XXXIII…

XXXIII

The chain of circumstance had lengthened by several links round the radiant life of Sylvie Hermenstem since that bright winter morning when she had been startled out of her reverie, in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, by the unexpected appearance of Monsignor Gherardi. The untimely deaths of the Marquis Fontenelle and the actor Miraudin in the duel over her name, had caused so much malicious and cruel gossip, that she had withdrawn herself almost entirely from Roman society, which had, with one venomous consent, declared that she was only marrying Aubrey Leigh to shield herself from her esclandre with the late Marquis. And then the murderous attack on her friend Angela Sovrani, which occurred almost immediately after her engagement to Aubrey was announced, had occupied all her thoughts--so that she had almost forgotten the promise she had made to grant a private interview to Gherardi whenever he should seek it. And she was not a little vexed one morning when she was talking to her betrothed concerning the plans which were now in progress for their going to England as soon as possible, to receive a note reminding her of that promise, and requesting permission to call upon her that very afternoon.

"How very unfortunate and tiresome!" said Sylvie, with a charming pout and upward look at her lover, who promptly kissed the lips that made such a pretty curve of disdain--"I suppose he wants to give me a serious lecture on the responsibilities of marriage! Shall I receive him, Aubrey? I remember when I met him last that he had something important to say about Cardinal Bonpre."

"Then you must certainly give him an audience," answered Aubrey--"You may perhaps find out what has happened to bring the good Cardinal into disfavour at the Vatican, for there is no doubt that he is extremely worried and anxious. He is strongly desirous of leaving Rome at once with that gentle lad Manuel, who, from all I can gather, has said something to displease the Pope. Angela is out of danger now--and I am trying to persuade the Cardinal to accompany us to England, and be present at our marriage."

"That would be delightful!" said Sylvie with a smile,--"But my Aubrey, where are we going to be married?"

"In England, as I said--not here!" said Aubrey firmly--"Not here, where evil tongues have spoken lies against my darling!" He drew her into his arms and looked at her fondly. "I want you to start for England soon, Sylvie--and if possible, I should like you to go, not only with the faithful Bozier, but also in the care of the Cardinal. I will precede you by some days, and arrange everything for your reception. And then we will be married--in MY way!"

Sylvie said nothing--she merely nestled like a dove in the arms of her betrothed, and seemed quite content to accept whatever ordinance he laid down for the ruling of her fate.

"I think you must see Gherardi," he resumed--"Write a line and say you will be happy to receive him at the hour he appoints."

Sylvie obeyed--and despatched the note at once to the Vatican by her man-servant.

Aubrey looked at her intently.

"I wonder--Sylvie, I wonder--" he began, and then stopped.

She met his earnest eyes with a smile in her own.

"You wonder what, caro mio?" she enquired.

"I wonder whether you could endure a very great trial--or make a very great sacrifice for my sake!" he said,--then as he saw her expression, he took her little hand and kissed it.

"There! Forgive me! Of course you would!--only you look such a slight thing--such a soft flower of a woman--like a rose-bud to be worn next the heart always--that it seems difficult to picture you as an inflexible heroine under trying circumstances. Yet of course you would be."

"I make no boast, my Aubrey!" she said gently.

He kissed her tenderly,--reverently,--studying her sweet eyes and delicate colouring with all the fond scrutiny of a love which cannot tire of the thing it loves.

"Are you going round to see Angela this morning?" he asked.

"Yes, I always go. She is much better--she sits up a little every day now."

"She says nothing of her assassin?"

"Nothing. But I know him!"

"We all know him!" said Aubrey sternly--"But she will never speak--she will never let the world know!"

"Ah, but the world will soon guess!" said Sylvie--"For everyone is beginning to ask where her fiance is--why he has shown no anxiety--why he has not been to see her--and a thousand other questions."

"That does not matter! While she is silent, no one dare accuse him. What a marvellous spirit of patience and forgiveness she has!"

"Angela is like her name--an angel!" declared Sylvie impulsively, the tears springing to her eyes--"I could almost worship her, when I see her there in her sickroom, looking so white and frail and sad,--quiet and patient--thanking us all for every little service done--and never once mentioning the name of Florian--the man she loved so passionately. Sometimes the dear old Cardinal sits beside her and talks--sometimes her father,--Manuel is nearly always with her, and she is quite easy and content, one would almost say happy when he is there, he is so very gentle with her. But you can see through it all the awful sorrow that weighs upon her heart,--you can see she has lost something she can never find again,--her eyes look so wistful--her smile is so sad--poor Angela!"

Aubrey was silent a moment. "What of the Princesse D'Agramont?"

"Oh, she is simply a treasure!" said Sylvie enthusiastically--"She and my dear old Bozier are never weary in well-doing! As soon as Angela can be moved, the Princesse wants to take her back to Paris,--because then Rome can be allowed to pour into her studio to see her great picture."

"What does Angela say to that?"

"Angela seems resigned to anything!" answered Sylvie. "The only wish she ever expresses is that Manuel should not leave her."

"There is something wonderful about that boy," said Aubrey slowly--"From the first time I saw him he impressed me with a sense of something altogether beyond his mere appearance. He is a child--yet not a child--and I have often felt that he commands me without my realising that I am so commanded."

"Aubrey! How strange!"

"Yes, it is strange!--" and Aubrey's eyes grew graver with the intensity of his thought--"There is some secret--but--" he broke off with a puzzled air--"I cannot explain it, so it is no use thinking about it! I went to Varillo's studio yesterday and asked if there had been any news of him--but there was none. I wonder where the brute has gone!"

"It would be well if he had made exit out of the world altogether," said Sylvie--"But he is too vain of himself for that! However, his absence creates suspicion--and even if Angela does not speak, people will guess for themselves what she does not say. He will never dare to show himself in Rome!"

Their conversation was abruptly terminated here by the entrance of Madame Bozier with a quantity of fresh flowers which she had been out to purchase, for Sylvie to take as usual on her morning visit to her suffering friend; and Aubrey took his leave, promising to return later in the afternoon, after Monsignor Gherardi had been and gone.

But he had his own ideas on the subject of Gherardi's visit to his fair betrothed,--ideas which he kept to himself, for if his surmises were correct, now was the time to put Sylvie's character to the test. He did not doubt her stability in the very least, but he could never quite get away from her mignonne child-like appearance of woman, to the contemplation of the spirit behind the pretty exterior. Her beauty was so riante, so dazzling, so dainty, that it seemed to fire the very air as a sunbeam fires it,--and there was no room for any more serious consideration than that of purely feminine charm. Walking dreamily, almost unseeingly through the streets, he thought again and yet again of the sweet face, the rippling hair, the laughing yet tender eyes, the sunny smile. Behind that beautiful picture or earth-phantom of womanhood, is there that sword of flame, the soul?--the soul that will sweep through shams, and come out as bright and glittering at the end of the fight as at the beginning?--he mused;--or is it not almost too much to expect of a mere woman that she can contend against the anger of a Church?

He was still thinking on this subject, when someone walking quickly came face to face with him, and said--

"Aubrey!" He started and stared,--then uttered a cry of pleasure.

"Gys Grandit!"

The two men clasped each other's hands in a warm, strong grasp--and for a moment neither could speak.

"My dear fellow!" said Aubrey at last--"This is indeed an unexpected meeting! How glad I am to see you! When did you arrive in Rome?"

"This morning only," said Cyrillon, recovering his speech and his equanimity together--"And as soon as I arrived, I found that my hopes had not betrayed me--she is not dead!"

"She?" Aubrey started--"My dear Grandit! Or rather I must call you Vergniaud now--who is the triumphant 'she' that has brought you thus post haste to Rome?"

Cyrillon flushed--then grew pale.

"I should not have spoken!" he said--"And yet, why not! You were my first friend!--you found me working in the fields, a peasant lad, untrained and sullen, burning up my soul with passionate thoughts which, but for you, might never have blossomed into action,--you rescued me--you made me all I am! So why should I not confess to you at once that there is a woman I love!--yes, love with all my soul, though I have seen her but once!--and she is too far off, too fair and great for me: she does not know I love her--but I heard she had been murdered--that she was dead--"

"Angela Sovrani!" cried Aubrey.

Cyrillon bent his head as a devotee might at the shrine of a saint.

"Yes--Angela Sovrani!"

Aubrey looked at his handsome face glowing with enthusiasm, and saw the passion, the tenderness, the devotion of a life flashing in his fine eyes.

"Love at first sight!" he said with a smile--"I believe it is the only true fire! A glance ought to be enough to express the recognition of one soul to its mate. Well! Angela Sovrani is a woman among ten thousand--the love of her alone is sufficient to make a man better and nobler in every way--and if you can win her--"

"Ah, that is impossible! She is already affianced--"

Aubrey took his arm.

"Come with me, and I will tell you all I know," he said--"For there is much to say,--and when you have heard everything, you may not be altogether without hope."

They turned, and went towards the Corso, which they presently entered, and where numbers of passers-by paused involuntarily to look at the two men who offered such a marked contrast to each other,--the one brown-haired and lithe, with dark, eager eyes,--the other with the slim well set up figure of an athlete, and the fair head of a Saxon king. And of the many who so looked after them, none guessed that the one was destined in a few years' time to create a silent and bloodless French Revolution, which should give back to France her white lilies of faith and chivalry,--or that the other was the upholder of such a perfect form of Christianity as should soon command the following of thousands in all parts of the world.

And while they thus walked through the Roman crowd, the two women they severally loved were talking of them. In Angela's sick-room, softly shaded from the light, with a cheery wood fire burning, Sylvie sat by her friend, telling her all she could think of that would interest her, and rouse her from the deep gravity of mood in which she nearly always found her. The weary days of pain and illness had given Angela a strange, new beauty,--her face, delicate and pale, seemed transfigured by the working of the soul within,--and her eyes, tired as they were and often heavy with tears, had a serenity in their depths which was not of earth, but all of Heaven. She was able now to move from her bed, and lie on a couch near the fire,--and her little white hands moved caressingly and with loving care among the bunches of beautiful flowers which Sylvie had laid on her coverlet,--daffodils, anemones, narcissi, violets, jonquils, and all the sweet-scented flowers of early spring which come to Rome in December from the blossoming fields of Sicily.

"How sweet they are!" she said with a half sigh,--"They almost make me in love with life again!"

Sylvie said nothing, but only kissed her.

"How good you are to me, dearest Sylvie!" she then said--"You deserve to be very happy!"

"Not half so much as you do!" responded Sylvie tenderly--"I am of no use at all to the world; and you are! The world would not miss me a bit, but it would not find an Angela Sovrani again in a hurry!"

Angela raised a cluster of narcissi and inhaled their fine and delicate perfume. There were tears in her eyes, but she hid them with a spray of the flowers.

"Ah, Sylvie, you think too well of me! To be famous is nothing. To be loved is everything!"

Sylvie looked at her earnestly.

"You are loved," she said.

"No, no!" she said--"No, I am not loved. I am hated! Hush, Sylvie!--do not say one word of what is in your mind, for I will not hear it!"

She spoke agitatedly, and her cheeks flushed a sudden feverish red.

Sylvie made haste to try and soothe her.

"My darling girl, I would not say anything to vex you for the world! You must not excite yourself--"

"I am not excited," said Angela, putting her arms round her friend and drawing her fair head down till it was half hidden against her own bosom--"No--but I must speak--bear with me for a minute, dear! We all have our dreams, we women, and I have had mine! I dreamt there was such a beautiful thing in the world as a great, unselfish love,--I fancied that a woman, if gifted with a little power and ability above the rest of her sex, could make the man she loved proud of her--not jealous!--I thought that a lover delighted in the attainments of his beloved--I thought there was nothing too high, too great, too glorious to attempt for the sake of proving oneself worthy to be loved! And now--I have found out the truth, Sylvie!--a bitter truth, but no doubt good for me to know,--that men will kill what they once caressed out of a mere grudge of the passing breath called Fame! Thus, Love is not what I dreamed it; and I, who was so foolishly glad to think that I was loved, have wakened up to know that I am hated!--hated to the very extremity of hate, for a poor gift of brair and hand which I wish--I wish I had never had!"

Sylvie raised her head and gently put aside the weak trembling little hands that embraced her.

"Angela, Angela! You must not scorn the gifts of the gods! No, No!--you will not let me say anything--you forbid me to express my thoughts fully, and I know you are not well enough to hear me yet--but one day you WILL know!--you will hear,--you will even be thankful for all the sorrow you have passed through,--and meanwhile, dear, dearest Angela, do not be ungrateful!"

She said the word boldly yet hesitatingly, bending over the couch tenderly, her eyes full of light, and a smile on her lips. And taking up a knot of daffodils she swept their cool blossoms softly across Angela's burning forehead, murmuring--

"Do not be ungrateful!"

"Ungrateful--!" echoed Angela,--and she moved restlessly.

"Yes, darling! Do not say you wish you never had received the great gifts God has given you. Do not judge of things by Sorrow's measurement only. I repeat--you ARE loved--though not perhaps where you most relied on love. Your father loves you--your uncle loves you--Manuel loves you . . ."

Angela interrupted her with a protesting gesture.

"Yes--I know," she murmured, "but--"

"But you think all this love is worthless, as compared with a love that was no love at all?" said Sylvie. "There! We will not speak about it any more just now,--you are not strong, and you see things in their darkest light. Shall I talk to you about Aubrey?"

"Ah! That is a subject you are never tired of!" said Angela with a faint smile. "Nor am I."

"Well, you ought to be," answered Sylvie gaily, "for I am too blindly, hopelessly in love to know when to stop! I see nothing else and know nothing else--it is Aubrey, Aubrey all the time. The air, the sunlight, the whole world, seem only an admirable exposition of Aubrey!"

"Then how would you feel if he did not love you any more?" asked Angela.

"But that is not possible!" said Sylvie. "Aubrey could not change. It is not in him. He is not like our poor friend Fontenelle."

"Ah! That love of yours was only fancy, Sylvie!"

"We all have our fancies!" answered the pretty Comtesse, looking very earnestly into Angela's eyes. "We are not always sure that what we first call love is love. But I had much more than a fancy for the Marquis Fontenelle. If he had loved me--as I think he did at the last--I should certainly have married him. But during all the time I knew him he had a way of relegating all women to the same level--servants, actresses, ballet-dancers, and ladies alike,--he would never admit that there is as much difference between one woman and another as between one man and another. And this is a mistake many men make. Fontenelle wished to treat me as Miraudin would have treated his 'leading lady';--he judged that quite sufficient for happiness. Now Aubrey treats me as his comrade,--his friend as well as his love, and that makes our confidence perfect. By the way, he spoke to me a great deal yesterday about the Abbe Vergniaud, and told me all he knew about his son Cyrillon."

"Ah, the poor Abbe!" said Angela. "They are angry with him still at the Vatican--angry now with his dead body! But 'Gys Grandit' is not of the Catholic faith, so they can do nothing with him."

"No. He is what they call a 'free-lance,'" said Sylvie. "And a wonderful personage he is! I You have seen him?"

A faint colour crept over Angela's pale cheeks.

"Yes. Once. Just once, in Paris, on the day his father publicly acknowledged him. But I wrote to him long before I knew who he realty was."

"Angela! You wrote to him?"

"Yes. I admired the writings of Gys Grandit--I used to buy all his books as they came out, and study them. I wrote to him--as many people will write to a favourite author--not in my own name of course--to express my admiration, and he answered. And so we corresponded for about two years, not knowing each other's identity till that scene in Paris brought us together--"

"How VERY curious,--ve--ry!" said Sylvie, with a little mischievous smile. "And so you are quite friends?"

"I think so--I believe so--" answered Angela--"but since we met, he has ceased to write to me."

Sylvie made a mental note of that fact in her own mind, very much to the credit of "Gys Grandit," but said nothing further on the subject. Time was hastening on, and she had to return to the Casa D'Angeli to receive Monsignor Gherardi.

"I am going to be lectured I suppose," she said laughingly. "I have not seen the worthy Domenico since my engagement to Aubrey was announced!"

Angela looked at her intently.

"Are you at all prepared for what he will say?"

"Not in the least. What CAN he say?"

"Much that may vex you," said Angela. "Considering Aubrey Leigh's theories, he may perhaps reproach you for your intended marriage--or he may bring you information of the Pope's objection."

"Well! What of that?" demanded Sylvie.

"But you are a devout Catholic--"

"And you? With a great Cardinal for your uncle you paint 'The Coming of Christ'! Ah!--I have seen that picture, Angela!"

"But I am different,--I am a worker, and I fear nothing," said Angela, her eyes beginning to shine with the latent force in her that was gradually resuming its dominion over her soul--"I thought long and deeply before I put my thought into shape--"

"And I thought long and deeply before I decided to be the companion of Aubrey's life and work!" said Sylvie resolutely. "And neither the Pope or a whole college of Cardinals will change my love or prevent my marriage. A riverderci!"

"A riverderci!" echoed Angela, raising herself a little to receive the kiss her friend tenderly pressed on her cheeks. "I shall be anxious to know the result of your interview!"

"I will come round early to-morrow and tell you all," promised Sylvie, "for I mean to find out, if I can, what happened at the Vatican when Cardinal Bonpre last went there with Manuel."

"My uncle is most anxious to leave Rome," said Angela musingly.

"I know. And if there is any plot against him he MUST leave Rome--he SHALL leave it! And we will help him!"

With that she went her way, and an hour or so later stood, a perfect picture of grace and beauty, in the grand old rooms of the Casa D'Angeli, waiting to receive Gherardi. She had taken more than the usual pains with her toilette this afternoon, and had chosen to wear a "creation" of wonderful old lace, with knots of primrose and violet velvet caught here and there among its folds. It suited her small lissom figure to perfection, and her only ornaments were a cluster of fresh violets, and one ring sparkling on her left hand,--a star of rose brilliants and rubies, the sign of her betrothal.

Punctual to the hour appointed, Gherardi arrived, and was at once shown into her presence. There was a touch of aggressiveness and irony in his manner as he entered with his usual slow and dignified step, and though he endeavoured to preserve that suavity and cold calmness for which he was usually admired and feared by women, his glance was impatient, and an occasional biting of his lips showed suppressed irritation. The first formal greetings over, he said--

"I have wished for some time to call upon you, Contessa, but the pressure of affairs at the Vatican--"

He stopped abruptly, looking at her. How provokingly pretty she was!--and how easily indifferent she seemed to the authoritative air he had chosen to assume.

"I should, I know, long ere this have offered you my felicitations on your approaching marriage--"

Sylvie smiled bewitchingly, and gave him a graceful curtsey.

"Will you not sit down, Monsignor?" she then said. "We can talk more at our ease, do you not think?"

She seated herself, with very much the air of a queen taking possession of a rightful throne, and Gherardi was vexedly aware that he had not by any means the full possession of his ordinary dignity or self-control. He took a chair opposite to her and sat for a moment perplexed as to his next move. Sylvie did not help him at all. Ruffling the violets among the lace at her neck, she looked at him attentively from under her long golden-brown lashes, but maintained a perfect silence.

"The news has been received by the Holy Father with great pleasure," he said at last. "His special benediction will grace your wedding-day."

Sylvie bent her head.

"The Holy Father is most gracious!" she replied quietly. "And he is also more liberal than I imagined, if he is willing to bestow his special benediction on my marriage with one who is considered a heretic by the Church."

He flashed a keen glance at her,--then forced a smile. "Mr. Leigh's heresy is of the past," he said--"We welcome him--with you--as one of us!"

Sylvie was silent. He waited, inwardly cursing her tranquillity. Then, as she still did not speak, he went on in smooth accents-- "The Church pardons all who truly repent. She welcomes all who come to her in confidence, no matter how tardy or hesitating their approach. We shall receive the husband of our daughter Sylvie Hermenstein, with such joy as the prodigal son was in old time received--and of his past mistakes and follies there shall be neither word nor memory!"

Then Sylvie looked up and fixed her deep blue eyes steadily upon him.

"Caro Monsignor!" she said very sweetly. "Why talk all this nonsense to me? Do you not realise that as the betrothed wife of Aubrey Leigh I am past the Church counsel or command?"

Gherardi still smiled.

"Past Church counsel or command?" he murmured with an indulgent air, as though he were talking to a very small child. "Pardon me if I am at a loss to understand--"

"Oh, you understand very well!" said Sylvie. "You know perfectly--or you should--that a wife's duty is to obey her husband,--and that in future HIS Church,--not yours,--must be hers also."

"Surely you speak in riddles?" said Gherardi, preserving his suave equanimity. "Mr. Leigh is (or was) a would-be ardent reformer, but he has no real Church."

"Then I have none!" replied Sylvie.

There was a moment's silence. A black rage began to kindle in Gherardi's soul,--rage all the more intense because so closely suppressed.

"I am still at a loss to follow you, Contessa," he said coldly. "Surely you do not mean to imply that your marriage will sever you from the Church of your fathers?"

"Monsignor, marriage for me means an oath before God to take my husband for better or for worse, and to be true to him under all trial and circumstances," said Sylvie. "And I assuredly mean to keep that oath! Whatever his form of faith, I intend to follow it,--as I intend to obey his commands, whatever they may be, or wherever they may lead. For this, to me, is the only true love,--this to me, is the only possible 'holy' estate of matrimony. And for the Church--a Church which does not hesitate to excommunicate a dying man, and persecute a good one,--I will leave the possibility of its wrath, together with all other consequences of my act--to God!"

For one moment Gherardi felt that he could have sprung upon her and throttled her. The next, he had mastered himself sufficiently to speak,--this woman, so slight, so beautiful, so insolent should not baffle him, he resolved!--and bending his dark brows menacingly, he addressed her in his harshest and most peremptory manner.

"You talk of God," he said, "as a child talks of the sun and moon, with as little meaning, and less comprehension! What impertinence it is for a woman like yourself,--vain, weak and worldly,--to assert your own will--your own thought and opinion--in the face of the Most High! What! YOU will desert the Church? YOU whose ancestors have for ages been devout servants of the faith? YOU, the last descendant of the Counts Hermenstein, a noble and loyal family, will degrade your birth by taking up with the rags and tags of humanity--the scarecrows of life? And by your sheer stupidity and obstinacy, you will allow your husband's soul to be dragged to perdition with your own! You call it love--to keep him an infidel? You call it marriage--to be united to him without the blessings of Holy Church? Where is your reason?--Where is your judgment?--Where your faith?"

"Not in my bank, Monsignor!" replied Sylvie coldly. "Though that is the place where you would naturally expect to find these virtues manifested, and the potency of their working substantially proved! Pardon!--I have no wish to offend--but your manner to ME is offensive, and unless you are disposed to discuss this matter temperately, I must close our interview!"

