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diff --git a/old/mchri10.txt b/old/mchri10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e324a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mchri10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24726 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Master-Christian +by Marie Corelli +(#4 in our series by Marie Corelli) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + +Karol Pietrzak, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +THE MASTER-CHRISTIAN + +By MARIE CORELLI + +AUTHOR OF + +"Thelma," "Ardath," "Innocent," "The Treasure of Heaven," etc. + + + + +TO ALL THOSE CHURCHES WHO QUARREL IN THE NAME OF CHRIST + +The Master-Christian. + +I. + +All the bells were ringing the Angelus. The sun was sinking;--and +from the many quaint and beautiful grey towers which crown the +ancient city of Rouen, the sacred chime pealed forth melodiously, +floating with sweet and variable tone far up into the warm autumnal +air. Market women returning to their cottage homes after a long +day's chaffering disposal of their fruit, vegetable, and flower- +wares in the town, paused in their slow trudge along the dusty road +and crossed themselves devoutly,--a bargeman, lazily gliding down +the river on his flat unwieldly craft, took his pipe from his mouth, +lifted his cap mechanically, and muttered more from habit than +reflection--"Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu, priez pour nous!"--and some +children running out of school, came to a sudden standstill, +listening and glancing at each other, as though silently questioning +whether they should say the old church-formula among themselves or +no? Whether, for example, it might not be more foolish than wise to +repeat it? Yes;--even though there was a rumour that the Cardinal- +Archbishop of a certain small, half-forgotten, but once +historically-famed Cathedral town of France had come to visit Rouen +that day,--a Cardinal-Archbishop reputed to be so pure of heart and +simple in nature, that the people of his far-off and limited diocese +regarded him almost as a saint,--would it be right or reasonable for +them, as the secularly educated children of modern Progress, to +murmur an "Angelus Domini," while the bells rang? It was a doubtful +point;--for the school they attended was a Government one, and +prayers were neither taught nor encouraged there, France having for +a time put God out of her national institutions. Nevertheless, the +glory of that banished Creator shone in the deepening glow of the +splendid heavens,--and--from the silver windings of the Seine which, +turning crimson in the light, looped and garlanded the time-honoured +old city as with festal knots of rosy ribbon, up to the trembling +tops of the tall poplar trees fringing the river banks,--the warm +radiance palpitated with a thousand ethereal hues of soft and +changeful colour, transfusing all visible things into the misty +semblance of some divine dwelling of dreams. Ding-dong--ding dong! +The last echo of the last bell died away upon the air--the last +words enunciated by devout priests in their cloistered seclusion +were said--"In hora mortis nostrae! Amen!"--the market women went on +their slow way homeward,--the children scampered off in different +directions, easily forgetful of the Old-World petition they had +thought of, yet left unuttered,--the bargeman and his barge slipped +quietly away together down the windings of the river out of sight;-- +the silence following the clangour of the chimes was deep and +impressive--and the great Sun had all the heaven to himself as he +went down. Through the beautiful rose-window of the Cathedral of +Notre Dame, he flashed his parting rays, weaving bright patterns of +ruby, gold and amethyst on the worn pavement of the ancient pile +which enshrines the tomb of Richard the Lion-Hearted, as also that +of Henry the Second, husband to Catherine de Medicis and lover of +the brilliant Diane de Poitiers,--and one broad beam fell purpling +aslant into the curved and fretted choir-chapel especially dedicated +to the Virgin, there lighting up with a warm glow the famous +alabaster tomb known as "Le Mourant" or "The Dying One." A strange +and awesome piece of sculpture truly, is this same "Mourant"!-- +showing, as it does with deft and almost appalling exactitude, the +last convulsion of a strong man's body gripped in the death-agony. +No delicate delineator of shams and conventions was the artist of +olden days whose ruthless chisel shaped these stretched sinews, +starting veins, and swollen eyelids half-closed over the tired +eyes!--he must have been a sculptor of truth,--truth downright and +relentless,--truth divested of all graceful coverings, and nude as +the "Dying One" thus realistically portrayed. Ugly truth too,-- +unpleasant to the sight of the worldly and pleasure-loving tribe who +do not care to be reminded of the common fact that they all, and we +all, must die. Yet the late sunshine flowed very softly on and over +the ghastly white, semi-transparent form, outlining it with as much +tender glory as the gracious figure of Mary Virgin herself, bending +with outstretched hands from a grey niche, fine as a cobweb of old +lace on which a few dim jewels are sewn. Very beautiful, calm and +restful at this hour was "Our Lady's Chapel," with its high, dark +intertwisting arches, mutilated statues, and ancient tattered +battle-banners hanging from the black roof and swaying gently with +every little breath of wind. The air, perfumed with incense-odours, +seemed weighted with the memory of prayers and devotional silences,- +-and in the midst of it all, surrounded by the defaced and crumbling +emblems of life and death, and the equally decaying symbols of +immortality, with the splendours of the sinking sun shedding roseate +haloes about him, walked one for whom eternal truths outweighed all +temporal seemings,--Cardinal Felix Bonpre, known favourably, and +sometimes alluded to jestingly at the Vatican, as "Our good Saint +Felix." Tall and severely thin, with fine worn features of ascetic +and spiritual delicacy, he had the indefinably removed air of a +scholar and thinker, whose life was not, and never could be in +accordance with the latter-day customs of the world; the mild blue +eyes, clear and steadfast, most eloquently suggested "the peace of +God that passeth all understanding";--and the sensitive intellectual +lines of the mouth and chin, which indicated strength and determined +will, at the same time declared that both strength and will were +constantly employed in the doing of good and the avoidance of evil. +No dark furrows of hesitation, cowardice, cunning, meanness or +weakness marred the expressive dignity and openness of the +Cardinal's countenance,--the very poise of his straight spare figure +and the manner in which he moved, silently asserted that inward +grace of spirit without which there is no true grace of body,--and +as he paused in his slow pacing to and fro to gaze half-wistfully, +half-mournfully upon the almost ghastly artistic achievement of "Le +Mourant" he sighed, and his lips moved as if in prayer. For the +brief, pitiful history of human life is told in that antique and +richly-wrought alabaster,--its beginning, its ambition, and its end. +At the summit of the shrine, an exquisite bas-relief shows first of +all the infant clinging to its mother's breast,--a stage lower down +is seen the boy in the eager flush of youth, speeding an arrow to +its mark from the bent bow,--then, on a still larger, bolder scale +of design is depicted the proud man in the zenith of his career, a +noble knight riding forth to battle and to victory, armed cap-a-pie, +his war-steed richly caparisoned, his lance in rest,--and finally, +on the sarcophagus itself is stretched his nude and helpless form, +with hands clenched in the last gasping struggle for breath, and +every muscle strained and fighting against the pangs of dissolution. + +"But," said the Cardinal half aloud, with the gentle dawning of a +tender smile brightening the fine firm curve of his lips,--"it is +not the end! The end here, no doubt;--but the beginning--THERE!" + +He raised his eyes devoutly, and instinctively touched the silver +crucifix hanging by its purple ribbon at his breast. The orange-red +glow of the sun encompassed him with fiery rings, as though it would +fain consume his thin, black-garmented form after the fashion in +which flames consumed the martyrs of old,--the worn figures of +mediaeval saints in their half-broken niches stared down upon him +stonily, as though they would have said,--"So we thought,--even we!- +-and for our thoughts and for our creed we suffered willingly,--yet +lo, we have come upon an age of the world in which the people know +us not,--or knowing, laugh us all to scorn." + +But Cardinal Bonpre being only conscious of a perfect faith, +discovered no hints of injustice or despair in the mutilated shapes +of the Evangelists surrounding him,--they were the followers of +Christ,--and being such, they were bound to rejoice in the tortures +which made their glory. It was only the unhappy souls who suffered +not for Christ at all, whom he considered were truly to be +compassionated. + +"And if," he murmured as he moved on--"this knight of former days, +who is now known to us chiefly, alas! as 'Le Mourant', was a +faithful servant of our Blessed Lord, why then it is as well with +him as with any of the holy martyrs. May his soul rest in peace!" + +Stopping an instant at the next sculptural wonder in his way--the +elaborately designed tomb of Cardinal Amboise, concerning the +eternal fate of which "brother in Christ" the good Felix had no +scruples or fears whatever, he stepped softly down from the choir- +chapel where he had been wandering to and fro for some time in +solitary musings, and went towards the great central nave. It was +quite empty,--not even a weary silk-weaver, escaped from one of the +ever-working looms of the city, had crept in to tell her beads. +Broad, vacant, vast, and suggestive of a sublime desolation, the +grand length and width of the Latin Cross which shapes the holy +precincts, stretched into vague distance, one or two lamps were +burning dimly at little shrines set in misty dark recesses,--a few +votive candles, some lit, some smouldered out, leaned against each +other crookedly in their ricketty brass stand, fronting a battered +statue of the Virgin. The Angelus had ceased ringing some ten +minutes since,--and now one solemn bell, swinging high up in the +Cathedral towers, tolled forth the hour of six, slowly and with a +strong pulsating sound which seemed to shake the building down to +its very vaults and deep foundations. As the last stroke shivered +and thundered through the air, a strain of music, commencing softly, +then swelling into fuller melody, came floating from aloft, +following the great bell's vibration. Half way down the nave, just +as he was advancing slowly towards the door of egress, this music +overtook the Cardinal like an arresting angel, bringing him to a +sudden pause. + +"The organist practises late," he said aloud, as though speaking to +some invisible companion, and then was silent, listening. Round him +and above him surged the flood of rich and dulcet harmony,--the +sunset light through the blue and red stained-glass windows grew +paler and paler--the towering arches which sprang, as it were, from +slender stem-like side-columns up to full-flowering boughs of Gothic +ornamentation, crossing and re-crossing above the great High Altar, +melted into a black dimness,--and then--all at once, without any +apparent cause, a strange, vague suggestion of something +supernatural and unseen began suddenly to oppress the mind of the +venerable prelate with a curious sense of mingled awe and fear. +Trembling a little, he knew not why, he softly drew a chair from one +of the shadowy corners, where all such seats were piled away out of +sight so that they might not disfigure the broad and open beauty of +the nave, and, sitting down, he covered his eyes with one hand and +strove to rouse himself from the odd, half-fainting sensation which +possessed him. How glorious now was the music that poured like a +torrent from the hidden organ-loft! How full of searching and +potential proclamation!--the proclamation of an eternal, unguessed +mystery, for which no merely human speech might ever find fit +utterance! Some divine declaration of God's absolute omnipresence,-- +or of Heaven's sure nearness,--touched the heart of Felix Bonpre, as +he sat like an enchanted dreamer among the tender interweavings of +solemn and soothing sound;--carried out of himself and beyond his +own existence, he could neither pray nor think, till, all at once, +upon the peaceful and devout silence of his soul, some very old, +very familiar words struck sharply as though they were quite new,-- +as though they were invested suddenly with strange and startling +significance-- + +"When the son of Man cometh, think ye He shall find faith on earth?" + +Slowly he withdrew his hand from his eyes and gazed about him, half- +startled, half-appalled. Had anyone spoken these words?--or had they +risen of themselves as it were in letters of fire out of the sea of +music that was heaving and breaking tumultuously about him? + +"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMETH, THINK YE HE SHALL FIND FAITH ON EARTH?" + +The question seemed to be whispered in his ears with a thrilling +intensity of meaning; and moved by a sudden introspective and +retrospective repentance, the gentle old man began mentally to grope +his way back over the past years of his life, and to ask himself +whether in very truth that life had been well or ill spent? Viewed +by his own inner contemplative vision, Cardinal Felix Bonpre saw in +himself nothing but wilful sin and total unworthiness;--but in the +eyes of those he had served and assisted, he was a blameless +priest,--a man beloved of God, and almost visibly encompassed by the +guardianship of angels. He had been singularly happy in his election +to a diocese which, though it had always had an Archbishop for its +spiritual head, boasted scarce as many inhabitants as a prosperous +English village,--and the result of this was that he had lived +altogether away from the modern world, passing most of his time in +reading and study,--while for relaxation, he permitted himself only +the innocent delight of growing the finest roses in his +neighbourhood. But he had pious scruples even about this rose- +growing fancy of his,--he had a lurking distrust of himself in it, +as to whether it was not a purely selfish pleasure,--and therefore, +to somewhat smooth the circumstance, he never kept any of the choice +blooms for his own gratification, but gave the best of them with a +trust, as simple as it was beautiful, to the altar of the Virgin, +sending all the rest to the bedsides of the sick and sorrowful, or +to the coffins of the dead. It never once occurred to him that the +"Cardinal's roses," as they were called, were looked upon by the +poor people who received them as miraculous flowers long after they +had withered,--that special virtues were assigned to them--and that +dying lips kissed their fragrant petals with almost as much devotion +as the holy crucifix, because it was instinctively believed that +they contained a mystic blessing. He knew nothing of all this;--he +was too painfully conscious of his own shortcomings,--and of late +years, feeling himself growing old, and realising that every day +brought him nearer to that verge which all must cross in passing +from Time into Eternity, he had been sorely troubled in mind. He was +wise with the wisdom which comes of deep reading, lonely meditation, +and fervent study,--he had instructed himself in the modern schools +of thought as well as the ancient,--and though his own soul was +steadfastly set upon the faith he followed, he was compassionately +aware of a strange and growing confusion in the world,--a +combination of the elements of evil, which threatened, or seemed to +threaten, some terrible and imminent disaster. This sorrowful +foreboding had for a long time preyed upon him, physically as well +as mentally; always thin, he had grown thinner and more careworn, +till at the beginning of the year his health had threatened to break +down altogether. Whereupon those who loved him, growing alarmed, +summoned a physician, who, (with that sage experience of doctors to +whom thought-trouble is an inexplicable and incurable complication) +at once pronounced change of