaps the judgment of Heaven on the Sovrani's uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!"

The mistress of the inn crossed herself devoutly.

"Guiosto cielo!--Would Heaven punish a Cardinal?"

"Certainly! If a Cardinal is a heretic!"

The stout padrona clasped her hands and shuddered.

"Not possible!"

"Quite possible!" And Gherardi drained his coffee-cup. "And when so great a personage of the Church is a renegade, he incurs two punishments--the punishment of God and the punishment of the Church! The one comes first--the other comes--afterwards! Buena notte!"

And throwing down the money for his refreshment, Gherardi cast another glance around him, muffled himself up in his coat and went out into the night. Florian Varillo breathed again. But he was not left in peace for long. The padrona summoned her husband from the kitchen where he performed the offices of cook, to read the halfpenny sheets of news her visitor had left with her.

"Look you!" she said in a low voice, "The wicked Monsignor who has thee, my poor Paolo, in his clutches for debt, has just passed by and left evil tidings!--that beautiful girl who painted the famous pictures in Rome, has been murdered! Do you not remember seeing her once with her father at Frascati?"

Paolo, a round-faced, timid-looking little Piedmontese, nodded emphatically.

"That do I!" he answered--"Fair as an angel--kind-hearted too,--and they told me she was a wonder of the world. Che, che! Murdered! And who could have murdered her? Someone jealous of her fame! Poor thing--she is engaged to be married too, to another artist named Florian Varillo. Gran Dio! He will die of this misery!" And they bent their heads over the paper together and read the brief announcement headed "Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!"

A sudden crash startled them. Varillo had sprung up from his table in haste and overset his glass. It fell, shivering to atoms on the floor.

"Pardon!" he exclaimed, laughing forcedly,--"A thousand apologies! My hand slipped--it was an accident--"

"Do not trouble yourself, Signor," said the landlord, Paolo, cautiously going down on his fat knees to pick up the fragments--"It was an accident as you say. And truly one's nerves get shaken nowadays by all the strange things one is always hearing! Myself, I tremble to think of the murder of the Sovrani--the poor girl was so innocent of evil--and see you!--we might all be murdered in our beds with such villains about . . ."

He broke off, surprised at the angry oath Varillo uttered.

"Per Dio! Can you not talk of something else?" he said hoarsely,--"There is a murder nearly every day in Rome!"

Without waiting for a reply he hastily strode out of the inn, banging the door behind him. He had engaged his room there for the night--true!--but--after all this foolish gabble he resolved he would not go back. They would still talk of murder, if he did! Murder was in the air! Murder seemed written in letters of fire against the clear sky now luminous with the moon and stars! He was in a fever and a fury--he walked on and on, little heeding where he went. What the devil had brought Gherardi to that particular inn at that particular time of night? He could not imagine. For though he knew most scandals in Rome, the scandal of the priest's "villa d'amour" at Frascati, was a secret too closely guarded for anyone save the sharpest of professional detectives to discover, and he was totally ignorant of it. He wondered restlessly whether the crafty Vatican spy had seen him while pretending not to see? If that were so, then he was lost! He could not satisfy himself as to whether he had really escaped observation, and tormented by this reflection he walked on and on, the burning impetus of his thoughts hastening his footsteps. A cold wind began to rise,--a chill, damp breath of the Campagna, bringing malaria with it. He felt heated and giddy, and there was a curious sense of fulness in his veins which oppressed him and made him uncertain of his movements. Presently he stopped, and stood gazing vaguely from left to right. He was surely not on the road to Frascati? There was a tall shadowy building not far from him, surrounded with eucalyptus trees--he tried to locate it, but somehow though, as a native of Rome and an artist, he was familiar with most of the Campagna, he did not recognise this part of it. How bright the stars were! Living points of fire flashing in dense purple!--one could never paint them! The golden round of the moon spreading wide reflections on the road, seemed to his excited mind like a magic ring environing him, drawing him in, pointing him out as the one criminal for whom all the world was seeking. He had no idea of the time,--his watch had stopped. He began to count up hours. He remembered that when he had gone to see Angela, it was about four o'clock. He had known perfectly well that she was alone, for he had seen the Cardinal drive past him in the streets on the way to the Vatican, and he had heard at his "Cercolo" or club, that Prince Sovrani had gone out of Rome for a few hours. And, thus informed, he had timed his visit to Angela well. Then, had he meant to kill her? No. He was quite certain that he never had had any such intention. Then what had been his purpose? First, to see her picture, and then to condemn it. Not harshly, but gently--with the chill toleration and faint commiseration of the critic who pretends to judge everything. He knew--none better--the glowing ardour and enthusiasm of the genius which was as much a part of Angela as colour is part of a rose,--his intention had been to freeze all that warmth with a few apparently kind words. For he had never thought it possible that she,--a mere woman,--could evolve from her own brain and hand, such a poetic, spiritual and magnificent conception as "The Coming of Christ." And when he saw what she had done, he bitterly envied her her power,--he realized the weakness of his own efforts as compared with her victorious achievement, and he hated her accordingly, as all men hate the woman who is intellectually superior to themselves. After all, there was no way out of it, but the way he had chosen,--to kill her and make an end! To kill her and make an end! He muttered these words over and over to himself, as he stood irresolutely watching the broad patterns of the moonlight, and thinking confusedly about the time. Yes,--it was four o'clock when he went to Angela's studio,--it must have been five, or past that hour when he left it,--when he slunk down the side-street which led to the river, and threw the key and his dagger together into the muddy tide. After that he had gone home,--and had superintended his valet, while that individual packed his portmanteau for Naples--and then--and then? Yes,--then he had written to Angela,--one of the pretty gracious little notes she was accustomed to receive from him,--how strange it was to write to a dead girl!--and he had gone out to the nearest florist's shop, and chosen a basket of lilies to send to her,--lilies were for dead maidens always,--and he had sent the flowers and his love letter together. Then surely it must have been about half-past six? He tried to fix the hour, but could not, and again his thoughts went rambling on. After sending the lilies, he had returned to his own house, and Pon-Pon had prepared a "petit cafe" for him, and he had partaken of it, and had smoked a couple of cigarettes with her, and then had said a leisurely good-bye, and had started for the railway-station en route for Naples. What train had he intended to go by? The eight o'clock express. He remembered that. But on the way, he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath,--an unforeseen fatality that had turned him back, and brought him to where he now stood meditating. How long did the driver of that fiacre he hired, take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to Frascati? This he could not determine,--but to his uncertain memory it seemed to have been an unusually tedious and tiresome journey. And now--here he was--with no habitation in sight save the solitary building whose walls loomed darkly through the eucalyptus trees. He went towards it after a while, walking slowly and almost mechanically;--he was extremely tired, and an oppressive sense of heat and weariness combined made him anxious to obtain a night's lodging somewhere,--no matter in what sort of place. Anything would be better than sleeping out on the Campagna, an easy prey to the worst form of fever. As he approached more nearly to the house among the trees, he saw that it was surrounded by a very high, closely intertwisted iron railing,--and when he came within a few paces of what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the sudden heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air, created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the sound. He paused,--and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,--then as its echo died away another deep monotone, steadily persistent, began to stir the silence with words,--words, which to Florian Varillo in his nervous excitation of mind sounded hellish and horrible.

"Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!" "In die ilia tremenda!" "Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!" "Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"

He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With that strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the artistic, and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was excessively superstitious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm of death seemed to him at the moment, of supernatural and predetermined origin, devised on purpose to intensify the growing terrors of his coward conscience.

"Tremens factus sum ego!" "Et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque venerit ira!"

Once more the great bell tolled heavily, and its discordant tone seemed to tear his brain. He uttered an involuntary cry,--every weak impulse in his soul was aroused,--and in the excess of a miserable self-pity he longed to excuse himself for his crime of treachery and cruelty to the innocent woman who loved him,--to throw the blame on someone else,--if he could only find that someone else! Anything rather than own himself to be the mean wretch and traitor that he was. For he was a cultured and clever man,--a scholar,--an artist,--a poet;--these things were not consistent with murder! A man who painted beautiful pictures,--a man who wrote exquisite verses,--he could never be suspected of stabbing a helpless trusting woman in the back out of sheer jealousy, like a common hired assassin! No no! He could never be suspected! Why had he not thought of his intellectual gifts,--his position in the world of art, before? No one in their senses could possibly accuse him in the way he had imagined!--and even if the dagger-sheath were found, some explanation might be given,--someone else might be found guilty . . .

"Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra; Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"

Again that horrible bell! Moved by a sudden desperate determination to find out what this mysterious chanting was, and where it came from, he braced himself up and walked resolutely and quickly on to a great gateway, cross-barred and surmounted with tall spikes,--and there seized by fresh panic, he clung to the grating for support and stared through it affrightedly, his teeth chattering and his whole frame shaking as with an ague fit. What were those dark terrible figures he saw? Were they phantoms or men? Gaunt and black and tall, they swayed to and fro, now bending, now rising, in the misty splendour of the moonlight,--they were busy with the ground, digging it and casting out shovels full of earth in heaps beside them. Each ghostly figure stood by itself apart from its companions,--each one worked at its task alone,--and only their voices mingled in harsh dismal unison as, with the next stroke of the solemn bell, they chanted

"Dies ilia dies irae, Calamitatis et miseriae!"

"No!" shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an infuriated madman--"What are you doing in there? Who told you to sing my mass or prepare my grave? I am not ready, I tell you! Not ready! I have done nothing to deserve death--nothing!--I have not been tried!--you must wait--you must wait till you know all--you must wait! . . ."

His voice choked in utterance, and thrusting one hand through the grating he made frantic gesticulations to the spectral figure nearest him. It paused in its toil and lifted its head,--and from the dark folds of a drooping cowl, two melancholy deep-set eyes glittered out like the eyes of a famished beast. The other spectres paused also, but only for a moment,--the bell boomed menacingly over their heads once more, and again they dug and delved, and again they chanted in dreary monotone--

"Dies magna et amara valde, Dum veneris judicare! Libera nos Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda!"

Wild with terror Varillo shook the gate more furiously than before.

"Stop I tell you!" he cried--"It is too soon! You are burying me before my time. You have no proof against me--none! I am young,--full of life and strength--the world loves me--wants me!--and I--I will not die!--no I will not!--not yet! Not yet--I am not ready! Stop--stop! You do not know what you are doing--stop! You are driving me mad with your horrible singing!" And he shrieked aloud. "Mad, I tell you!--mad!"

For one hazy moment he saw some of the dark figures begin to move towards him--he clutched at them--fought with them--tore at their garments,--he would have killed them all, he thought, if the moonlight had not come in between him and them, and shut him up in a cold silver circle of ice from which he could not escape,--yet he went on struggling and talking and shrieking, contending sometimes, as he fancied, with swords and daggers, and trying to find his way through strange storms of mingled fire and snow--till all at once some strong invisible force swooped down upon him, lifted him up and carried him away--and he remembered no more.

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XXXII

Away in Paris, a vast concourse of people were assembled round an open grave in Pere-la-Chaise, wherein the plain coffin of the Abbe Vergniaud had just been lowered. The day was misty and cold, and the sun shone fitfully through the wreaths of thin vapour that hung over the city, occasionally gleaming on the pale fine face of the famous "Gys Grandit", who, standing at the edge of the grave spoke his oration over the dead.