Gherardi flushed a dark red, then grew pale. After all, the Countess Hermenstein was in her own house,--she had the right to command his exit if she chose. Small and slight as she was, she had a dignity and power as great as his own, and if anything was to be gained from her it was necessary to temporize. Among many other qualifications for the part he had to play in life, he was an admirable actor, and would have made his fortune on the legitimate stage,--and this "quick change" ability served him in good stead now. He rose from his chair as though moved by uncontrollable agitation, and walked to the window, then turned again and came slowly and with bent head towards her.

"Forgive me!" he said simply. "I was wrong!"

Sylvie, easily moved to kindness, was touched by this apparent humility on the part of a man so renowned for unflinching hauteur, and she at once gave him her hand.

"I shall forget your words!" she said gently. "So there is nothing to pardon."

"Thank you for your generosity," he said, still standing before her and preserving his grave and quiet demeanour. "In my zeal for Holy Church, my tongue frequently outruns my prudence. I confess you have hurt me,--cruelly! You are a mere child to me--young, beautiful, beloved,--and I am growing old; I have sacrificed all the joys of life for the better serving of the faith--but I have kept a few fair dreams--and one of the fairest was my belief in YOU!"

Sylvie looked at him searchingly, but his eyes did not flinch in meeting hers.

"I am sorry you are disappointed, Monsignor," she began, when he raised his hand deprecatingly.

"No--I am not disappointed as yet!" he said, with an affectation of great kindness. "Because I do not permit myself to believe that you will allow me to be disappointed! Just now you made a passing allusion--and I venture to say a hasty and unworthy one--to your 'bank,' as if my whole soul were set on retaining you as a daughter of the Church for your great wealth's sake only! Contessa, you are mistaken! Give me credit for higher and nobler motives! Grant me the right to be a little better--a little more disinterested, than perhaps popular rumour describes me,--believe me to be at least your friend--"

He paused--his voice apparently broken by emotion, and turning away his head he paced the room once more and finally sat down, covering his eyes with one hand, in an admirably posed attitude of fatigue and sorrow.

Sylvie was perplexed, and somewhat embarrassed. She had never seen him in this kind of humour before. She was accustomed to a certain domineering authority in his language, rendered all the more difficult to endure by the sarcasm with which he sometimes embittered his words, as though he had dipped them in gall before pronouncing them,--but this apparent abandonment of reserve, this almost touching assumption of candour, were phases of his histrionical ability which he had never till now displayed in her presence.

"Monsignor," she said after a little silence, "I sincerely ask your pardon if I have wronged you, even in a thought! I had no real intention of doing so, and if anything I have said has seemed to you unduly aggressive or unjust, I am sorry! But you yourself began to scold"--and she smiled--"and I am not in the humour to be scolded! Though, to speak quite frankly, I have always been more or less prepared for a little trouble on the subject of my intended marriage with Mr. Aubrey Leigh,--I have felt and known all along that it would incur the Pope's displeasure . . ."

Here Gherardi uncovered his eyes and looked at her fully.

"But there you are mistaken!" he said gently, with a smile that was almost paternal. "I know of nothing in recent years that has given the Holy Father greater satisfaction!"

She glanced at him quickly but said nothing, whereat he was secretly annoyed. Why did she not express her wonder and delight at the Pope's lenity, as almost any other woman in her position would have done? Her outward appearance was that of child-like ultra-femininity,--how was it then that he felt as if she were mentally fencing with him, and that her intellectual sword-play threatened to surpass his own?

"Nothing," he repeated suavely, "has given the Holy Father greater satisfaction! For very naturally, he looks upon you as one of his most faithful children, and rejoices that by the power of perfect love--love which is an emanation of the Divine Spirit in itself--you have been chosen by our Lord to draw so gifted and brilliant a man as Aubrey Leigh out of the error of his ways and bring him into the true fold!"

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XXXIV

Still the Countess Sylvie was silent. Bending a quick scrutinising glance upon her, he saw that her eyes were lowered, and that the violets nestling near her bosom moved restlessly with her quickened breath, and he judged these little signs of agitation as the favourable hints of a weakening and hesitating will.

"Aubrey Leigh," he went on slowly, "has long been an avowed enemy of our Church. In England especially, where many of the Protestant clergy, repenting of their recusancy--for Protestantism is nothing more than a backsliding from the true faith--are desirous of gradually, through the gentler forms of Ritualism, returning to the Original source of Divine Inspiration, he has taken a great deal too much upon himself in the freedom of his speeches to the people. But we are bound to remember that it is not against OUR Church only that he has armed himself at all points, but seemingly against all Churches; and when we examine, charitably and with patience, into the sum and substance of his work and aim, we find its chief object is to purify and maintain--not to destroy or deny--the Divine teaching of Christ. In this desire we are one with him--we are even willing to assist him in the Cause he has espoused--and we shall faithfully promise to do so, when we receive him as your husband. Nay, more--we will endeavour to further his work among the poor, and carry out any scheme for their better care, which he may propose to us, and we may judge as devout and serviceable. The Church has wide arms,--she stretches far, and holds fast! The very fact of a man like Aubrey Leigh voluntarily choosing as his wife the last scion of one of the most staunch Roman Catholic families in Europe, proves the salutary and welcome change which your good influence has brought about in his heart and mind and manner and judgment,--wherefore it follows, my dear child, that in his marriage with you he becomes one of us, and is no longer outside us!"

With a swift and graceful imperiousness, Sylvie suddenly rose and faced him.

"It is time we understood each other, Monsignor," she said quietly. "It is no good playing at cross purposes! With every respect for you, I must speak plainly. I am fully aware of all you tell me respecting my descent and the traditions of my ancestors. I know that the former Counts Hermenstein were faithful servants of the Church. But they were all merely half-educated soldiers; brave, yet superstitious. I know also that my father, the late Count, was apparently equally loyal to the Church,--though really only so because it was too much trouble for him to think seriously about anything save hunting. But I--Sylvie--the last of the race, do not intend to be bound or commanded by the trammels of any Church, in the face of the great truths declared to the world to-day! My faith in God is as my betrothed husband's faith in God,--my heart is his,--my life is his! From henceforth we are together; and together we are content to go, after death, wherever God shall ordain, be it Hell or Heaven!"

"Wait!" said Gherardi in low fierce accents, his eyes glittering with mingled rage and the admiration of her beauty which he could ill conceal. "Wait! If you care nothing for yourself in this matter, is it possible that you care nothing for him? Have you thought of the results of such rashness as you meditate? Listen!" and he leaned forward in his chair, his dark brows bent and his whole attitude expressive of a relentless malice--"Your marriage, without the blessing of the Church of your fathers, shall be declared illegal!--your children pronounced bastards! Wherever the ramifications of the Church are spread (and they are everywhere) you, the brilliant, the courted, the admired Sylvie Hermenstein, shall find yourself not only outside the Church, but outside all Society! You will be considered as 'living in sin';--as no true wife, but merely the mistress of the man with whom you have elected to wander the world! And he, when he sees the finger of scorn pointed at you and at his children, he also will change--as all men change when change is convenient or advantageous to themselves;--he will in time weary of his miserable Christian-Democratic theories,--and of you!--yes, even of you!" And Gherardi suddenly sprang up and drew nearer to her. "Even of YOU, I say! He will weary of your beauty--that delicate fine loveliness which makes me long to possess it!--me, a priest of the Mother-Church, whose heart is supposed to beat only for two things--Power and Revenge! Listen--listen yet a moment!" and he drew a step nearer, while Sylvie held her ground where she stood, unflinchingly, and like a queen, though she was pale to the very lips--"What of the friend you love so well, Angela Sovrani, who has dared to paint such a picture as should be burnt in the public market-place for its vile heresy! Do you think SHE will escape the wrath of the Church? Not she! We in our day use neither poison nor cold steel--but we know how to poison a name and stab a reputation! What! You shrink at that? Listen yet--listen a moment longer! And remember that nothing escapes the vigilant eye of Rome! At this very moment I can place my hand on Florian Varillo, concerning whom there is a rumour that he attempted the assassination of his betrothed wife,--an inhuman deed that no sane man could ever have perpetrated"--here Sylvie uttered a slight exclamation, and he paused, looking at her with a cold smile--"Yes, I repeat it!--a deed WHICH NO SANE MAN COULD HAVE PERPETRATED! The unfortunate, the deeply wronged Florian Varillo, is prepared to swear, and I AM PREPARED TO SWEAR WITH HIM, that he is guiltless of any such vile act or treachery--and also that he painted more than half of the great picture this woman Sovrani claims as her own work! Whilst strongly protesting against its heresy and begging her to alter certain figures in the canvas, still he gave her for love's sake, all his masculine ability. The blasphemous idea is hers--but the drawing, the colouring, the grouping, are HIS!"

"He is a liar!" cried Sylvie passionately. "Let him prove his lie!"

"He shall have every chance to prove it!" answered Gherardi calmly. "I will give him every chance! I will support what you call his lie! I SAY IT IS A TRUTH! No woman could have painted that picture! And mark you well--the mere discussion will be sufficient to kill the Sovrani's fame!"

Heedless of his ecclesiastical dignity--reckless of everything concerning herself-Sylvie rushed up to him and laid one hand on his arm.

"What! Are you a servant of Christ," she said half-whisperingly, "or a slave of the devil?"

"Both," he answered, looking down upon her fair beauty with a wicked light shining in his eyes. "Both!" and he grasped the little soft hand that lay on his arm and held it as in a vice. "You are not wanting in courage, Contessa, to come so close to me!--to let me hold your hand! How pale you look! If you were like other women you would scream--or summon your servants, and create a scandal! You know better! You know that no scandal would ever be believed of a priest attached to the Court of Rome! Stay there--where you are--I will not hurt you! No--by all the raging fire of love for you in my heart, I will not touch more than this hand of yours! Good!--Now you are quite still--I say again, you have courage! Your eyes do not flinch--they look straight into mine--what brave eyes! You would search the very core of my intentions? You shall! Do you not think it enough for me--who am human though priest--to give you up to the possession of a man I hate!--A man who has insulted me! Is it not enough, I say, to immolate my own passion thus, without having to confront the possibility of your deserting that Church for whose sake I thus resign you? For had this Aubrey Leigh never met you, I would have MADE you mine! Still silent?--and your little hand still quiet in mine?--I envy you your nerve! You stand torture well, but I will not keep you on the rack too long! You shall know the worst at once--then you shall yourself judge the position. You shall prove for yourself the power of Rome! To escape that power you would have, as the Scripture says, to 'take the wings of the morning and fly into the uttermost parts of the sea.' Think well!--the fame and reputation of Angela Sovrani can be ruined at my command,--and equally, the sanctity and position of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!"

With a sudden movement Sylvie wrenched her hand away from his, and stood at bay, her eyes flashing, her cheeks crimsoning.

"Cardinal Bonpre!" she cried. "What evil have you in your mind against him? Are you so lost to every sense of common justice as to attempt to injure one who is greater than many of the Church's canonized saints in virtue and honesty? What has he done to you?"

Gherardi smiled.

"You excite yourself needlessly, Contessa," he said. "He has done nothing to me personally,--he is simply in my way. That is his sole offence! And whatever is in my way, I remove! Nothing is easier than to remove Cardinal Bonpre, for he has, by his very simplicity, fallen into a trap from which extrication will be difficult. He should have stopped in his career with the performance of his miracle at Rouen,--then all would have been well; he should not have gone on to Paris, there to condone the crime of the Abbe Vergniaud, and THEN come on to Rome. To come to Rome under such circumstances, was like putting his head in the wolf's mouth! But the most unfortunate thing he has done on his ill-fated journey, is to have played protector to that boy he has with him."

"Why?" demanded Sylvie, growing pale as before she had been flushed.

"Do not ask why!" said Gherardi. "For a true answer would only anger you. Suffice it for you to know that whatever is in the way of Rome must be removed,--SHALL be removed at all costs! Cardinal Bonpre, as I said before, is in the way--and unless he can account fully and frankly for his strange companionship with a mere child-wanderer picked out of the streets, he will lose his diocese. If he persists in denying all knowledge of the boy's origin he will lose his Cardinal's hat. There is nothing more to be said! But--there is one remedy for all this mischief--and it rests with YOU!"

"With me?" Sylvie trembled,--her heart beat violently. She looked as though she were about to swoon, and Gherardi put out his arm to support her. She pushed him away indignantly.

"Do not touch me!" she said, her sweet voice shaken with something like the weakness of tears. "You tempt me to kill you,--to kill you and rid the world of a human fiend!"

His eyes flashed, and narrowed at the corners in the strange snake-like way habitual to them.

"How beautiful you are!" he said indulgently, "There are some people in the world who do not admire slight little creatures like you, all fire and spirit enclosed in sweetness--and in their ignorance they escape much danger! For when a man stoops to pick up a small flower half hidden in the long grass, he does not expect it to half-madden him with its sweetness--or half-murder him by its sting! That is why you are irresistible to me, and to many. Yes--no doubt you would like to kill me, bella Contessa!--and many a man would like to be killed by you! If I were not Domenico Gherardi, servant of Mother-Church, I would willingly submit to death at your hands. But being what I am, I must live! And living, I must work--to fulfil the commands of the Church. And so faithful am I in the work of our Lord's vineyard, that I care not how many grapes I press in the making of His wine! I tell you plainly that it rests with you to save your friend Angela Sovrani, and the saintly Cardinal likewise. Keep to the vows you have sworn to Holy Church,--vows sworn for you in infancy at baptism, and renewed by yourself at your confirmation and first Communion,--bring your husband to Us! And Florian Varillo's mouth shall be closed--the Sovrani's reputation shall shine like the sun at noonday; even the rank heresy of her picture shall be forgiven, and the Cardinal and his waif shall go free!"

Sylvie clasped her hands passionately together and raised them in an attitude of entreaty.

"Oh, why are you so cruel!" she cried. "Why do you demand from me what you know to be impossible?"

"It is not impossible," answered Gherardi, watching her closely as he spoke. "The Church is lenient,--she demands nothing in haste--nothing unreasonable! I do not even ask you to bring about Aubrey Leigh's conversion before your marriage. You are free to wed him in your own way and in his,--provided that one ceremonial of the marriage takes place according to our Catholic rites. But after you are thus wedded, you must promise to bring him to Us!--you must further promise that any children born of your union be baptized in the Catholic faith. With such a pledge from you, in writing, I will be satisfied;--and out of all the entanglements and confusion at present existing, your friends shall escape unharmed. I swear it!"

He raised his hand with a lofty gesture, as though he were asserting the truth and grandeur of some specially noble cause. Sylvie, letting her clasped hands drop asunder with a movement of despair, stood gazing at him in fascinated horror.

"The Church!" he went on, warming with his own inward fervour. "The Rock, on which our Lord builds the real fabric of the Universe!" And his tall form dilated with the utterance of his blasphemy. "The learning, the science, the theoretical discussions of men, shall pass as dust blown by the breath of a storm-wind--but the Church shall remain, the same, yesterday, to-day and forever! It shall crush down kings, governments and nations in its unmoving Majesty! The fluctuating wisdom of authors and reformers--the struggle of conflicting creeds--all these shall sink and die under the silent inflexibility of its authority! The whole world hurled against it shall not prevail, and were all its enemies to perish by the sword, by poison, by disease, by imprisonment, by stripes and torture, this would be but even justice! 'For many are called--but few are chosen.'"

He turned his eyes, flashing with a sort of fierce ecstasy, upon the slight half-shrinking figure of Sylvie opposite to him. "Yes, bella Contessa! What the Church ordains, must be; what the Church desires, that same the Church will have! There is no room in the hearts or minds of its servants for love, for pity, for pardon, for anything human merely,--its authority is Divine!--and 'God will not be mocked'! Humanity is the mere food and wine of sacrifice to the Church's doctrine,--nations may starve, but the Church must be fed. What are nations to the Church? Naught but children,--docile or rebellious;--children to be whipped, and coerced, and FORCED to obey! Thus for you, one unit out of the whole mass, to oppose yourself to the mighty force of Rome, is as though one daisy out of the millions in the grass should protest against the sweep of the mower's scythe! You do not know me yet! There is nothing I would hesitate to do in the service of the Church. I would consent to ruin even YOU, to prove the fire of my zeal, as well as the fire of my love!"

He made a step towards her,--she drew herself to the utmost reach of her elfin height, and looked at him straightly. Pale, but with her dark blue eyes flashing like jewels, she in one sweeping glance, measured him with a scorn so intense that it seemed to radiate from her entire person, and pierce him with a thousand arrowy shafts of flame.

"You have stated your intentions," she said. "Will you hear my answer?"

He bent his head gravely, with a kind of ironical tolerance in his manner.

"There is nothing I desire more!" he replied, "for I am sure that in the unselfish sweetness of your nature you will do all you can to serve--and save--your friends!"

"You are right!" she said, controlling the quickness of her breathing, and forcing herself to speak calmly. "I will! But not in your way! Not at your command! You have enlightened me on many points of which I was hitherto ignorant--and for this I thank you! You have taught me that the Church, instead of being a brotherhood united in the Divine service of Christ, who was God-in-Man, is a mere secular system of avarice and tyranny! You pretend to save souls for God! What do you care for MY soul! You would have me wed a man with fraud in my heart,--with the secret intent to push upon him the claims of a Church he abhors,--and this after he has made me his wife! You would have me tell lies to him before the Eternal! And you call that the way to salvation? No, Monsignor! It is the wealth of the Hermensteins you desire!--not the immortal rescue or heavenly benefit of the last of their children! You will support the murderer Varillo in his lie to ruin an innocent woman's reputation! You would destroy the honour and peace of an old man's life for the sake of furthering your own private interests and grudges! And you call yourself a servant of Christ! Monsignor, if you are a servant of Christ, then the Church you serve must be the shadow of a future hell!--not the promise of a future heaven! I denounce it,--I deny it!--I swear by the Holy Name of our Redeemer that I am a Christian!--not a slave of the Church of Rome!"

Such passion thrilled her, such high exaltation, that she looked like an inspired angel in her beauty and courage, and Gherardi, smothering a fierce oath, made one stride towards her and seized her hands.

"You defy me!" he said in a hoarse whisper. "You dare me to my worst?"

She looked up at his dark cruel face, his glittering eyes, and shuddered as with icy cold,--but the spirit in that delicate little body of hers was strong as steel, and tempered to the grandest issues.

"I dare you to do your worst!" she said, half-sobbingly,--half-closing her eyes in the nervous terror she could not altogether control. "You can but kill me--I shall die true!"

With a sort of savage cry, Gherardi snatched her round the waist, but scarcely had he done so when he was flung aside with a force that made him reel back heavily against the wall, and Aubrey Leigh confronted him.

"Aubrey!" cried Sylvie. "Oh, Aubrey!"

He caught her as she sprang to him, and held her fast,--and with perfect self-possession he eyed the priest disdainfully up and down.

"So this," he said coldly, "is the way the followers of Saint Peter fulfil the commands of Christ! Or shall we say this is the way in which they go on denying their Master? It is a strange way of retaining disciples,--a still stranger way of making converts! A brave way too, to intimidate a woman!"

Gherardi, recovering from the shock of Aubrey's blow, drew himself up haughtily.

"I serve the Church, Mr. Leigh!" he said proudly. "And in that high service all means are permitted to us for a righteous end!"

"Ah!--the old Jesuitical hypocrisy!" And Aubrey smiled bitterly. "Lies are permitted in the Cause of Truth! One word, Monsignor! I have no wish to play at any game of double-dealing with you. I have heard the whole of your interview with this lady. It is the first time I have ever played the eavesdropper--but my duty was to protect my promised wife, if she needed protection--and I thought it was possible she might need it--from YOU!"

Gherardi turned a livid paleness, and drew a quick breath.

"I know your moves," went on Aubrey quietly, "and it will be my business as well as my pleasure to frustrate them. Moreover, I shall give your plot into the care of the public press--"

"You will not dare!" cried Gherardi fiercely. "But--after all, what matter if you do!--no one will believe you!"

"Not in Rome, perhaps," returned Aubrey coolly. "But in England,--in America,--things are different. There are many honest men who dislike to contemplate even a distant vision of the talons of Rome hovering over us--we look upon such mischief as a sign of decay,--for only where the carcasses of nations lie, does the vulture hover! We are not dead yet! And now, Monsignor,--as your interview with the Countess is ended--an interview to which I have been a witness--may I suggest the removal of your presence? You have made a proposition--she has rejected it--the matter is ended!"

Civilly calm and cold he stood, holding Sylvie close to him with one embracing arm, and Gherardi, looking at the two together thus, impotently wished that the heavy sculptured and painted ceiling above them might fall and crush them into a pulp before him. No shame, no sense of compunction moved him,--if anything, he raised his head more haughtily than before.

"Aubrey Leigh," he said, "Socialist, reformer, revolutionist--whatever you choose to call yourself!--you have all the insolence of your race and class,--and it is beneath my dignity to argue with you. But you will rue the day you ever crossed my path! Not one thing have I threatened, that shall not be performed! This unhappy lady whose mind has been perverted from Holy Church by your heretical teachings, shall be excommunicated. Henceforth we look upon her as a child of sin, and we shall publicly declare her marriage with you illegal. The rest can be left with confidence, to--Society!"

And with a dark smile which made his face look like that of some malignant demon, he turned, and preserving his proud inflexibility of demeanour, without another look or gesture, left the apartment.

Then Aubrey, alone with his love, drew her closer, and lifted her fair face to his own, looking at it with passionate tenderness and admiration.

"You brave soul!" he said. "You true woman! You angel of the covenant of love! How shall I ever tell you how I worship you--how I revere you--for your truth and courage!"

She trembled under the ardour of his utterance, and her eyes filled with tears.

"I was not afraid!" she said. "I should have called Katrine,--only I knew that if I once did so, she also would be involved, and he would be unscrupulous enough to ruin my name with a few words in order to defend himself from all suspicion. But you, Aubrey?--how did it happen that you were here?"

"I was here from the first!" he replied triumphantly. "I followed on Gherardi's very heels. Your Arab boy admitted me--he was in my secret. He showed me into the anteroom just outside, where by leaving a corner of the door ajar I could see and hear everything. And I listened to your every word! I saw every bright flash of the strong soul in your brave eyes! And now those eyes question me, sweetheart,--almost reproachfully they seem to ask me why I did not interfere between you and Gherardi before? Ah, but you must forgive me for the delay! I wanted to drink all my cup of nectar to the dregs--I could not lose one drop of such sweetness! To see you, slight fragile blossom of a woman, matching your truth and courage against the treachery and malice of the most unscrupulous priestly tool ever employed by the Vatican, was a sight to make me strong for all my days!" He kissed her passionately. "My love! My wife! How can I ever thank you!"

She raised her sweet eyes wonderingly.