air to be absolutely necessary. +Cardinal Bonpre must travel, he said, and seek rest and +minddistraction in the contemplation of new and varying scenes. With +smiling and resigned patience the Cardinal obeyed not so much the +command of his medical attendant, as the anxious desire of his +people,--and thereupon departed from his own Cathedral-town on a +tour of several months, during which time he inwardly resolved to +try and probe for himself the truth of how the world was going,-- +whether on the downward road to destruction and death, or up the +high ascents of progress and life. He went alone and unattended,--he +had arranged to meet his niece in Paris and accompany her to her +father's house in Rome,--and he was on his way to Paris now. But he +had purposely made a long and round-about journey through France +with the intention of studying the religious condition of the +people; and by the time he reached Rouen, the old sickness at his +heart had rather increased than diminished. The confusion and the +trouble of the world were not mere hearsay,--they in very truth +existed. And what seemed to the Cardinal to be the chief cause of +the general bewilderment of things, was the growing lack of faith in +God and a Hereafter. How came this lack of faith into the Christian +world? Sorrowfully he considered the question,--and persistently the +same answer always asserted itself--that the blame rested +principally with the Church itself, and its teachers and preachers, +and not only in one, but in all forms of Creed. + +"We have erred in some vital manner," mused the Cardinal, with a +feeling of strange personal contrition, as though he were more to +blame than any of his compeers--"We have failed to follow the +Master's teaching in its true perfection. We have planted in +ourselves a seed of corruption, and we have permitted--nay, some of +us have encouraged--its poisonous growth, till it now threatens to +contaminate the whole field of labour." + +And he thought of the words of St. John the Divine to the Church of +Sardis-- + +"_I_ KNOW THY WORKS,--THAT THOU HAST A NAME THAT THOU LIVEST AND ART +DEAD. + +"BE WATCHFUL, AND STRENGTHEN THE THINGS THAT REMAIN, THAT ARE READY +TO DIE,--FOR _I_ HAVE NOT FOUND THY WORKS PERFECT BEFORE GOD. +REMEMBER THEREFORE HOW THOU HAST RECEIVED AND HEARD, AND HOLD FAST +AND REPENT. + +"IF, THEREFORE, THOU SHALT NOT WATCH, _I_ WILL COME ON THEE AS A +THIEF, AND THOU SHALL NOT KNOW WHAT HOUR I WILL COME UPON THEE. + +"THOU HAST A FEW NAMES EVEN IN SARDIS, WHICH HAVE NOT DEFILED THEIR +GARMENTS, AND THEY SHALL WALK WITH ME IN WHITE, FOR THEY ARE WORTHY. + +"HE THAT OVERCOMETH, THE SAME SHALL BE CLOTHED IN WHITE RAIMENT; AND +I WILL NOT BLOT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE, BUT I WILL CONFESS +HIS NAME BEFORE MY FATHER AND BEFORE HIS ANGELS." + +Dimmer and duskier grew the long shadows now gathering in the +Cathedral,--two of the twinkling candles near the Virgin's statue +suddenly sank in their sockets with a spluttering noise and guttered +out,--the solemn music of the organ continued, growing softer and +softer as it sounded, till it crept through the vastness of the +building like a light breeze wafted from the sea, bringing with it +suggestions of far flower-islands in the tropics, golden shores +kissed by languid foam, and sweet-throated birds singing, and still +the Cardinal sat thinking of griefs and cares and inexplicable human +perplexities, which were not his own, but which seemed to burden the +greater portion of the world. He drew no comparisons,--he never +considered that, as absolutely as day is day and night is night, his +own beautiful and placid life, lived in the faith of God and Christ, +was tortured by no such storm-tossed tribulation as that which +affected the lives of many others,--and that the old trite saying, +almost despised because so commonplace, namely that "goodness makes +happiness," is as eternally true as that the sun shines in heaven, +and that it is only evil which creates misery. To think of himself +in the matter never occurred to him; had he for a moment entertained +the merest glimmering of an idea that he was better, and therefore +happier than most men, he would, in his own opinion, have been +guilty of unpardonable arrogance and presumption. What he saw, and +what sincerely and unselfishly grieved him, was that the people of +this present age were unhappy--discontented--restless,--that +something of the simple joy of existence had gone out of the world,- +-that even the brilliant discoveries of science and the so-called +"progress" of men only served apparently to increase their +discontent,--that when they were overcome by sorrow, sickness, or +death, they had little philosophy and less faith to support them,-- +and that except in the few cases where Christ was still believed in, +they gave way altogether and broke down like frightened children in +a storm. + +"Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis!" A few names! But how few! +Universal weariness of life seemed a disease of the time,--there was +nothing that seemed to satisfy--even the newest and most miraculous +results of scientific research and knowledge ceased to be +interesting after the first week of their triumphant public +demonstration and acceptance. + +"The world must be growing old," said the Cardinal sadly,--"It must +be losing its vigour,--it is too tired to lift itself to the light; +too weary and worn out to pray. Perhaps the end of all present +things is at hand,--perhaps it is the beginning of the promised 'new +heavens and new earth.'" + +Just then the organ-music ceased abruptly, and the Cardinal, waking +from his thoughts as from a trance, rose up slowly and stood for a +moment facing the great High Altar, which at that distance could +only just be discerned among its darkening surroundings by the +little flickering flame of the suspended lamp burning dimly before +the holy Tabernacle, wherein was locked with golden key behind snowy +doors of spotless marble, the sacred and mysterious Host. + +"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMETH, THINK YE HE SHALL FIND FAITH ON EARTH?" + +Again that searching question repeated itself in his mind so +distinctly as to be echoed in his ears,--the deep silence around him +seemed waiting expectantly for some reply, and moved by a strange +spirit of exaltation within him, he answered half aloud-- + +"Yes! Surely He will find faith,--if only in the few! There are 'a +few names, even in Sardis!' In the sorrowful and meek,--in the poor +and patient and downtrodden martyrs of humanity, He will find +faith;--in the very people He died to save He will discover that +most precious and inspiring of all virtues! But in the so-called +wise and brilliant favourites of the world He will not find it,--in +the teachers of the people He will search for it in vain. By the +writers of many books He shall find Himself scorned and rejected,-- +in the cheap and spurious philosophy of modern egotists He will see +His doctrines mocked at and denounced as futile. Few men there are +in these days who would deny themselves for His sake, or sacrifice a +personal passion for the purer honouring of His name. Inasmuch as +the pride of great learning breeds arrogance, so the more the wonder +of God's work is displayed to us, the more are we dazzled and +confounded; and so in our blindness we turn from the worship of the +Creator to that of His creation, forgetting that all the visible +universe is but the outcome or expression of the hidden Divine +Intelligence behind it. What of the marvels of the age!--the results +of science!--the strange psychic prescience and knowledge of things +more miraculous yet to be!--these are but hints and warnings of the +approach of God himself--'coming in a cloud with power and great +glory'!" + +As he thus spoke, he raised his hand out of old habit acquired in +preaching, and a ray from the after-glow of the sunken sun lit up +the jewel in the apostolic ring he wore, warming its pale green +lustre to a dim violet spark as of living fire. His fine features +were for a moment warm with fervour and feeling,--then,--suddenly, +he thought of the great world outside all creeds,--of the millions +and millions of human beings who neither know nor accept Christ,--of +the Oriental races with their intricate and beautiful systems of +philosophy,--of savage tribes, conquered and unconquered,--of fierce +yet brave Turkish warriors who are, with all their faults, at any +rate true to the faith they profess--and lastly--more than all--of +the thousands upon thousands of Christians in Christian lands, who +no more believe in Him whose holy name they take in vain, than in +any Mumbo-Jumbo fetish of untaught barbarians. Were these to perish +utterly? Had THEY no immortal souls to save? Had the churches been +at work for eighteen hundred years and more, to bring about no +better results than this,--namely that there were only "A FEW NAMES +IN SARDIS"? If so, were not the churches criminally to blame? Yea, +even holy Mother-Church, whose foundation rested on the memory of +the Lying Apostle? Rapidly, and as if suggested by some tormenting +devil, these thoughts possessed the Cardinal's brain, burning into +it and teasing and agonising the tender fibres of his conscience and +his soul. Could God, the great loving Creator of countless +universes, be so cruel as to wantonly destroy millions of helpless +creatures in one small planet, because through ignorance or want of +proper teaching they had failed to find Christ?--was it possible +that he could only extend his mercy and forgiveness to the "few +names in Sardis"? + +"Yet our world is but a pin's point in the eternal immensities," +argued the Cardinal almost wistfully--"Only a few can expect to be +saved." + +Nevertheless, this reasoning did not satisfy him. Again, what of +these millions? Were they to be forever lost? Then why so much waste +of life? Waste of life! There is no such thing as waste of life-- +this much modern science the venerable Felix knew. Nothing can be +wasted,--not a breath, not a scene, not a sound. All is treasured up +in Nature's store-house and can be eternally reproduced at Nature's +will. Then what was to become of the myriads of human beings and +immortal souls whom the Church had failed to rescue? THE CHURCH HAD +FAILED! Why had it failed? Whose the fault?--whose the weakness?-- +for fault and weakness were existent somewhere. + +"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMETH, THINK YE HE SHALL FIND FAITH ON EARTH?" + +"No!" whispered the Cardinal, suddenly forced, as it were in his own +despite, to contradict his former assertion--"No!" He paused, and +mechanically making his way towards the door of the Cathedral, he +dipped his fingers into the holy water that glistened dimly in its +marble basin near the black oak portal, and made the sign of the +cross on brow and breast;--"He will not find faith where faith +should be pre-eminent. It must be openly confessed--repentingly +admitted,--He will NOT find faith even in the Church He founded,--I +say it to our shame!" + +His head drooped, as though his own words had wounded him, and with +an air of deep dejection he slowly passed out. The huge iron-bound +door swung noiselessly to and fro behind him,--the grave-toned bell +in the tower struck seven. Outside, a tender twilight mellowed the +atmosphere and gave brightness to approaching evening; inside, the +long shadows, gathering heavily in the aisles and richly sculptured +hollows of the side-chapels, brought night before its time. The last +votive candle at the Virgin's shrine flickered down and disappeared +like a firefly in dense blackness,--the last echo of the bell died +in a tremulous vibration up among the high-springing roof-arches, +and away into the solemn corners where the nameless dead reposed,-- +the last impression of life and feeling vanished with the retreating +figure of the Cardinal--and the great Cathedral, the Sanctuary and +House of God, took upon itself the semblance of a funeral vault,--a +dark, Void, wherein but one red star, the lamp before the Altar, +burned. + + + + +II. + +Lovely to a poet or an artist's eye is the unevenly-built and +picturesque square of Rouen in which the Cathedral stands,--lovely, +and suggestive of historical romance in all its remote corners, its +oddly-shaped houses, its by-ways and crooked little flights of steps +leading to nowhere, its gables and slanting roofs, and its utter +absence of all structural proportion. A shrine here, a broken statue +there,--a half-obliterated coat-of-arms over an old gateway,--a +rusty sconce fitted fast into the wall to support a lantern no +longer needed in these days of gas and electricity,--an ancient +fountain overgrown with weed, or a projecting vessel of stone for +holy water, in which small birds bathe and disport themselves after +a shower of rain,--those are but a few of the curious fragments of a +past time which make the old place interesting to the student, and +more than fascinating to the thinker and dreamer. The wonderful +"Hotel Bourgtheroulde," dating from the time of Francis the First, +and bearing on its sculptured walls the story of the Field of the +Cloth of Gold, in company with the strangely-contrasting +"Allegories", from Petrarch's "Triumphs", is enough in itself to +keep the mind engrossed with fanciful musings for an hour. How did +Petrarch and the Field of the Cloth of Gold come together in the +brain of the sculptor who long ago worked at these ancient bas- +reliefs? One wonders, but the wonder is in vain,--there is no +explanation;--and the "Bourgtheroulde" remains a pleasing and +fantastic architectural mystery. Close by, through the quaint old +streets of the Epicerie and "Gross Horloge", walked no doubt in +their young days the brothers Corneille, before they evolved from +their meditative souls the sombre and heavy genius of French +tragedy,--and not very far away, up one of those little shadowy +winding streets and out at the corner, stands the restored house of +Diane de Poitiers, so sentient and alive in its very look that one +almost expects to see at the quaint windows the beautiful wicked +face of the woman who swayed the humours of a king by her smile or +her frown. + +Cardinal Bonpre, walking past the stately fourteenth-century Gothic +pile of the Palais de Justice, thought half-vaguely of some of these +things,--but they affected him less than they might have done had +his mind not been full of the grand music he had just heard in the +Cathedral, and of the darkness that had slowly gathered there, as +though in solemn commingling with the darkness which had at the same +time settled over his soul. A great oppression weighed upon him;-- +almost he judged himself guilty of mortal sin, for had he not said +aloud and boldly, while facing the High Altar of the Lord, that even +in the Church itself faith was lacking? Yes, he, a Cardinal- +Archbishop, had said this thing; he had as it were proclaimed it on +the silence of the sacred precincts,--and had he not in this, acted +unworthily of his calling? Had he not almost uttered blasphemy? +Grieved and puzzled, the good Felix went on his way, almost +unseeingly, towards the humble inn where he had elected to remain +for the brief period of his visit to Rouen,--an inn where no one +stayed save the very poorest of travellers, this fact being its +chief recommendation in the eyes of the Cardinal. For it must be +conceded, that viewed by our latter-day ideas of personal comfort +and convenience, the worthy prelate had some very old-world and +fantastic notions. One of these notions was a devout feeling that he +should, so far as it was humanly possible, endeavour to obey the +Master whose doctrine he professed to follow. This, it will be +admitted, was a curious idea. Considering the bold and blasphemous +laxity of modern Christian customs, it was surely quite a fanatical +idea. Yet he had his own Church-warrant for such a rule of conduct; +and chief among the Evangelic Counsels writ down for his example was +Voluntary Poverty. Yes!