"To this, to this," he cried, "oh people of Paris, we all must come! Our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our grand reforms, our loves and joys end here, so far as this world is concerned! He whom we have just laid in the earth was skilled in many devious ways of learning,--gifted with eloquence, great in scholarship, quick with the tongue as with the pen, he was a man whom perchance all France would have called famous had it not been for me! I am the blot on my father's name! I am the sin for which he has made the last expiation! People of Paris, for years he lived and worked among you,--outwardly smiling, witty of speech and popular with you all,--but inwardly a misery to himself in his own conscience, because he knew his life was not what he professed it to be. He knew that he did not believe what he asked YOU to accept as true. He knew that he had guilt upon his soul,--he knew that all the sins which none of you could guess at, God saw. For there is a God! Not the God of the priests, but the God of the Universe and of man's natural and spiritual instinct. He from whom nothing escapes,--He who ordains where every drop of dew shall fall,--He whose omnipresent vision perceives the flight of every small bird in the air and predetermines the building of its nest, and the manner of its end,--He is the God whom none can deceive. Those who dream they can play false with Him are mistaken. This dead man, my father, living among you for years, was contented for years to seem like you,--yes!--for you all have something which you think you can cover up from the searching eye of Fate; and many of you pretend to be what you are not,--while many more wear the aspect of men over the souls of beasts. My father who rests here to-day at our feet, was a priest of the Roman Church. In that capacity he should have been clothed with sanctity. Human, yet removed from common frailty. Yet reckless of his order, heedless of his vows, he, priest as he was, turned libertine, and betrayed an innocent woman. He destroyed her name--killed her honour--broke her heart! Libertines of all classes from kings to commoners, do this kind of thing every day, and deem it but a small fault of character. Nevertheless it is a crime!--and for a crime there is always punishment! For everything that is false,--for everything that is mean,--for everything that is contemptible and cowardly, punishment comes,--if not soon, then late. In this case vengeance was forestalled,--for the sinner, repenting in time, took his vengeance on himself. He confessed his sin before you all! That was brave! How many of you here to-day would have such courage! How many of you would throw off your cloaks of virtue and admit your vices?--or having admitted them, try to amend them? But this is what my father did. And for this he should be honoured! He told you all fully and frankly that his professions of faith were false and vain and conventional; and that he had seemed to you what he was not. Now the committal of a sin is one thing,--but the frankly repentant confession of that sin is another. Some of you will say--Who am I that I should judge my father? Why truly I am nothing!--and should have been nothing but the avenger of my mother's life and broken-hearted misery. For that I lived,--for that I was ready to die! What a trivial object of existence it must seem to you Parisians nowadays!--to avenge a mother's name! Much better to fight a duel for some paltry dancer! Yes!--but I am not so constituted. From my childhood I worked for two things--vengeance and ambition; I put ambition second, for I would have sacrificed it all to the fiercer passion. But when I sought to fulfil my vengeance, the man on whom I would have taken it, himself changed it into respect, pity, admiration, affection,--and I loved what I had so long hated! So even I, bent on cruelty, learned to be kind. But not so the Church! The Church of Rome cannot forgive the dead priest whom we have laid in all-forgiving Mother Earth to-day! Had he lived, the sentence of excommunication would have been pronounced against him,--now that he is dead, it is quite possible it may still be pronounced against his memory. But what of that? We who know, who feel, who think,--we are not led by the Church of Rome, but by the Church of Christ! The two things are as different as this grave differs from high Heaven! For we believe that when Magdalen breaks a precious box of perfume at the feet of Christ 'she hath wrought a good work'. We also believe that when a man stands 'afar off', saying 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!' he goes back to his house again justified more than he who says 'Lord, I thank Thee I am not as other men!' We believe that Right is right, and that nothing can make it wrong! And simply speaking, we know it is right to tell the truth, and wrong to tell a lie. For a lie is opposed to the working forces of Nature, and those forces sooner or later will attack it and overcome it. They are beginning now in our swiftly advancing day, to attack the Church of Rome. And why? Because its doctrine is no longer that of Christ, but of Mammon! This is what my father felt and knew, when he addressed his congregation for the last time in Notre Dame de Lorette. He knew that he was doomed by disease to a speedy death,--though he little guessed how soon that death would be. But feeling the premonition of his end, he resolved to speak out,--not to condone or excuse himself for having preached what he could not believe all those years,--but merely to tell you how things were with him, and to trust his memory to you to be dealt with as you choose. He has left a book behind him,--a book full of great and noble thoughts expressed with most pathetic humility; hence I doubt not that when you see the better soul of him unveiled in his expressed mind, you will yet give him the fame he merits. His Church judges him a heretic and castaway for having confessed his sin at last to the people whom he so long deceived,--but I for this, judge him as an honest man! And I have some little right to my opinion, for as Gys Grandit I have sought to proclaim the thoughts of many--"

He paused till the murmur of enthusiasm at mention of the name by which he was known through France should have ceased. It rose on the air in a sort of bee-like humming monotone, and then died away, while many people stood on tip-toe and craned their necks eagerly over each other's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the daring writer whose works threatened to upset a greater power than any throne, the Roman Church.