"Did you doubt me, Aubrey?" "No! I never doubted you. But I wondered whether your force would hold out, whether you might not be intimidated, whether you might not temporize, which would have been natural enough--whether you might not have used some little social art or grace to cover up and disguise the absoluteness of your resolve--but no! You were a heroine in the fight, and you gave your blows straight from the hilt, without flinching. You have made me twice a man, Sylvie! With you beside me I shall win all I might otherwise have lost, and I thank God for you, dear!--I thank God for you!"

He drew her close again into his arms, pressing her to his heart which beat tumultously with its deep rejoicing,--no fear now that they two would ever cease to be one! No danger now of those miserable so-called "religious" disputes between husband and wife, which are so eminently anti-Christian, and which make many a home a hell upon earth,--disputes which young children sometimes have to witness from their earliest years, when the mother talks "at" the father for not going to Church, or the father sneers at the mother for being "a rank Papist"! Nothing now, but absolute union in spirit and thought, in soul and intention--the rarest union that can be consummated between man and woman, and yet the only one that can engender perfect peace and unchanging happiness.

And presently the lovers' trance of joy gave way to thought for others; to a realization of the dangers hovering over the good Cardinal, and the already ill-fated Angela Sovrani, and Aubrey, raising the golden head that nestled against his breast, kissed the sweet lips once more and said--

"Now, my Sylvie, we must take the law into our own hands! We must do all we can to save our friends. The Cardinal must be thought of first. If we are not quick to the rescue he will be sent 'into retreat,' which can be translated as forced detention, otherwise imprisonment. He must leave Rome to-night. Now listen!"

And sitting down beside her, still holding her hand, he gave her an account of his meeting with Cyrillon Vergniaud, otherwise "Gys Grandit," and told her of the sudden passion for Angela that had fired the soul of that fiery writer of the fiercest polemics against priestcraft that had as yet startled France.

"Knowing now all the intended machinations of Gherardi," continued Aubrey, "what I suggest is this,--that you, my Sylvie, should confide in the Princesse D'Agramont, who is fortunately for us, an enemy of the Vatican. Arrange with her that she persuades Angela to return under her escort at once to Paris. Angela is well enough to travel if great care be taken of her, and the Princesse will not spare that. Cyrillon can go with them--I should think that might be managed?"

He smiled as he put this question. Sylvie smiled in answer and replied demurely--

"I should think so!"

"But the Cardinal," resumed Aubrey, "and--and Manuel--must go to-night. I will see Prince Sovrani and arrange it. And Sylvie--will you marry me to-morrow morning?"

Her eyes opened wide and she laughed.

"Why yes, if you wish it!" she said. "But--so soon?"

"Darling, the sooner the better! I mean to take every possible method of making our marriage binding in the sight of the world, before the Vatican has time to launch its thunders. If you are willing, we can be married at the American Consulate to-morrow morning. You must remember that though born of British parents, I do not resign my American citizenship, and would not forego being of the New World for all the old worlds ever made! The American Consul knows me well, and he will begin to make things legal for us to-morrow if you are ready."

"BEGIN to make things legal?" echoed Sylvie smiling. "Will he do no more than begin?"

"My sweetheart, he cannot. He will make you mine according to American law. In England, you will again be made mine according to English law. And then afterwards we will have our religious ceremony!"

Sylvie looked at him perplexedly, then gave a pretty gesture of playful resignation.

"Let everything be as you wish and decide, Aubrey," she said." I give my life and love to you, and have no other will but yours!"

He kissed her.

"I accept the submission, only to put myself more thoroughly at your command," he said tenderly,--"You are my queen,--but with powerful enemies against us, I must see that you are rightfully enthroned!"

A few minutes' more conversation,--then a hurried consultation with Madame Bozier, and Sylvie, changing her lace gown for a simple travelling dress, walked out of the Casa D'Angeli with the faithful Katrine, and taking the first carriage she could find, was driven to the Palazzo where the Princesse D'Agramont had her apartments. Allowing from ten to fifteen minutes to elapse after her departure, Aubrey Leigh himself went out, and standing on the steps of the house, looked up and down carelessly, drawing on his gloves and humming a tune. His quick glance soon espied what he had been almost certain he should see, namely, the straight black-garmented figure of a priest, walking slowly along the street on the opposite side, his hands clasped behind his back, and his whole aspect indicative of devout meditation.

"I thought so!" said Aubrey to himself. "A spy set on already! No time to lose--Cardinal Bonpre must leave Rome at nightfall."

Leisurely he crossed the road, and walking with as slow a step as the priest he had noticed, came opposite to him face to face. With impenetrable solemnity the holy man meekly moved aside,--with equally impenetrable coolness, Aubrey eyed him up and down, then the two passed each other, and Aubrey walked with the same unhasting pace, to the end of the street,--then turned--to see that the priest had paused in his holy musings to crane his neck after him and watch him with the most eager scrutiny. He did not therefore take a carriage at the moment he intended, but walked on into the Corso,--there he sprang into a fiacre and drove straight to the Sovrani Palace. The first figure he saw there, strolling about in the front of the building, was another priest, absorbed in apparently profound thoughts on the sublimity of the sunset, which was just then casting its red glow over the Eternal City. And with the appearance of this second emissary of the Vatican police, he realised the full significance of the existing position of affairs.

Without a moment's loss of time he was ushered into the presence of the Cardinal, and there for a moment stood silent on the threshold of the apartment, overcome by the noble aspect of the venerable prelate, who, seated in his great oaken chair, was listening to a part of the Gospel of Saint Luke, read aloud in clear sweet accents by Manuel.

"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

"And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

"Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like:

"He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.

"But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; AND THE RUIN OF THAT HOUSE WAS GREAT."

And emphasizing the last line, Manuel closed the book; then at a kindly beckoning gesture from the Cardinal, Aubrey advanced into the room, bowing with deep reverence and honour over the worn old hand the prelate extended.

"My lord Cardinal," he said without further preface, "you must leave Rome to-night!"

The Cardinal raised his gentle blue eyes in wondering protest.

"By whose order?"

"Surely by your own Master's will," said Aubrey with deep earnestness. "For he would not have you be a victim to treachery!"

"Treachery!" And the Cardinal smiled. "My son, traitors harm themselves more than those they would betray. Treachery cannot touch me!"

Aubrey came a step nearer.

"Monsignor, if you do not care for yourself you will care for the boy," he said in a lower tone, with a glance at Manuel, who had withdrawn, and was now standing at one of the windows, the light of the sunset appearing to brighten itself in his fair hair. "He will be separated from you!"

At this the Cardinal rose up, his whole form instinct with resolution and dignity.

"They cannot separate us against the boy's will or mine," he said. "Manuel!"

Manuel came to his call, and the Cardinal placed one hand on his shoulder.

"Child," he said softly, "they threaten to part me from you, if we stay longer here. Therefore we must leave Rome!"

Manuel looked up with a bright flashing glance of tenderness.

"Yes, dear friend, we must leave Rome!" he said. "Rome is no place for you--or for me!"

There was a moment's silence. Something in the attitude of the old man and the young boy standing side by side, moved Aubrey deeply; a sense of awe as well as love overwhelmed him at the sight of these two beings, so pure in mind, so gentle of heart, and so widely removed in years and in life,--the one a priest of the Church, the other a waif of the streets, yet drawn together as it seemed, by the simple spirit of Christ's teaching, in an almost supernatural bond of union. Recovering himself presently he said,

"To-night then, Monsignor?"

The Cardinal looked at Manuel, who answered for him.

"Yes, to-night! We will be ready! For the days are close upon the time when the birth of Christ was announced to a world that does not yet believe in Him! It will be well to leave Rome before then! For the riches of the Pope's palace have nothing to do with the poor babe born in a manger,--and the curse of the Vatican would be a discord in the angels' singing--'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth PEACE, GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN'!"

His young voice rang out, silver clear and sweet, and Aubrey gazed at him in wondering silence.

"To-night!" repeated Manuel, smiling and stretching out his hand with a gentle authoritative gesture. "To-night the Cardinal will leave Rome, and I will leave it too--perchance for ever!"

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XXXV

During these various changes in the lives of those with whom he had been more or less connected, Florian Varillo lay between life and death in the shelter of a Trappist monastery on the Campagna. When he had been seized by the delirium and fever which had flung him, first convulsed and quivering, and then totally insensible, at the foot of the grim, world-forgotten men who passed the midnight hours in digging their own graves, he had been judged by them as dying or dead, and had been carried into a sort of mortuary chapel, cold and bare, and lit only by the silver moonbeams and the flicker of a torch one of the monks carried. Waking in this ghastly place, too weak to struggle, he fell a-moaning like a tortured child, and was, on showing this sign of life, straight-way removed to one of the cells. Here, after hours of horrible suffering, of visions more hideous than Dante's Hell, of stupors and struggles, of fits of strong shrieking, followed by weak tears, he woke one afternoon calm and coherent,--to find himself lying on a straight pallet bed in a narrow stone chamber, dimly lighted by a small slit of window, through which a beam of the sun fell aslant, illumining the blood-stained features of a ghastly Christ stretched on a black crucifix directly opposite him. He shuddered as he saw this, and half-closed his eyes with a deep sigh.

"Tired--tired!" said a thin clear voice beside him. "Always tired! It is only God who is never weary!"

Varillo opened his eyes again languidly, and turned them on a monk sitting beside him,--a monk whose face was neither old nor young, but which presented a singular combination of both qualities. His high forehead, white as marble, had no furrows to mar its smoothness, and from under deep brows a pair of wondering wistful brown eyes peered like the eyes of a lost and starving child. The cheeks were gaunt and livid, the flesh hanging in loose hollows from the high and prominent bones, yet the mouth was that of a youth, firm, well-outlined and sweet in expression, and when he smiled as he did now, he showed an even row of small pearly teeth which might have been envied by many a fair woman.

"Only God who is never weary!" he said, nodding his head slowly, "but we--you and I--we are soon tired!"

Varillo looked at him dubiously; and a moment's thought decided him to assume a certain amount of meekness and docility with this evident brother of some religious order, so that he might obtain both sympathy and confidence from him, and from all whom he might be bound to serve. Ill and weak as he was, the natural tendency of his brain to scheme for his own advantage, was not as yet impaired.

"Ah, yes!" he sighed, "I am very tired!--very ill! I do not know what has happened to me--nor even where I am. What place is this?"

"It is a place where the dead come!" responded the monk. "The dead in heart! the dead in soul--the dead in sin! They come to bury themselves, lest God should find them and crush them into dust before they have time to say a prayer! Like Adam and his wife, they hide themselves 'from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.'"

Varillo raised himself on one elbow, and stared at the pale face and smiling mouth of the speaker in fear and wonder.

"'A place where the dead come!'" he echoed. "But you are alive--and so am I!"

"You may be--I am not," said the monk quietly. "I died long ago! People who are alive say we are men, though we know ourselves to be ghosts merely. This place is called by the world a Trappist monastery,--you will go out of it if indeed you are alive--you must prove that first! But we shall never come out, because we are dead. One never comes out of the grave!"

With an effort Varillo tried to control the tremor of his nerves, and to understand and reason out these enigmatical sentences of his companion. He began to think--and then to remember,--and by and by was able to conjure up the picture of himself as he had last been conscious of existence,--himself standing outside the gates of a great building on the Campagna, and shaking the iron bars to and fro. It was a Trappist monastery then?--and he was being taken charge of by the Trappist Order? This fact might possibly be turned to his account if he were careful. He lay down once more on his pillow and closed his eyes, and under this pretence of sleep, pondered his position. What were they saying of him in Rome? Was Angela buried? And her great picture? What had become of it?

"How long have I been here?" he asked suddenly.

The monk gave a curious deprecatory gesture with his hands.

"Since you died! So long have you been dead!"

Varillo surveyed him with a touch of scorn.

"You talk in parables--like your Master!" he said with a feeble attempt at a laugh. "I am not strong enough to understand you! And if you are a Trappist monk, why do you talk at all? I thought one of your rules was perpetual silence?"

"Silence? Yes--everyone is silent but me!" said the monk--"I may talk--because I am only Ambrosio,--mad Ambrosio!--something wrong here!" And he touched his forehead. "A little teasing demon lives always behind my eyes, piercing my brain with darts of fire. And he obliges me to talk; he makes me say things I should not--and for all the mischief he works upon me I wear this--see!"--And springing up suddenly he threw aside the folds of his garment, and displayed his bare chest, over which a coarse rope was crossed and knotted so tightly, that the blood was oozing from the broken flesh on either side of it. "For every word I say, I bleed!"

Varillo gave a nervous cry and covered his eyes.

"Do not be afraid!" said Ambrosio, drawing his robe together again, "It is only flesh--not spirit--that is wounded! Flesh is our great snare,--it persuades us to eat, to sleep, to laugh, to love--the spirit commands none of these things. The spirit is of God--it wants neither food nor rest,--it is pure and calm,--it would escape to Heaven if the flesh did not cramp its wings!"

Varillo took his hand from his eyes and tossed himself back on his pillow with a petulant moan.

"Can they do nothing better for me than this?" he ejaculated. "To place me here in this wretched cell alone with a madman!"

Ambrosio stood by the pallet bed looking down upon him with a sort of child-like curiosity.

"No better than this?" he echoed. "Would you have anything better? Safe--safe from the world,--no one can find you or follow you--no one can discover your sin--"

"Sin! What sin!" demanded Varillo fiercely. "You talk like a fool--as you own yourself to be! I have committed no sin!"

"Good--good!" said Ambrosio. "Then you must be canonized with all the rest of the saints! And St. Peter's shall be illuminated, and the Pope shall be carried in to see you and to lay his hands upon you, and they shall shout to him, 'Tu es Petrus!' and no one will remember what kind of a bruised, bleeding, tortured, broken-down Head of the Church stood before the multitude when Pilate cried 'Ecce homo!'"

Varillo stared at him in unwilling fascination. He seemed carried beyond himself,--it was as though some other force spoke through him, and though he scarcely raised his voice, its tone was so clear, musical, and penetrative that it seemed to give light and warmth to the cold dullness of the cell.

"You must not mind me!" he went on softly, "My thoughts have all gone wrong, they tell me,--so have my words. I was young once--and in that time I used to study hard and try to understand what it was that God wished me to do with my life. But there were so many things--so much confusion--so much difficulty--and the end is--here!" He smiled. "Well! It is a quiet end,--they say the devil knocks at the gate of the monastery often at midnight, but he never enters in,--never--unless perchance you are he!"

Varillo turned himself about pettishly.

"If I were he, I should not trouble you long," he said. "Even the devil might be glad to make exit from such a hole as this! Who is your Superior?"

"We have only one Superior,--God!" replied Ambrosio. "He who never slumbers or sleeps--He who troubles Himself to look into everything, from the cup of a flower to the heart of a man! Who shall escape the lightning of His glance, or think to cover up a hidden vileness from the discovery of the Most High?"

"I did not ask you for pious jargon," said Varillo, beginning to lose temper, yet too physically weak to contend with the wordy vagaries of this singular personage who had evidently been told off to attend upon him. "I asked you who is the Head or Ruler of this community? Who gives you the daily rule of conduct which you all obey?"

Ambrosio's brown eyes grew puzzled, and he shook his head.

"I obey no one," he said. "I am mad Ambrosio!--I walk about in my grave, and speak, and sing, while others remain silent. I would tell you if I knew of anyone greater than God,--but I do not!"

Varillo uttered an impatient groan. It was no good asking this creature anything,--his answers were all wide of the mark.

"God," went on Ambrosio, turning his head towards the light that came streaming in through the narrow window of the cell, "is in that sunbeam! He can enter where He will, and we never know when we shall meet Him face to face! He may possess with His spirit the chaste body of a woman, as in our Blessed Lady,--or He may come to us in the form of a child, speaking to the doctors in the temple and arguing with them on the questions of life and death. He is in all things; and the very beggar at our gates who makes trial of our charity, may for all we know, be our Lord disguised! Shall I tell you a strange story?"

Varillo gave a weary sign of assent, half closing his eyes. It was better this crazed fool should talk, he thought, than that he should lie there and listen, as it were, to the deadly silence which in the pauses of the conversation could be felt, like the brooding heaviness of a thick cloud hanging over the monastery walls.

"It happened long ago," said Ambrosio. "There was a powerful prince who thought that to be rich and strong was sufficient to make all the world his own. But the world belongs to God,--and He does not always give it over to the robber and spoiler. This prince I tell you of, had been the lover of a noble lady, but he was false-hearted; and the false soon grow weary of love! And so, tiring of her beauty and her goodness, he stabbed her mortally to death, and thought no one had seen him do the deed. For the only witness to it was a ray of moonlight falling through the window--just as the sunlight falls now!--see!" And he pointed to the narrow aperture which lit the cell, while Florian Varillo, shuddering in spite of himself, lay motionless. "But when the victim was dead, this very ray of moonlight turned to the shape of a great angel, and the angel wore the semblance of our Lord,--and the glory and the wonder of that vision was as the lightning to slay and utterly destroy! And from that hour for many years, the murderer was followed by a ray of light, which never left him; all day he saw it flickering in his path,--all night it flashed across his bed, driving sleep from his eyes and rest from his brain!--till at last maddened by remorse he confessed his crime to a priest, and was taken into a grave like this, a monastery,--where he died, so they say, penitent. But whether he was forgiven, the story does not say!"

"It is a stupid story!" said Varillo, opening his eyes, and smiling in the clear, candid way he always assumed when he had anything to hide. "It has neither point nor meaning."

"You think not?" said Ambrosio. "But perhaps you are not conscious of God. If you were, that sunbeam we see now should make you careful, lest an angel should be in it!"

"Careful? Why should I be careful?" Varillo half raised himself on the bed. "I have nothing to hide!"

At this Ambrosio began to laugh.

"Oh, you are happy--happy!" he exclaimed. "You are the first I ever heard say that! Nothing to hide! Oh, fortunate, fortunate man! Then indeed you should not be here--for we all have something to hide, and we are afraid even of the light,--that is why we make such narrow holes for it; we are always praying God not to look at our sins,--not to uncover them and show us what vile souls we are--we men who could be as gods in life, if we did not choose to be devils--"

Here he suddenly broke off, and a curious grey rigidity stole over his features, as if some invisible hand were turning him into stone. His eyes sparkled feverishly, but otherwise his face was the lace of the dead. The horrible fixity of his aspect at that moment, so terrified Varillo that he gave a loud cry, and almost before he knew he had uttered it, another monk entered the cell. Varillo gazed at him affrightedly, and pointed to Ambrosio. The monk said nothing, but merely took the rigid figure by its arm and shook it violently. Then, as suddenly as he had lost speech and motion, Ambrosio recovered both, and went on talking evenly, taking up the sentence he had broken off--"If we did not choose to be as devils, we might be as gods!" Then looking around him with a smile, he added, "Now you are here, Filippo, you will explain!"

The monk addressed as Filippo remained silent, still holding him by the arm, and presently quietly guiding him, led him out of the cell. When the two brethren had disappeared, Varillo fell back on his pillows exhausted.

"What am I to do now?" he thought. "I must have been here many days!--all Rome must know of Angela's death--all Rome must wonder at my absence--all Rome perhaps suspects me of being her murderer! And yet--this illness may be turned to some account. I can say that it was caused by grief at hearing the sudden news of her death--that I was stricken down by my despair--but then--I must not forget--I was to have been in Naples. Yes--the thing looks suspicious--I shall be tracked!--I must leave Italy. But how?"

Bathed in cold perspiration he lay, wondering, scheming, devising all sorts of means of escape from his present surroundings, when he became suddenly aware of a tall dark figure in the cell,--a figure muffled nearly to its eyes, which had entered with such stealthy softness and silence as to give almost the impression of some supernatural visitant. He uttered a faint exclamation--the figure raised one hand menacingly.

"Be silent!" These words were uttered in a harsh whisper. "If you value your life, hold your peace till I have said what I come to say!"

Moving to the door of the cell, the mysterious visitor bolted it across and locked it--then dropped the disguising folds of his heavy mantle and monk's cowl, and disclosed the face and form of Domenico Gherardi. Paralysed with fear Varillo stared at him,--every drop of blood seemed to rush from his heart to his brain, turning him sick and giddy, for in the dark yet fiery eyes of the priest, there was a look that would have made the boldest tremble.

"I knew that you were here," he said, his thin lips widening at the corners in a slight disdainful smile. "I saw you at the inn on the road to Frascati, and watched you shrink and tremble as I spoke of the murder of Angela Sovrani! You screened your face behind a paper you were reading,--that was not necessary, for your hand shook,--and so betrayed itself as the hand of the assassin!"

With a faint moan, Varillo shudderingly turned away and buried his head in his pillow.

"Why do you now wish to hide yourself?" pursued Gherardi. "Now when you are an honest man at last, and have shown yourself in your true colors? You were a liar hitherto, but now you have discovered yourself to be exactly as the devil made you, why you can look at me without fear--we understand each other!"

Still Varillo hid his eyes and moaned, and Gherardi thereupon laid a rough hand on his shoulder.

"Come, man! You are not a sick child to lie cowering there as though seized by the plague! What ails you? You have done no harm! You tried to kill something that stood in your way,--I admire you for that! I would do the same myself at any moment!"

Slowly Varillo lifted himself and looked up at the dark strong face above him.

"A pity you did not succeed!" went on Gherardi, "for the world would have been well rid of at least one feminine would-be 'genius,' whose skill puts that of man to shame! But perhaps it may comfort you to know that your blow was not strong enough or deep enough, and that your betrothed wife yet lives to wed you--if she will!"

"Lives!" cried Florian. "Angela lives!"

"Ay, Angela lives!" replied Gherardi coldly. "Does that give you joy? Does your lover's heart beat with ecstasy to know that she--twenty times more gifted than you, a hundred times more famous than you, a thousand times more beloved by the world than you--lives, to be crowned with an immortal fame, while you are relegated to scorn and oblivion! Does that content you?"

A dull red flush crept over Varillo's cheeks,--his hand flenched the coverlet of his bed convulsively.

"Lives!" He muttered. "She lives! Then it must be by a miracle! For I drove the steel deep . . . deep home!"

Gherardi looked at him curiously, with the air of a scientist watching some animal writhing under vivisection.

"Perhaps Cardinal Felix prayed for her!" he said mockingly, "and even as he healed the crippled child in Rouen he may have raised his niece from the dead! But miracle or no miracle, she lives. That is why I am here!"

"Why--you--are--here?" repeated Varillo mechanically.

"How dull you are!" said Gherardi tauntingly. "A man like you with a dozen secret intrigues in Rome, should surely be able to grasp a situation better! Angela Sovrani lives, I tell you,--I am here to help you to kill her more surely! Your first attempt was clumsy,--and dangerous to yourself, but--murder her reputation, amico, murder her reputation!--and so build up your own!"