--Voluntary Poverty,--notwithstanding the +countless treasures lying idle and wasted in the Vatican, and the +fat sinecures enjoyed by bishops and archbishops; which things exist +in direct contradiction and disobedience to the command of Christ. +Christ Himself lived on the earth in poverty,--He visited only the +poorest and simplest habitations,--and never did He set His sacred +foot within a palace, save the palace of the High Priest where He +was condemned to die. Much symbolic meaning did Cardinal Felix +discover in this incident,--and often would he muse upon it gravely. + +"The Divine is condemned to die in all palaces," he would say,--"It +is only in the glorious world of Nature, under the sunlit or starlit +expanse of heaven, that the god in us can live; and it was not +without some subtle cause of intended instruction to mankind that +the Saviour always taught His followers in the open air." + +There was what might be called a palace hard by, to which Bonpre had +been invited, and where he would have been welcome to stay as long +as he chose,--the house of the Archbishop of Rouen--a veritable +abode of luxury as compared with the Hotel Poitiers, which was a +dingy little tumble-down building, very old, and wearing a conscious +air of feebleness and decrepitude which was almost apologetic. Its +small windows, set well back in deeply hollowed carved arches had a +lack-lustre gleam, as of very aged eyes under shelving brows,--its +narrow door, without either bolts or bars, hung half-aslant upon +creaking rusty hinges, and was never quite shut either by day or +night,--yet from the porch a trailing mass of "creeping jenny" fell +in a gold-dotted emerald fringe over the head of any way-worn +traveller passing in,--making a brightness in a darkness, and +suggesting something not altogether uncheery in the welcome +provided. They were very humble folk who kept the Hotel Poitiers,-- +the host, Jean Patoux, was a small market-gardener who owned a plot +of land outside Rouen, which he chiefly devoted to the easy growing +of potatoes and celery--his wife had her hands full with the +domestic business of the hotel and the cares of her two children, +Henri and Babette, the most incorrigible imps of mischief that ever +lived in Rouen or out of it. Madame Patoux, large of body, unwieldy +in movement, but clean as a new pin, and with a fat smile of +perpetual contentment on her round visage, professed to be utterly +worn to death by the antics of these children of hers,--but +nevertheless she managed to grow stouter every day with a +persistency and fortitude which denoted the reserved forces of her +nature,--and her cooking, always excellent, never went wrong because +Babette had managed to put her doll in one of the saucepans, or +Henri had essayed to swim a paper boat in the soup. Things went on +somehow; Patoux himself was perfectly satisfied with his small +earnings and position in life--Madame Patoux felt that "le bon Dieu" +was specially engaged in looking after her,--and as long as the +wicked Babette and the wickeder Henri threw themselves wildly into +her arms and clung round her fat neck imploring pardon after any and +every misdeed, and sat for a while "en penitence" in separate +corners reading the "Hours of Mary", they might be as naughty as +they chose over and over again so far as the good-natured mother was +concerned. Just now, however, unusual calm appeared to have settled +on the Patoux household,--an atmosphere of general placidity and +peace prevailed, which had the effect of imparting almost a stately +air to the tumble-down house, and a suggestion of luxury to the +poorly-furnished rooms Madame Patoux herself was conscious of a +mysterious dignity in her surroundings, and moved about on her +various household duties with less bounce and fuss than was her +ordinary custom,--and Henri and Babette sat quiet without being told +to do so, moved apparently by a sudden and inexplicable desire to +study their lessons. All this had been brought about by the advent +of Cardinal Bonpre, who with his kind face, gentle voice and +beneficent manner, had sought and found lodging at the Hotel +Poitiers, notwithstanding Madame Patoux's profuse apologies for the +narrowness and inconvenience of her best rooms. + +"For look you, Monseigneur," she murmured, deferentially, "How +should we have ever expected such an honour as the visit of a holy +Cardinal-Archbishop to our poor little place! There are many new +houses on the Boulevards which could have accommodated Monseigneur +with every comfort,--and that he should condescend to bestow the +blessing of his presence upon us,--ah! it was a special dispensation +of Our Lady which was too amazing and wonderful to be at once +comprehended!" + +Thus Madame Patoux, with breathless pauses between her sentences, +and many profound curtseyings; but the good Cardinal waived aside +her excuses and protestations, and calling her "My daughter", signed +the cross on her brow with paternal gentleness, assuring her that he +would give her as little trouble as any other casual visitor. + +"Trouble!--Ah, heaven!--could anything be a trouble for +Monseigneur!" and Madame Patoux, moved to tears by the quiet +contentment with which the Cardinal took possession of the two bare, +common rooms which were the best she could place at his disposal, +hurried away, and hustling Henri and Babette like two little roly- +poly balls before her into the kitchen, she told them with much +emphasis that there was a saint in the house,--a saint fit to be the +holy companion of any of those who had their niches up in the +Cathedral near the great rose-window,--and that if they were good +children they would very likely see an angel coming down from heaven +to visit him. Babette put her finger in her mouth and looked +incredulous. She had a vague belief in angels,--but Henri, with the +cheap cynicism of the modern French lad was anything but sure about +them. + +"Mother," said he, "There's a boy in our school who says there is no +God at all, and that it's no use having priests or Cardinals or +Cathedrals,--it's all rubbish and humbug!" + +"Poor little miserable monster!" exclaimed Madame Patoux, as she +peered into the pot where the soup for the Cardinal's supper was +simmering--"He is arranging himself to become a thief or a murderer, +be sure of that, Henri!--and thou, who art trained in all thy holy +duties by the good Pere Laurent, who teaches thee everything which +the school is not wise enough to teach, ought never to listen to +such wickedness. If there were no God, we should not be alive at +all, thou foolish child!--for it is only our blessed Saviour and the +saints that keep the world going." + +Henri was silent,--Babette looked at him and made a little grimace +of scorn. + +"If the Cardinal is a saint," she said--"he should be able to +perform a miracle. The little Fabien Doucet has been lame for seven +years; we shall bring him to Monseigneur, and he will mend his leg +and make him well. Then we shall believe in saints afterwards." + +Madame Patoux turned her warm red face round from the fire over +which she was bending, and stared at her precocious offspring +aghast. + +"What! You will dare to address yourself to the Cardinal!" she cried +vociferously--"You will dare to trouble him with such foolishness? +Mon Dieu!--is it possible to be so wicked! But listen to me well!-- +If you presume to say one saucy word to Monseigneur, you shall be +punished! What have you to do with the little Fabien Doucet?--the +poor child is sickly and diseased by the will of God." + +"I don't see why it should be God's will to make a boy sickly and +diseased--" began the irrepressible Henri, when his mother cut him +short with a stamp of her foot and a cry of-- + +"Tais-toi! Silence! Wicked boy!--thou wilt kill me with thy naughty +speeches! All this evil comes of the school,--I would thy father had +never been compelled to send thee there!" + +As she said this with a vast amount of heat and energy, Henri, +seized by some occult and inexplicable emotion, burst without +warning into loud and fitful weeping, the sound whereof resembled +the yelling of a tortured savage,--and Babette, petrified at first +by the appalling noise, presently gave way likewise, and shrieked a +wild accompaniment. + +"What ails my children?" said a gentle voice, distinct and clear in +its calm intonation even in the midst of the uproar, and Cardinal +Bonpre, tall and stately, suddenly appeared upon the threshold-- +"What little sorrows are these?" + +Henri's roar ceased abruptly,--Babette's shrill wailing dropped into +awed silence. Both youngsters stared amazed at the venerable Felix, +whose face and figure expressed such composed dignity and sweetness; +and Madame Patoux, nastily and with frequent gasps for breath, +related the history of the skirmish. + +"And what will become of such little devils when they grow older, +the Blessed Virgin only knows!" she groaned--"For even now they are +so suspicious in nature, that they will not believe in their dinner +till they see it!" + +Something like a faint grin widened the mouths of Henri and Babette +at this statement made with so much distressed fervour by their +angry mother,--but the Cardinal did not smile. His face had grown +very pale and grave, almost stern. + +"The children are quite right, my daughter," he said gently,--"I am +no saint! I have performed no miracles. I am a poor sinner,-- +striving to do well, but alas!--for ever striving in vain. The days +of noble living are past,--and we are all too much fallen in the +ways of error to deserve that our Lord should bless the too often +half-hearted and grudging labour of his so-called servants. Come +here, ma mignonne!" he continued, calling Babette, who approached +him with a curious air of half-timid boldness--"Thou art but a very +little girl," he said, laying his thin white hand softly on her +tumbled brown curls--"Nevertheless, I should be a very foolish old +man if I despised thee, or thy thoughts, or thy desire to know the +truth for truth's sake. Therefore to-morrow thou shalt bring me this +afflicted friend of thine, and though I have no divine gifts, I will +do even as the Master commanded,--I will lay my hands on him in +blessing and pray that he may be healed. More than this is not in my +power, my child!--if a miracle is to be worked, it is our dear Lord +only who can work it." + +Gently he murmured his formal benediction,--then, turning away, he +entered his own room and shut the door. Babette, grown strangely +serious, turned to her brother and held out her hand, moved by one +of those erratic impulses which often take sudden possession of +self-willed children. + +"Come into the Cathedral!" she whispered imperatively--"Come and say +an Ave." + +Not a word did the usually glib Henri vouchsafe in answer,--but +clutching his sister's fingers in his own dirty, horny palm, he +trotted meekly beside her out of the house and across the Square +into the silence and darkness of Notre Dame. Their mother watched +their little plump figures disappear with a feeling of mingled +amazement and gratitude,--miracles were surely beginning, she +thought, if a few words from the Cardinal could impress Babette and +Henri with an idea of the necessity of prayer! + +They were not long gone, however;--they came walking back together, +still demurely hand in hand, and settled themselves quietly in a +corner to study their tasks for the next day. Babette's doll, once +attired as a fashionable Parisienne, and now degenerated into a one- +eyed laundress with a rather soiled cap and apron, stuck out its +composite arms in vain from the bench where it sat all askew, +drooping its head forlornly over a dustpan,--and Henri's drum, +wherewith he was wont to wake alarming echoes out of the dreamy and +historical streets of Rouen, lay on its side neglected and +ingloriously silent. And, as before said, peace reigned in the +Patoux household,--even the entrance of Papa Patoux himself, fresh +from his celery beds, and smelling of the earth earthy, created no +particular diversion. He was a very little, very cheery, round man, +was Papa Patoux; he had no ideas at all in his bullet head save that +he judged everything to be very well managed in the Universe, and +that he, considered simply as Patoux, was lucky in his life and +labours,--also that it was an easy thing to grow celery, provided +God's blessing was on the soil. For the rest, he took small care; he +knew that the world wagged in different ways in different climates,- +-he read his half-penny journal daily, and professed to be +interested in the political situation just for the fun of the thing, +but in reality he thought the French Senate a pack of fools, and +wondered what they meant by always talking so much about nothing. He +believed in "La Patrie" to a certain extent,--but he would have very +much objected if "La Patrie" had interfered with his celery. Roughly +sneaking, he understood that France was a nation, and that he was a +Frenchman; and that if any enemies should presume to come into the +country, it would be necessary to take up a musket and fight them +out again, and defend wife, children, and celery-beds till the last +breath was out of his body. Further than this simple and primitive +idea of patriotism he did not go. He never bothered himself about +dissentient shades of opinion, or quarrels among opposing parties. +When he had to send his children to the Government school, the first +thing he asked was whether they would be taught their religion +there. He was told no,--that the Government objected to religious +teaching, as it merely created discussion and was of no assistance +whatever in the material business of life. Patoux scratched his head +over this for a considerable time and ruminated deeply,--finally he +smiled, a dull fat smile. + +"Good!" said he--"I understand now why the Government makes such an +ass of itself now and then! You cannot expect mere men to do their +duty wisely without God on their side. But Pere Laurent will teach +my children their prayers and catechism,--and I dare say Heaven will +arrange the rest." + +And he forthwith dismissed the matter from his mind. His children +attended the Government school daily,--and every Wednesday, +Saturday, and Sunday afternoons Pere Laurent, a kindly, simple- +hearted old priest, took them, with several other little creatures +"educated by the State", and taught them all he knew about the great +France-exiled Creator of the Universe, and of His ceaseless love to +sinful and blasphemous mankind. + +So things went on;--and though Henri and Babette were being crammed +by the national system of instruction, with learning which was +destined to be of very slight use to them in their after careers, +and which made them little cynics before their time, they were still +sustained within bounds by the saving sense of something better than +themselves,--that Something Better which silently declares itself in +the beauty of the skies, the blossoming of the flowers, and the +loveliness of all things wherein man has no part,--and neither of +them was yet transformed into that most fearsome product of modern +days, the child-Atheist, for whom there is no greater God than Self. + +On this particular night when Papa Patoux returned to the bosom of +his family, he, though a dull-witted man generally, did not fail to +note the dove-like spirit of calm that reigned over his entire +household. His wife's fat face was agreeably placid,--the children +were in an orderly mood, and as he sat down to the neatly spread +supper-table, he felt more convinced than ever that things were +exceedingly well managed for him in this best of all possible +worlds. Pausing in the act of conveying a large spoonful of steaming +soup to his mouth he enquired-- + +"And Monseigneur, the Cardinal Bonpre,--has he also been served?" + +Madame Patoux opened her round eyes wide at him. + +"But certainly! Dost thou think, my little cabbage, thou wouldst get +thy food before Monseigneur? That would be strange indeed!" + +Papa Patoux swallowed his ladleful of soup in abashed silence. + +"It was a beautiful day in the fields," he presently observed-- +"There was a good smell in the earth, as if violets were growing,-- +and late in the autumn though it is, there was a skylark yet +singing. It was a very blue heaven, too, as blue as the robe of the +Virgin, with clouds as white as little angels clinging to it." + +Madame nodded. Some people might have thought Papa Patoux inclined +to be poetical,--she did not. Henri and Babette listened. + +"The robe of Our Lady is always blue," said Babette. + +"And the angels' clothes are always white," added Henri. + +Madame Patoux said nothing, but passed a second helping of soup all +round. Papa Patoux smiled blandly on his offspring. + +"Just so," he averred--"Blue and white are the colours of the sky, +my little ones,--and Our Lady and the angels live in the sky!" + +"I wonder where?" muttered Henri with his mouth half full. "The sky +is nothing but miles and miles of air, and in the air there are +millions and millions of planets turning round and round, larger +than our world,--ever so much larger,--and nobody knows which is the +largest of them all!" + +"It is as thou sayest, my son," said Patoux confidently--"Nobody +knows which is the largest of them all, but whichever it may be, +that largest of them all belongs to Our Lady and the angels." + +Henri looked at Babette, but Babette was munching watercress busily, +and did not return his enquiring glances. Papa Patoux, quite +satisfied with his own reasoning, continued his supper in an amiable +state of mind. + +"What didst thou serve to Monseigneur, my little one?" he asked his +wife with a coaxing and caressing air, as though she were some +delicate and dainty sylph of the woodlands, instead of being the +lady of massive proportions which she undoubtedly was,--"Something +of delicacy and fine flavour, doubtless?" + +Madame Patoux shook her head despondingly. + +"He would have nothing of that kind," she replied--"Soup maigre, and +afterwards nothing but bread, dried figs, and apples to finish. Ah, +Heaven! What a supper for a Cardinal-Archbishop! It is enough to +make one weep!" + +Patoux considered the matter solemnly. + +"He is perhaps very poor?" he half queried. + +"Poor, he may be," responded Madame,--"But if he is, it is surely +his own fault,--whoever heard of a poor Cardinal-Archbishop! Such +men can all be rich if they choose." + +"Can they?" asked Henri with sudden vivacious eagerness. "How?" + +But his question was not answered, for just at that moment a loud +knock came at the door of the inn, and a tall broadly built +personage in close canonical attire appeared in the narrow little +passage of entry, attended by another smaller and very much more +insignificant-looking individual. + +Patoux hastily scrambled out of his chair. + +"The Archbishop!" he whispered to his wife--"He himself! Our own +Archbishop!" + +Madame Patoux jumped up, and seizing her children, held one in each +hand as she curtsied up and down. + +Benedicite!" said the new-comer, lightly signing the cross in air +with a sociable smile--"Do not disturb yourselves, my children! You +have with you in this house the eminent Cardinal Bonpre?" + +"Ah, yes, Monseigneur!" replied Madame Patoux--"Only just now he has +finished his little supper. Shall I show Monseigneur to his room?" + +"If you please," returned the Archbishop, still smiling +benevolently--"And permit my secretary to wait with you here till I +return." + +With this, and an introductory wave of his hand in the direction of +the attenuated and sallow-faced personage who had accompanied him, +he graciously permitted Madame Patoux to humbly precede him by a few +steps, and then followed her with a soft, even tread, and a sound as +of rustling silk in his garments, from which a faint odour of some +delicate perfume seemed wafted as he moved. + +Left to entertain the Archbishop's secretary, Jean Patoux was for a +minute or two somewhat embarrassed. Henri and Babette stared at the +stranger with undisguised curiosity, and were apparently not +favourably impressed by his appearance. + +"He has white eyelashes!" whispered Henri. + +"And yellow teeth," responded Babette. + +Meanwhile Patoux, having scratched his bullet-head sufficiently over +the matter, offered his visitor a chair. + +"Sit down, sir," he said curtly. + +The secretary smiled pallidly and took the proffered accommodation. +Patoux again meditated. He was not skilled in the art of polite +conversation, and he found himself singularly at a loss. + +"It would be an objection no doubt, and an irreverance perhaps to +smoke a pipe before you, Monsieur--Monsieur--" + +"Cazeau," finished the secretary with another pallid smile--"Claude +Cazeau, a poor scribe,--at your service! And I beg of you, Monsieur +Jean Patoux, to smoke at your distinguished convenience!" + +There was a faint tone of satire in his voice which struck Papa +Patoux as exceedingly disagreeable, though he could not quite +imagine why he found it so. He slowly reached for his pipe from the +projecting shelf above the chimney, and as slowly proceeded to fill +it with tobacco from a tin cannister close by. + +"I do not think I have ever seen you in the town, Monsieur Cazeau," +he said--"Nor at Mass in the Cathedral either?" + +"No?" responded Cazeau easily, in a half-querying tone--"I do not +much frequent the streets; and I only attend the first early mass on +Sundays. My work for Monseigneur occupies my whole time." + +"Ah!" and Patoux, having stuffed his pipe sufficiently, lit it, and +proceeded to smoke peaceably--"There must be much to do. Many poor +and sick who need money, and clothes, and help in every way,--and to +try and do good, and give comfort to all the unhappy souls in Rouen +is a hard task, even for an Archbishop." + +Cazeau linked his thin hands together with an action of pious +fervour and assented. + +"There is a broken-hearted creature near us," pursued Patoux +leisurely--"We call her Marguerite La Folle;--I have often thought I +would ask Pere Laurent to speak to Monseigneur for her, that she +might be released from the devils that are tearing her. She was a +good girl till a year or two ago,--then some villain got the ruin of +her, and she lost her wits over it. Ah,'tis a sad sight to see her +now--poor Marguerite Valmond!" + +"Ha!" cried Henri suddenly, pointing a grimy finger at Cazeau--"Why +did you jump? Did something hurt you?" + +Cazeau had indeed "jumped," as Henri put it,--that is, he had sprung +up from his chair suddenly and as suddenly sat down again with an +air of impatience and discomfort. He rapidly overcame whatever +emotion moved him, however, and stretched his thin mouth in a would- +be amiable grin at the observant Henri. + +"You are a sharp boy!" he observed condescendingly--"and tall for +your age, no doubt. How old are you?" + +"Eleven," replied Henri--"But that has nothing to do with your +jumping." + +"True," and the secretary wriggled in his chair, pretending to be +much amused--"But my jumping had nothing to do with you either, my +small friend! I had a thought,--a sudden thought,--of a duty +forgotten." + +"Oh, it was a thought, was it?" and Henri looked incredulous. "Do +thoughts always make you jump?" + +"Tais-toi! Tais-toi!" murmured Patoux gently, between two whiffs of +his pipe--"Excuse him, Monsieur Cazeau,--he is but a child." + +Cazeau writhed amicably. + +"A delightful child," he murmured--"And the little girl--his sister- +-is also charming--Ah, what fine dark eyes!--what hair! Will she not +come and speak to me?" + +He held out a hand invitingly towards Babette, but she merely made a +grimace at him and retired backwards. Patoux smiled benevolently. + +"She does not like strangers," he explained. + +"Good--very good! That is right! Little girls should always run away +from strangers, especially strangers of my sex," observed Cazeau +with a sniggering laugh--"And do these dear children go to school?" + +Patoux took his pipe out of his mouth altogether, and stared +solemnly at the ceiling. + +"Without doubt!--they are compelled to go to school," he answered +slowly; "but if I could have had my way, they should never have +gone. They learn mischief there in plenty, but no good that I can +see. They know much about geography, and the stars, and anatomy, and +what they call physical sciences;--but whether they have got it into +their heads that the good God wants them to live straight, clean, +honest, wholesome lives, is more than I am certain of. However, I +trust Pere Laurent will do what he can." + +"Pere Laurent?" echoed Cazeau, with a wide smile--"You have a high +opinion of Pere Laurent? Ah, yes, a good man!--but ignorant--alas! +very ignorant!" + +Papa Patoux brought his eyes down from the ceiling and fixed them +enquiringly on Cazeau. + +"Ignorant?" he began, when at this juncture Madame Patoux entered, +and taking possession of Henri and Babette, informed Monsieur Cazeau +that the Archbishop would be for some time engaged in conversation +with Cardinal Bonpre, and that therefore he, Monsieur Cazeau, need +not wait,--Monseigneur would return to his house alone. Whereupon +the secretary rose, evidently glad to be set at liberty, and took +his leave of the Patoux family. On the threshold, however, he +paused, looking back somewhat frowningly at Jean Patoux himself. + +"I should not, if I were you, trouble Monseigneur concerning the +case you told me of--that of--of Marguerite Valmond,"--he observed-- +"He has a horror of evil women." + +With that he departed, walking across the Square towards the +Archbishop's house in a stealthy sort of fashion, as though he were +a burglar meditating some particularly daring robbery. + +"He is a rat--a rat!" exclaimed Henri, suddenly executing a sort of +reasonless war-dance round the kitchen--"One wants a cat to catch +him!" + +"Rats are nice," declared Babette, for she remembered having once +had a tame white rat which sat on her knee and took food from her +hand,--"Monsieur Cazeau is a man; and men are not nice." + +Patoux burst into a loud laugh. + +"Men are not nice!" he echoed--"What dost thou know about it, thou +little droll one?" + +"What I see," responded Babette severely, with an elderly air, as of +a person who has suffered by bitter experience; and, undeterred by +her parents' continued laughter she went on-- + +"Men are ugly. They are dirty. They say 'Come here my little girl, +and I will give you something,'--then when I go to them they try and +kiss me. And I will not kiss them, because their mouths smell bad. +They stroke my hair and pull it all the wrong way. And it hurts. And +when I don't like my hair pulled the wrong way, they tell me I will +be a great coquette. A coquette is to be like Diane de Poitiers. +Shall I be like Diane de Poitiers?" + +"The saints forbid!" cried Madame Patoux,--"And talk no more +nonsense, child,--it's bed-time. Come,--say good-night to thy +father, Henri;--give them thy blessing, Jean--and let me get them +into their beds before the Archbishop leaves the house, or they will +be asking him as many questions as there are in the catechism." + +Thus enjoined, Papa Patoux kissed his children affectionately, +signing the cross on their brows as they came up to him in turn, +after the fashion of his own father, who had continued this custom +up to his dying day. What they thought of the benediction in itself +might be somewhat difficult to define, but it can be safely asserted +that a passion of tears on the part of Babette, and a fit of +demoniacal howling from Henri, would have been the inevitable result +if Papa Patoux had refused to bestow it on them. Whether there were +virtue in it or not, their father's mute blessing sent them to bed +peaceably and in good humour with each other, and they trotted off +very contentedly beside their mother, hushing their footsteps and +lowering their voices as they passed the door of the room occupied +by Cardinal Bonpre. + +"The Archbishop is not an angel, is he?" asked Babette whisperingly. + +Her mother smiled broadly. + +"Not exactly, my little one. Why such a foolish question?" + +"You said that Cardinal Bonpre was a saint, and that perhaps we +should see an angel come down from heaven to visit him," replied +Babette. + +"Well, you could not have thought the Archbishop came from heaven," +interpolated Henri, scornfully,--"He came from his own house over +the way with his own secretary behind him. Do angels keep +secretaries?" + +Babette laughed aloud,--the idea was grotesque. The two children +were just then ascending the wooden stairs to their bedroom, the +mother carrying a lighted candle behind them, and at that moment the +rich sonorous voice of the Archbishop, raised to a high and somewhat +indignant tone, reached them with these words--"I consider that you +altogether mistake your calling and position." + +Then the voice died away into inaudible murmurings. + +"They are quarrelling! The Archbishop is angry!" said Henri with a +grin. + +"Perhaps Archbishops do not like saints," suggested Babette. + +"Tais-toi! Cardinal Bonpre is an archbishop himself, little silly," +said Madame Patoux--"Therefore those great and distinguished +Monseigneurs are like brothers." + +"That is why they are quarrelling!" declared Henri glibly,--"A boy +told me in school that Cain and Abel were the first pair of +brothers, and they quarrelled,--and all brothers have quarrelled +ever since. It's in the blood, so that boy says,--and it is his +excuse always for fighting HIS little brother. His little brother is +six, and he is twelve;--and of course he always knocks his little +brother down. He cannot help it, he says. And he gets books on +physiology and heredity, and he learns in them that whatever is IN +the blood has got to come out somehow. He says that it's because +Cain killed Abel that there are wars between nations;--if Cain and +Abel had never quarrelled, there would never have been any fighting +in the world,--and now that it's in the blood of every body--" + +But further sapient discourse on the part of Henri was summarily put +an end to by his mother's ordering him to kneel down and say his +prayers, and afterwards bundling him into bed,--where, being sleepy, +he speedily forgot all that he had been trying to talk about. +Babette took more time in retiring to rest. She had very pretty, +curly, brown hair, and Madame Patoux took a pride in brushing and +plaiting it neatly. + +"I may be like Diane de Poitiers after all," she remarked, peering +at herself in the small mirror when her thick locks were smoothed +and tied back for the night--"Why should I not be?" + +"Because Diane de Poitiers was a wicked woman," said Madame Patoux +energetically,--"and thou must learn to be a good girl." + +"But if Diane de Poitiers was bad, why do they talk so much about +her even now, and put her in all the histories, and show her house, +and say she was beautiful?" went on Babette. + +"Because people are foolish," said Madame, getting impatient-- +"Foolish people run after bad women, and bad women run after foolish +people. Now say thy prayers." + +Obediently Babette knelt down, shut her eyes close, clasped her +hands hard, and murmured the usual evening formula, heaving a small +sigh after her "act of contrition," and looking almost saintly as +she commended herself to her "angel guardian." Then her mother +kissed her, saying-- + +"Good-night, little daughter! Think of Our Lady and the saints, and +then ask them to keep us safe from evil. Good-night!" + +"Good-night." responded Babette sleepily,--but all the same she did +not think of Our Lady and the saints half as much as of Diane de +Poitiers. There are few daughters of Eve to whom conquest does not +seem a finer thing than humility; and the sovereignty of Diane de +Poitiers over a king, seems to many a girl just conscious of her own +charm, a more emphatic testimony to the supremacy of her sex, than +the Angel's greeting of "Blessed art thou!" to the elected Virgin of +the world. + + + + +III. + +Meanwhile a somewhat embarrassing interview had taken place between +the Archbishop of Rouen and Cardinal Bonpre. The archbishop, seen by +the light of the one small lamp which illumined the "best room" of +the Hotel Poitiers was certainly a handsome and imposing personage, +broad-chested and muscular, with a massive head, well set on strong +square shoulders, admirably adapted for the wearing of the dark +violet soutane which fitted them as gracefully as a royal vesture +draping the figure of a king. One disproportionate point, however, +about his attire was, that the heavy gold crucifix which depended by +a chain from his neck, did not, with him, look so much a sacred +symbol as a trivial ornament,--whereas the simple silver one that +gleamed against the rusty black scarlet-edged cassock of Cardinal +Bonpre, presented itself as the plain and significant sign of +holiness without the aid of jewellers' workmanship to emphasize its +meaning. This was a trifle, no doubt;--still it was one of those +slight things which often betray character. As the most brilliant +diamond will look like common glass on the rough red hand of a cook, +while common glass will simulate the richness of the real gem on the +delicate white finger of a daintily-bred woman, so the emblem of +salvation seemed a mere bauble and toy on the breast of the +Archbishop, while it assumed its most reverent and sacred aspect as +worn by Felix Bonpre. Yet judged by mere outward appearance, there +could be no doubt as to which was the finer-looking man of the two. +The Cardinal, thin and pale, with shadows of thought and