"I have tried," he resumed quietly, "as I say, to proclaim the thoughts of many! The people of France, like the peoples of many other nations, are losing God in a cloud of priest-craft. Look up to this broad canopy of heaven,--look up to yonder driving clouds heavy with rain, through which the great sun gleams like a golden shield,--that is the temple of the real God! That sparkling roof of air through which the planets roll in their tremendous orbits, bends over the wise and the foolish, the just and the unjust; the sun shines as kindly on the face of the street outcast as on that of the great lady who is often more soiled in soul than her miserable sister. The rich man can provide for himself no finer quality of light than is vouchsafed to the poor. The flowers in the field spring up as graciously under the feet of the beggar as the king. The Church of the true God is Equality!--the altar, the sacrament, the final resting-place of the dead, Equality! Your revolutionary cry was and is still,--Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!--but when you shout those words, you know not what you are calling for. Your demand is instinctive,--the cry of a child for its parents. It is not for temporal things that you clamouras the foolish imagine,--it is for eternal things! Liberty of thought,--Equality in work--Fraternity in faith! But your political leaders, ever at work for themselves, misread these words for you, even as your priests misread Christ's Gospel. They make out for you that you want Liberty of action--Equality of riches, Fraternity in position. These things are by Nature's law, impossible. They are not wanted,--and reasonable consideration will prove to you that you do not want them,--otherwise you would be asking for a disordered universe, a chaos instead of a world! The strong must always prevail,--but by strong, I do not mean the strong liar or the strong evil-doer. No! For a lie contains in itself the germ of rottenness which shall kill--and the evil-doer is not strong but weak, because cowardly. There is no strength in fear; no power in disease! Hence I repeat again, the strong must prevail--and by the strong, I mean the Good! Evil is always weak,--it flourishes for a day, a month, a year, or if you will, a thousand years, for a thousand years are but a moment in the sight of Heaven; but for ever and ever justice is done,--for ever and ever Right comes uppermost, and the Strong which is God, than whom is none stronger, and who is all Goodness--prevails! Liberty of thought should be the privilege of every human creature, but we must never mistake it for Liberty of action. Liberty of action is restrained by law in the world of nature, and must be equally restrained in the world of men. But insist on Equality in work! What do I mean by Equality in work? I mean this,--that every man's work is entitled to consideration and respect, in every phase of life. The road-mender works well and makes a smooth way for men and horses;--he deserves my honour for his skill,--he has it,--he shall have it,--for I know he can teach me many things of which I am ignorant. The chief of the State works well,--organizes;--puts grave matters in order and establishes necessary government--he also shall have my respect,--he has it,--he deserves his carriage and pair as fully as the road-mender deserves his dinner. We should not grudge or envy either man the reward due to their separate positions. The nightingale has a sweet voice,--the peacock screams--the one is plain in colour, the other gorgeous,--and there is no actual equality; yet the one bird does not grudge the other its position, inasmuch as though there is no Equality there is Compensation. So it is with men. There is always Compensation in every lot. So it should be; so it must be. Equality in work means simply, respect for every kind of work done, and contempt for none except for him who does no work at all! And lastly the word 'Fraternity.' Glorious word, meaning so much!--holding suggestions of peace, joy and purity in its mere utterance! Not a Fraternity of possession--for then should we become lower than the beasts, who have their own separate holes, their separate mates, their separate young--but Fraternity of Faith!--the one Faith that teaches us to cry 'Abba Father,'--that makes us understand Christ as our Brother--and all of us the children of one family,--one creation moving on in process of evolvement to greater things! Let any priest tell me that I am not a child of God, and I will retort that he, by such an utterance, has proved himself a child of the devil. Ignorant, sinful, full of miserable imperfections as I am, I am of God as the ant is, the worm, the fly!--and if I have no more of God in me than such insects, still I am thankful to have so much! What priest shall dare to say how much or how little of God there was in the composition of this man lying in the grave at our feet, who was my father? Excommunication! Who can excommunicate the soul from its Creator? Who can part the sunbeam from the sun? Excommunication! The human being who, on what he calls Church authority, shall thrust his brother away from any form of communion which he himself judges and accepts as valuable, is one of those whom Christ declared to be 'in danger of hell-fire.' For there is no man who can, if he be true to himself, condemn his brother man, or say to him, 'Stand back! I am holier than thou!' Therefore, for him whom we lay down to rest to-day, let there be pardon and peace! Let us remember that for all his sins he atoned, by full confession;--by publicly branding himself in the sight of that society in whose estimation he had till then seemed something superior,--by voluntarily resigning himself to the wrath of the Church of which he was a professed servant. Cursed by his Creed, he may now perchance be blessed by his Creator! For he died, clean-souled and true--washed of hypocrisy,--with no secret vice left unhidden for others to rake up and expose to criticism. Whatsoever wrong he did, he openly admitted--whatever false things he said, he retracted. I believe--and I am sure we all believe, that his spirit thus purified, is acceptable to God. He has left no lies behind him--no debts--no wrongs to be avenged. He told you all, people of Paris, what he was before he left you,--and, looking down into this dark grave, we know what he is. A senseless, sightless, stiffening form of clay, from which the soul that animated it into action has fled. Let the Church excommunicate this poor corpse of my father,--let it muster its forces against his memory as it will, I swear before you all, that memory shall live! Yes--for I, his son, will guard it; I whom he so late acknowledged as his own flesh and blood, will be a shield of defence for his name till I die! If priests would attack him, they must attack him through me!--and I, despite a thousand Churches, a thousand Creeds, a thousand Sacraments, will firmly maintain that a man who frankly repents his sins and is openly honest with the world before he leaves it, is a better Christian than he, who for the sake of mere appearances and conventionality, juggles with death and passes to his Maker's presence in a black cloud of lies! Better to be crucified with Christ, than live with the High Priests and Pharisees of the modern Jerusalem of our social conditions! Truth may seem to perish on the Cross of injustice--it may be buried in a sealed sepulchre, the entrance to which may be closed up by a great stone of Mammon-bulk and heaviness--but the moment must come when the Angel descends from Heaven--when the stone is rolled away--and the eternal, living God rises again and walks the world in the glory of a new dawn!"

He ended--and for a moment there was a deep silence. There had been no funeral service, for no priest would attend the burial of the heretic Abbe. So, after a brief pause, Cyrillon knelt down by the grave,--and carried away by the solemnity of the scene, as well as by their own emotional excitement, more than half the crowd knelt with him, as, bending his head reverently over his clasped hands, he prayed aloud--

"Oh God of Love, whose tenderness and care for Thy creation is everywhere disclosed to us, from the smallest atom of dust, to the stupendous majesty of Thy million worlds in the air,--give we beseech Thee, to this perished clay which once was man, the beauty which transforms vile things to virtuous, and endows our seeming death with life! Let Thy eternal Law of Resurrection so work upon this senseless body that it may pass through Earth to Heaven, and there find finer grades of being, higher forms of development, greater opportunities of perfection. And for the Soul, which is Thine own breath of fire, O God, receive it, purified from sin, and make it worthy of the final purpose for which Thou hast destined it from the beginning! And grant unto us, left here to still work out our own salvation on this the planet Thou hast chosen for our trial, the power to comprehend Thy laws, and faithfully to obey them,--to forgive as we would be forgiven,--to love as we would be loved,--and to lift our thoughts from the appearance of this grave to the Reality of Thy beneficence, which hath ordained Light out of Darkness, and out of Death, Life, as proved most gloriously to us by Christ our Brother, our Teacher and our Master! Amen!"

His prayer finished, the young man rose, and taking a wreath of ivy, which he had travelled to Touraine himself to bring from the walls of the simple cottage where his mother had lived and worked and died, he dropped it gently on the coffin and signed to the grave-diggers to fill in the earth. Then turning to the crowd, he said,

"My friends, I thank you all for the sympathy which has brought you here to-day. 'It is finished.' The dead man is at rest! And now as you go,--as you return to your own homes,--homes happy or unhappy as the case may be, I will only ask you to remember that there is no permanence or virtue in falsehood whether it be falsehood religious or falsehood political,--and he who dies truthfully dealing with his fellow-men, lives again with God, and is not, as Scripture says 'dead in his sins,' but born again to a new and more hopeful existence!"