Slowly Varillo turned his eyes upon him. Gherardi met them unflinchingly, and in that one glance the two were united in the spirit of their evil intention.

"You are a man," went on Gherardi, watching him closely. "Will you permit yourself to be baffled and beaten in the race for fame by a woman? Shame on you if you do! Listen! I am prepared to swear that you are innocent of having attempted the murder of your affianced wife, and I will also assert that the greater part of her picture was painted by you, though you were, out of generosity and love for her, willing to let her take the credit of the whole conception!"

Varillo started upright.

"God!" he cried. "Is it possible! Will you do this for me?"

"Not for you--No," said Gherardi contemptuously. "I will do nothing for you! If I saw you lying in the road at my feet dying for want of a drop of water, I would not give it to you! What I do, I do for myself--and the Church!"

By this time Varillo had recovered his equanimity. A smile came readily to his lips as he said--

"Ah, the Church! Excellent institution! Like charity, it covers a multitude of sins!"

"It exists for that object," answered Gherardi with a touch of ironical humor. "Its own sins it covers,--and shows up the villainies of those who sin outside its jurisdiction. Angela Sovrani is one of these,--her uncle the Cardinal is another,--Sylvie Hermenstein--"

"What of her?" cried Varillo, his eyes sparkling. "Is her marriage broken off?"

"Broken off!" Gherardi gave a fierce gesture. "Would that it were! No! She renounces the Church for the sake of Aubrey Leigh--she leaves the faith of her fathers--"

"And takes the wealth of her fathers with her!" finished Varillo, maliciously. "I see! I understand! The Church has reason for anger!"

"It has reason!" echoed Gherardi. "And we of the Church choose you as the tool wherewith to work our vengeance. And why? Because you are a born liar!--because you can look straight in the eyes of man or woman, and swear to a falsehood without flinching!--because you are an egotist, and will do anything to serve yourself--because you have neither heart nor conscience--nor soul nor feeling,--because you are an animal in desires and appetite,-because of this, I say, we yoke you to our chariot wheels, knowing you may be trusted to drive over and trample down the creatures that might be valuable to you if they did not stand in your way!"

Such bitterness, such scorn, such loathing were in his accents, that even the callous being he addressed was stung, and made a feeble gesture of protest.

"You judge me harshly," he began--

Gherardi laughed.

"Judge you! Not I! No judgment is wanted. I read you like a book through and through,--a book that should be set on Nature's Index Expurgatorius, as unfit to meet the eyes of the faithful! You are a low creature, Florian Varillo,--and unscrupulous as I am myself, I despise you for meanness greater than even I am capable of! But you are a convenient tool, ready to hand, and I use you for the Church's service! If you were to refuse to do as I bid you, I would brand you through the world as the murderer you are! So realize to the full how thoroughly I have you in my power. Now understand me,--you must leave this place to-morrow. I will send my carriage for you, and you shall come at once to me, to me in Rome as my guest,--my HONOURED guest!" And he emphasized the word sarcastically. "You are weak and ill yet, they tell me here,--so much the better for you. It will make you all the more interesting! You will find it easier to play the part of injured innocence! Do you understand?"

"I understand," answered Varillo with a faint shudder, for the strong and relentless personality of Gherardi overpowered him with a sense of terror which he could not wholly control.

"Good! Then we will say no more. Brief words are best on such burning matters. To-morrow at six in the afternoon I will send for you. Be ready! Till then--try to rest--try to sleep without dreaming of a scaffold!"

He folded his mantle around him again and prepared to depart.

"Sleep," he repeated. "Sleep with a cold heart and quiet mind! Think that it is only a woman's name--a woman's work--a woman's honour, that stand in your way,--and congratulate yourself with the knowledge that the Church and her Divine authority will help you to remove all three! Farewell!"

He turned, and unlocked the door of the cell. As he threw it open, he was confronted by the monk Ambrosio, who was outside on the very threshold.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded suspiciously. "I had a permit from the Superior to speak to your charge alone."

"And were you not alone?" returned Ambrosio smiling. "I was not with you! I was here as sentinel, to prevent anyone disturbing you. Poor Ambrosio--mad Ambrosio! He is no good at all except to guard the dead!"

Gherardi looked at him scrutinizingly, and noted the lack-lustre eyes, the helpless childish expression, of the half-young, half-old face confronting his own.

"Guard the dead as much as you please," he said harshly. "But take heed how you spy on the living! Be careful of the sick man lying yonder--we want him back with us in Rome to-morrow."

Ambrosio nodded.

"Back in Rome--good--good!" he said. "Then he is living after all! I thought he was dead in his sins as I am,--but you tell me he lives, and will go back to Rome!--Oh yes--I will take care of him--good care!--do not fear! I know how to guard him so that he shall not escape you!"

Gherardi looked at him again sharply, but he was playing with his long rosary and smiling foolishly, and there seemed no use in wasting further speech upon him. So, muffling himself in his cloak, he strode away, and Ambrosio entered the cell.

"You shall have meat and wine presently," he said, approaching the bed where Florian lay. "The devil has given orders that you shall be well fed!"

Varillo looked up and smiled kindly. He could assume any expression at command, and it suited his purpose just now to be all gentleness.

"My poor friend!" he said compassionately. "Your wits are far astray! Devil? Nay--he who has just left us is more of a saint!"

Ambrosio's brown eyes flashed, but he maintained a grave and immovable aspect.

"The devil has often mocked us in saint's disguise," he said slowly. "I tell the porter here every night to keep the gates well locked against him,--but this time it was no use; he has entered in. And now we shall have great work to get him out!"

Varillo resting his head on one arm, studied him curiously.

"You must have lived a strange life in the world!" he said. "That is if you were ever in the world at all. Were you?"

"Oh yes, I was in the world," replied Ambrosio calmly. "I was in the midst of men and women who passed their whole lives in acts of cruelty and treachery to one another. I never met a man who was honest; I never saw a woman who was true! I wondered where God was that He permitted such vile beings to live and take His name in vain. He seemed lost and gone,--I could not find Him!"

"Ah!" ejaculated Florian languidly. "And did yon discover Him here? In this monastery?"

"No--He is not here, for we are all dead men," said Ambrosio. "And God is the God of the living, not the God of the dead! Shall I tell you where I found him?" And he advanced a step or two, raising one hand warningly as though he were entrusted with some message of doom--"I found Him in sin! I tried to live a life of truth in a world of lies, but the lies were too strong for me,--they pulled me down! I fell--into a black pit of crime--reckless, determined, conscious wickedness,--and so found God--in my punishment!"

He clasped his hands together with an expression of strange ecstasy.

"Down into the darkness!" he said. "Down through long vistas of shadow and blackness you go, glad and exultant, delighting in evil, and thinking 'God sees me not!' And then suddenly at the end, a sword of fire cuts the darkness asunder,--and the majesty of the Divine Law breaks your soul on the wheel!"

He looked steadfastly at Varillo.

"So you will find,--so you must find, if you ever go down into the darkness."

"Ay, if I ever go," said Florian gently. "But I shall not."

"No?--then perhaps you are there already?" said Ambrosio smiling, and playing with his rosary. "For those who say they will never sin have generally sinned!"

Varillo held the same kind look of compassion in his eyes. He was fond of telling his fellow-artists that he had a "plastic" face,--and this quality served him well just now. He might have been a hero and martyr, from the peaceful and patient expression of his features, and he so impressed by his manner a lay-brother who presently entered to give him his evening meal, that he succeeded in getting rid of Ambrosio altogether.

"You are sure you are strong enough to be left without an attendant?" asked the lay-brother solicitously, quite captivated by the gentleness of his patient. "There is a special evening service to-night in the chapel, and Ambrosio should be there to play the organ--for he plays well--but this duty had been given to Fra Filippo--"

"Nay, but let Ambrosio fulfil his usual task," said Varillo considerately. "I am much better--much stronger,--and as my good friend Monsignor Gherardi desires me to be in Rome to-morrow, and to stay with him till I am quite restored to health, I must try to rest as quietly as I can till my hour of departure."

"You must be a great man to have Domenico Gherardi for a friend!" said the lay-brother wistfully.

Here Ambrosio suddenly burst into a loud laugh.

"You are right! He is a great man!--one of the greatest in Rome, or for that matter in the world! And he means to be yet greater!" And with that he turned on his heel and left the cell abruptly.

Varillo, languidly sipping the wine that had been brought to him with his food, looked after him with a pitying smile.

"Poor soul!" he said gently.

"He was famous once," said the lay-brother, lowering his voice as he spoke. "One of the most famous sculptors in Europe. But something went wrong with his life, and he came here. It is difficult to make him understand orders, or obey them, but the Superior allows him to remain on account of his great skill in music. On that point at least he is sane."

"Indeed!" said Varillo indifferently. He was beginning to weary of the conversation, and wished to be alone. "It is well for him that he is useful to you in some regard. And now, my friend, will you leave me to rest awhile? If it be possible I shall try to sleep now till morning."

"One of us will come to you at daybreak," said the lay-brother. "You are still very weak--you will need assistance to dress. Your clothes are here at the foot of the bed. I hope you will sleep well."

"Thank you!" said Varillo, conveying an almost tearful look of gratitude into his eyes--"You are very good to me! God bless you!"

The lay-brother made a gentle deprecatory gesture of his hands and retired, and Varillo was left to his own reflections. He lay still, thinking deeply, and marvelling at the unexpected rescue out of his difficulties so suddenly afforded him.

"With Gherardi to support me, I can say anything!" he mused, his heart beating quickly and exultingly. "I can say anything and swear anything! And even if the sheath of my dagger has been found, it will be no proof, for I can say it is not mine. Any lie I choose to tell will have Gherardi's word to warrant it!--so I am safe--unless Angela speaks!"

He considered this possibility for a moment, then smiled.

"But she never will! She is one of those strange women who endure without complaint,--she is too lofty and pure for the ways of the world, and the world naturally takes vengeance upon her. There is not a man born that does not hate too pure a woman; it is his joy to degrade her if he can! This is the way of Nature; what is a woman made for except to subject herself to her master! And when she rises superior to him--superior in soul, intellect, heart and mind, he sees in her nothing but an abnormal prodigy, to be stared at, laughed at, despised--but never loved! The present position of affairs is Angela's fault, not mine. She should not have concealed the work she was doing from her lover, who had the right to know all her secrets!"

He laughed,--a low malicious laugh, and then lay tranquilly on his pillows gazing at the gradually diminishing light. Day was departing--night was coming on,--and as the shadows lengthened, the solemn sound of the organ began to vibrate through the walls of the monastery like far-off thunder growing musical. With a certain sensuous delight in the beautiful, Varillo listened to it with pleasure; he had no mind to probe the true meaning of music, but the mere sound was soothing and sublime, and seemed in its gravity, to match the "tone" of the light that was gradually waning. So satisfied was he with that distant pulse of harmony that he began weaving some verses in his head to "His Absent Lady,"--and succeeded in devising quite a charming lyric to her whose honour and renown he was ready to kill. So complex, so curious, so callous, yet sensuous, and utterly egotistical was his nature, that had Angela truly died under his murderous blow, he would have been ready now to write such exquisite verses in the way of a lament for her loss, as should have made a world of sentimental women weep, not knowing the nature of the man.

The last glimpse of day vanished, and the cell was only illuminated by a flickering gleam which crept through the narrow crevice of the door from the oil lamp outside in the corridor. The organ music ceased--to be followed by the monotonous chanting of the monks at their evening orisons,--and in turn, these too came to an end, and all was silent. Easily and restfully Florian Varillo, calling himself in his own mind poet, artist, and lover of all women rather than one, turned on his pillow and slept peacefully,--a calm deep sleep such as is only supposed to visit the innocent and pure of conscience, but which in truth just as often refreshes the senses of the depraved and dissolute, provided they are satisfied with evil as their good. How many hours he slept he did not know, but he was wakened at last by a terrible sense of suffocation, and he sat up gasping for breath, to find the cell full of thick smoke and burning stench. The flickering reflection of the lamp was gone, and as he instinctively leaped from his bed and grasped his clothes, he heard the monastery bell above him swinging to and fro, with a jarring heavy clang. Weak from the effects of his illness, and scarcely able to stand, he dragged on some of his garments, and rushing to the door threw it open, to be met with dense darkness and thick clouds of smoke wreathing towards him in all directions. He uttered a loud shriek.

"Fire!"

The bell clanged on slowly over his head, but otherwise there was no response. Stumbling along, blinded, suffocated, not knowing at any moment whether he might not be precipitated down some steep flight of stairs or over some high gallery in the building, he struggled to follow what seemed to be a cooling breath of air which streamed through the smoke as though blowing in from some open door, and as he felt his way with his hands on the wall he suddenly heard the organ.

"Thank God!" he thought, "I am near the chapel! The fire has broken out in this part of the building--the monks do not know and are still at prayer. I shall be in time to save them all! . . ."

A small tongue of red flame flashed upon his eyes--he recoiled--then pressed forward again, seeing a door in front of him. The organ music sounded nearer and nearer; he rushed to the door, half choked and dizzy, and pushing it open, reeled into the organ loft, where at the organ, sat the monk Ambrosio, shaking out such a storm of music as might have battered the gates of Heaven or Hell. Varillo leaped forward--then, as he saw the interior of the chapel, uttered one agonized shriek, and stood as though turned to stone. For the whole place was in flames!--everything from the altar to the last small statue set in a niche, was ablaze, and only the organ, raised like a carven pinnacle, appeared to be intact, set high above the blazing ruin. Enrapt in his own dreams, Ambrosio sat, pouring thunderous harmony out of the golden-tubed instrument which as yet, with its self-acting machinery, was untouched by the flames, and Varillo half-mad with terror, sprang at him like a wild beast

"Stop!" he cried "Stop, fool! Do you not see--can you not understand--the monastery is on fire!"

Ambrosio shook him off, his brown eyes were clear and bright,--his whole expression stern and resolved.

"I know it," he replied. "And we shall burn--you and I--together!"

'Oh, mad brute!" cried Varillo. "Tell me which way to go!--where are the brethren?"

"Outside!" he answered "Safe!--away at the farther end of the garden, digging their own graves, as usual! Do you not hear the bell? We are alone in the building!--I have locked the doors,--the fire is kindled inside! We shall be dead before the flames burst through!"

"Madman!" shrieked Varillo, recoiling as the thick volumes of smoke rolled up from the blazing altar. "Die if you must!--but I will not! Where are the windows?--the doors?--"

"Locked and bolted fast," said Ambrosio, with a smile of triumph. "There is no loophole of escape for you! The world might let you go free to murder and betray,--but I--Ambrosio,--a scourge in the Lord's hand--I will never let you go! Pray--pray before it is too late! I heard the devil tempt you--I heard you yield to his tempting! You were both going to ruin a woman--that is devil's work. And God told me what to do--to burn the evil out by flame, and purify your soul! Pray, brother, pray!--for in the searching and tormenting fire it will be too late! Pray! Pray!"

And pressing his hands again upon the organ he struck out a passage of chords like the surging of waves upon the shore or storm-winds in the forest, and began to sing,

"Confutatis maledictis Flammis acribus addictis Voci me cum benedictis!"

Infuriated to madness but too physically weak to struggle with one who, though wandering in brain, was sound in body, Varillo tried to drag him from his seat,--but the attempt was useless. Ambrosio seemed possessed by a thousand electric currents of force and resolution combined. He threw off Varillo as though he were a mere child, and went on singing--

"Oro supplex et acclinis Cor contritum quasi cinis: Gere curam mei finis. . . . . Lacrymosa dies illa,--"

Driven to utter desperation, Varillo stood for a moment inert,--then, suddenly catching sight of a rope hanging from one of the windows close at hand, he rushed to it and pulled it furiously. The top of the window yielded, and fell open on its hinge--the smoke rushed up to the aperture, and Florian, still clinging to the rope, shouted, "Help!--Help!" with all the force he could muster. But the air blowing strongly against the smoke fanned the flames in the body of the chapel,--they leaped higher and higher,--and--seeing the red glow deepening about him, Ambrosio smiled.--"Cry your loudest, you will never be heard!" he said--"Those who are busy with graves have done with life! You had best pray while you have time--let God take you with His name on your lips!"

And as the smoke and flame climbed higher and higher and began to wreathe itself about the music gallery, he resumed his solemn singing.

"Lacrymosa dies illa, Qua resurgat ex favilla Judicandus homo reus Huic ergo parce, Deus: Pie Jesu Domine Dona eis requiem!"

But Varillo still shrieked "Help!" and his frenzied cries were at last answered. The great bell overhead ceased ringing suddenly,--and its cessation created an effect of silence even amid the noise of the crackling fire and the continued grave music of the organ. Then came a quick tramp of many feet--a hubbub of voices--and loud battering knocks at the chapel door. Ambrosio laughed triumphantly.

"We are at prayers!" he cried--"We admit no one! The devil and I are at prayers!"

Varillo sprang at him once more.

"Madman! Show me the way!" he screamed. "Show me the way down from this place or I will strangle you!"

"Find your own way!" answered Ambrosio--"Make it--as you have always made it!--and follow it--to Hell!"

As he spoke the gallery rocked to and fro, and a tall flame leaped at the organ like a living thing ready to seize and devour. Still the knocking and hammering continued, and still Ambrosio played wild music--till all at once the chapel door was broken open and a group of pale spectral faces in monk's cowls peered through the smoke, and then retreated again.

"Help!" shrieked Varillo--"Help!"

But the air rushing through the door and meeting with that already blowing through the window raised a perfect pyramid of flame which rose straight up and completely encircled the organ. With a frightful cry Varillo rushed to Ambrosio's side, and cowering down, clung to his garments.

"Oh, God!--Oh, God! Have mercy!--"

"He will have mercy!" said Ambrosio, still keeping his hands on the organ-keys and drawing out strange plaintive chords of solemn harmony--"He will have mercy--be sure of it! Ambrosio will ask Him to be merciful!--Ambrosio has saved you from crime worse than death,--Ambrosio has cleansed you by fire! Ambrosio will help you to find God in the darkness!"

Smoke and flame encircled them,--for one moment more their figures were seen like black specks in the wreathing columns of fire--for one moment more the music of the organ thundered through the chapel,--then came a terrific crash--a roar of the victorious flames as they sprang up high to the roof of the building, and then--then nothing but a crimson glare on the Campagna, seen for miles and miles around, and afterwards described to the world by the world's press as the "Burning Down of a Trappist Monastery" in which no lives had been lost save those of one Fra Ambrosio, long insane, who was supposed to have kindled the destructive blaze in a fit of mania,--and of a stranger, sick of malarial fever, whom the monks had sheltered, name unknown.

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XXXVI

The same night which saw the red glare of the burning monastery reflected from end to end of the Campagna, like the glow of some gigantic pagan funeral pyre, saw also the quiet departure of Cardinal Bonpre and his "foundling" Manuel from Rome. Innocent of all evil, their escape was after the manner of the guilty; for the spies of the Vatican were on guard outside the Sovrani Palace, and one priest after another "relieved the watch" in the fashion of military sentries. But like all too cunning schemers, these pious detectives overreached the goal of their intention, and bearing in mind the fact of the Cardinal's unsuspecting simplicity, it never occurred to them to think he had been put on his guard so soon, or that he would take advantage of any secret way of flight. But the private door of Angela's studio through which Florian Varillo had fled, and the key of which he had thrown into the Tiber, had been forced open, and set in use again, and through this the harmless prelate, with his young companion, passed without notice or hindrance, and under the escort of Aubrey Leigh and Cyrillon Vergniaud, reached the railway station unintercepted by any message or messenger from the Papal court, and started for Paris and London. When the train, moving slowly at first from the platform, began to rush, and finally darted swiftly out of sight, Aubrey breathed more easily.

"Thank God!" he said. "They are safe for the present! England is a free country!"

"Is it?" And Vergniaud smiled a little. "Are you sure? England cannot dispute the authority of the Vatican over its own sworn servants. Are you not yourself contending against the power of Rome in Great Britain?"

"Not only against Rome do I contend," replied Aubrey. "My battle is against all who seek to destroy the true meaning and intention of Christianity. But so far as Romanism is concerned,--we have a monarch whose proudest title is Defender of the Faith--that is Defender of the Faith against Papal interference."

"Yes? And yet her bishops pander to Rome? Ah, my dear friend!--your monarch is kept in ignorance of the mischief being worked in her realm by the Papal secret service! Cardinal Bonpre in London is as much under the jurisdiction of the Pope as if he still remained in Rome, and though he may be able to delay the separation between himself and the boy he cherishes, he will scarcely avert it!"

"Why should they wish to part that child from him I wonder!" said Aubrey musingly.

Cyrillon shrugged his shoulders.

"Who can tell! They have their reasons, no doubt. Why should they wish to excommunicate Tolstoi? But they do! Believe me, there is a time of terror coming for the religious world--especially in your great English Empire. And when your good Queen dies, the trouble will begin!"

Aubrey was silent for some minutes.

"We must work, Cyrillon!" he said at last, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. "We must work and we must never leave off working! One man may do much,--all history proves the conquering force of one determined will. You, young as you are, have persuaded France to listen to you,--I am doing my best to persuade England to hear me. We are only two--but others will follow. I know it is difficult!--it is harassing and often heartbreaking to insist on Truth when the whole world's press is at work bolstering up false gods, false ideals, false art, false sentiment,--but if we are firm--if we hold an unflinching faith, we shall conquer!"

"You are brave!" said Cyrillon with a glance of mingled trust and admiration. "But you are an exception to the majority of men. The majority are cruel and treacherous, and stupid as well. Dense stupidity is hard to fight against! Who for example, do you suppose, will understand the lesson of Donna Sovrani's great picture?"

"All the New World!" said Aubrey, with enthusiasm,--"It is for the New World--not the Old. And that reminds me to-day the picture is on view to the art-critics and experts for the first time. I prophesy it will be sold at once!"

"That would make her father happy," said Cyrillon slowly. "But she--she will not care!"

Aubrey looked at him attentively.

"Have you seen her?"

"Yes. For a moment only. I called at the Sovrani Palace and her father received me. We talked for some time together. I think he knows who dealt the murderous blow at his daughter, but he says nothing positive. He showed me the picture. It is great--sublime! I could have knelt before it! Then he took me to see Her--and I would have knelt still more readily! But--she is changed!"

"And--are you?" asked Aubrey with a slight smile.

"Changed? I? No--I shall never change. I loved her at first sight--I love her still more now. Yet I see the truth--she is broken-hearted!"

"Time and great tenderness will heal the wound," said Aubrey gently. "Meanwhile have patience!"