pain in his +eyes, and the many delicate wrinkles of advancing age marking his +features, would never possess so much attractiveness for worldly and +superficial persons as the handsome Archbishop, who carried his +fifty-five years as though they were but thirty, and whose fresh, +plump face, unmarred by any serious consideration, bespoke a +thorough enjoyment of life, and the things which life,--if +encouraged to demand them,--most strenuously seeks, such as good +food, soft beds, rich clothing, and other countless luxuries which +are not necessities by any means, but which make the hours move +smoothly and softly, undisturbed by the clash of outside events +among those who are busy with thoughts and actions, and who,--being +absorbed in the thick of a soul-contest,--care little whether their +bodies fare ill or well. The Archbishop certainly did not belong to +this latter class,--indeed he considered too much thought as +mischievous in itself, and when thought appeared likely to break +forth into action, he denounced it as pernicious and well-nigh +criminal. + +"Thinkers," he said once to a young and ardent novice, studying for +the priesthood, "are generally socialists and revolutionists. They +are an offence to the Church and a danger to the community." + +"Surely," murmured the novice timidly,--"Our Lord Himself was a +thinker? And a Socialist likewise?" + +But at this the Archbishop rose up in wrath and flashed forth +menace;-- + +"If you are a follower of Renan, sir, you had better admit it before +proceeding further in your studies," he said irately,--"The Church +is too much troubled in these days by the members of a useless and +degenerate apostasy!" Whereupon the young man had left his presence +abashed, puzzled, and humiliated; but scarcely penitent, inasmuch as +his New Testament taught him that he was right and that the +Archbishop was wrong. + +Truth to tell, the Archbishop was very often wrong. Wrapped up in +himself and his own fixed notions as to how life should be lived, he +seldom looked out upon the larger world, and obstinately refused to +take any thoughtful notice of the general tendency of public opinion +in all countries concerning religion and morality. All that he was +unable to explain, he flatly denied,--and his prejudices were as +violent as his hatred of contradiction was keen. The saintly life +and noble deeds of Felix Bonpre had reached him from time to time +through various rumours repeated by different priests and +dignitaries of the Church, who had travelled as far as the distant +little Cathedral-town embowered among towering pines and elm trees, +where the Cardinal had his abiding seat of duty;--and he had been +anxious to meet the man who in these days of fastidious feeding and +luxurious living, had managed to gain such a holy reputation as to +be almost canonized in some folks' estimation before he was dead. +Hearing that Bonpre intended to stay a couple of nights in Rouen, he +cordially invited him to spend that time at his house,--but the +invitation had been gratefully yet firmly refused, much to the +Archbishop's amazement. This amazement increased considerably when +he learned that the dingy, comfortless, little Hotel Poitiers had +been selected by the Cardinal as his temporary lodging,--and it was +not without a pious murmur concerning "the pride which apes +humility" that he betook himself to that ancient and despised +hostelry, which had nothing whatever in the way of a modern +advantage to recommend it,--neither electric light, nor electric +bell, nor telephone. But he felt it incumbent upon him to pay a +fraternal visit to the Cardinal, who had become in a manner famous +without being at all aware of his fame,--and when finally in his +presence, he was conscious not only of a singular disappointment, +but an equally singular perplexity. Felix Bonpre was not at all the +sort of personage he had expected to see. He had imagined that a +Churchman who was able to obtain a character for saintliness in days +like these, must needs be worldly-wise and crafty, with a keen +perception and comprehension of the follies of mankind, and an +ability to use these follies advantageously to further his own ends. +Something of the cunning and foresight of an ancient Egyptian +sorcerer was in the composition of the Archbishop himself, for he +judged mankind alone by its general stupidity and credulity;-- +stupidity and credulity which formed excellent ground for the +working of miracles, whether such miracles were wrought in the name +of Osiris or Christ. Mokanna, the "Veiled Prophet," while corrupt to +the core with unnameable vices, had managed in his time to delude +the people into thinking him a holy man; and,--without any adequate +reason for his assumption,--the Archbishop had certainly prepared +himself to meet in Felix Bonpre, a shrewd, calculating, clever +priest, absorbed in acting the part of an excessive holiness in +order to secure such honour in his diocese as should attract the +particular notice of the Vatican. "Playing for Pope," in fact, had +been the idea with which the archbishop had invested the Cardinal's +reputed sanctity, and he was astonished and in a manner irritated to +find himself completely mistaken. He had opened the conversation by +the usual cordial trivialities of ordinary greeting, to which Bonpre +had responded with the suave courtesy and refined gentleness which +always dignified his manner,--and then the Archbishop had ventured +to offer a remonstrance on the unconventional--"Shall we call it +eccentric?" he suggested, smiling amicably,--conduct of the Cardinal +in choosing to abide in such a comfortless lodging as the Hotel +Poitiers. + +"It would have been a pleasure and an honour to me to welcome you at +my house"--he said--"Really, it is quite a violation of custom and +usage that you should be in this wretched place; the accommodation +is not at all fitted for a prince of the Church." + +Cardinal Felix raised one hand in gentle yet pained protest. + +"Pardon me!" he said, "I do not like that term, 'prince of the +Church.' There are no princes in the Church--or if there are, there +should be none." + +The archbishop opened his eyes widely. + +"That is a strange remark!" he ejaculated--"Princes of the Church +there have always been since Cardinals were created; and you, being +a Cardinal and an Archbishop as well, cannot be otherwise than one +of them." + +Felix Bonpre sighed. + +"Still, I maintain that the term is a wrong one," he answered, "and +used in the wrong place. The Church has nothing, or should have +nothing to do with differing titles or places. The ordinary priest +who toils among his congregation day and night, scarcely resting +himself, working and praying for the spiritual welfare of others, +should to my thinking be as greatly held in honour as the bishop who +commands him and who often--so it chances--is able to do less for +our Lord than he. In things temporal, owing to the constant +injustice of man practised against his brother-man, we can seldom +attain to strict impartiality of judgment,--but in things spiritual, +there surely should be perfect equality." + +"Seriously speaking, are those your views?" enquired the Archbishop, +his features expressing more and more astonishment. + +"Assuredly!" responded the Cardinal gently,--"Are they not yours? +Did not the Master Himself say 'Whosoever will be chief among you, +let him be your servant'? And 'Whosoever shall exalt himself shall +be abased'? These statements are plain and true,--there is no +mistaking them." + +The Archbishop was silent for a minute or so. + +"Unfortunately we cannot apply our Lord's words literally to every- +day exigencies," he murmured suavely--"If we could do so--" + +"We SHOULD do so," said the Cardinal with emphasis--"The outside +world may be disinclined to do so,--but we--we who are the +representatives of a God-given faith, are solemnly bound to do so. +And I fear--I very much fear--that it is because in many cases we +have not shown the example expected of us, that heresy and atheism +are so common among the people of the present day." + +"Are you a would-be reformer?" asked the Archbishop good-humouredly, +yet not without a touch of satire in his tone,--"If so, you are not +alone--there have already been many!" + +"Nay, I desire no reforms," responded the Cardinal, a faint flush +warming the habitual pallor of his cheeks--"I simply wish to +maintain--not alter--the doctrine of our Lord. No reform is +necessary in that,--it is clear, concise, and simple enough for a +child to understand. His command to His disciples was,--'Feed my +sheep'--and I have of late been troubled and perplexed, because it +seems to me that the sheep are not fed;--that despite churches and +teachers and preachers, whole flocks are starving." + +The Archbishop moved uneasily in his chair. His habitual violent +spirit of contradiction rose up rebelliously in him, and he longed +to give a sharp answer in confutation of the Cardinal's words, but +there was a touch of the sycophant in his nature despite his +personal pride, and he could not but reflect that Cardinals ranked +above Archbishops, and that Felix Bonpre was in very truth a "prince +of the Church" however much he himself elected to disclaim the +title. And as in secular affairs lesser men will always bow the knee +to royalty, so the Archbishop felt the necessity of temporising with +one who was spiritually royal. Therefore he considered a moment +before replying. + +"I think," he said at last, in soft persuasive tones, "that your +conscience may perhaps be a little tender on this subject. But I +cannot agree with you in your supposition that whole flocks are +starving;--for Christianity dominates the better and more +intellectual part of the civilized world, and through its doctrines, +men are gradually learning to be more tolerant and less unjust. When +we recollect the barbarous condition of humanity before the coming +of Christ--" + +"Barbarous?" interrupted the Cardinal with half a smile,--"You would +hardly apply that term to the luxury-loving peoples of Tyre and +Babylon?--or to the ancient splendours of Athens and Rome?" + +"They were heathens," said the Archbishop sententiously. + +"But they were men and women," replied Bonpre, "And they too had +immortal souls. They were all more or less struggling towards the +fundamental Idea of good. Of course then, as now that Idea was +overgrown by superstitious myths and observances--but the working +tendency of the whole universe being ever towards Good, not Evil, an +impulse to press on in the right direction was always in the brain +of man, no matter how dimly felt. Primitive notions of honour were +strange indeed; nevertheless honour existed in the minds of the +early barbarians in a vague sense, though distorted out of shape and +noblest meaning. No,--we dare not take upon ourselves to assert that +men were altogether barbarous before the coming of Christ. They were +cruel and unjust certainly,--and alas! they are cruel and unjust +still! Eighteen hundred years of Christian teaching have not +eradicated these ingrained sins from any one unit of the entire +mass." + +"You are a severe judge!" said the Archbishop. + +Cardinal Bonpre lifted his mild blue eyes protestingly. + +"Severe? I? God forbid that I should be severe, or presume to sit in +judgment on any poor soul that sought my sympathy! I do not judge,-- +I simply feel. And my feelings have for a long time, I confess, been +poignantly sorrowful." + +"Sorrowful! And why?" + +"Because the impression has steadily gained upon me that if our +Church were all it was originally intended to be by its Divine +Founder, we should at this time have neither heresies or apostasies, +and all the world would be gathered into the 'one fold under one +Shepherd.' But if we, who are its ministers, persist in occupying +ourselves more with 'things temporal' than 'things spiritual,' we +fail to perform our mission, or to show the example required of us, +and we do not attract, so much as we repel. The very children of the +present day are beginning to doubt our calling and election." + +"Oh, of course there are, and always have been heretics and +atheists," said the Archbishop,--"And apparently there always will +be." + +"And I venture to maintain that it is our fault that heretics and +atheists continue to exist," replied the Cardinal; "If our Divine +faith were lived divinely, there would be no room for heresy or +atheism. The Church itself supplies the loophole for apostasy." + +The Archbishop's handsome face crimsoned. + +"You amaze me by such an expression!" he said, raising his voice a +little in the indignation he could scarcely conceal--"you talk-- +pardon me--as if you yourself were uncertain of the Church's ability +to withstand unbelief." + +"I speak but as I think," answered the Cardinal gently. And I admit +I AM uncertain. In the leading points of reed I am very steadfastly +convinced;--namely, that Christ was divine, and that the following +of His Gospel is the saving of the immortal soul. But if you ask me +whether I think we do truly follow that Gospel, I must own that I +have doubts upon the matter." + +"An elected favourite son of the Church should surely have no +doubts!" said the Archbishop. + +"Ah, there you come back to the beginning from which we started, +when I ventured to object to your term 'prince of the Church.' +According to our Master, all men should be equal before Him; +therefore we err in marking differences of rank or favoritism in +questions of religion. The very idea of rank is anti-Christian." + +At this the Archbishop began to look seriously annoyed. + +"I am afraid you are indulging in very unorthodox ideas," he said +with impatience--"In fact I consider you altogether mistake your +calling and position." + +These were the words which had reached the attentive ears of the +Patoux children on their way up to bed, and had caused Henri to +declare that the Archbishop and the Cardinal were quarrelling. Felix +Bonpre took the somewhat violent remark, however, with perfect +equanimity. + +"Possibly I may do so," he responded peaceably. "We are all subject +to error. My calling, as I take it, is that of a servant of Christ, +whose instructions for work are plainly set down in His own words. +It is for me to follow these instructions as literally and exactly +as I can. With regard to my position, I am placed as the spiritual +head of a very small diocese, where the people for the most part +lead very innocent and harmless lives. But I should be selfish and +narrow in spirit if I allowed myself to limit my views to my own +circle of influence. My flock are mere rustics in intellectual +capacity, and have no conception of the manner in which the larger +tide of human events is flowing. Now and then one or two of the +people grow weary of their quiet pastures and woodlands,--and being +young, hopeful, and ardent, start forth into the great world, there +to seek fairer fortunes. Sometimes they come back to their old +homes. Far more frequently they never return. But those who do come +back are changed utterly. I recognise no more the young men and +maidens whom I confirmed in their faith, and laid my hands on in +blessing ere they fared forth to other lives and scenes. The men are +grown callous and worldly; without a heart,--without a thought,-- +save for the gain or loss of gold. The women are--ruined!" + +He paused a moment. The Archbishop said nothing. + +"I love my people," went on the Cardinal pathetically--"No child is +baptised in our old Cathedral without my praying for its future +good,--without my hope that it may grow into that exquisite mingling +of the Divine and Human which our Lord taught us was the perfection +of life, and His desire to see fulfilled in those He called His own. +Yes,--I love my people!--and when any of them go away from me, and +then return to the scenes of their childhood broken-hearted, I +cannot meet them with reproach. My own heart is half broken to see +them thus cast down. And their sorrows have compelled me naturally +to meditate on the sorrows of others,--to consider what it is in the +world which thus corrodes the pure gold of innocence and robs life +of its greatest charm. For if Christ's spirit ruled us all, then +innocence should be held more sacred. Life should engender +happiness. I have studied, read, and thought long, upon these +matters, so that I not only feel, but know the truth of what I say. +Brother!