With the last words he gave the sign of dismissal. The people began to disperse slowly and somewhat reluctantly, every member of the crowd being curious to obtain a nearer view of the young orator who not only spoke his thoughts fearlessly, but whose pen was as a scythe mowing down a harvest of shams and hypocrisies, and whose frank utterance from the heart was so honest as to be absolutely convincing to the public. But he, after giving a few further instructions to the men who were beginning to close in his father's grave, walked away with one or two friends, and was soon lost to sight in one of the many winding paths that led from the cemetery out into the road, so that many who anxiously sought to study his features more nearly, were disappointed. One person there was, who had listened to his oration in wonder and open-mouthed admiration,--this was Jean Patoux. He had taken the opportunity offered him in a "cheap excursion" from Rouen to Paris, to visit a cousin of his who was a small florist owning a shop in the Rue St. Honore,--and by chance, he and this same cousin, while quietly walking together down one of the boulevards, had got entangled in the press of people who were pouring into Pere-la-Chaise on this occasion, and had followed them out of curiosity, not at all knowing what they were going to see. But the florist, known as Pierre Midon, soon realised the situation and explained it all to his provincial relative.

"It is the Abbe Vergniaud they are burying," he said,--"He was a wonderful preacher! All fashionable Paris used to go and hear him till he made that pretty scandal of himself a month or so ago. He was a popular and a social favourite; but one fine morning he preached a sermon to his congregation all against the Church, and for that matter against himself too, for he then and there confessed before everybody that he was no true priest. And as he preached,--what think you?--a young man fired a pistol shot at him for his rascality, as everyone supposed, and when the gendarmes would have taken the assassin, this same Abbe stopped them, and refused to punish HIS OWN SON! What do you think of that for a marvel? And something still more marvellous followed, for that very son who tried to kill him was no other than Gys Grandit, the man we have just heard speaking, though nobody knew it till a week afterwards. Such a scene you never saw in a church!--Paris was wild with excitement for a dozen hours, which is about as long as its fevers last,--and the two of them, father and son, went straight away to a famous Cardinal then staying in Paris,--and he, by the way, was in the church when the Abbe publicly confessed himself--Cardinal Bonpre--"

"Ah!" interrupted Patoux excitedly, "This interests me! For that most eminent Cardinal stayed at my inn in Rouen before coming on here!"

"So!" And Cousin Pierre looked rather surprised. "Without offence to thee, Jean, it was a poor place for a Cardinal, was it not?"

"Poor, truly,--but sufficient for a man of his mind!" replied Patoux tranquilly,--"For look you, he is trying to live as Christ lived,--and Christ cared naught for luxury."

Pierre Midon laughed.

"By my faith! If priests were to live as Christ lived, Paris might learn to respect them!" he said,--"But we know that they will not,--and that few of them are better than the worst of us! But to finish my story--this Abbe and the son whom he so suddenly and strangely acknowledged, went to this Cardinal Bonpre for some reason--most probably for pardon, though truly I cannot tell you what happened--for almost immediately, the Abbe went out of Paris to the Chateau D'Agramont some miles away, and his son went with him, and there the two stayed together till the old man died. And as for Cardinal Bonpre, he went at once to Rome with his niece, the famous painter, Angela Sovrani,--I imagine he may have interceded with the Pope, or tried to do so for the Abbe, but whatever happened, there they are now, for all I know to the contrary. And we heard that the Church was about to excommunicate, or had already excommunicated Vergniaud, though I suppose Cardinal Bonpre had nothing to do with that?"

"Not he!" said Patoux firmly, "He would never excommunicate or do any unkind thing to a living soul--that I am pretty sure of. He is the very Cardinal who performed the miracle in my house that has caused us no end of trouble,--and he is under the displeasure of the Pope for it now, if all I hear be true."

"That is strange!" said Pierre with a laugh,--"To be under the displeasure of the Pope for doing a good deed!"

"Truly, it seems so," agreed Patoux,--"But you must remember there was no paying shrine concerned in it! Mark you that, my Pierre! Even our Lady of Bon Secours, near to Rouen as she is, was not applied to. The miracle took place in the poor habitation of an unknown little inn-keeper,--that is myself,--and there was no solemnity at all about it--no swinging of incense--no droning of prayers--no lighting of candles--no anything, but just a good old man with a crippled child on his knee, praying to the Christ whom he believed was able to help him. And--and--"

He broke off suddenly and crossed himself. Pierre Midon stared at the action.

"What ails thee, Jean?" he asked brusquely,--"Hast thou remembered a dead sin, or a passing soul?"

"Neither," replied Patoux slowly, "But only just the thought of another child--a waif and stray whom the good Cardinal found in the streets of Rouen, outside our great Cathedral door. A gentle lad!--my wife was greatly taken with him;--and he was present in my house too, when the miracle of healing was performed."

"And for that, is there any need to cross thyself like a mumbling old woman afraid of the devil?" enquired his cousin.

Patoux smiled a slow smile.

"Gently, Pierre--gently!" he said. "Thou art of Paris,--I of the provinces. That makes all the difference in the way we look at life. There are very few holy things in great cities,--but there are many in the country. Every day when I am at home I go out of the town to work in my field,--and I feel the clean breath of the wind, the scent of the earth and the colours of the sky and the flowers,--and I know quite well there is a God, or these blessings could not be. For if there were only Chance and a Man to manage the universe, a pretty muddle we should have of it! And when I see or think of a holy thing, I sign the cross out of old childhood's habit,--so just now, when I remembered the boy whom the Cardinal rescued from the streets, I knew I was thinking of a holy thing; and that explains my action."

"How dost thou prove a waif of the streets a holy thing?" enquired Pierre curiously.

Patoux shrugged his shoulders, and gave a wide deprecatory wave of both hands.

"Ah, that is more than I can tell you!" he said,--"It is a matter beyond my skill. But the boy was a fair-faced boy,--I never saw him myself--"

Midon laughed outright.

"Never saw him thyself!" he cried,--"And yet thou dost make the sign of the cross at the thought of him! Diantre! Patoux, thou art crazy!"

"Maybe--maybe," said Patoux mildly,--they were walking together out of the cemetery by this time in the wake of the rapidly dispersing crowd,--"But I have always taken my wife's word,--and I take it now. And she has said over and over again to me that the boy had a rare sweet nature. And then--the child whom the Cardinal healed,--Fabien Doucet,--will always insist upon it that it was the touch of that same boy which truly cured him and not the Cardinal at all!"

"Mere fancy!" said Pierre carelessly,--"And truly if it were not for knowing thee to be honest, I should doubt the miracle altogether!"