Cyrillon gave him a look more eloquent than speech, and by mutual consent they said no more on the subject of Angela just then.

Next morning at the American Consulate, Sylvie, Comtesse Hermenstein, was quietly married by civil law to Aubrey Leigh. The ceremony took place in the presence of the Princesse D'Agramont, Madame Bozier, and Cyrillon Vergniaud. When it was over the wedded lovers and their friends returned to the Sovrani Palace, there to join Angela who had come down from her sick room to grace the occasion. She looked as fair and fragile as the delicate "Killmeny" of the poet's legend, just returned from wondrous regions of "faery," though the land poor Angela had wandered away from was the Land of Sweet Delusion, which enchanted garden she would never enter again. Pale and thin, with her beautiful eyes drooping wearily under their dreamy tired lids, she was the very ghost of her former self;--and the child-like way in which she clung to her father, and kept near her father always, was pathetic in the extreme. When Sylvie and Aubrey entered, with their three companions, she advanced to greet them, smiling bravely, though her lips quivered.

"All happiness be with you, dear!" she said softly, and she slipped a chain of fine pearls round Sylvie's neck. "These were my mother's pearls,--wear them for my sake!"

Sylvie kissed her in silence,--she could not say anything, even by the way of thanks,--her heart was too full.

"We shall be very lonely without you, darling," went on Angela. "Shall we not, father?" Prince Pietro came to her side, and taking her hand patted it consolingly--"But we shall know you are happy in England--and we shall try and come and see you as soon as I get strong,--I want to join my uncle and Manuel. I miss Manuel very much,--he and my father are everything to me now!"

She stretched out her hand to Aubrey, who bent over it and kissed it tenderly.

"You are happy now, Mr. Leigh?" she said smiling.

"Very happy!" said Aubrey. "May you be as happy soon!"

She shook her head, and the smile passed from her eyes and lips, leaving her face very sorrowful.

"I must work," she said. "Work brings content--if it does not insure joy." Her gaze involuntarily wandered to her great picture, "The Coming of Christ," which now, unveiled in all its splendour, occupied one end of her studio, filling it with a marvellous colour and glow of light. "Yes, I must work! That big canvas of mine will not sell I fear! My father was right. It was a mistake"--and she sighed--"a mistake altogether,--in more ways than one! And what is the use of painting a picture for the world if there is no chance to let the world see it?"

Prince Pietro looked at her benevolently.

"Your father was right, you think? Well, Angela mia, I think I had better be the first to own that your father was wrong! The picture is already sold;--that is if you consent to sell it!"

Angela turned very white. "If I consent to sell it? Sell it--to whom?"

Sylvie put a caressing arm around her. "Your father had the news this morning," she said, "and we all decided to tell it to you as soon as we came back from the Consulate. A wedding-surprise on our parts, Angela! You know the picture was on view for the first time yesterday to some of the critics and experts in Rome?"

Angela made a faint sign of assent. Her wistful eyes were full of wonder and anxiety.

"Well, among them was a purchaser for America--Oh, you need not look at me, my dear!--I have nothing to do with it! You shall see the letter your father received--and you shall decide; but the end of the whole matter is, Angela, that if you consent, the picture will be bought, not by any private purchaser, but by the American nation."

"The American nation!" repeated Angela. "Are you really, really sure of this?"

"Quite sure!" said Sylvie joyously. "And you must say good-bye to it and let it go across the wide ocean--out to the New World all alone with its grand and beautiful message,--unless you go with it and show the Americans something even more perfect and beautiful in yourself than the picture!--and you must be content to take twenty thousand pounds for it, and be acknowledged as the greatest painter of the age as well! This will be hard work, Angela!--but you must resign yourself!"

She laughed for pure delight in her friend's triumph,--but Angela turned at once to her father.

"Dearest father!" she said softly. "I am glad--for your sake!"

He folded her in his arms, too deeply moved to speak, and then as he felt her trembling, he led her to a chair and beckoned to Cyrillon Vergniaud who had stood apart, watching the little scene in silence.

"Come and talk to this dear girl!" he said. "She is not at all a good hostess to-day! She ought to entertain the bride and bridegroom here,--but it seems as if she needed to be entertained herself!" And then, as Cyrillon obeyed him, and drew near the idol of his thoughts with such hesitating reverence as might befit a pilgrim approaching the shrine of a beloved saint, he turned away and was just about to speak to the Princesse D'Agramont when a servant entered and said hurriedly--

"Monsignor Gherardi desires to see Cardinal Bonpre!"

There was a dead pause. The group of friends looked at one another in embarrassment. Angela rose from her chair trembling and glanced instinctively at her picture--and for a moment no one seemed quite certain what should be done next. The Princesse D'Agramont was the first to recover her self-possession.

"Angela must not be here," she said. "She is not strong enough to stand a scene. And no doubt Gherardi has come to make one! We will leave him to you, Mr. Leigh--and to Gys Grandit!"

She withdrew at once with Angela, and in another moment Gherardi was ushered in. He glanced quickly around him as he made his formal salutation,--his eyes rested for a moment on Sylvie and Aubrey Leigh--then he addressed himself to Prince Pietro.

"I am sorry to intrude upon you, Prince!" he said. "I have an urgent matter to discuss with Cardinal Bonpre, and must see him at once."

"I regret that it is not in my power to gratify your desire, Monsignor," said Prince Sovrani with stiff courtesy. "My brother-in-law the Cardinal left Rome last night"

"Left Rome! Left Rome!" exclaimed Gherardi. "Who gave him permission to leave Rome!"

"Was permission necessary?" asked Aubrey, stepping forward.

"I did not address you, sir," returned Gherardi haughtily. "I spoke to Prince Sovrani."

"Prince Sovrani might well decline to answer you," said Aubrey undauntedly. "Were I to make him acquainted with the fiendish plot you have contrived against his daughter's fame and honour, he would scarcely allow you to cross his threshold!"

Gherardi stood still, breathing quickly, but otherwise unmoved.

"Plot?" he echoed. "You must be mad! I have no plot against anyone. My business is to uphold the cause of truth and justice, and I shall certainly defend the name of the great artist who painted that picture"--and he pointed to Angela's canvas--"Florian Varillo! Dead as he is, his memory shall live!"

"Dead!" cried Prince Sovrani, springing forward. "Dead! Make me sure of that, and I will praise God even for your lying tongue, if it could for once speak such a welcome truth!"

Gherardi drew back amazed, instinctively recoiling from the flashing eyes and threatening figure of the irate nobleman.

"Speak!" cried Sovrani again. "Tell me that the murderer of my child's youth and joy is dead and gone to hell--and I will sing a Laus Deo at St. Peter's! I will pay you a thousand pounds in masses to keep his soul safe with the devil to whom it has gone!"

"Prince Sovrani, you are in ignorance of the facts," said Gherardi coldly. "And you speak in an anger, which if what you suspect were true, would be natural enough, but which under present circumstances is greatly misplaced. The unfortunate Florian Varillo has been ill for many days at a Trappist monastery on the Campagna. He had gone out towards Frascati on a matter connected with some business before starting for Naples, and as he was returning, he was suddenly met by the news of the assassination of his betrothed wife--"

"And he knew nothing of it--" interposed Sovrani grimly. "Of course--he knew nothing!"

"He knew nothing--how should he know!" responded Gherardi calmly--"The terrible shock threw him into a delirium and fever--he was found in a dead swoon and taken into the monastery for shelter. I saw him there only yesterday."

He paused. No one spoke.

"He was to have come to Rome to-day, and a full explanation of his absence would have been given. But last night the monastery was set on fire--"

"Thank God!" said Sovrani.

Gherardi looked at him with an air of admirably affected sorrowful reproach.

"I grieve for your injustice and cruelty, Prince!" he said--"Some natural regret there should surely be in your mind at the tragic end of one so highly gifted--one whom you had accepted as your future son-in-law. He met with a terrible death! The monastery was set on fire, as I have told you--but the doors had all been previously locked within, it is supposed by one of the monks named Ambrosio, who was subject to fits of insanity--with the tragic result that he and Varillo perished in the flames, there being no possibility of rescue."

"Then the guillotine is saved unnecessary soiling," said Sovrani fiercely. "And you, Monsignor Gherardi, should have a special 'Jubilate' sung for the world being well-rid of an exceptionally damned and damnable villain!"

There was something terrific in the aspect of Sovrani's face and threatening attitude, and for a moment Gherardi hesitated to go on with his prepared sequence of lies. Rallying his forces at last with an effort he made a very good assumption of his most authoritative manner.

"Prince, I must ask you to be good enough to hear me patiently," he said. "Your mind has been grossly abused, and you are not aware of the true position of affairs. You imagine with some few gossips in Rome, that Florian Varillo, your daughter's betrothed husband, was guilty of the murderous attack upon her life--you are mistaken!"

"Mistaken!" Prince Pietro laughed scornfully. "Prove my mistake!--prove it!"

"I give you my word!" said Gherardi. "And I also swear to you that the picture yonder, which, though offensive to the Church and blasphemous in its teaching, is nevertheless a great masterpiece of painting, is the work of the unfortunate dead man you so greatly wrong!"

"Liar!" And Cyrillon Vergniaud sprang forward, interposing himself between Sovrani and the priest. "Liar!"

Gherardi turned a livid white.

"Who is this ruffian?" he demanded, drawing his tall form up more haughtily than before. "A servant of yours?"

"Ay, a servant of his, and of all honest men!" returned Cyrillon. "I am one whom your Church has learned to fear, but who has no fear of you!--one whom you have heard of to your cost, and will still hear of,--Gys Grandit!"

Gherardi glanced him up and down, and then turned from him in disgust as from something infected by a loathly disease.

"Prince Sovrani!" he said. "I cannot condescend to converse with a street ranter, such as this misguided person, who has most regrettably obtained admission to your house and society! I came to see your brother-in-law Cardinal Bonpre,--who has left Rome, you tell me--therefore my business must be discussed with you alone. I must ask you for a private audience."

Sovrani looked at him steadily.

"And I must refuse it, Monsignor! If in private audience you wish to repeat the amazing falsehood you have just uttered respecting my daughter's work--I am afraid I should hardly keep my hands off you! Believe me you are safest in company!"

Monsignor Gherardi paused a moment,--then turned towards Sylvie.

"Contessa," he said very deliberately. "You can perhaps arrange this matter better than I can. Florian Varillo is dead--as I have told you; and for stating what I believe to be the truth regarding him I have been subjected to insult in your presence. I have known you for many years and I knew your father before you,--I have no wish to either distress or offend you,--do you understand? I am in your hands!"

Sylvie looked him full in the face. "My husband will answer you, Monsignor," she said. "I am in his hands!" Gherardi turned as crimson as he had before been pale. "Your husband!" He strode forward with a threatening movement--then stopped short, as he confronted Aubrey Leigh. "Your husband! So! You are married then!"--and he laughed fiercely--"Married by the law, and excommunicated by the Church! A pleasant position for the last of the Hermensteins! Contessa, by your own act you have ruined the fortunes of your friends! I would have held my peace at your will,--but now all Rome shall know the truth!" "The truth according to the convenience of papal Rome?" queried Aubrey Leigh--"The truth, as expounded to the Comtesse Hermenstein in your interview with her yesterday?"

Gherardi looked him over with superb indifference.

"My interview with the Comtesse Hermenstein was a private one"--he said,--"And if a spy was present, he must prove himself a spy. And we of the Church do not accept a spy's testimony!"

White with indignation Aubrey sprang forward,--but Cyrillon Vergniaud restrained him. "Patience!" he said in a low tone--"Let him have his way for the moment--it will then be my turn!"

"My word is law in Rome!"--went on Gherardi--"Whatsoever I choose to say will be confirmed and ratified by the greatest authority in the world--the Pope! I am ready to swear that Florian Varillo painted that picture,--and the Pope is ready to believe it! Who will admit such a masterpiece to be a woman's work? No one! Each member of the house of Sovrani can bear witness to the fact that no one ever saw Angela Sovrani painting it! But I know the whole story--I was the last to see Florian Varillo before his death--and he confessed the truth--that he had worked for his betrothed wife in order to give her the greater fame! So that he was not, and could not have been her assassin--"

"Then her assassin must be found!" said Prince Pietro suddenly. "And the owner of this sheath--the sheath of the dagger with which she was stabbed--must claim his property!" And holding up the sheath in question before Gherardi he continued--

"This I found! This I traced! Varillo's servant admitted it to be his master's--Varillo's mistress recognised it as her lover's--a slight thing, Monsignor!--but an uncomfortable witness! And if you dare to promulgate your lie against my daughter and her work, I will accuse you in the public courts of complicity in an attempted murder! And I doubt whether the Pope will judge it politic, or a part of national diplomacy, to support you then!"

For a moment Gherardi was baffled. His dark brows met in a frown of menace and his lips tightened with his repressed fury. Then,--still managing to speak with the utmost composure, he said,

"You will permit me to look at this dagger-sheath--this proof on which you place so much reliance?"

In the certainty of his triumph, old Sovrani was ready to place it in the priest's extended hand, when young Vergniaud interposed and prevented him.

"No! You can admire it from a distance, Monsignor! You are capable in your present humour of tearing it to atoms and so destroying evidence! As the 'servant' of Prince Sovrani, it is my business to defend him from this possibility!"

Gherardi raised his dark eyes and fixed them, full of bitterest scorn, on the speaker.

"So YOU are Gys Grandit!" he said in accents which thrilled with an intensity of hatred. "You are the busy Socialist, the self-advertising atheist, who, like a yelping cur, barks impotently under the wheels of Rome! You--Vergniaud's bastard--"

"Give that name to your children at Frascati!" cried Cyrillon passionately. "And own them as yours publicly, as my father owned me before he died!"

With a violent start, Gherardi reeled back as though he had been dealt a sudden blow, and over his face came a terrible change, like the grey pallor of creeping paralysis. White to the lips, he struggled for breath . . . he essayed to speak,--then failing, made a gesture with his hands as though pushing away some invisible foe. Slowly his head drooped on his breast, and he shivered like a man struck suddenly with ague. Startled and awed, everyone watched him in fascinated silence. Presently words came slowly and with difficulty between his dry lips.

"You have disgraced me!" he said hoarsely--"Are you satisfied?" He took a step or two close up to the young man. "I ask you--are you satisfied? Or--do you mean to go on--do you want to ruin me?--" Here, moved by uncontrollable passion he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. "God! That it should come to this! That I should have to ask you--you, the enemy of the Church I serve, for mercy! Let it be enough I say!--and I--I also will be silent!"

Cyrillon looked at him straightly.

"Will you cease to persecute Cardinal Bonpre?" he demanded. "Will you admit Varillo's murderous treachery?"

Gherardi bent his head.

"I will!" he answered slowly, "because I must! Otherwise--" He clenched his fist and his eyes flashed fire-then he went on--"But beware of Lorenzo Moretti! He will depose the Cardinal from office, and separate him from that boy who has affronted the Pope. He is even now soliciting the Holy Father to intervene and stop the marriage of the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein with Aubrey Leigh,--and--they are married! No more--no more!--I cannot speak--let me go--let me go--you have won your way!--I give you my promise!"

"What is your promise worth?" said Vergniaud with disdain.

"Nothing!" replied Gherardi bitterly. "Only in this one special instance it is worth all my life!--all my position! You--even you, the accursed Gys Grandit!--you have me in your power!"

He raised his head as he said this,--his face expressed mingled agony and fury; but meeting Cyrillon's eyes he shrank again as if he were suddenly whipped by a lash, and with one quick stride, reached the door, and disappeared.

There was a moment's silence after his departure. Then Aubrey Leigh spoke.

"My dear Grandit! You are a marvellous man! How came you to know Gherardi's secrets?"

"Through a section of the Christian-Democratic party here"--replied Cyrillon--"You must not forget that I, like you, have my disciples! They keep me informed of all that goes on in Rome, and they have watched Domenico Gherardi for years. We all know much--but we have little chance to speak! If England knew of Rome what France knows, what Spain knows,--what Italy knows, she would pray to be given a second Cromwell! For the time is coming when she will need him!"

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XXXVII

A few days later the fashionable world of Europe was startled by the announcement of two things. One was the marriage of Sylvie, Countess Hermenstein, to the "would-be reformer of the clergy," Aubrey Leigh, coupled with her renunciation of the Church of her fathers. There was no time for that Church to pronounce excommunication, inasmuch as she renounced it herself, of her own free will and choice, and made no secret of having done so. Some of her Hungarian friends were, or appeared to be, scandalized at this action on her part, but the majority of them treated it with considerable leniency, and in some cases with approval, on the ground that a wife's religion ought to be the same as that of her husband. If love is love at all, it surely means complete union; and one cannot imagine a perfect marriage where there is any possibility of wrangling over different forms of creed. The other piece of news, which created even more sensation than the first, was the purchase of Angela Sovrani's great picture, "The Coming of Christ," by the Americans. As soon as this was known, the crowd of visitors to the artist's studio assumed formidable proportions, and from early morning till late afternoon, the people kept coming and going in hundreds, which gradually swelled to thousands. For by-and-by the history of the picture got about in disjointed morsels of information and gossip which soon formed a consecutive and fairly correct narration. Experts criticized it,--critics "explained" it--and presently nothing was talked of in the art world but "The Coming of Christ" and the artist who painted it, Angela Sovrani. A woman!--only a woman! It seemed incredible--impossible! For why should a woman think? Why should a woman dare to be a genius? It seemed very strange! How much more natural for her to marry some decent man of established position and be content with babies and plain needlework! Here was an abnormal prodigy in the ways of womanhood,--a feminine creature who ventured to give an opinion of her own on something else than dress,--who presumed as it were, to set the world thinking hard on a particular phase of religious history! Then, as one after the other talked and whispered and commented, the story of Angela's own private suffering began to eke out bit by bit,--how she had been brutally stabbed m her own studio in front of her own picture by no other than her own betrothed husband Florian Varillo, who was moved to his murderous act by a sudden impulse of jealousy,--and how that same Varillo had met with his deserts in death by fire in the Trappist monastery on the Campagna. And the excitement over the great picture became more and more intense--especially when it was known that it would soon be taken away from Rome never to be seen there again. Angela herself knew little of her rapidly extending fame,--she was in Paris with the Princesse D'Agramont who had taken her there immediately after Monsignor Gherardi's visit to her father. She was not told of Florian Varillo's death till she had been some days in the French capital, and then it was broken to her as gently as possible. But the result was disastrous. The strength she had slowly regained seemed now to leave her altogether, and she was stricken with a mute despair which was terrible to witness. Hour after hour, she lay on a couch, silent and motionless,--her large eyes fixed on vacancy, her little white hands clasped close together as though in a very extremity of bodily and mental anguish, and the Princesse D'Agramont, who watched her and tended her with the utmost devotion, was often afraid that all her care would be of no avail, and that her patient would slip through her hands into the next world before she had time to even attempt to save her. And Cyrillon Vergmaud, unhappy and restless, wandered up and down outside the house, where this life, so secretly dear to him, was poised as it were on the verge of death, not daring to enter, or even enquire for news, lest he should hear the worst.

One cold dark afternoon however, as he thus paced to and fro, he saw the Princesse D'Agramont at a window beckoning him, and with a sickening terror at his heart, he obeyed the signal.

"I wish you would come and talk to her!" said the Princesse as she greeted him, with tears in her bright eyes. "She must be roused from this apathy. I can do nothing with her. But I think YOU might do much if you would!"

"I will do anything--anything in the wide world!" said Cyrillon earnestly. "Surely you know that!"

"Yes--but you must not be too gentle with her! I do not mean that you should be rough--God forbid!--but if you would speak to her with authority--if you could tell her that she owes her life and her work to the world--to God--"

She broke off, not trusting herself to say more. Cyrillon raised her hand to his lips.

"I understand!" he said. "You know I have hesitated--because--I love her! I cannot tell her not to grieve for her dead betrothed, when I myself am longing to take his place!"

The Princesse smiled through her tears.

"The position is difficult I admit!" she said, with a returning touch of playfulness--"But the very fact of your love for her should give you the force to command her back to life. Come!"

She took him into the darkened room where Angela lay--inert, immovable, with always the same wide-open eyes, blank with misery and desolation, and said gently,

"Angela, will you speak to Gys Grandit?"

Angela turned her wistful looks upon him, and essayed a poor little ghost of a smile. Very gently Cyrillon advanced and sat down beside her,--and with equal gentleness, the Princesse D'Agramont withdrew. Cyrillon's heart beat fast; if he could have lifted that frail little form of a woman into his arms and kissed away the sorrow consuming it, he would have been happy,--but his mission was that of a friend, not lover, and his own emotions made it hard for him to begin. At last he spoke

"When are you going to make up your mind to get well, dear friend?"

She looked at him piteously.

"Make up my mind to get well? I shall never be well again!"

"You will if you resolve to be," said Cyrillon. "It rests with you!"

She was silent.

"Have you heard the latest news from Rome?" he asked after a pause.

She made a faint sign in the negative.

Cyrillon smiled.

"The Church has with all due solemnity anathematized your picture as an inspiration of the Evil One! But it is better that it should be so anathematized than that it should be reported as not your own work. Between two lies, the emissaries of the Vatican have chosen the one least dangerous to themselves."

Angela sighed wearily.

"You do not care?" queried Cyrillon. "Neither anathema nor lie has any effect on you?"

She raised her left hand and looked dreamily at the circlet of rubies on it--Florian Varillo's betrothal ring.

"I care for nothing," she said slowly. "Nothing--now he is gone!"

A bitter pang shot through Cyrillon's heart. He was quite silent. Presently she turned her eyes wistfully towards him.

"Please do not think me ungrateful for all your kindness!--but--I cannot forget!"

"Dear Donna Sovrani, may I speak to you fully and, frankly--as a friend? May I do so without offence?"

She looked at him and saw how pale he was, how his lips trembled, and the consciousness that he was unhappy moved her to a faint sense of compunction.

"Of course you may!" she answered gently. "I know you do not hate me."

"Hate you!" Cyrillon paused, his eyes softening with a great tenderness as they rested upon her. "Who could hate you?"

"Florian hated me," she said. "Not always,--no! He loved me once! Only when he saw my picture, then his love perished. Ah, my Florian! Had I known, I would have destroyed all my work rather than have given him a moment's pain!"

"And would that have been right?" asked Cyrillon earnestly. "Would not such an act have been one of selfishness rather than sacrifice?"

A faint color crept over her pale cheeks.

"Selfishness?--"

"Yes! Your love for him was quite a personal matter,--but your work is a message to the world. You would have sacrificed the world for his sake, even though he had murdered you!"

"I would!" she answered, and her eyes shone like stars as she spoke. "The world is nothing to me; love was everything!"