--" and the Cardinal, strongly moved, rose suddenly and +confronted the Archbishop with a passionate gesture--"My great grief +is that the spirit of Christ does NOT rule the world! Christ is +being re-crucified by this generation! And the Church is looking on, +and silently permitting His second murder!" + +Startled by the force of this expression, the Archbishop sprang up +in his turn, his lips parted as if to speak--then--his angry glance +met the clear, calm, steadfast look of Felix Bonpre, and he +faltered. His eyes drooped--and his massive figure seemed for a +moment to shrink with a sort of abasement. Like an inspired apostle +the Cardinal stood, one hand outstretched,--his whole frame sentient +with the strong emotion which possessed him. + +"You know that what I say is true," he continued in quieter but no +less intensely passionate accents--"You know that every day sees our +Master crowned with new thorns and exposed to fresh torture! You +know that we do nothing!--We stand beside Him in His second agony as +dumb as though we were unconscious of it! You know that we MIGHT +speak and will not! You know that we fear the ephemera of temporary +governments, policies, and social conventionalities, more than the +great, real, and terrible judgment of the world to come!" + +"But all these things have been said before," began the Archbishop, +recovering a little from the confusion that had momentarily seized +him,--"And as I just now observed, you should remember that there +have always been heretics from the very beginning." + +"Oh, I remember!" and the Cardinal sighed, "How is it possible that +any of us should forget! Heretics, whom we have tortured with +unheard-of agonies and burned in the flames, as a proof of our love +and sympathy with the tenderness of Christ Jesus!" + +"You are going too far back in time!" said the Archbishop quickly. +"We erred in the beginning through excess of zeal, but now--now--" + +"Now we do exactly the same thing," returned Bonpre--"Only we do not +burn physically our heretics, but morally. We condemn all who oppose +us. Good men and brave thinkers, whom in our arrogance we consign to +eternal damnation, instead of endeavouring to draw out the heart of +their mystery, and gather up the gems of their learning as fresh +proofs of the active presence of God's working in, and through all +things! Think of the Church's invincible and overpowering obstinacy +in the case of Galileo! He declared the existence of God to us by +the utterance of a Truth,--inasmuch as every truth is a new message +from God. Had he pronounced his theories before our divine Master, +that Master would have confirmed, not denied them! Have we one +single example of Christ putting to the torture any poor soul that +did not believe in Him? Nay--He Himself submitted to be tortured; +but for those who wronged Him, His prayer was only--'Father, forgive +them, for they know not what they do.' THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO! +The ministers of truth should rather suffer themselves than let +others suffer. The horrors of the Inquisition are a blot on +religious history; our Master never meant us to burn and torture men +into faith. He desired us to love and lead them into the way of life +as the shepherd leads a flock into the fold. I repeat again, there +would have been no room for atheism if we--we--the servants of +Christ, had been strictly true to our vocation." + +By this time the Archbishop had recovered his equanimity. He sat +down and surveyed the up-standing figure of the Cardinal with +curiosity and a touch of pity. + +"You think too much of these things," he said soothingly--"You are +evidently overwrought with study and excessive zeal. Much that you +say may be true; nevertheless the Church--OUR Church--stands firm +among overwhelming contradictions,--and we, its ministers, do what +we can. I myself am disposed to think that the multitude of the +saved is greater than the multitude of the lost." + +"I envy you the consolation such a thought must give," responded the +Cardinal, as he resumed his seat opposite his visitor--"I, on the +contrary, have the pained and bitter sense that we are to blame for +all this 'multitude of the lost,' or at any rate that we could have +done more in the way of rescue than we have done." He paused a +moment, passing one hand across his forehead wearily. "In truth this +is what has for a long time weighed upon my mind, and depressed my +spirits even to the detriment of bodily health. I am nearing the +grave, and must soon give an account of my stewardship;--and the +knowledge of the increasing growth of evil in the world is almost +more than I can bear." + +"But you are not to blame," said the Archbishop wonderingly,--"In +your own diocese you have fulfilled your duty; more than this is not +expected of you. You have done your best for the people you serve,-- +and reports of your charities and good works are not lacking--" + +"Do not credit such reports," interrupted the Cardinal, almost +sternly,--"I have done nothing--absolutely nothing! My life has been +too peaceful,--too many undeserved blessings have been bestowed upon +me. I much fear that the calm and quiet of my days have rendered me +selfish. I think I should long ago have sought some means of +engaging in more active duties. I feel as if I should have gone into +the thick of the religious contest, and spoken and fought, and +helped the sick and wounded of the mental battle,--but now--now it +is too late!" + +"Nothing is too late for one in your position," said the Archbishop- +-"You may yet sit in St. Peter's chair!" + +"God forbid!" ejaculated Bonpre fervently--"I would rather die! I +have never wished to rule,--I have only sought to help and to +comfort. But sixty-eight years of life weigh heavily on the +faculties,--I cannot wear the sword and buckler of energetic +manhood. I am old--old!--and to a certain extent, incapacitated for +useful labour. Hence I almost grudge my halcyon time spent among +simple folk,--time made sweet by all the surroundings of Nature's +pastoral loveliness;--the sorrow of the wider world knocks at my +heart and makes it ache! I feel that I am one of those who stand by, +idly watching the Master's second death without one word of +protest!" + +The archbishop listened in silence. There was a curious shamed look +upon his face, as if some secret sin within himself had suddenly +been laid bare in all its vileness to the light of day. The golden +crucifix he wore moved restlessly with a certain agitated quickness +in his breathing, and he did not raise his eyes, when, after a +little pause, he said-- + +"I tell you, as I told you before, that you think too much; you are +altogether too sensitive. I admit that at the present day the world +is full of terrible heresies and open blasphemy, but this is part of +what we are always bound to expect,--we are told that we must +'suffer for righteousness' sake--'" + +"We!" said the Cardinal--"Yes, WE! that is, OURSELVES;--the Church-- +WE think, when we hear of heresies and blasphemies that it is we who +are 'suffering for righteousness' sake,' but in our egotism we +forget that WE are not suffering at all if we are able to retain our +faith! It is the very heretics and blasphemers whom we condemn that +are suffering--suffering absolute tortures--perchance 'for +righteousness' sake'!" + +"Dare we call a heretic 'righteous'?" enquired the Archbishop--"Is +he not, in his very heresy, accursed?" + +"According to our Lord, no one is accursed save traitors,--that is +to say those who are not true. If a man doubts, it is better he +should admit his doubt than make a pretence of belief. The persons +whom we call heretics may have their conception of the truth,--they +may say that they cannot accept a creed which is so ignorant of its +own tenets as to condemn all those who do not follow it,--inasmuch +as the very Founder of it distinctly says--'If any man hear my words +and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, +but to save the world.' Now we, His followers, judge, but do not +save. The atheist is judged by us, but not rescued from his +unbelief; the thinker is condemned,--the scientist who reveals the +beauty and wisdom of God as made manifest in the composition of the +lightning, or the germinating of a flower, is accused of destroying +religion. And we continue to pass our opinion, and thunder our +vetoes and bans of excommunication against our fellowmen, in the +full front of the plain command 'Judge not, that ye be not judged'!" + +"I see it is no use arguing with you," said the Archbishop, forcing +a smile, with a vexation the smile could not altogether conceal,-- +"You are determined to take these sayings absolutely,--and to fret +your spirit over the non-performance of imaginary duties which do +not exist. This Church is a system,--founded on our Lord's teaching, +but applied to the needs of modern civilization. It is not humanly +possible to literally obey all Christ's commands." + +"For the outside world I grant it may be difficult,--but for the +ministers of religion, however difficult it may be, it should be +done," replied the Cardinal firmly. "I said this before, and I +deliberately maintain it. The Church IS a system,--but whether it is +as much founded on the teaching of our Lord, who was divine, as on +the teaching of St. Paul, who was NOT divine, is a question to me of +much perplexity." + +"St. Paul was directly inspired by our Lord," said the Archbishop-- +"I am amazed that you should even hint a doubt of his apostleship!" + +"I do not decry St. Paul," answered Bonpre quietly--"He was a gifted +and clever man, but he was a Man--he was not God-in-Man. Christ's +doctrine leaves no place for differing sects; St. Paul's method of +applying that doctrine serves as authority for the establishment of +any and every quarrelsome sect ever known!" + +"I cannot agree with you," said the Archbishop coldly. + +"I do not expect to be agreed with"--and Bonpre smiled a little--"An +opinion which excites no opposition at all is not worth having! I am +quite honest in my scruples, such as they are;--I do not think we +fit, as you say, the Church system to the needs of modern +civilization. On the contrary, we must fail in many ways to do this, +else there would not be such a crying out for help and comfort as +there is at present among all Christian peoples. We no longer speak +with a grand certainty as we ought to do. We only offer vague hopes +and dubious promises to those who thirst for the living waters of +salvation and immortality,--it is as if we did not feel sure enough +of God ourselves to make others sure. All this is wrong--wrong! It +forebodes heavy punishment and disaster. If I were younger, I could +express perhaps my meaning more clearly,--but as it is, my soul is +weighted with unutterable thoughts,--I would almost call them +warnings,--of some threatening evil; . . . and today--only this +afternoon--when I sat for an hour in the Cathedral yonder and +listened to the music of the great organ--" + +The Archbishop started. + +"What did you say?" + +The Cardinal repeated his words gently,-- + +"I said that I sat in the Cathedral and listened to the music of the +great organ--" + +"The great organ!" interrupted the Archbishop,--"You must have been +dreaming! You could not possibly have heard the great organ,--it is +old and all out of gear;--it is never used. The only one we have for +service just now is a much smaller instrument in the left-hand +choir-chapel,--but no person could have played even on that without +the key. And the key was unobtainable, as the organist is absent +from the town to-day." + +The Cardinal looked completely bewildered. + +"Are you quite sure of this?" he asked falteringly. + +"Sure--absolutely sure!" declared the Archbishop with a smile--"No +doubt you thought you heard music; overwrought nerves often play +these tricks upon us. And it is owing to this same cause that you +are weary and dispirited, and that you take such a gloomy view of +the social and religious outlook. You are evidently out of health +and unstrung;--but after you have had sufficient rest and change, +you will see things in quite a different aspect. I will not for a +moment believe that you could possibly be as unorthodox as your +conversation would imply,--it would be a total misconception of your +true character," and the Archbishop laughed softly. "A total +misconception," he repeated,--"Why, yes, of course it would be! No +Cardinal-Archbishop of Holy Mother Church could bring such +accusations against its ministry as you would have suggested, unless +he were afflicted by nervous depression, which, as we all know, has +the uncomfortable effect of creating darkness even where all is +light. Do you stay long in Rouen?" + +"No," replied the Cardinal abstractedly, answering the question +mechanically though his thoughts were far away--"I leave for Paris +to-morrow." + +"For Paris? And then?" + +"I go to Rome with my niece, Angela Sovrani,--she is in Paris +awaiting my arrival now." + +"Ah! You must be very proud of your niece!" murmured the Archbishop +softly--"She is famous everywhere,--a great artist!--a wonderful +genius!" + +"Angela paints well--yes," said the Cardinal quietly,--"But she has +still a great deal to learn. And she is unfortunately much more +alone now than she used to be,--her mother's death last year was a +terrible blow to her." + +"Her mother was your sister?" + +"My only sister," answered the Cardinal--"A good, sweet woman!--may +her soul rest in peace! Her character was never spoilt by the social +life she was compelled to lead. My brother-in-law, Prince Sovrani, +kept open house,--and all the gay world of Rome was accustomed to +flock thither; but now--since he has lost his wife, things have +changed very much,--sadness has taken the place of mirth,--and +Angela is very solitary." + +"Is she not affianced to the celebrated Florian Varillo?" + +A fleeting shadow of pain darkened the Cardinal's clear eyes. + +"Yes. But she sees very little of him,--you know the strictness of +Roman etiquette in such matters. She sees little--and sometimes--so +I think--knows less. However, I hope all will be well. But my niece +is over sensitive, brilliantly endowed, and ambitious,--at times I +have fears for her future." + +"Depression again!" declared the Archbishop, rising and preparing to +take his leave--"Believe me, the world is full of excellence when we +look upon it with clear eyes;--things are never as bad as they seem. +To my thinking, you are the last man alive who should indulge in +melancholy forebodings. You have led a peaceful and happy life, +graced with the reputation of many good deeds, and you are generally +beloved by the people of whom you have charge. Then, though celibacy +is your appointed lot, heaven has given you a niece as dear to you +as any child of your own could be, who has won a pre-eminent place +among the world's great artists, and is moreover endowed with beauty +and distinction. What more can you desire?" + +He smiled expansively as he spoke; the Cardinal looked at him +steadfastly. + +"I desire nothing!" he answered--"I never have desired anything! I +told you before that I consider I have received many more blessings +than I deserve. It is not any personal grief which at present +troubles me,--it is something beyond myself. It is a sense of +wrong,--an appeal for truth,--a cry from those who are lost in the +world,--the lost whom the Church might have saved!" + +"Merely fancy!" said the Archbishop cheerily--"Like the music in the +Cathedral! Do not permit your imagination to get the better of you +in such matters! When you return from Rome, I shall be glad to see +you if you happen to come through Normandy on your way back to your +own people. I trust you will so far honour me?" + +"I know nothing of my future movements," answered the Cardinal +gently,--"But if I should again visit Rouen, I will certainly let +you know, and will, if you desire it, accept your friendly +hospitality." + +With this, the two dignitaries shook hands and the Archbishop took +his leave. As he picked his way carefully down the rough stairs and +along the dingy little passage of the Hotel Poitiers, he was met by +Jean Patoux holding a lighted candle above his head to show him the +way. + +"It is dark, Monseigneur," said Patoux apologetically. + +"It is very dark," agreed Monseigneur, stumbling as he spoke, and +feeling rather inclined to indulge in very uncanonical language. "It +is altogether a miserable hole, mon Patoux!" + +"It is for poor people only," returned Jean calmly--"And poverty is +not a crime, Monseigneur." + +"No, it is not a crime," said the stately Churchman as he reached +the door at last, and paused for a moment on the threshold,--a broad +smile wrinkling up his fat cheeks and making comfortable creases +round his small eyes--"But it is an inconvenience!" + +"Cardinal Bonpre does not say so," observed Patoux. + +"Cardinal Bonpre is one of two things--a saint or a fool! Remember +that, mon Patoux! Bon soir! Benedicite!" + +And the Archbishop, still smiling to himself, walked leisurely +across the square in the direction of his own house, where his +supper awaited him. The moon had risen, and was clambering slowly up +between the two tall towers of Notre Dame, her pure silver radiance +streaming mockingly against the candle Jean Patoux still held in the +doorway of his inn, and almost extinguishing its flame. + +"One of two things--a saint or a fool," murmured Jean with a +chuckle--"Well!