"And thou wouldst be of the majority!" said Patoux equably--"For our house has been a very bee-hive of buzz and trouble ever since a bit of good was done in it--and Martine Doucet, the mother of the cured child, has led the life of the damned, thanks to the kindness of her neighbours and friends! And will you believe me, the Archbishop of Rouen himself took the trouble to walk into the market-place and assure her she was a wicked woman,--that she had taught her boy to play the cripple in order to excite pity,--and I believe he thinks she is concerned in the strange disappearance of his clerk, Claude Cazeau. For this same Cazeau came to our house one night when Martine was there, and told her he had instructions to take her to Rome to see the Pope, and her child with her, for the purpose of explaining the miracle in her own words, and giving the full life-history of herself and the little one. And she was angry,--ah, she can be very angry, poor Martine!--she has a shrill tongue and a wild eye, and she said out flatly that she would not go, and furthermore that she would not be caught in a priest's trap, or words to that effect. And this clerk, Cazeau,--a miserable little white-livered rascal, crawled away from my door in a rage with us all, and was never seen again. The police have hunted high and low for trace of him, but can find none. But I have my suspicions--"

"What are they?" enquired Midon,--"That he went out like Judas, and hanged himself?"

"Truly he might have done that without loss or trouble to anyone!" said Patoux tranquilly,--"But he thought too well of himself to be quite so ready for a meeting with le bon Dieu! No!--I will tell you what I think. There was a poor girl who used to roam about the streets of our town, called Marguerite, she was once a sensible, bright creature enough, the only daughter of old Valmond the saddler, who died from a kick from his favourite horse one day, and left his child all alone in the world. She was a worker in a great silk-factory, and was happy and contented, so it seemed, till--well! It is the old story--a man with a woman, and the man is most often the devil in it. Anyway, this Marguerite went mad on her love-affair,--and we called her 'La Folle,'--not harshly--for all the town was kind to her. I mentioned her name once in the presence of this man Cazeau, and he started as if an adder had bitten him. And now--he has disappeared--and strange to say, so has she!"

"So has she!" echoed Midon, opening his eyes a little wider--"Then what do you suppose?--"

"Just this," said Patoux, emphasizing his words by marking them out with a fat thumb on the palm of the other hand--"That Cazeau was the villain of the piece as they say in the theatres, and that she has punished him for his villainy. She used to swear in her mad speech that if ever she met the man who had spoilt her life for her, she would kill him; and that is just what I believe she has done!"

"But would she kill herself also?" demanded Pierre--"And what has become of one or both bodies?"

"Ah! There thou dost ask more than I can answer!" said Patoux. "But what is very certain is, that both bodies, living or dead, have disappeared. And as I said to my wife when she put these things into my head,--for look you, my head is but a dull one, and if my wife did not put things into it, it would be but an emptiness altogether,--I said to my wife that if she were right in her suspicions--and she generally is right--this Marguerite had taken but a just vengeance. For you will not prove to me that there is any man living who has the right to take the joy out of a woman's soul and destroy it."

"It is done every day!" said Midon with a careless shrug,--"Women give themselves too easily!"

"And men take too greedily!" said Patoux obstinately--"What virtue there is in the matter is on the woman's side. For she mostly gives herself for love's sake,--but the man cares naught save for his own selfish pleasure. As a man myself, I am on the side of the woman who revenges herself on her betrayer."

"For that matter so am I!" said Midon. "Women have a hard time of it in this world, even under the best of circumstances,--and whatever man makes it harder for them, should be horse-whipped within an inch of his life, if I had my way. I have a wife--and a young daughter--and my old mother sits at home with us, as cheery and bright a body as you would find in all France,--and so I know the worth of women. If any rascal were to insult my girl by so much as a look, he would find himself in the ditch with a sore back before he had time to cry 'Dieu merci!'"

He laughed;--Patoux laughed with him, and then went on,--

"I told thee of the miracle in my house, and of the boy the Cardinal found in the streets,--well!--these things have had their good effect in my own family. My two children, Henri and Babette--ah! What children! God be praised for them! As bright, as kind as the sunlight,--and their love for me and their mother is a great thing--a good thing, look you!--one cannot be sufficiently grateful for it. For nowadays, children too often despise their parents, which is bad luck to them in their after days; but ours, wild as they were a while ago, are all obedience and sweetness. I used often to wonder what would become of them as they grew up--for they were wilful and angry-tempered, and ofttimes cruel in speech--but I have no fear now. Henri works well at his lessons, and Babette too,--and there is something better than the learning of lessons about them,--something new and bright in their dispositions which makes us all happy. And this has come about since the Cardinal stayed with us; and also since the pretty boy was found outside the Cathedral!"

"That boy seems to have impressed thee more than the Cardinal himself!" said Midon--"but now I remember well--on the day the Abbe Vergniaud preached his last sermon, and was nearly shot dead by his own son, there was a rumour that his life had been saved by some boy who was an attendant on the Cardinal, and who interposed himself between the Abbe and the flying bullet,--that must have been the one you mean?"

"No doubt--no doubt!" said Patoux, nodding gravely--"There was something about him that seemed a sort of shield against evil--or at least, so said my wife,--and so say my children. Only the other day, my boy Henri--he is big and full of mischief as boys will be--was playing with two or three younger lads, and one of them like a little sneak, stole up behind him and gave him a blow with a stick, which broke in two with the force of the way the young rascal went to work with it. Now, thought I, there will be need for me to step out and stop this quarrel, for Henri will beat that miserable little wretch into a jelly! But nothing of the sort! My boy turned round with a bright laugh--picked up the two pieces of the stick and gave them back to the little coward with a civil bow "Hit in front next time!" he said. And the little wretch turned tail and began to boo-hoo in fine fashion--crying as if he had been hurt instead of Henri. But they are the best friends in the world now. I asked Henri about it afterwards, and he turned as red as an apple in the cheeks. 'I wanted to kill him, father,' he said,--'but I knew that the boy who was with Cardinal Bonpre would not have done it--and so I did not!' Now look you, for a rough little fellow such as Henri, that was a great victory over his passions--and there is no doubt the Cardinal's little foundling was the cause of his so managing himself."

Pierre Midon had nothing to say in answer,--the subject was getting beyond him, and he was a man who, when thought became difficult, gave up thinking altogether.