"That is your way of argument," said Cyrillon. "But it is not God's way!"

She was silent, but her looks questioned him.

"Genius like yours," he went on, "is not given to you for yourself alone. You cannot tamper with it, or play with it, for the sake of securing a little more temporal happiness or peace for yourself. Genius is a crown of thorns,--not a wreath of flowers to be worn at a feast of pleasure! You wished your life to be one of love,--God has chosen to make it one of suffering. You say the world is nothing to you,--then my dear friend, God insists that it shall be something to you! Have you the right--I ask you, have you the right to turn away from all your fellow mortals and say--'No--because I have been disappointed in my hope and my love, then I will have nothing to do with life--I will turn away from all who need my help--I will throw back the gifts of God with scorn to the Giver, and do nothing simply because I have lost what I myself specially valued!'"

Her eyes fell beneath his straight clear regard, and she moved restlessly.

"Ah you do not know--you do not understand!" she said. "I am not thinking of myself--indeed I am not! But I feel as if my work--my picture--had killed Florian! I hate myself!--I hate everything I have ever done, or could ever possibly do. I see him night and day in those horrible flames!--Oh God! those cruel flames!--he seems to reproach me,--even to curse me for his death!"

She shuddered and turned her face away. Cyrillon ventured to take her hand.

"That is not like you, dear friend!" he said, his rich voice trembling with the pity he felt for her. "That is not like your brave spirit! You look only at one aspect of grief--you see the darkness of the cloud, but not its brighter side. If I were to say that he whom you loved so greatly has perhaps been taken to save him from even a worse fate, you would be angry with me. You loved him--yes; and whatever he did or attempted to do, even to your injury, you would have loved him still had he lived! That is the angel half of woman's nature. You would have given him your fame had he asked you for it,--you would have pardoned him a thousand times over had he sought your pardon,--you would have worked for him like a slave and been content to die with your genius unrecognized if that would have pleased him. Yes I know! But God saw your heart--and his--and with God alone rests the balance of justice. You must not set yourself in opposition to the law; you,--such a harmonious note in work and life,--must not become a discord!"

She did not speak. Her hand lay passively in his, and he went on.

"Death is not the end of life. It is only the beginning of a new school of experience. Your very grief,--your present inaction, may for all we know, be injuring the soul of the man whose loss you mourn!"

She sighed.

"Do you think that possible--?"

"I do think it very possible," he answered. "Natural sorrow is not forbidden to us,--but a persistent dwelling on cureless grief is a trespass against the law. Moreover you have been endowed with a great talent,--it is not your own--it is lent to you to use for others, and you have no right to waste it. The world has taken your work with joy, with gratitude, with thanksgiving; will you say that you do not care for the world?--that you will do nothing more for it?--Because one love--one life, has been taken from you, will you discard all love, all life? Dear friend, that will not be reasonable,--not right, nor just, nor brave!"

A wistful longing filled her eyes.

"I wish Manuel were here!" she said plaintively. "He would understand!"

"Manuel is with Cardinal Bonpre in London," replied Cyrillon. "I heard from Aubrey yesterday that they are going about together among the poor, doing good everywhere. Would you like to join them? Your friend Sylvie would be glad to have you stay with her, I am sure."

She gave a hopeless gesture.

"I am not strong enough to go--" she began.

"You will be strong enough when you determine to be," said Cyrillon. "Your frightened soul is making a coward of your body!"

She started and drew her hand away from his gentle clasp.

"You are harsh!" she said, looking at him straightly. "I am not frightened--I never was a coward!"

Something of the old steady light came back to her eyes, and Cyrillon inwardly rejoiced to see it.

"My words seem rough," he said, "but truly they are not so. I repeat, your soul is frightened--yes! frightened at the close approach of God! God is never so near to us as in a great sorrow; and when we feel His presence almost within sight and touch, we are afraid. But we must not give way to fear; we must not grovel in the dust and hide ourselves as if we were ashamed! We must rise up and grow accustomed to His glory, and let Him lead us where He will!"

He paused, for Angela was weeping. The sound of her low sobbing smote him to the heart.

"Angela--Angela!" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "Have I hurt you so much?"

"Yes, yes!" she murmured between her tears. "You have hurt me!--but you are right--you are quite right! I am selfish--weak--cowardly--ungrateful too;--but forgive me,--have patience with me!--I will try--I will try to bear it all more bravely--I will indeed!"

He rose from her side and paced the room, not trusting himself to speak. She looked at him anxiously and endeavoured to control her sobs.

"You are angry?"

"Angry!" He came back, and lifting her suddenly, but gently like a little child, he placed her in an easy sitting position, leaning cosily among her pillows. "Come!" he said smiling, as the colour flushed her cheeks at the swiftness of his action--"Let the Princesse D'Agramont see that I am something of a doctor! You will grow weaker and weaker lying down all day--I want to make you strong again! Will you help me?"

He looked into her eyes, and her own fell before his earnest, reverent, but undisguisedly tender glance.

"I will try to do what you wish," she said. "If I fail you must forgive me--but I will honestly try!"

"If you try, you will succeed"--said Cyrillon, and bending down, he kissed the trembling little hands--"Ah! forgive me! If you knew how dear your life is--to--to many, you would not waste it in weeping for what cannot be remedied by all your tears! I will not say one word against the man you loved--for YOU do not say it, and you are the most injured;--he is dead--let him rest;--but life claims you,--claims me for the moment;--our fellow-men and women claim our attention, our work, our doing for the best and greatest while we can,--our duty is to them,--not to ourselves! Will you for your father's sake--for the world's sake--if I dared say, for MY sake!--will you throw off this torpor of sorrow? Only you can do it,--only you yourself can command the forces of your own soul! Be Angela once more!--the guiding angel of more lives than you know of!--"

His voice sank to a pleading whisper.

"I will try!" she answered in a low voice--"I promise!--"

And when the Princess D'Agramont entered she was surprised and overjoyed to find her patient sitting up on her couch for the first time in many days, talking quietly with the Perseus she had sent to rescue the poor Andromeda from the jaws of a brooding Melancholia which might have ended in madness or death. With her presence the conversation took a lighter tone--and by-and-by Angela found herself listening with some interest to the reading of her father's last letter addressed to her kind hostess.

"Angela's picture is gone out of Rome"--he wrote--"It was removed from the studio in the sight of an enormous crowd which had assembled to witness its departure. The Voce Della Verita has described it as a direct inspiration of the devil, and suggests the burning-down of the studio in which it was painted, as a means of purifying the Sovrani Palace from the taint of sulphur and brimstone. La Croix demands the excommunication of the artist, which by the way is very likely to happen. The Osservatore Romano wishes that the ship specially chartered to take it to America, may sink with all on board. All of which kind and charitable wishes on the part of the Vatican press have so augmented the fame of 'The Coming of Christ' that the picture could hardly be got through the crush of people craning their necks to get a glimpse of it. It is now en route via Bordeaux for London, where it is to be exhibited for six weeks. As soon as I have finished superintending the putting by of a few home treasures here, I shall join you in Paris, when I hope to find my dear girl nearly restored to her usual self. It will please her to know that her friend the charming Sylvie is well and very happy. She was married for the second time before a Registrar in London, and is now, as she proudly writes, 'well and truly' Mrs. Aubrey Leigh, having entirely dropped her title in favour of her husband's plainer, but to her more valuable designation. Of course spiteful people will say she ceased to be Countess Hermenstein in order not to be recognized too soon as the 'renegade from the Roman Church,' but that sort of thing is to be expected. Society never gives you credit for honest motives, but only for dishonest ones. We who know Sylvie, also know what her love for her husband is, and that it is love alone which inspires all her actions in regard to him. Her chief anxiety at present seems to be about Angela's health, and she tells me she telegraphs to you every day for news--"

--"Is that true?" asked Angela, interrupting the reading of her father's letter. "Does Sylvie in all her new happiness, actually think of me so much and so often?"

"Indeed she does!" replied the Princess D'Agramont. "Chere enfant, you must not look at all the world through the cloud of one sorrow! We all love you!--we are all anxious to see you quite yourself again!"

Angela's eyes filled with tears as they rested on her friend's kindly face, a face usually so brilliant in its animated expression, but now saddened and worn by constant watching and fatigue.

"You are far too good to me," she said in a low voice--"And I am most unworthy of all your attention."

Loyse D'Agramont paid no heed to this remark, but resumed reading the Prince Sovrani's epistle--

"Let me see! . . . Sylvie--yes--here it is--'She telegraphs to you every day for news, which is apparently the only extravagance she is guilty of just now. She and her husband have taken rooms in some very poor neighbourhood of London, and are beginning work in real earnest. Our good Felix and his cherished foundling have been with them into many wretched homes, cheering the broken-hearted, comforting the sick, and assuring all those who doubt it that there is a God in spite of priest-craft,--and I have received an English paper which announces that Mr. Aubrey Leigh will give one of his famous "Addresses to the People" on the last day of the year. I should like to hear him, though my very slight knowledge of English would be rather against me in the comprehension of what he might say. For all other news you must wait till we meet. Expect me in Paris in a few days, and ask my Angela to rouse herself sufficiently to give her old father a smile of welcome. My compliments to "Gys Grandit," and to you the assurance of my devoted homage. Pietro Sovrani.'"

The Princesse folded up the letter and looked wistfully at Angela.

"You will give him the smile of welcome he asks for, will you not, little one?" she asked. "You are all he has in the world, remember!"

"I do remember," murmured Angela. "I know!"

"Aubrey and his wife are 'beginning work in real earnest'!" said Cyrillon. "And how much their work will mean to the world! More than the world can at present imagine or estimate! It seems to be a settled thing that the value of great work shall never be recognised during the worker's lifetime, but only afterwards--when he or she who was so noble, so self-sacrificing, or so farseeing, shall have passed beyond the reach of envy, scorn and contumely, into other regions of existence and development. The finest deeds are done without acknowledgment or reward, and when the hero or heroine has gone beyond recall, the whole world stands lamenting its blindness for not having known or loved them better. Donna Sovrani"--and his voice softened--"will also soon begin again to work, like Aubrey and Sylvie, 'in real earnest.' Will she not?"

Angela raised her eyes, full of sadness, yet also full of light.

"Yes," she said. "I will! I will work my grief into a glory if I can! And the loss of world's love shall teach me to love God more!"

Loyse D'Agramont embraced her.

"That is my Angela!" she said. "That is what I wanted you to feel--to know--for I too have suffered!"

"I know you have--and I should have remembered it!" said Angela, penitently. "But--I have been frozen with grief--paralysed in brain and heart, and I have forgotten so many things!" She trembled and closed her eyes for a moment,--then went on--"Give me a little time--a few more days!--and I will prove that I am not ungrateful for your love--" She hesitated, and then turning, gave her hand to Cyrillon,--"or for your friendship."

He bent over the little hand and kissed it reverently, and soon afterwards took his leave, more light of heart, and more hopeful in spirit, than he had been for many days. He felt he could now go on with his work, part of which was the task of distributing the money his father had left him, among the poor of Paris. He considered that to leave money to the poor after death is not half such a Christian act as to give it while alive. Distributors, secretaries, lawyers, and red-tapeism come in with the disposal of wealth after we are gone;--but to give it to those in need with our own hands--to part with it freely and to deny ourselves something in order to give it,--that is doing what Christ asked us to do. And whether we are blessed or cursed by those whom we seek to benefit, none can take away from us the sweet sense of peace and comfort which is ours to enjoy, when we know that we have in some small measure tried to serve our Divine Master, for the "full measure" of content, "pressed down and running over" which He has promised to those who "freely give," has never yet been known to fail.

And Cyrillon Vergniaud was given this happiness of the highest, purest kind, as with the aid of the wondering and reluctant Monsieur Andre Petitot, he gave poor families comfort for life, and rescued the sick and the sorrowful,--and all he reserved to himself from his father's large fortune was half a million francs. For he learned that most of the money he inherited had come to the late Abbe through large bequests left to him by those who had believed in him as a righteous priest of spotless reputation, and Cyrillon's conscience would not allow him to take advantage of money thus obtained, as he sternly told himself, "on false pretences."

"My father would not have wished me to keep it after his public confession," he said. "And I will not possess more than should have been spared in common justice to aid my mother's life and mine. The rest shall be used for the relief of those in need. And I know,--if I told Angela--she would not wish it otherwise!"

So he had his way. And while his prompt help and personal supervision of the distribution of his wealth brought happiness to hundreds of homes, he was rewarded by seeing Angela grow stronger every day. The hue of health came gradually back to her fair cheeks,--her eyes once more recovered their steadfast brightness and beauty, and as from time to time he visited her and watched her with all the secret passion and tenderness he felt, his heart grew strong within him.

"She will love me one day if I try to deserve her love," he thought. "She will love me as she has never loved yet! No woman can understand the true worth of love, unless her lover loves her more than himself! This is a joy my Angela has not yet been given,--it will be for me to give it to her!"

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XXXVIII

With the entry of Angela's great picture "The Coming of Christ" into London, where it became at once the centre of admiration, contention and general discussion, one of the most singular "religious" marriage ceremonies ever known, took place in a dreary out-lying district of the metropolis, where none but the poorest of the poor dwell, working from dawn till night for the merest pittance which scarcely pays them for food and lodging. It was one of Aubrey Leigh's "centres," and to serve his needs for a church he had purchased a large wooden structure previously used for the storing of damaged mechanical appliances, such as worn-out locomotives, old railway carriages, and every kind of lumber that could possibly accumulate anywhere in a dock or an engine yard. The building held from three to four thousand people closely packed, and when Leigh had secured it for his own, he was as jubilant over his possession as if the whole continent of Europe had subscribed to build him a cathedral. He had the roof mended and made rainproof, and the ground planked over to make a decent flooring,--then he had it painted inside a dark oak colour, and furnished it with rows of benches. At the upper end a raised platform was erected, and in the centre of that platform stood a simple Cross of roughly carved dark wood, some twelve or fifteen feet in height. There was no other adornment in the building,--the walls remained bare, the floor unmatted, the seats uncushioned. No subscriptions were asked for its maintenance; no collection plate was ever sent around, yet here, whenever Leigh announced a coming "Address," so vast a crowd assembled that it was impossible to find room for all who sought admittance. And here, on one cold frosty Sunday morning, with the sun shining brightly through the little panes of common glass which had been inserted to serve as windows, he walked through a densely packed and expectant throng of poor, ill-clad, work-worn, yet evidently earnest and reverent men and women, leading his fair wife Sylvie, clad in bridal white, by the hand, up to the platform, and there stood facing the crowd. He was followed by Cardinal Bonpre and--Manuel. The Cardinal wore no outward sign of his ecclesiastical dignity,--he was simply attired in an ordinary priest's surtout, and his tall dignified figure, his fine thoughtful face and his reverend age, won for him silent looks of admiration and respect from many who knew nothing of him or of the Church to which he belonged, but simply looked upon him as a friend of their idolized teacher, Aubrey Leigh. Manuel passed through the crowd almost unnoticed, and it was only when he stood near the Cross, looking down upon the upturned thousands of faces, that a few remarked his presence. The people had assembled in full force on this occasion, an invitation having gone forth in Leigh's name asking them "to be witnesses of his marriage," and the excitement was intense, as Sylvie, veiled as a bride, obeyed the gentle signal of her husband, and took her seat on the platform by the side of the Cardinal on the left hand of the great Cross, against which Manuel leaned lightly like a child who is not conscious of observation, but who simply takes the position which seems to him most natural. And when the subdued murmuring of the crowd had died into comparative silence, Aubrey, advancing a little to the front of the Cross, spoke in clear ringing tones, which carried music to the ears and conviction to the heart.

"My friends! I have asked you all here in your thousands, to witness the most sacred act of my human life--my marriage! By the law of this realm,--by the law of America, the country of my birth,--that marriage is already completed and justified,--but no 'religious' ceremony has yet been performed between myself and her whom I am proud and grateful to call wife. To my mind however, a 'religious' ceremony is necessary, and I have chosen to hold it here,--with you who have listened to me in this place many and many a time,--with you as witnesses to the oath of fidelity and love I am about to take in the presence of God! There is no clergyman present--no one to my knowledge of any Church denomination except a Cardinal of the Church of Rome who is my guest and friend, but who takes no part in the proceedings. The Cross alone stands before you as the symbol of the Christian faith,--and what I swear by that symbol means for me a vow that shall not be broken either in this world, or in the world to come! I need scarcely tell you that this is not the usual meaning of marriage in our England of to-day. There is much blasphemy in the world, but one of the greatest blasphemies of the age is the degradation of the sacrament of matrimony,--the bland tolerance with which an ordained priest of Christ presumes to invoke the blessing of God upon a marriage between persons whom he knows are utterly unsuited to each other in every way, who are not drawn together by love, but only by worldly considerations of position and fortune. I have seen these marriages consummated. I have seen the horrible and often tragic results of such unholy union. I have known of cases where a man, recognized as a social blackguard of the worst type, whose ways of life are too odious to be named, has been accepted as a fitting mate for a young innocent girl just out of school, because he is a Lord or a Duke or an Earl. Anything for money! Anything for the right to stand up and crow over your neighbours! When an inexperienced girl or woman is united for life to a loathsome blackguard, an open sensualist, a creature far lower than the beasts, yet possessed of millions, she is 'congratulated' as being specially to be envied, when as a matter of strict honesty, it would be better if she were in her grave. The prayers and invocations pronounced at such marriages are not 'religious,'--they are mere profanity! The priest who says 'Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,' over such immoral wedlock, is guilty of a worse sacrilege than if he trampled on the bread and wine of Christ's Communion! For marriage was not intended to be a mere union of bodies,--but a union of souls. It is the most sacred bond of humanity. From the love which has created that bond, is born new life,--life which shall be good or evil according to the spirit in which husband and wife are wedded. 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children,'--and the first and greatest sin is bodily union without soul-love. It is merely a form of animal desire,--and from desire alone no good or lofty thing can spring. We are not made to be 'as the beasts that perish'--though materialists and sensualists delight in asserting such to be our destiny, in order to have ground whereon to practise their own vices. This planet, the earth, is set under our dominion; the beasts are ours to control,--they do not control us. Our position therefore is one of supremacy. Let us not voluntarily fall from that position to one even lower than the level of beasts! The bull, the goat, the pig, are moved by animal desire alone to perpetuate their kind--but we,--we have a grander mission to accomplish than theirs--we in our union are not only responsible for the Body of the next generation to come, but for the brain, the heart, the mind, and above all the Soul! If we wed in sin, our children must be born in sin. If we make our marriages for worldly advantage, vanity, blind desire, or personal convenience, our children will be moulded on those passions, and grow up to be curses to the world they live in. Love, and love only of the purest, truest, and highest kind, must be the foundation of the marriage Sacrament,--love that is prepared to endure all the changes of fate and fortune--love that is happy in working and suffering for the thing beloved--love that counts nothing a hardship,--neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor poverty, provided it can keep its faith unbroken!"

He paused--there was a slight stir among the audience, but otherwise not a sound. Sylvie sat quiet, a graceful, nymph-like figure, veiled in her cloudy white--Cardinal Bonpre's mild blue eyes raised to the speaker's face, were full of rapt attention--and Manuel still leaning against the great Cross seemed absorbed in dreamy and beautiful thoughts of his own.

"I should like," went on Aubrey with increasing warmth and passion, "to tell you what I mean by 'faith unbroken.' It is the highest form of love,--the only firm rock of friendship. It leaves no room for suspicion,--no place for argument--no cause for contradiction. It is the true meaning of the wedding-ring. Apart from marriage altogether, it is the only principle that can finally civilize and elevate man. So long as we doubt God and mistrust our fellows, so long must corruption sway business, and wars move nations. The man who gives us cause to suspect his honesty,--the man who forces us to realize the existence of treachery, is a worse murderer than he who stabs us bodily to death; for he has tainted our soul; he has pushed us back many steps on our journey Godward, and has made us wonder and question whether in truth a God can exist who tolerates in His universe such a living lie! It is only when we have to contemplate a broken faith that we doubt God! For a broken faith is an abnormal prodigy in the natural scheme of the universe--a discord in the eternal music of the stars! There are no treacheries, no falsifying of accounts, in the Divine order of the Law. The sun does not fail to rise each morning, whether clouds obscure the sky or not,--the moon appears at her stated seasons and performs her silver-footed pilgrimage faithfully to time--the stars move with precision in their courses,--and so true are they to their ordainment, that we are able to predict the manner in which they will group themselves and shine, years after we have passed away. In the world of Nature the leaves bud, and the birds nest at the coming of Spring; the roses bloom in Summer--the harvest is gathered in Autumn,--the whole marvellous system moves like a grand timepiece whose hands are never awry, whose chimes never fail to ring the exact hour,--and in all the splendour of God's gifts to us there is no such thing as a broken faith! Only we,--we, the creatures He has endowed with 'His own image,'--Free-will,--break our faith with Him and with each other. And so we come to mischief, inasmuch as broken faith is no part of God's Intention. And when two persons, man and woman, swear to be true to each other before God, so long as life shall last, and afterwards break that vow, confusion and chaos result from their perjury, and all the pestilential furies attending on a wrong deed whip them to their graves! In these times of ours, when wars and rumours of wars shake the lethargic souls of too-exultant politicians and statesmen with anxiety for themselves if not for their country, we hear every day of men and women breaking their marriage vows as lightly as though God were not existent,--we read of princes whose low amours are a disgrace to the world--of dukes and earls who tolerate the unchastity of their wives in order that they themselves may have the more freedom,--of men of title and position who even sell their wives to their friends in order to secure some much-needed cash or social advantage,--and while our law is busy night and day covering up 'aristocratic' crimes from publicity, and showing forth the far smaller sins of hard-working poverty, God's law is at work in a totally different way. The human judge may excuse a king's vices,--but before God there are neither kings nor commoners, and punishment falls where it is due! Christ taught us that the greatest crime is treachery, for of Judas He said 'it were better for that man that he had never been born,' and for the traitor and perjurer death is not the end, but the beginning, of evils. Against the man who accepts the life of a woman given to him in trust and love, and then betrays that life to misery, all Nature arrays itself in opposition and disaster. We, as observers of the great Play of human existence, may not at once see, among the numerous shifting scenes, where the evil-doer is punished, or the good man rewarded,--but wait till the end!--till the drop-curtain falls--and we shall see that there is no mistake in God's plan--no loophole left for breaking faith even with a child,--no 'permit' existing anywhere to destroy the life of the soul by so much as one false or cruel word! It is with a deep sense of the exact balance of God's justice, that I stand before you to-day, my friends, and ask you without any accepted ritual or ceremonial to hear my vows of marriage. She to whom I pledge my word and life, is one who in the world's eyes is accounted great, because rich in this world's goods,--but her wealth has no attraction for me, and for my own self I would rather she had been poor. Nevertheless, were she even greater than she is,--a crowned queen with many kingdoms under her control, and I but the poorest of her servants, nothing could undo the love we have for each other,--nothing could keep our lives asunder! Love and love only is our bond of union--sympathy of mind and heart and spirit; wealth and rank would have been but causes of division between us if love had not been greater. The world will tell you differently--the world will say that I have married for money--but you who know me better than the world, will feel by my very words addressed to you to-day that my marriage is a true marriage, in which no grosser element than love can enter. My wife's wealth remains her own--settled upon her absolutely and always, and I am personally as poor as when I first came among you and proved to you that hard work was a familiar friend. But I am rich in the possession of the helpmate God has given me, and with the utmost gratitude and humility I ask you to bear witness to the fact that this day before you and in the presence of the symbol of the Christian faith, I take my oath to be true to her and only her while life shall last!"