--it is very certain that the Archbishop is neither!" + +He turned in, and shut his door as far as it would allow him to do +so, and went comfortably to bed, where Madame had gone before him. +And throughout the Hotel Poitiers deep peace and silence reigned. +Every one in the house slept, save Cardinal Bonpre, who with the +Testament before him, sat reading and meditating deeply for an hour +before retiring to rest. A fresh cause of anxiety had come upon him +in the idea that perhaps his slight indisposition was more serious +than he had deemed. If, as the Archbishop had said, there could have +been no music possible in the Cathedral that afternoon, how came it +that he had heard such solemn and entrancing harmonies? Was his mind +affected? Was he in truth imagining what did not exist? Were the +griefs of the world his own distorted view of things? Did the Church +faithfully follow the beautiful and perfect teachings of Christ +after all? He tried to reason the question out from a different and +more hopeful standpoint, but vainly;--the conviction that +Christianity was by no means the supreme regenerating force, or the +vivifying Principle of Human Life which it was originally meant to +be, was borne in upon him with increasing certainty, and the more he +read the Gospels, the more he became aware that the Church--system +as it existed was utterly opposed to Christ's own command, and +moreover was drifting further and further away from Him with every +passing year. + +"The music in the Cathedral may have been my fancy," he said,--"But +the discord in the world sounds clear and is NOT imagination. A +casuist in religion may say 'It was to be';--that heresies and +dissensions were prophesied by Christ, when He said 'Because +iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold';--but this +does not excuse the Church from the sin of neglect, if any neglects +exists. One thing we have never seemed to thoroughly understand, and +this is that Christ's teaching is God's teaching, and that it has +not stopped with the enunciation of the Gospel. It is going on even +now--in every fresh discovery of science,--in every new national +experience,--in everything we can do, or think, or plan, the Divine +instruction steadily continues through the Divine influence imparted +to us when the Godhead became man, to show men how they might in +turn become gods. This is what we forget and what we are always +forgetting; so that instead of accepting every truth, we quarrel +with it and reject it, even as Judaea rejected Christ Himself. It is +very strange and cruel;--and the world's religious perplexities are +neither to be wondered at nor blamed,--there is just and grave cause +for their continuance and increase." + +He closed the Testament, and being thoroughly fatigued in body as +well as mind, he at last retired. Lying down contentedly upon the +hard and narrow bed which was the best the inn provided, he murmured +his usual prayer,--"If this should be the sleep of death, Jesus +receive my soul!"--and remained for a little while with his eyes +open, looking at the white glory of the moonlight as it poured +through his lattice window and formed delicate traceries of silver +luminance on the bare wooden floor. He could just see the dark +towers of Notre Dame from where he lay,--a black mass in the +moonbeams--a monument of half-forgotten history--a dream of +centuries, hallowed or blasphemed by the prayers and aspirations of +dead and gone multitudes who had appealed to the incarnate God-in- +Man before its altars. God-in-Man had been made manifest!--how long +would, the world have to wait before Man-in-God was equally created +and declared? For that was evidently intended to be the final +triumph of the Christian creed. + +"We should have gained such a victory long ago," mused Cardinal +Bonpre--"only that we ourselves have set up stumbling-blocks, and +rejected God at every step of the way." + +Closing his eyes he soon slept; the rays of the moon fell upon his +pale face and silvery hair like a visible radiant benediction,--and +the bells of the city chimed the hours loudly and softly, clanging +in every direction, without waking him from his rest. But slumbering +as he was, he had no peace,--for in his sleep he was troubled by a +strange vision. + + + + +IV. + +As the terrors of imagined suffering are always worse than actual +pain, so dreams are frequently more vivid than the reality of life,- +-that is we are sure that life is indeed reality, and not itself a +dream within a dream. Cardinal Bonpre's sleep was not often +disturbed by affrighting visions,--his methods of daily living were +too healthy and simple, and his conscience too clear;--but on this +particular night he was visited by an impression rather than a +dream,--the impression of a lonely, and terrifying dreariness, as +though the whole world were suddenly emptied of life and left like a +hollow shell on the shores of time. Gradually this first sense of +utter and unspeakable loss changed into a startled consciousness of +fear;--some awful transformation of things familiar was about to be +consummated;--and he felt the distinct approach of some unnameable +Horror which was about to convulse and overwhelm all mankind. Then +in his dream, a great mist rose up before his eyes,--a mingling as +of sea-fog and sun-flame,--and as this in turn slowly cleared,-- +dispersing itself in serpentine coils of golden-grey vapour,--he +found himself standing on the edge of a vast sea, glittering in a +light that was neither of earth nor of heaven, but that seemed to be +the inward reflection of millions of flashing sword blades. And as +he stood gazing across the width of the waters, the sky above him +grew black, and a huge ring of fire rose out of the east, instead of +the beloved and familiar sun,--fire that spread itself in belching +torrents of flame upward and downward, and began to absorb in its +devouring heat the very sea. Then came a sound of many thunders, +mingled with the roar of rising waters and the turbulence of a great +whirlwind,--and out of the whirlwind came a Voice saying--"Now is +the end of all things on the earth,--and the whole world shall be +burnt up as a dead leaf in a sudden flame! And we will create from +out its ashes new heavens and a new earth, and we will call forth +new beings wherewith to people the fairness of our fresh creation,-- +for the present generation of mankind hath rejected God,--and God +henceforth rejecteth His faithless and unworthy creatures! Wherefore +let now this one dim light amid the thousand million brighter lights +be quenched,--let the planet known to all angels as the Sorrowful +Star fall from its sphere forever,--let the Sun that hath given it +warmth and nourishment be now its chief Destroyer, and let +everything that hath life within it, perish utterly and revive no +more!" + +And Cardinal Felix heard these words of doom. Powerless to move or +speak, he stood watching the terrible circle of fire, extend and +expand, till all the visible universe seemed melting in one red +furnace of flame;--and in himself he felt no hope,--no chance of +rescue;--in himself he knew that the appalling work of destruction +was being accomplished with a deadly swiftness that left no time for +lamentation,--that the nations of the world were as flying straws +swept into the burning, without space or moment for a parting prayer +or groan. Tortured by an excruciating agony too great for tears, he +suddenly found voice, and lifting his face towards the lurid sky he +cried aloud-- + +"God of Eternity, stay Thy hand! For one remaining Cause be +merciful! Doom not Thy creature Man to utter destruction!--but still +remember that Thou wast born even as he! As helpless, as wronged, as +tempted, as betrayed, as suffering, as prone to pain and death! Thou +hast lived his life and endured his sorrows, though in the perfect +glory of Thy Godhead Thou hast not sinned! Have patience yet, oh +Thou great Splendour of all worlds! Have patience yet, Thou outraged +and blasphemed Creator! Break once again Thy silence as of old and +speak to us!--pity us once again ere Thou slay us utterly,--come to +us even as Thou earnest in Judaea, and surely we will receive Thee +and obey Thee, and reject Thy love no more!" + +As he thus prayed he was seized with a paralysing fear,--for +suddenly the red and glowing chaos of fire above him changed into +soft skies tinged with the exquisite pearl-grey hues of twilight, +and he became conscious of the approach of a great invisible +Presence, whose awful unseen beauty overwhelmed him with its +sublimity and majesty, causing him to forget altogether that he +himself existed. And Someone spoke,--in grave sweet accents, so soft +and close to him that the words seemed almost whispered in his +ears,-- + +"Thy prayer is heard,--and once again the silence shall be broken. +Nevertheless remember that 'the light shineth in darkness and the +darkness comprehendeth it not'." + +Deep silence followed. The mysterious Presence melted as it were +into space,--and the Cardinal awoke, trembling violently and bathed +in a cold perspiration. He gazed bewilderedly around him, his mind +still confused and dazzled by the strong visionary impression of the +burning heavens and sea,--and he could not for a moment realize +where he was. Then, after a while, he recognised the humble +furniture of the room he occupied, and through the diamond-shaped +panes of the little lattice window, perceived the towers of Notre +Dame, now gleaming with a kind of rusty silver in the broader +radiance of the fully uplifted moon. + +"It was a dream," he murmured,--"A dream of the end of the world!" +He shuddered a little as he thought of the doom pronounced upon the +earth,--the planet "known to all angels as the Sorrowful Star"--"Let +the Sun that hath given it warmth and nourishment be now its chief +Destroyer." + +According to modern scientists, such was indeed the precise way in +which the world was destined to come to an end. And could anything +be more terrifying than the thought that the glorious Orb, the maker +of day and generator of all beauty, should be destined to hurl from +its shining centre death and destruction upon the planet it had from +creation vivified and warmed! The Vision had shown the devastating +ring of fire rising from that very quarter of the heavens where the +sun should have been radiantly beaming,--and as Felix Bonpre dwelt +upon the picture in his mind, and remembered his own wild prayer to +the Eternal, a great uneasiness and dread overwhelmed him. + +"God's laws can never be altered;" he said aloud--"Every evil deed +brings its own punishment; and if the world's wickedness becomes too +great an offence in the eyes of the Almighty, it follows that the +world must be destroyed. What am I that I should pray against Divine +Justice! For truly we have had our chance of rescue and salvation;-- +the Way,--the Truth,--and the Life have been given to us through +Christ our Redeemer; and if we reject Him, we reject all, and we +have but ourselves to blame." + +At that moment a plaintive wailing, as of some human creature in +distress broke on his ears through the deep silence of the night. He +listened attentively, and the sorrowful sound was repeated,--a +desolate yet gentle cry as of some sick and suffering child. Moved +by a sudden impulse the Cardinal rose, and going to the window +looked anxiously out, and down into the street below. Not a living +creature was to be seen. The moonlight spread itself in a vast +silver glory over the whole width of the square, and the delicate +sculpture of the great rose-window of the Cathedral, centrally +suspended between the two tall towers, looked in the fine pale +radiance like a giant spider's web sparkling with fairy dew. Again-- +again!--that weary sobbing cry! It went to the Cardinal's heart, and +stirred him to singular pain and pity. + +"Surely it is some lost or starving creature," he said--"Some poor +soul seeking comfort in a comfortless world." Hastily throwing on +his garments he left his room, treading cautiously in order not to +disturb the sleeping household,--and feeling his way down the short, +dark staircase, he easily reached the door and passed noiselessly +out into the square. Walking a few steps hurriedly he paused, once +more listening. The night was intensely calm;--not a cloud crossed +the star-spangled violet dome of air wherein the moon soared +serenely, bathing all visible things in a crystalline brilliancy so +pure and penetrative, that the finest cuttings on the gigantic grey +facade of Notre Dame could be discerned and outlined as distinctly +as though every little portion were seen through a magnifying glass. +The Cardinal's tall attenuated figure, standing alone and almost in +the centre of the square, cast a long thin black shadow on the +glistening grey stones,--and his dream-impression of an empty world +came back forcibly upon him,--a world as empty as a hollow shell! +Houses there were around him, and streets, and a noble edifice +consecrated to the worship of God,--nevertheless there was a sense +of absolute desertion in and through all. Was not the Cathedral +itself the mere husk of a religion? The seed had dropped out and +sunk into the soil,--"among thorns" and "stony places" indeed,--and +some "by the wayside" to be devoured by birds of prey. Darker and +heavier grew the cloud of depression on the Cardinal's soul,--and +more and more passionate became the protest which had for a long +time been clamouring in him for utterance,--the protest of a +Churchman against the Church he served! It was terrible,--and to a +"prince of the Roman Church" hideous and unnatural; nevertheless the +protest existed, and it had in some unaccountable way grown to be +more a part of him than he himself realized. + +"The world is empty because God is leaving it," he said, sorrowfully +raising his eyes to the tranquil heavens,--"and the joy of existence +is departing because the Divine and Holy Spirit of things is being +withdrawn!" + +He moved on a few paces,--and once more through the deep stillness +the little sobbing cry of sorrow was wafted tremulously to his ears. +It came or seemed to come from the Cathedral, and quickening his +steps he went thither. The deeply hollowed portal, full of black +shadows, at first showed nothing but its own massively sculptured +outlines--then--all at once the Cardinal perceived standing within +the embrasured darkness, the slight shrinking figure of a child. A +boy's desolate little figure,--with uplifted hands clasped +appealingly and laid against the shut Cathedral door, and face +hidden and pressed hard upon those hands, as though in mute and +inconsolable despair. As the Cardinal softly drew nearer, a long +shuddering sigh from the solitary little creature moved his heart +anew to pity, and speaking in accents of the utmost gentleness he +said-- + +"My poor child, what troubles you? Why are you here all alone, and +weeping at this late hour? Have you no home?--no parents?" + +Slowly the boy turned round, still resting his small delicate hands +against the oaken door of the Cathedral, and with the tears yet wet +upon his cheeks, smiled. What a sad face he had!--worn and weary, +yet beautiful!