And while these two simple-minded worthies were thus talking and strolling together home through the streets of Paris, Cyrillon Vergniaud, having parted from the few friends who had paid him the respect of their attendance at his father's grave, was making his way towards the Champs Elysees in a meditative frame of mind, when his attention was suddenly caught and riveted by a placard set up in front of one of the newspaper kiosks at the corner of a boulevard, on which in great black letters, was the name "Angela Sovrani." His heart gave one great bound--then stood still--the streets of the city reeled round him, and he grew cold and sick. "Meurtre de la celebre Angela Sovrani!"

Hardly knowing what he was about, he bought the paper. The news was in a mere paragraph briefly stating that the celebrated artist had been found stabbed in her studio, and that up to the present there was no trace of the unknown assassin.

Passionate and emotional as his warm nature was, the great tears rushed to Cyrillon's eyes. In one moment he realized what he had been almost unconsciously cherishing in his own mind ever since Angela's beautiful smile had shone upon him. When in the few minutes of speech he had had with her she admitted herself to be the mysterious correspondent who had constantly written to him as "Gys Grandit," fervently sympathising with his theories, and urging him on to fresh and more courageous effort, he had been completely overcome, not only with surprise, but also with admiration. It had taken him some time to realize that she, the greatest artist of her day, was actually his unknown friend of more than two years' correspondence. He knew she was engaged to be married to her comrade in art, Florian Varillo, but that fact did not prevent him from feeling for her all the sudden tenderness, the instinctive intimacy of spirit with spirit, which in the highest natures means the highest love. Then,--they had all been brought together so strangely!--his father, and himself, with Cardinal Bonpre,--and she--the Cardinal's fair niece, daughter of a proud Roman house,--she had not turned away from the erring and repentant priest whom the Church had cast out; she had given him her hand at parting, and had been as sweetly considerate of his feelings as though she had been his own daughter. And when he was ill and dying at the Chateau D'Agramont, she had written to him two or three times in the kindest and tenderest way, and her letters had not been answered, because the Abbe was too ill to write, and he, Cyrillon, had been afraid--lest he should say too much! And now--she was dead?--murdered? No!--he would not believe it!

"God is good!" said Cyrillon, crushing the paper in his hand and raising his eyes to the cloudy heavens--"He does nothing that is unnecessarily cruel. He would not take that brilliant creature away till she had won the reward of her work--happiness! No!--something tells me this news is false!--she cannot be dead! But I will start for Rome to-night."

He returned to the cheap pension where he had his room, and at once packed his valise. With all his fame he was extremely poor; he had for the most part refused to take payment for his books and pamphlets which had been so freely spread through France, preferring to work for his daily bread in the fields of an extensive farm near his birthplace in Touraine. He had begun there as a little lad, earning his livelihood by keeping the birds away from the crops--and had steadily risen by degrees, through his honesty and diligence, to the post of superintendent or bailiff of the whole concern. No one was more trusted than he by his employers,--no one more worthy of trust. But his wages were by no means considerable,--and though he saved as much as he could, and lived on the coarsest fare, it was a matter of some trouble for him to spare the money to take him from Paris to Rome. What cash he had, he carried about him in a leathern bag, and this he now emptied on the table to estimate the strength of his finances. Any possibility of changing his mind and waiting for further news from Rome did not occur to him. One of his chief characteristics was the determined way he always carried through anything he had set his mind upon. In one of his public speeches he had once said--"Let all the powers of hell oppose me, I will storm them through and pass on! For the powers of Heaven are on MY side!"--the audacity and daring of this utterance carrying away his audience in a perfect whirlwind of enthusiasm. And though it is related of a certain cynical philosopher, that when asked by one of his scholars for a definition of hell, he dashed into the face of his enquirer an empty purse for answer, the lack of funds was no obstacle to Cyrillon's intended journey.

"Because if I can go no other way, I will persuade the guard to let me ride in the van, or travel in company with a horse or dog--quite as good animals as myself in their way," he thought.

With a characteristic indifference to all worldly matters he had entirely forgotten that the father whom he had just buried had died wealthy, and that his entire fortune had been left to the son whom he had so lately and strangely acknowledged. And when,--while he was still engaged in counting up his small stock of money,--a knock came at the door, and a well-dressed man of business-like appearance entered with a smiling and propitiatory air, addressing him as "Monsieur Vergniaud," Cyrillon did not know at all what to make of his visitor. Sweeping his coins together with one hand, he stood up, his flashing eyes glancing the stranger over carelessly.

"Your name, sir?" he demanded--"I am not acquainted with you."

The smiling man unabashed, sought about for a place to put down his shiny hat, and smiled still more broadly.

"No!" he said--"No! You would not be likely to know me. I have not the celebrity of Gys Grandit! I am only Andre Petitot--a lawyer, residing in the Boulevard Malesherbes. I have just come from your father's funeral."

Cyrillon bowed gravely, and remained silent.

"I have followed you," pursued Monsieur Petitot affably, "as soon as I could, according to the instructions I received, to ask when it will be convenient for you to hear me read your father's will?"

The young man started.

"His will!" he ejaculated. He had never given it a thought. "Yes. May I take a chair? There are only two in the room, I perceive! Thanks!" And the lawyer sat down and began drawing off his gloves,--"Your father had considerable means,--though he parted with much that he might have kept, through his extraordinary liberality to the poor--"

"God bless him!" murmured Cyrillon.

"Yes--yes--no doubt God will bless him!" said Monsieur Petitot amicably--"According to your way of thinking, He ought to do so. But personally, I always find the poor extremely ungrateful, and God certainly does not bless ME whenever I encourage them in their habits of idleness and vice! However, that is not a question for discussion at present. The immediate point is this--your father made his will about eighteen months ago, leaving everything to you. The wording of the will is unusual, but he insisted obstinately on having it thus set down--"

Here the lawyer drew a paper out of his pocket, fixed a pair of spectacles on his nose, and studied the document intently--"Yes!--it reads in this way:--' Everything of which I die possessed to my son, Cyrillon Vergniaud, born out of wedlock, but as truly my son in the sight of God, as Ninette Bernadin was his mother, and my wife, though never so legalised before the world, but fully acknowledged by me before God, and before the Church which I have served and disobeyed.' A curious wording!" said Petitot, nodding his head a great many times--"Very curious! I told him so--but he would have it his own way,--moreover, I am instructed to publish his will in any Paris paper that will give it a place. Now this clause is to my mind exceedingly disagreeable, and I wish I could set it aside."