Here going to where Sylvie stood, he took her by the hand, and led her to the front of the platform. Then he turned again to his eager and expectant audience.

"In your presence, my friends, and in the presence of God and before the Cross, I take Sylvie Hermenstein to be my wedded wife! I swear to devote myself to her, body and soul,--to cherish her first and last of all human creatures,--to be true to her in thought, word and deed,--to care for her in sickness as in health, in age as in youth,--to honour her as my chiefest good,--and to die faithful to her in this world,--hoping by the mercy of God to complete a more perfect union with her in the world to come! In the name of Christ, Amen!"

And then Sylvie threw back her veil and turned her enchanting face upon the crowd,--a face fairer than ever, irradiated by the love and truth of her soul,--and the people gazed and wondered, and wondering held their breath as her clear accents rang through the silence.

"In your presence, and in the presence of God and before the Cross, I take Aubrey Leigh to be my wedded husband! I swear to devote myself to him body and soul, to cherish him first and last of all human creatures,--to be true to him in thought, word and deed,--to care for him in sickness as in health, in age as in youth,--to honour him as my chiefest good,--and to die faithful to him in this world,--praying God in His mercy to complete a more perfect union with him in the world to come. In the name of Christ, Amen!"

Then Aubrey, taking his wife's hand, placed for the first time on her finger the golden wedding-ring.

"In the presence of you all, before God, I place this ring upon my wife's hand as a symbol of unbreaking faith and loyalty! I pledge my life to hers; and promise to defend her from all evil, to shelter her, to work for her, and to guard her with such tenderness as shall not fail! I swear my faith; and may God forsake me if I break my vow!"

And Sylvie without hesitation, responded in her sweet clear voice.

"In the presence of you all, before God, I take this ring and wear it as a symbol of my husband's trust in me, and a token of his love! I pledge my life to his; and promise to uphold the honour of his name,--to obey him in every just and rightful wish,--to defend his actions,--to guard his home in peace and good report,--and to surround him with such tenderness as shall not fail! I swear my faith; and may God forsake me if I break my vow!"

There followed a deep and almost breathless silence. Then Aubrey spoke once more, standing before the throng with Sylvie by his side and her hand clasped in his.

"I thank you all, my friends! Strange and unlike all marriage ceremonies as ours is to-day, I feel that it is a sacred and a binding one! Your thousands of eyes and ears have heard and seen us swear our marriage vows--your thousands of hearts and minds have understood the spirit in which we accept this solemn sacrament! I will ask you before we go, to kneel down with us and repeat 'The Prayer of Heart-searching' which I have said with you so often, and to then quietly disperse."

In one moment the vast crowd was kneeling, and Cardinal Bonpre's aged eyes filled with tears of emotion as he saw all these human beings, moved by one great wave of sympathy, prostrate themselves before the simple Cross where the wedded lovers knelt also, and where Manuel alone stood, like one who is too sure of God to need the help of prayer.

And Aubrey, thrilled to the heart by the consciousness that all the members of that huge congregation were with him in his ideal dream of Christian Union, offered up this supplication--

"All-powerful God! Most loving and beneficent Creator of the Universe! We Thy creatures, who partake with Thee the endowment of immortality, now beseech Thee to look upon us here, kneeling in adoration before Thee! Search our hearts and souls with the light of Thy revealing Holy Spirit, and see if in any of us there is concealed an unworthy thought, or doubt, or distrust, or scorn of Thy unfailing goodness! We ask Thee to discover our sins and imperfections to ourselves, and so instruct us as to what is displeasing to Thee, that we may remedy these wilful blots upon Thy fair intention. Give us the force and fervour, the wisdom and truth, to find and follow the way Thou wouldst have us go,--and if our strength should fail, constrain us, oh God, to come to Thee, whether we learn by sorrow or joy, by punishment or pity;--constrain us, so that we may find Thee, whatever else we lose! Let the great searchlight of Thy truth be turned upon the secret motives of our hearts and minds, and if there be one of us in whom such motives be found false, impure, cruel or cowardly, then let Thy just wrath fall upon the misguided creature of Thy love, and teach him or her, obedience and repentance! We pray that Thou wilt punish us, oh God, when we have sinned, that we may know wherein we have offended our dear Father;--and equally, when we have sought to serve Thee faithfully, may we receive Thy blessing! Make us one with Thee in Thy perfect plan of good; teach us how to work Thy will in the fulfilment of peace and joy; make our lives of use to this world, and our deaths gain to the next, and let the glory of Thy love encompass us, guide us, and defend us now and forever, through Christ our Lord, Amen."

After he had ceased, there was a deep silence for many minutes, then all the people as if moved by one impulse, rose from their knees, and standing, sang the following stanzas, which Aubrey had taught them when he first began to preach among them his ideals of love and labour.

If thou'rt a Christian in deed and thought, Loving thy neighbour as Jesus taught,-- Living all days in the sight of Heaven, And not ONE only out of seven,-- Sharing thy wealth with the suffering poor, Helping all sorrow that Hope can cure,-- Making religion a truth in the heart, And not a cloak to be worn in the mart, Or in high cathedrals and chapels and fanes, Where priests are traders and count the gains,-- All God's angels will say, "Well done!" Whenever thy mortal race is run. White and forgiven, Thou'lt enter heaven, And pass, unchallenged, the Golden Gate, Where welcoming spirits watch and wait To hail thy coming with sweet accord To the Holy City of God the Lord!

If Peace is thy prompter, and Love is thy guide, And white-robed Charity walks by thy side,-- If thou tellest the truth without oath to bind, Doing thy duty to all mankind,-- Raising the lowly, cheering the sad, Finding some goodness e'en in the bad, And owning with sadness if badness there be, There might have been badness in thine and in thee, If Conscience the warder that keeps thee whole Had uttered no voice to thy slumbering soul,-- All God's angels will say, "Well done!" Whenever thy mortal race is run. White and forgiven, Thou'lt enter heaven, And pass, unchallenged, the Golden Gate, Where welcoming spirits watch and wait To hail thy coming with sweet accord To the Holy City of God the Lord!

If thou art humble, and wilt not scorn. However wretched, a brother forlorn,-- If thy purse is open to misery's call, And the God thou lovest is God of all, Whatever their colour, clime or creed, Blood of thy blood, in their sorest need,-- If every cause that is good and true, And needs assistance to dare and do, Thou helpest on through good and ill, With trust in Heaven, and God's good will,-- All God's angels will say, "Well done!" Whenever thy mortal race is run. White and forgiven, Thou'lt enter heaven, And pass, unchallenged, the Golden Gate, Where welcoming spirits watch and wait To hail thy coming with sweet accord To the Holy City of God the Lord!

[Footnote: By the late Charles Mackay, LL.D., F.S.A.]

The effect of the last eight-line chorus sung by thousands of voices, was marvellous. Such a spirit of exaltation pervaded the music that the common wooden shed-like building in which these followers of one earnest man asserted their faith in God rather than in a Church, seemed to take upon itself all the architectural beauty of a temple costing millions of money. When the singing ceased, Aubrey raised his hand, and while his audience yet remained standing, pronounced the blessing.

"God be with you all, my friends!--in your hearts and lives and daily conduct! May none of you here present shadow His brightness by one dark deed or thought of evil! I will ask you to pray that God may be with me too, and with my beloved wife, the future partner of all my work, my joys and sorrows, that we may in our union make our lives useful to you and to all others who seek our help or care. God's blessing be upon us all in the name of Christ our Saviour!"

And with one accord the people answered "Amen!"

Then this brief service over, they began to disperse. Without any scramble or rush, but in perfect order and with quiet and reverent demeanour, they left their seats and began to make their way out. None of them were seen gossiping together, or smiling or nodding over each other's shoulders as is very often the case when a congregation disperses from a fashionable church. For these people in their worship of the Creator, found something reverent, something earnest, something true, valuable and necessary to daily living,--and though there were two peaceful-looking constables stationed at the door of egress, their services were not required to either keep order or compel any of those thousands of poor to "move on." They kept order for themselves, and were too busy with practical life and thought, to hang about or gossip on the way to their various homes. Several members of the congregation on hearing that their friend Leigh was going to take his marriage vows before them all, had provided themselves with flowers, and these managed to pass in front of the platform where, simply and without ostentation, they handed up their little bouquets and clusters of such blossoms as they had been able to obtain and afford in winter,--violets especially, and white chrysanthemums, and one or two rare roses. These floral offerings meant much sacrifice on the part of those who gave them,--and the tears filled Sylvie's eyes as she noted the eagerness with which poor women with worn sad faces, and hands wrinkled and brown with toil, handed up their little posies for her to take from them, or laid them with a touching humility at her feet. What a wonderful wedding hers was, she thought!--far removed from all the world of fashion, without any of the hypocritical congratulations of "society" friends,--without the sickening, foolish waste, expense and artificiality, which nowadays makes a marriage a mere millinery parade. She had spoken her vows before thousands whom her husband had helped and rescued from heathenism and misery, and all their good wishes and prayers for her happiness were wedding gifts such as no money could purchase. With a heart full of emotion and gratitude she watched the crowd break up and disappear, till when the last few were passing out of the building, she said to her husband--

"Let us leave the flowers they have given me here, Aubrey,--here, just at the foot of the Cross where you have so often spoken to them. I shall feel they will bring me a blessing!"

"It shall be as you wish, sweetheart!" he answered tenderly,--"and I must thank you for having entered so readily into the spirit of this strange marriage before my poor friends, Sylvie,--for it must have seemed very strange to you!--and yet believe me,--no more binding one was ever consummated!" He took her hand and kissed it,--then turned to Cardinal Bonpre, who had risen and was gazing round the bare common building with dreamy eyes of wistful wonderment.

"I thank you too, my dear friend! You have learned something of my work since we came to London, and I think you understand thoroughly the true sanctity and force of my marriage?"

"I--do!--I do understand it!" said the Cardinal slowly. "And I wish with all my heart that all marriage vows could be so solemnly and truly taken! But my heart aches--my heart aches for the world! These thousands you have helped and taught are but a few,--and they were as you have told me, little better than heathen when you came amongst them to tell them the true meaning of Christ's message--what of the millions more waiting to know what the Church is failing to teach? What have the priests of the Lord been doing for nearly two thousand years, that there should still be doubters of God!"

Over his face swept a shadow of deep pain, and at that moment Manuel left the Cross where he had been leaning and came up and stood beside him. The Cardinal looked at his waif wistfully.

"What did you think of this service, my child?"

"I thought that the Master of all these His servants could not be very far away!" answered Manuel softly,--"And that if He came suddenly, He would find none sleeping!"

"May it prove so!" said Aubrey fervently. "But we own ourselves to be unprofitable servants at best,--we can only try to fulfil our Lord's commands as nearly to the letter as possible,--and we often fail;--but we do honestly make the effort. Shall we go now, my lord Cardinal? You look fatigued."

Bonpre sighed heavily. "My spirit is broken, my son!" he answered. "I dare not think of what will happen--what is beginning to happen for the Christian world! I shall not live to see it; but I have sinned, in passing my days in too much peace. Dwelling for many years away in my far-off diocese, I have forgotten the hurrying rush of life. I should have been more active long ago,--and I fear I shall have but a poor account to give of my stewardship when I am called to render it up. This is what troubles both my heart and my conscience!"

"Dear friend, you have no cause for trouble!" said Sylvie earnestly. "Among all the servants of our Master surely you are one of the most faithful!"

"One of the most faithful, and therefore considered one of the most faithless!" said Manuel. "Come, let us go now,--and leave these bridal flowers where the bride wishes them to be,--at the foot of the Cross, as a symbol of her husband's service! Let us go,--the Cardinal has need of rest."

They returned to their respective homes,--Aubrey and his wife to a little tenement house they had taken for a few weeks in the district in order that Sylvie might be able to see and to study for herself the sad and bitter lives of those who from birth to death are deprived of all the natural joys of happy and wholesome existence,--whose children are born and bred up in crime,--where girls are depraved and ruined before they are in their teens,--and where nothing of God is ever taught beyond that He is a Being who punishes the wicked and rewards the good,--and where in the general apathy of utter wretchedness, people decide that unless there is something given them in this world to be good for, they would rather be bad like the rest of the folks they see about them. The Cardinal and Manuel dwelt in rooms not very far away, and every day and every hour almost was occupied by them in going among these poor, helpless, hopeless ones of the world, bringing them comfort and aid and sympathy. Wherever Manuel went, there brightness followed; the sick were healed, the starving were fed, the lonely and desolate were strengthened and encouraged, and the people who knew no more of the Cardinal than that "he was a priest of some sort or other," began to watch eagerly for the appearance of the Cardinal's foundling, "the child that seemed to love them," as they described him,--and to long for even a passing glimpse of the fair face, the steadfast blue eyes, the tender smile, of one before whom all rough words were silenced--all weeping stilled.

But on this night of all--the night of Sylvie's "religious" marriage, the Cardinal was stricken by a heavy blow. He had expected some misfortune, but had not realized that it would be quite so heavy as it proved. The sum and substance of his trouble was contained in a "confidential" letter from Monsignor Moretti, and was worded as follows--

"My Lord Cardinal,--It has come to the knowledge of the Holy Father that you have not only left Rome without signifying the intention of your departure to the Vatican as custom and courtesy should have compelled you to do, but that instead of returning to your rightful diocese, you have travelled to London, and are there engaged in working with the socialist and heretic Aubrey Leigh, who is spreading pernicious doctrine among the already distracted and discordant of the poorer classes. This fact has to be coupled with the grave offence committed against the Holy Father by the street-foundling to whom you accord your favour and protection, and whose origin you are unable to account for; and the two things taken together, constitute a serious breach of conduct on the part of so eminent a dignitary of the Church as yourself, and compel the Holy Father most unwillingly and sorrowfully to enquire whether he is justified in retaining among his servants of the Holy See one who so openly betrays its counsels and commands. It is also a matter of the deepest distress to the Holy Father, that a picture painted by your niece Donna Angela Sovrani and entitled 'The Coming of Christ,' in which the Church itself is depicted as under the displeasure of our Lord, should be permitted to contaminate the minds of the nations by public exhibition. Through the Vatican press, the supreme Pontiff has placed his ban against this most infamous picture, and all that the true servants of the Church can do to check its pernicious influence, will be done. But it cannot be forgotten that Your Eminence is closely connected with all these regrettable events, and as we have no actual proof of the authenticity of the miracle you are alleged to have performed at Rouen, the Holy Father is reluctantly compelled to leave that open to doubt. The Archbishop of Rouen very strenuously denies the honesty of the mother of the child supposed to be healed by you, and states that she has not attended Mass or availed herself of any of the Sacraments for many years. We are willing to admit that Your Eminence may personally have been unsuspectingly made party to a fraud,--but this does not free you from the other charges, (notably that of exonerating the late Abbe Vergniaud,) of which you stand arraigned. Remembering, however, the high repute enjoyed by Your Eminence throughout your career, and taking into kindly consideration your increasing age and failing health, the Holy Father commissions me to say that all these grievous backslidings on your part shall be freely pardoned if you will,--Firstly,--repudiate all connection with your niece, Angela Sovrani, and hold no further communication with her or her father Prince Sovrani,--Secondly,--that you will break off your acquaintance with the socialist Aubrey Leigh and his companion Sylvie Hermenstein, the renegade from the Church of her fathers,--and Thirdly,--that you will sever yourself at once and forever from the boy you have taken under your protection. This last clause is the most important in the opinion of His Holiness. These three things being done, you will be permitted to return to your diocese, and pursue the usual round of your duties there to the end. Failing to fulfil the Holy Father's commands, the alternative is that you be deprived of your Cardinal's hat and your diocese together.

"It is with considerable pain that I undertake the transcribing of the commands of the Holy Father, and I much desired Monsignor Gherardi to follow you to London and lay these matters before you privately, with all the personal kindness which his friendship for you makes possible, but I regret to say, and you will no doubt regret to learn, that he has been smitten with dangerous illness and fever, which for the time being prevents his attention to duty. Trusting to hear from you with all possible speed that Your Eminence is in readiness to obey the Holy Father's paternal wish and high command, I am,

"Your Eminence's obedient servant in Christ,

"Lorenzo Moretti."

The Cardinal read this letter through once--twice--then the paper dropped from his hands.

"My God, my God! why hast Thou forsaken me!" he murmured. "What have I done in these few months! What must I do!"

A light touch on his arm roused him. Manuel confronted him.

"Why are you sorrowful, dear friend? Have you sad news?"

"Yes, my child! Sad news indeed! I am commanded by the Pope to give up all I have in the world! If it were to give to my Master Christ I would give it gladly,--but to the Church--I cannot!"

"What does the Pope ask you to resign?" said Manuel.

"My niece Angela and all her love for me!--my friendship with this brave man Aubrey Leigh who works among the outcast and the poor,--but more than all this,--he asks me to give You up--you! My child, I cannot!"

He stretched his thin withered hands out to the slight boyish figure in front of him.

"I cannot! I am an old man, near--very near--to the grave--and I love you! I need you!--without you the world is dark! I found you all alone--I have cared for you and guarded you and served you--I cannot let you go!" The tears filled his. eyes and rolled down his worn cheeks. "I cannot lose my last comfort!" he repeated feebly. "I cannot let You go!"

Silently the boy gave his hands into the old man's fervent clasp, and as Bonpre bent his head upon them a sense of peace stole over him,--a great and solemn calm. Looking up he saw Manuel earnestly regarding him with eyes full of tenderness and light, and a smile upon his lips.

"Be of good courage, dear friend!" he said. "The time of trial is hard, but it will soon be over. You must needs part from Angela!--but remember she has great work still to do, and she is not left without love! You must also part from Aubrey and his wife--but they too are given high tasks to fulfil for God's glory--and,--they have each other! Yes!--you must part with all these things, dear friend--they are not yours to retain;--and if you would keep your place in this world you must part with Me!"

"Never!" cried Bonpre, moved to sudden passion. "I cannot! To me the world without you would be empty!"

As he spoke these words a sudden memory rang in his brain like a chime from some far-distant tower echoing over a width of barren land. "For me the world is empty!" had been the words spoken by Manuel when he had first found him leaning against the locked Cathedral door in Rouen. And with this memory came another, the vision he had seen of the end of the world, and the words he had heard spoken by some mysterious voice in his sleep,--"The light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not!" And still he looked pleadingly, earnestly, almost fearingly, into the face of his foundling.

"We must speak of this again," said Manuel then, gently. "But to-night, for at least some hours, you must rest! Have patience with your own thoughts, dear friend! To part with earthly loves is a sorrow that must always be;--Angela is young and you are old!--she has her task to do, and yours is nearly finished! You must part with Aubrey Leigh,--you cannot help him,--his work is planned,--his ways ordained. Thus, you have no one to command your life save the Church,--and it seems that you must choose between the Church and me! To keep Me, you must forego the Church. To keep the Church you must say farewell to Me! But think no more of it just now--sleep and rest--leave all to God!"

The Cardinal still looked at him earnestly.

"You will not leave me? You will not, for a thought of saving me from my difficulties, go from me? If I sleep I shall find you when I wake?"

"I will never leave you till you bid me go!" answered Manuel. "And if I am taken far from hence you shall go with me! Rest, dear friend--rest, true servant of God! Rest without thought--without care--till I call you!"

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XXXIX

The night darkened steadily down over London,--a chill dreary night of heavy fog, half-melting into rain. Cardinal Bonpre, though left to himself, did not rest at once as Manuel had so tenderly bidden him to do, but moved by an impulse stronger than any worldly discretion or consideration, sat down and wrote a letter to the Supreme Pontiff,--a letter every word of which came straight from his honest heart, and which he addressed to the Head of his Church directly and personally, without seeking the interposition of Lorenzo Moretti. And thus he wrote, in obedience to the dictate of his own soul--

"Most Holy Father!--I have this day received through Monsignor Moretti the text of certain commands laid by Your Holiness upon me to fulfil if I would still serve the Church, as I have in all truth and devotion served it for so many years. These commands are difficult to realise, and still more difficult to obey,--I would rather believe that Your Holiness has issued them in brief anger, than that they are the result of a reasonable conviction, or condition of your own heart and intellect. In no way can I admit that my conduct has been of a nature to give offence to you or to the Holy See, for I have only in all things sought to obey the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, upon whose memory our faith is founded. Your Holiness desires me, first, to cease every communication with the only relatives left to me on earth,--my brother-in-law Pietro Sovrani and his daughter, the daughter of my dead sister, my niece Angela. You demand the severance of these bonds of nature, because my niece has produced a work of art, for which she alone is responsible. I venture most humbly to submit to Your Holiness that this can scarcely be called true Christian justice to me,--for, whereas on the one side I cannot be made answerable for the thoughts or the work of a separately responsible individual, on the other hand I should surely not be prohibited from exercising my influence, if necessary, on the future career of those related to me by blood as well as endeared to me by duty and affection. My niece has suffered more cruelly than most women; and it is entirely owing to her refusal to speak, that the memory of Florian Varillo, her late affianced husband, is not openly branded as that of a criminal, instead of being as now, merely under the shadow of suspicion. For we know that he was her assassin,--all Rome feels the truth,--and yet being dead, his name is left open to the benefit of a doubt because she who was so nearly slain by him she loved, forgives and is silent. I submit to Your Holiness that this forgiveness and silence symbolise true Christianity, on the part of the poor child who has fallen under your displeasure,--and that as the Christian Creed goes, your pity and consideration for her should somewhat soften the ban you have set against her on account of the work she has given to the world. As a servant of Holy Church I deeply deplore the subject of that work, while fully admitting its merit as a great conception of art,--but even on this point I would most humbly point out to Your Holiness that genius is not always under the control of its possessor. For being a fire of most searching and persuasive quality it does so command the soul, and through the soul the brain and hand, that oftentimes it would appear as if the actual creator of a great work is the last unit to be considered in the scheme, and that it has been carried out by some force altogether beyond and above humanity. Therefore, speaking with all humility and sorrow, it may chance that Angela Sovrani's picture 'The Coming of Christ' may contain a required lesson to us of the Church as well as to certain sections of certain people, and that as all genius comes from God, it would be well to enquire earnestly whether we do not perhaps in these days need some hint or warning of the kind to recall us from ways of error, ere we wander too far. But, having laid this matter straightly before Your Holiness, I am nevertheless willing to accede to your desire, and see my young niece and her father no more. For truly there is very little chance of my so doing, as my age and health will scarcely permit me to travel far from my diocese again, if indeed I ever return to it. The same statement will apply with greater force to the friendship I have lately formed with him whom you call 'heretic,'--Aubrey Leigh. Your Holiness is mistaken in thinking that I have assisted him in his work among the poor and desolate of London--though I would it had been possible for me to do so! For I have seen such misery, such godlessness, such despair, such self-destruction in this great English city, the admitted centre of civilization, that I would give my whole life twice, ay, three times over again to be able to relieve it in ever so small a degree. The priests of our Church and of all Churches are here,--they preach, but do very little in the way of practice, and few like Aubrey Leigh sacrifice their personal entity, their daily life, their sleep, their very thoughts, to help the suffering of their fellow-men. Holy Father, the people whom Aubrey Leigh works for, never believed in a God at all till this man came among them. Yet there are religious centres here, and teachers--Sunday after Sunday, the message of the Gospel is pronounced to inattentive ears and callous souls, and yet all have remained in darkest atheism, in hopeless misery, till their earnest, patient, sympathising, tender brother, the so-called 'atheist,' came to persuade them out of darkness into light, and made the burdens of their living lighter to bear. And will you not admit him as a Christian? Surely he must be; for as our Lord Himself declares, 'Not every man that shall say unto Me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.' And of a certainty, the will of the Father is that the lost should be found, the perishing saved, the despairing comforted,--and all these things Aubrey Leigh has done, and is yet doing. But I do not work with him--I am here to look on--and looking on, to regret my lost youth!