"Why?" asked Cyrillon quietly.

"My dear young man! Can you ask? Why emphasise the fact of your illegitimacy to the public!"

"Why disguise it?" returned Cyrillon. "You must remember that I have another public than the merely social,--the people! They all know what I am, and who I am. They have honoured me. They shall not despise me. And they would despise me if I sought to hold back from them what my father bade me tell. Moreover, this will gives my mother the honour of wifehood in the sight of God,--and I must tell you, monsieur l'avocat, that I am one of those who care nothing what the world says so long as I stand more or less clear with the world's Creator!"

His great dark eyes were brilliant,--his face warm with the fire of his inward feeling. Monsieur Petitot folded up his document and looked at him with an amiable tolerance.

"Wonderful--wonderful!" he said--"But of course eccentricities WILL appear in the world occasionally!--and you must pardon me if I venture to think that you are certainly one of them. But I imagine you have nograsped the whole position. The money--I should saythe fortune--which your father has left to you, will make you a gentleman--"

He paused, affrighted. Drawing himself up to his full height, young Vergniaud confronted him in haughty amazement.

"Gentleman!" he cried--"What do you mean by the term? A loafer?--a lounger in the streets?--a leerer at women? Or a man who works for daily food from sunrise to sunset, and controls his lower passions by hard and honest labour! Gentleman! What is that? Is it to live lazily on the toil of others, or to be up and working one's self, and to eat no bread that one has not earned? Will you answer me?"

"My dear sir, you must really excuse me!" said Petitot nervously--" I am quite unable to enter into any sort of discussion with you on these things! Please recollect that my life as a lawyer, depends entirely on men's stupidities and hypocrisies,--if they all entertained your views I should have to beg in the streets, or seek another profession. In my present business I should have nothing whatever to do. You perceive the position? Yes, of course you do!" For Cyrillon with one of the quick changes of mood habitual to him, smiled, as his temporary irritation passed like a cloud, and his eyes softened--"You see, I am a machine,--educated to be a machine; and I am set down to do certain machine-like duties,--and one of these duties is,--regardless of your fame, your eccentric theories, your special work which you have chosen to make for yourself in the world,--to put you in possession of the money your father left you--"

"Can you now--at once--" said Cyrillon suddenly--"give me enough money to go to Rome to-night?"

Monsieur Petitot stared.

"To go to Rome to-night?" he echoed--"Dear me, how very extraordinary! I beg your pardon! . . . of course--most certainly! I can advance you any sum you want--would ten thousand francs suffice?"

"Ten thousand francs!" Cyrillon laughed. "I never had so much money in all my life!"

"No? Well, I have not the notes about me at the moment, but I will send you up that sum in an hour if you wish it. Your father's will entitles you to five million francs, so you see I am not in any way endangering myself by advancing you ten thousand."

Cyrillon was quite silent. The lawyer studied him curiously, but could not determine whether he was pleased or sorry at the announcement of his fortune. His handsome face was pale and grave,--and after a pause he said simply--

"Thank you! Then I can go to Rome. If you will send me the money you speak of I shall be glad, as it will enable me to start to-night. For the rest,--kindly publish my father's will as he instructed you to do,--and I--when I return to Paris, will consult you on the best way in which I can dispose of my father's millions."

"Dispose of them!" began Petitot amazedly. Young Vergniaud interrupted him by a slight gesture.

"Pardon me, Monsieur, if I ask you to conclude this interview! For the present, I want nothing else in the world but to get to Rome as quickly as possible!--apres ca, le deluge!"

He smiled--but his manner was that of some great French noble who gently yet firmly dismisses the attentions of a too-officious servant,--and Petitot, much to his own surprise, found himself bowing low, and scrambling out of the poorly furnished room in as much embarrassment as though he had accidentally stumbled into a palace where his presence was not required.

And Cyrillon, left to himself, gathered up all the coins he had been counting out previous to the lawyer's arrival, and tied them again together in the old leathern bag; then having closed and strapped his little travelling valise, sat down and waited. Punctually to the time indicated, that is to say, in one hour from the moment Petitot had concluded his interview with the celebrated personage whom he now mentally called "an impossible young man," a clerk arrived bringing the ten thousand francs promised. He counted the notes out carefully,--Cyrillon watching him quietly the while, and taking sympathetic observation of his shabby appearance, his thread-bare coat, and his general expression of pinched and anxious poverty.

"You will perceive it is all right, Monsieur," he said humbly, as he finished counting.

"What are you, mon ami?" asked Cyrillon; scarcely glancing at the notes but fixing a searching glance on the messenger who had brought them.

"I?" and the clerk coughed nervously and blushed,--"Oh, I am nothing, Monsieur! I am Monsieur Petitot's clerk, that is all!"

"And does he pay you well?"

"Thirty francs a week, Monsieur. It is not bad,--only this--I was young a few years ago, and I married--and two dear little ones came--so it is a pull at times to make everything go as it should--not that I am sorry for myself at all, oh no! For I am well off as the people go--"

Cyrillon interrupted him.

"Yes--as the people go! That is what you all say, you patient, brave souls! See you, my friend, I do not want all this money--"and he took up a note for five hundred francs--"Take this and make the wife and little ones happy!"

"Monsieur!" stammered the astonished clerk--"How can I dare--!"

"Dare! Nay, there is no daring in freely taking what your brother freely gives you! You must let me practise what I preach, my friend, otherwise I am only a fraud and unfit to live. God keep you!"

The clerk still stood trembling, afraid to take up the note, and unable through emotion to speak a word, even of thanks. Upon which, Cyrillon folded up the note and put it himself in the man's pocket.

"There!--go and make happiness with that bit of paper!" he said--"Who can tell through what dirty usurer's hand it has been, carrying curses with it perchance on its way! Use it now for the comfort of a woman and her little children, and perhaps it will bring blessing to a living man as well as to a departed soul!"

And he literally put the poor stupefied fellow outside his door, shutting it gently upon him.

That night he left for Rome. And as the express tore its grinding way along over the iron rails towards the south, he repeated to himself over and over again as in a dream--

"No--Angela Sovrani is not dead! She cannot be dead! God is too good for that. He will not let her die before she knows--before she knows I love her!"

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