"Touching the miracle attributed to me at Rouen, I have gone over this ground so often with Your Holiness, both by letter and personally while in Rome, that it seems but foolish to repeat the story of my complete innocence in the matter. I prayed for the crippled child, and laid my hands upon him in blessing. From that day I never saw him--never have seen him again. I can bear no witness to his recovery,--your news came from persons at Rouen, and not from me. I am as unconscious of having healed the child as I am innocent of having any part in the disappearance of the man Claude Cazeau. The whole thing is as complete a mystery to me as it is to Your Holiness or to any of those who have heard the story. I fully and freely admit, as I have always fully and freely admitted, that I condoned and forgave the sin of the Abbe Vergniaud, and this, not only because the man was dying, but because we are strictly commanded to forgive those who truly repent. And on this point, I cannot even to you, Most Holy Father, admit that I have been wrong.

"And now coming to the last part of Your Holiness' expressed desire, wherein you ask me to part from the boy I rescued,--the child Manuel, who is all alone in the world,--I cannot acknowledge it to be a Christian act to desert anyone whom we have once befriended. The boy is young, and far too gentle to fight the world or to meet with such love and consideration as his youth and simplicity deserve. I will not disguise, however, from Your Holiness that I have been often much troubled in mind regarding his companionship with me,--for foolish as you may judge my words, I feel that there is something in him not altogether of earth,--that he speaks at times as a wise prophet might speak,--or as an Angel sent to warn the world of swiftly-coming disaster! Of the strangely daring spirit in which he addressed himself to Your Holiness at the Vatican it is not for me to discourse--I cannot explain it or condone it, for I was overcome with amazement and fear, and realized the position no more than did Your Holiness at the time, or than did those of your confidants immediately around us. It was indeed a matter that went beyond us all.

"But the chief end of this letter is arrived at--Your Holiness asks me to part with this boy. With the deepest regret at the rupture you threaten to cause between myself and Holy Church if I disobey this command, I must still utterly refuse to do so. So long as the child looks upon me as a friend, so long will I be one to him. So long as he will accept the shelter of my roof, so long shall he receive it. I would rather break with a dozen Churches, a dozen forms of creed, than be untrue to a child who trusts me! That is my answer to Your Holiness, and in giving it I add the sincere expression of my sorrow to cause you displeasure or pain. But I venture to pray you, Holy Father, to pause and consider deeply before you eject me from the Church for so simple and plain a matter. Let me as one who is nearing the grave in company with yourself--as one who with yourself must soon stand on that dark brink of the Eternal from which we see the Light beyond--let me most humbly yet most earnestly point out to you the far more serious things than my offence, which are threatening Rome to-day. The people of all lands are wandering away from faith, and wars and terrors are encompassing the land. The lust of gold and pride of life are now the chief objects of man's existence and desire, and there was hardly ever a time in history when utter indifference to the laws of God was more openly exhibited than it is just now. The sin of unbelief and all the evils attendant on that sin are steadily increasing, and the Church seems powerless to stop the approaching disaster. Is it, that knowing herself to be weak, she does not make the attempt to be strong? If this is so, she must fall, and not all the getting-in of gold will help her! But you, Holy Father--you might arrest all this trouble if you would! If you would change the doctrines of Superstition for those of Science--if you would purify our beautiful creed from pagan observances and incredible idolatries--if you would raise the Church of Rome like a pure white Cross above the blackening strife, you might save the sinking ship of faith even now! So little is needed!--simplicity instead of ostentation--voluntary poverty instead of countless riches, spiritual power instead of the perpetual cry for temporal power,--the doctrine of Christ instead of the doctrine of Church Councils--and the glad welcoming and incorporation of every true, beautiful, wise and wonderful discovery of the age into the symbolic teaching of our Creed. Holy Father, if this is not done, then things old must disappear to make room for things new,--and a new Church of Christ must rise from the ashes of Rome! We cannot but call to mind the words of St. John, 'Repent and do the first works, or else I will come quickly and remove thy candlestick from its place.' 'Do the first works.' Holy Father, those first works, as exemplified in Christ Himself, were love, charity, pity and pardon for all men! With all my heart I beseech Your Holiness to let these virtues simplify and sustain our Church,--and so raise it a burning and shining light of loving-kindness and universal tolerance,--so shall it be the true city set on a hill which shall draw all men to its shelter! But if unjust judgment, intolerance, cruelty and fanaticism, should again be allowed, as once before in history, to blot its fairness and blight its reputation, then there is not much time left to it,--inasmuch as there is a force in the world to-day likely to prove too strong for many of us,--a mighty combat for Truth, in which conflicting creeds will fight their questions out together with terrible passion and insistence, bringing many souls to grief and pitiful disaster. You, Holy Father, can arrest all this by making the Church of Rome, Christian rather than Pagan--by removing every touch of idolatry, every recollection of paid prayers, and by teaching a lofty, pure and practical faith such as our Redeemer desired for us, so that it may be a refuge in the storm, a haven wherein all the world shall find peace. This is for you and for those who come after you to do,--I, Felix Bonpre, shall not be here to see the change so wrought, for I shall have gone from hence to answer for my poor stewardship,--God grant I may not be found altogether wanting in intention, though I may have been inadequate in deed! And so with my earnest prayer for your health and long continuance of life I bid you farewell, asking you nothing for myself at all but a reasonable judgment,--unprejudiced and calm and Christlike,--which will in good time persuade you that it would be but a cruelty to carry out your indignation against me by depriving me of that diocese where all my people know and love me,--simply because I have befriended a child, and because having once befriended him I refuse to desert him. But if your mind should remain absolutely fixed to carry out your intentions I can only bow my head to your will and submit to the stroke of destiny, feeling it to be my Master's wish that I should suffer something for His sake, and knowing from His words that if I 'offend one of these little ones,' such as this friendless boy, 'it were better for me that a millstone were hung about my neck and I myself drowned in the depths of the sea!' Between the Church doctrine and Christ's own gospel, I choose the gospel; between Rome's discipline and Christ's command I choose Christ's command,--and shall be content to be glad or sorrowful, fortunate or poor, as equally to live or die as my Master, and YOUR Master, shall bid. For we all are nothing but His creatures, bound to serve Him, and where we serve Him not there must be evil worse than death.

"So in all humbleness still awaiting a more reasonable decision at your hands, I am, Most Holy Father,

"Your faithful servant and brother in Christ,

"Felix Bonpre."

This letter finished, signed and sealed, the Cardinal addressed it and enclosed it under cover to one of the secretaries at the Vatican who he knew might be trusted to deliver it personally into the Supreme Pontiff's own hands. Then stretching out his arms wearily he closed his eyes for a moment with a sigh of mingled relief and fatigue. The night was very cold, and though there had been a fire in the room all day, it had died down in the grate, and there were only a few little dull embers now glowing at the last bar. The chill of the air was deepening, and a shiver ran through the spare, fragile form of the venerable prelate as he rose at last from his chair and prepared to take his rest. His sleeping room was a very small one, adjoining that in which he now stood, and as he glanced at his watch and saw that time had gone on so rapidly that it was nearly eleven o'clock, he decided that he would only lie down for two or three hours.

"For there is much to do yet," he mused. "This one letter to the Pope will not suffice. I must write to Angela,--to say farewell to her, poor child!--and give her once more my blessing--and then I must prepare the way at home--for myself, and also for Manuel." He sighed again as the vision of his own house in the peaceful old-world French town far away, floated before his mental sight,--almost he heard the sweet chiming of the bells in his own Cathedral tower; which like a pyramid of delicate lace-work, always seemed held up in the air by some invisible agency to let the shafts of sunlight glimmer through,--once more he saw the great roses in his garden, pink and white and cream and yellow, clambering over the walls and up to the very roof of his picturesque and peaceful home--the white doves nesting in the warm sun--the ripe apples hanging on the gnarled boughs, the simple peasantry walking up his garden paths, coming to him with their little histories of pain and disappointment and sorrow; which were as great to them as any of the wider miseries of sufferers more beset with anguish than themselves. He thought of it all sorrowfully and tenderly,--his habit was ever to think of others rather than himself,--and he wondered sadly, as he considered all the bitterness and hardships of the poor human creatures who are forced into life on this planet,--why life should be made so cruel and hard for them,--why sudden and unprepared death should snap the ties of tenderest love--why cruelty and treachery should blight the hopes of the faithful and the trusting--why human beings should always be more ready to destroy each other than to help each other--why, to sum all up, so merciful and divine a Being as Christ came at all into this world if it were not to make the world happier and bring it nearer to heaven!

"The ways of the Infinite Ordainment are dark and difficult to understand," he said. "And I deserve punishment for daring to enquire into wisely-hidden mysteries! But, God knows it is not for myself that I would pierce the veil! Nothing that concerns myself at all matters,--I am a straw on the wind,--a leaf on the storm--and whatever God's law provides for me, that I accept and understand to be best. But for many millions of sad souls it is not so--and their way is hard! If they could fully understand the purpose of existence they would be happier--but they cannot--and we of the Church are too blind ourselves to help them, for if a little chink of light be opened to us, we obstinately refuse to see!"

He went to his sleeping room and threw himself down on his bed dressed as he was, too fatigued in body and mind to do more than utter his brief usual prayer, "If this should be the sleep of death, Lord Jesus receive my soul!" And as he closed his eyes he heard the rain drop on the roof in heavy slow drops that sounded like the dull ticking of a monstrous clock piecing away the time;--and then he slept, deeply and dreamlessly,--the calm and unconscious and refreshing slumber of a child.

How long he slept he did not know, but he was wakened suddenly by a touch and a voice he knew and loved, calling him. He sprang up with almost the alacrity of youth, and saw Manuel standing beside him.

"Did you call me, my child?"

"Yes, dear friend!" And Manuel smiled upon him with a look that conveyed the brightness of perfect love straight from the glance into the soul. "I need you for myself alone to-night! Come out with me!"

The Cardinal gazed at him in wonder that was half a fear.

"Come out with me!"

Those had been the words the boy had used to the Pope, the Head of the Church, when he had dared to speak his thoughts openly before that chiefest man of all in Rome!

"Come out with me!"

"Now, in the darkness and the rain?" asked the Cardinal wonderingly. "You wish it? Then I will come!"

Manuel said nothing further, but simply turned and led the way. They passed out of the little tenement house they inhabited into the dark cold street,--and the door closed with a loud bang behind them, shut to by the angry wind. The rain began to fall more heavily, and the small slight figure of the waif and stray he had befriended seemed to the Cardinal to look more lonely and piteous than ever in the driving fog and darkness.

"Whither would you go, my child?" he asked gently. "You will suffer from the cold and storm--"

"And you?" said Manuel. "Will you not also suffer? But you never think of yourself at all!--and it is because you do not think of yourself that I know you will come with me to-night!--even through a thousand storms!--through all danger and darkness and pain and trouble,--you will come with me! You have been my friend for many days--you will not leave me now?"

"Neither now nor at any time," answered Bonpre firmly and tenderly. "I will go with you where you will! Is it to some sad home you are taking me?--some stricken soul to whom we may give comfort?"

Manuel answered not,--but merely waved his small hand beckoningly, and passed along up the street through the drifting rain, lightly and aerially as though he were a spirit,--and the Cardinal possessed by some strange emotion that gave swiftness to his movements and strength to his will, followed. They met scarcely a soul. One or two forlorn wayfarers crossed their path--a girl in rags,--then a man half-drunk and reeling foolishly from side to side. Manuel paused, looking at them.

"Poor sad souls!" he said. "If we could see all the history of their lives we should pity them and not condemn!"

"Who is it that condemns?" murmured Bonpre gently.

"No one save Man!" responded Manuel. "God condemns nothing--because in everything there is a portion of Himself. And when man presumes to condemn and persecute his fellow-men, he is guilty of likewise condemning and persecuting his Maker, and outraging that Maker in his own perverted soul!"

The boy's voice rang out solemn and clear,--and the heavy fog drifting densely through the street, seemed to the Cardinal's keenly awakened and perturbed senses as though it brightened into a golden vapour round that childish figure, and illumined it with a radiation of concealed light. But having thus spoken, Manuel turned and went on once more,--and faithfully, in a mental ravishment which to himself was inexplicable, the venerable Felix followed. And presently they came to the plain and uncomely wooden edifice where Aubrey Leigh and his bride had plighted their vows that morning. The door was open--Aubrey would always have it so, lest any poor suffering creature might need a moment's rest, and resting thankfully, might see the Cross and perchance find help in prayer.

"Do you remember," said Manuel then, "when you found me outside the great Cathedral, how the doors were barred against me? This door is always open!"

He entered the building, and the Cardinal followed, wondering and deeply agitated. It should have been dark within, but instead of darkness, a soft light pervaded it from end to end, a warm and delicate radiance, coloured with a rose glory as of sunset--and Bonpre seeing this stopped, seized with a sudden fear. He looked about him--on either side the huge unadorned barn-like place was empty,--he and Manuel stood alone together as it were in the cold vast void. Before them towered the Cross on its raised platform, and below that Cross was the sloping footway leading to it, where lay many of the buds and leaves and blossoms of Sylvie's bridal flowers given to her by the poor, and yet--in this empty desolate shed there was a sense of warmth and consolation, and the light that illumined it was as the light of Heaven! Trembling in every limb, the Cardinal turned to his companion--words were on his lips, but they faltered and refused to be spoken aloud. And Manuel gently touching him said--

"Follow me!"

Straight up through the centre of this place hallowed by the prayers of the poor and the broken-hearted, the light child-figure moved, the old man following,--till at the footway leading to the Cross he paused.

"Here will we pray together!" he said,--and as he spoke a smile lighted his eyes and rested on his lips--a smile which gave his fair face the aspect of a rapt angel of wisdom and beauty. "Here will we ask the Father which is in Heaven--the Father of all worlds--whether we shall part now one from the other, or still remain--together!"

As he spoke a rush of music filled the air,--and the Cardinal sank feebly on his knees, overcome by a great wave of awe and terror which engulfed his soul--for it was the same divine, far-reaching, penetrative music which had once before enthralled his ears in the Cathedral at Rouen. Kneeling he clasped his worn hands, and in all the dizziness and confusion of his brain, raised his eyes for help to the great Cross, bare of all beauty, save for the flowers of Sylvie's strange bridal that lay at its foot. And as he looked he saw a marvellous Vision!--a Dream of Angels standing on either side of that symbol of salvation!--of angels tall and white and beautiful, whose towering pinions glowed with the radiant light of a thousand mornings! Amazed and awe-stricken at this great sight, he uttered a faint cry and turned to his child companion.

"Manuel!"

"I am here," answered the clear young voice. "Be not afraid!"

And now the music of the unseen choir of sound seemed to grow deeper and fuller and grander,--and Felix Bonpre, caught up, as it were, out of all earthly surroundings, and only made conscious of the growing ascendency of Spirit over Matter, saw the bare building around him beginning to wondrously change its aspect. Slowly, as though a wind should bend straight trees into an arching round, the plain walls took on themselves a form of perfect architectural beauty,--like swaying stems of flowers or intertwisted branches, the lines formed symmetrically, and through the shadowy sculptured semblance came the gleam of "a light that never was on sea or land,"--the dazzling light of thousands of shining wings!--of thousands of lustrous watchful eyes!--of thousands of dazzling faces, that shone like stars or were fair as flowers! The Vision grew more and more beautiful--more and more full of light--and through veils of golden vapour, great branching lilies seemed to grow and blossom out, filling the air with perfume, and in their flowering beauty perfected the airy semblance of this wondrous Place of Prayer built by spiritual hands--and like a far-off echo of sweetness falling from unseen heights there came a musical whisper of the chorus sung by the poor--

"All God s angels will say, 'Well done!' Whenever thy mortal race is run. White and forgiven, Thou'lt enter heaven, And pass, unchallenged, the Golden Gate, Where welcoming spirits watch and wait To hail thy coming with sweet accord To the Holy City of God the Lord!"

A convulsive trembling seized the Cardinal's mortal frame--but the soul within him was strong and invincible. With hands outstretched he turned to Manuel,--and lo!--the boy was moving away from him--moving slowly but resolutely up towards the Cross! Breathless, speechless, the aged Felix watched him with straining uplifted eyes,--and as he watched, saw his garments grow white and glistening, and a great light began to shine about him--till reaching the foot of the Cross He turned,--and then--He was no more a child! All the glory of the "Vision Beautiful" shone full upon the dying body and escaping soul of Christ's faithful servant!--the Divine Head crowned with thorns!--the Divine arms stretched out against the beams of the great Cross!--the Divine look of love and welcome!--and with a loud cry of ecstasy Felix Bonpre extended his trembling hands.

"Master! Master!" he murmured. "Did not my heart burn within me when Thou didst talk with me by the way!"

Yearning towards that Mystic Glory he clasped his hands, and in the splendour of the dream, and through the pulsations of the solemn music he heard a Voice--the Voice of his child companion Manuel, but a Voice grown full of Divine authority while yet possessing all human tenderness.

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"

And at that Voice--and in the inexplicable beauty of that Look of Love, Felix Bonpre, "Prince of the Roman Church," whose faithfulness Rome called in question, gave up his mortal life,--and with a trembling sigh of death and delight intermingled, fell face forward at the foot of the Cross, where the radiance of his Master's Presence shone like the sun in heaven! And as he passed from death to life, the Vision faded--the light grew dim,--the arches of the heavenly temple not made with hands melted away and rolled up like clouds of the night dispersing into space--the last dazzling Angel face, the last branch of Heavenly flowers--vanished--and the music of the spheres died into silence. And when the morning sun shone through the narrow windows of that Place of Prayer dedicated only to the poor, its wintry beams encircled the peaceful form of the Dead Cardinal with a pale halo of gold,--and when they came and found him there and turned his face to the light--it was as the face of a glorified saint, whom God had greatly loved!

. . . . . . . . . .

And of the "Cardinal's foundling"--what of Him? Many wondered and sought to trace Him, but no one ever heard where He had gone. Now,--when the Cardinal himself has been laid to rest in the shadow of his own Cathedral spires--and the roses which he loved so well are growing into a crimson and white canopy over his quiet grave, there are those who wonder who that lonely child wanderer was,--and whether He ever will return? Some say He has never disappeared,--but that in some form or manifestation of wisdom, He is ever with as, watching to see whether His work is well or ill done,--whether His flocks are fed, or led astray to be devoured by wolves--whether His straight and simple commands are fulfilled or disobeyed. And the days grow dark and threatening--and life is more and more beset with difficulty and disaster--and the world is moving more and more swiftly on to its predestined end--and the Churches are as stagnant pools, from whence Death is far more often born than Life.

And may we not ask ourselves often in these days the question,--

"When the Son of Man cometh, think ye He shall find faith on earth?"

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Appendix

Relics of Paganism in Christianity as Approved by English Bishops.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, on being questioned as to certain Roman observances carried on at St. Bartholomew's, Dover, admitted "There may be irregularities," but added "they do not appear to be of any importance." One of these "unimportant irregularities" was the introduction of the Confessional.

The Archbishop of York considers the use of incense, which is a relic of paganism, "a most beautiful and significant symbol of Divine Service"--and though the services at Christ Church, Doncaster, are known to be but a very slightly modified form of the Romish ritual, His Grace has not seen fit to interfere. The parish church of Hensall-cum-Heck, in the Archbishop's diocese, is entirely Roman Catholic, and the Vicar, Mr. E. H. Bryan, might from his practices, be a priest of Rome endeavouring by secret methods to "convert" his parish to the Holy See.

The Bishop of London sanctions the use of incense and permits children's Masses and hymns to the Virgin.

The Bishop of Chester advises the Rev. W. C. Reid, Vicar of Coppenhall, to use incense preceding the service of Holy Communion.

The Bishop of Chichester ignores the fact that at St. Bartholomew's, Brighton, seven hundred confessions were heard before Christmas, 1898, and that ten thousand were heard in that parish last year.

The Bishop of Lincoln preached at "High Mass" at St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, on January 7, 1899. The only difference in the service on this occasion from that of the Roman Church was the use of the English language instead of Latin.

The Bishop of Oxford, on being appealed to by parishioners on January 11, 1900, attending at the Church of St. John, Cowley, Oxford, and asked to suppress the Romish practices carried on there, which were totally out of keeping with the simplicity of true Christian worship, gave them no redress.

The Bishop of St. Aibans, charged in the House of Lords with favouring practices not lawful in the Church of England, declined to answer. On this point the Daily Telegraph wrote--"Does the Bishop of St. Albans understand that he is responsible to the State as well as to his own conscience? Has he any inkling of the notorious fact that the proper administration of a diocese is not a private or a personal matter, but an onerous public task, for which he is rightly held accountable?"

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