--what eyes, heavy with the dews of sorrow, yet tender +even in pain! Startled by the mingled purity and grief of so young a +countenance, the Cardinal retreated for a moment in amaze,--then +approaching more closely he repeated his former question with +increased interest and tenderness-- + +"Why are you weeping here alone?" + +"Because I am left alone to weep," said the boy, answering in a soft +voice of vibrating and musical melancholy--"For me, the world is +empty." + +An empty world! His dream-impression of universal desolation and +desertion came suddenly back upon the prelate's mind, and a sudden +trembling seized him, though he could discover in himself no cause +for fear. Anxiously he surveyed the strange and solitary little +wayfarer on the threshold of the Cathedral, and while he thus +looked, the boy said wistfully-- + +"I should have rested here within, but it is closed against me." + +"The doors are always locked at night, my child," returned the +Cardinal, recovering from his momentary stupor and bewilderment, +"But I can give you shelter. Will you come with me?" + +With a half-questioning, half-smiling look of grateful wonder, the +boy withdrew his hands from their uplifted, supplicating and almost +protesting attitude against the locked Cathedral-door, and moving +out of the porch shadows into the wide glory of the moonlight, he +confronted his interlocutor-- + +"Will I come with you?" he said--"Nay, but I see you are a Cardinal +of the Church, and it is I should ask 'will you receive me?' You do +not know who I am--nor where I came from, and I, alas! may not tell +you! I am alone; all--all alone,--for no one knows me in the world,- +-I am quite poor and friendless, and have nothing where--with to pay +you for your kindly shelter--I can only bless you!" + +Very simply, very gravely the young boy spoke these words, his +delicate head uplifted, his face shining in the moon-rays, and his +slight, childish form erect with a grace which was not born of pride +so much as of endurance, and again the Cardinal trembled, though he +knew not why. Yet in his very agitation, the desire he had to +persuade the tired child to go with him grew stronger and +overmastered every other feeling. + +"Come then," he said, smiling and extending his hand, "Come, and you +shall sleep in my room for the remainder of the night, and to-morrow +we will talk of the future. At present you need repose." + +The boy smiled gratefully but said nothing, and the Cardinal, +satisfied with the mere look of assent walked with his foundling +across the square and into the Hotel Poitiers. Arrived at his own +bed-room, he smoothed his couch and settled the pillows carefully +with active zeal and tenderness. The boy stood silently, looking on. + +"Sleep now, my child," said the Cardinal,--"and forget all your +troubles. Lie down here; no one will disturb you till the morning." + +"But you, my lord Cardinal," said the boy--"Are you depriving +yourself of comfort in order to give it to me? This is not the way +of the world!" + +"It is MY way," said the Cardinal cheerfully,--"And if the world has +been unkind to you, my boy, still take courage,--it will not always +be unjust! Do not trouble yourself concerning me; I shall sleep well +on the sofa in the next room--indeed, I shall sleep all the better +for knowing that your tears have ceased, and that for the present at +least you are safely sheltered." + +With a sudden quick movement the boy advanced and caught the +Cardinal's hands caressingly in his own. + +"Oh, are you sure you understand?" he said, his voice growing +singularly sweet and almost tender as he spoke--"Are you sure that +it is well for you to shelter me?--I--a stranger,--poor, and with no +one to speak for me? How do you know what I may be? Shall I not +perhaps prove ungrateful and wrong your kindness?" + +His worn little face upturned, shone in the dingy little room with a +sudden brightness such as one might imagine would illumine the +features of an angel, and Felix Bonpre looked down upon him half +fascinated, in mingled pity and wonder. + +"Such results are with God, my child," he said gently--"I do not +seek your gratitude. It is certainly well for me that I should +shelter you,--it would be ill indeed if I permitted any living +creature to suffer for lack of what I could give. Rest here in +peace, and remember it is for my own pleasure as well as for your +good that I desire you to sleep well." + +"And you do not even ask my name?" said the boy, half smiling and +still raising his sorrowful deep blue eyes to the Cardinal's face. + +"You will tell me that when you please," said Felix, laying one hand +upon the soft curls that clustered over his foundling's forehead--"I +am in no wise curious. It is enough for me to know that you are a +child and alone in the world,--such sorrow makes me your servant." + +Gently the boy loosened his clasp of the Cardinal's hands. + +"Then I have found a friend!" he said,--"That is very strange!" He +paused, and the smile that had once before brightened his +countenance shone again like a veritable flash of sunlight--"You +have the right to know my name, and if you choose, to call me by +it,--it is Manuel." + +"Manuel!" echoed the Cardinal--"No more than that?" + +"No more than that," replied the boy gravely--"I am one of the +world's waifs and strays,--one name suffices me." + +There followed a brief pause, in which the old man and the child +looked at each other full and steadfastly, and once again an +inexplicable nervous trembling seized the Cardinal. Overcoming this +with an effort, he said softly,-- + +"Then--Manuel!--good night! Sleep--and Our Lady's blessing be upon +you!" + +Signing the cross in air he retired, carefully shutting the door and +leaving his new-found charge to rest. When he was once by himself in +the next room, however, he made no attempt to sleep,--he merely drew +a chair to the window and sat down, full of thoughts which utterly +absorbed him. There was nothing unusual, surely, in his finding a +small lost boy and giving him a night's lodging?--then why was he so +affected by it? He could not tell. He fully realized that the +plaintive beauty of the child had its share in the powerful +attraction he felt,--but there was something else in the nature of +his emotion which he found it impossible to define. It was as though +some great blankness in his life had been suddenly filled;--as if +the boy whom he had found solitary and weeping within the porch of +the Cathedral of Notre Dame, belonged to him in some mysterious way +and was linked to his life so closely and completely as to make +parting impossible. But what a fantastic notion! Viewed by the light +of calm reason, there was nothing in the occurrence to give rise to +any such sentiment. Here was a poor little wayfarer, evidently +without parents, home, or friends,--and the Cardinal had given him a +night's lodging, and to-morrow--yes, to-morrow, he would give him +food and warm clothing and money,--and perhaps a recommendation to +the Archbishop in order that he might get a chance of free education +and employment in Rouen, while proper enquiries were being made +about him. That was the soberly prosaic and commonplace view to take +of the matter. The personality of the little fellow was intensely +winning,--but after all, that had nothing to do with the facts of +the case. He was a waif and stray, as he himself had said; his name, +so far as he seemed to know it, was Manuel,--an ordinary name enough +in France,--and his age might be about twelve,--not more. Something +could be done for him,--something SHOULD be done for him before the +Cardinal parted with him. But this idea of "parting" was just what +seemed so difficult to contemplate! Puzzled beyond measure at the +strange state of mind in which he found himself, Felix Bonpre went +over and over again all the events of the day in order,--his arrival +in Rouen,--his visit to the Cathedral, and the grand music he had +heard or fancied he heard there,--his experience with the sceptical +little Patoux children and their mother,--his conversation with the +Archbishop, in which he had felt much more excitement than he was +willing to admit,--his dream wherein he had been so painfully +impressed with a sense of the desertion, emptiness, and end of the +world, and finally his discovery of the little lonely and apparently +forsaken boy, thrown despairingly as it were against the closed +Cathedral, like a frail human wreck cast up from the gulf of the +devouring sea. Each incident, trivial in itself, yet seemed of +particular importance, though he could not explain or analyse why it +should be so. Meditatively he sat and watched the moon sink like a +silver bubble falling downward in the dark,--the stars vanished one +by one,--and a faint brown-gold line of suggestive light in the east +began the slow creation of a yet invisible dawn. Presently, yielding +to a vague impulse of inexplicable tenderness, he rose softly and +went to the threshold of the room where his foundling slept. Holding +his breath, he listened--but there was no sound. Very cautiously and +noiselessly he opened the door, and looked in,--a delicate half- +light came through the latticed window and seemed to concentrate +itself on the bed where the tired wanderer lay. His fine youthful +profile was distinctly outlined,--the soft bright hair clustered +like a halo round his broad brows,--and the two small hands were +crossed upon his breast, while in his sleep he smiled. Always +touched by the beauty, innocence and helplessness of childhood, +something in the aspect of this little lad moved the venerable +prelate's heart to an unwonted emotion,--and looking upon him, he +prayed for guidance as to what he should best do to rescue so gentle +and young a creature from the cruelties of the world. + + + + +V. + +"He has trusted me," said the Cardinal,--"I have found him, and I +cannot--dare not--forsake him. For the Master says 'Whosoever shall +receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me'." + +The next morning broke fair and calm, and as soon as the Patoux +household were astir, Cardinal Bonpre sought Madame Patoux in her +kitchen, and related to her the story of his night's adventure. She +listened deferentially, but could not refrain from occasional +exclamations of surprise, mingled with suggestions of warning. + +"It is like your good heart, Monseigneur," she said, "to give your +own bed to a stray child out of the street,--one, too, of whom you +know nothing,--but alas! how often such goodness is repaid by +ingratitude! The more charity you show the less thanks you receive,- +-yes, indeed, it is often so!--and it seems as if the Evil One were +in it! For look you, I myself have never done a kindness yet without +getting a cruelty in exchange for it." + +"That is a sad experience, my daughter," returned the Cardinal +smiling,--"Nevertheless, it is our duty to go on doing kindnesses, +no matter what the results to ourselves may be. It is understood--is +it not? that we are to be misjudged in this world. If we had nothing +to suffer, what would be the use of exercising such virtues as +patience and endurance?" + +"Ah, Monseigneur, for you it is different," said Madame Patoux +shaking her head and sighing--"You are like the blessed saints--safe +in a niche of Holy Church, with Our Lady for ever looking after you. +But for poor people such as we are--we see the rough side of life, +Monseigneur--and we know that there is very little goodness about in +the world,--and as for patience and endurance!--why, no one in these +days has the patience to endure even the least contradiction! Two +men,--aye even brothers,--will fight for a word like mongrels +quarrelling over a bone;--and two women will scream themselves +hoarse if one should have a lover more than the other--asking your +pardon, Monseigneur, for such wicked talk! Still, wicked as it may +be, it is true--and not all the powers of Heaven seem to care about +making things better. And for this boy,--believe me,--you had better +leave him to his own way--for there will be no chance of getting +such a poor little waif into the school unless his father and mother +are known, or unless someone will adopt him, which is not likely . . . +for Rouen is full of misery, and there are enough mouths to feed in +most families--and . . . mon Dieu!--is that the child?" + +Thus abruptly she broke off her speech, utterly taken aback as she +suddenly perceived the little Manuel standing before her. Poorly +clad in the roughest garments as he was, his grace and plaintive +beauty moved her heart to quick compassion for his loneliness as he +came towards the Cardinal, who, extending one hand, drew him gently +to his side and asked if he had slept well? + +"Thanks to your goodness, my lord Cardinal," the boy replied, "I +slept so well that I thought I was in Heaven! I heard the angels +singing in my dreams;--yes!--I heard all the music of a happy world, +in which there never had been known a sin or sorrow!" + +He rested his fair head lightly against the Cardinal's arm and +smiled. Madame Patoux gazed at him in fascinated silence,--gazed and +gazed,--till she found her eyes suddenly full of tears. Then she +turned away to hide them,--but not before Cardinal Bonpre had +observed her emotion. + +"Well, good MOTHER" he said with gentle emphasis on the word--"Would +you have me forsake this child that I have found?" + +"No, Monseigneur,--no," said Madame Patoux very softly and +tremulously--"It is almost as if he were a little lost Angel sent to +comfort you." + +A curious thrill went through the Cardinal. An angel to comfort him! +He looked down at Manuel who still clung caressingly to his arm, and +who met his earnest scrutiny with a sweet candid smile. + +"Where did you come from, Manuel?" asked Bonpre suddenly. + +"I cannot tell you," the boy answered, straightly, yet simply. + +The Cardinal paused a moment, his keen penetrating eyes dwelling +kindly on the noble young face beside him. + +"You do not wish to tell me,--is that so?" he pursued. + +"Yes," said Manuel quietly--"I do not wish to tell you. And if, +because of this, you regret your kindness to me, my lord Cardinal, I +will go away at once and trouble you no more." + +But at these words the Cardinal felt such a sharp consciousness of +pain and loss that his nerves ached with positive fear. + +"Nay, nay, my child," he said anxiously--"I cannot let you go. It +shall be as you please,--I will not think that you could do yourself +or me a wrong by concealing what would be right for you to tell. It +is true that you are alone in the world?" + +"Quite, quite alone!" answered Manuel, a faint shadow darkening the +serenity of his eyes--"No one was ever more alone than I!" + +Madame Patoux drew nearer and listened. + +"And there is no person living who has the right to claim you?" + +"None!" + +"And is it not strange, Monseigneur," murmured Madame Patoux at this +juncture--"The little lad does not speak as if he were ignorant! It +is as though he had been well taught and carefully nurtured." + +Manuel's deep eyes dwelt upon her with a meditative sweetness. + +"I have taught myself;" he said simply--"Not out of books, perhaps, +but out of nature. The trees and rivers, the flowers and birds have +talked to me and explained many things;--I have learned all I know +from what God has told me." + +His voice was so gentle and tender that Madame Patoux was infinitely +touched by its soft plaintiveness. + +"Poor child!" she murmured,--"He has no doubt been wandering through +the country, without a soul to help him. Alas, that troubles should +begin for one so young! Perhaps he does not even know a prayer!" + +"Oh yes!" said Manuel quickly--"Prayer is like thought,--God is so +good that it is only natural to thank and praise Him. Is it not so?" + +"It should be natural, my boy," answered the Cardinal slowly and +with a slight accent of melancholy,--"But for many of us in these +days I fear it is more natural still to forget than to remember. Too +often we take gifts and ignore the giver. But come now and breakfast +in my room;--for the present you shall remain with me, and I will +see what can best be done for your future welfare." + +And turning to Madame Patoux he added smilingly--"You, my daughter, +with children of your own to care for, will no longer blame me for +my interest in this child, who is without protection in a somewhat +rough world. We of the Church dare not 'offend one of these little +ones'." + +"Ah, Monseigneur!" murmured Madame,--"If all in the Church were like +you, some poor folks would believe in God more willingly. But when +people are starving and miserable, it is easy to understand that +often they will curse the priests and even religion itself, for +making such a mock of them as to keep on telling them about the joys +of heaven, when they are tormented to the very day of their death on +earth, and are left without hope or rescue of any kind--" + +But the Cardinal had disappeared with his young charge and Madame's +speech was lost upon him. She had therefore to content herself with +relating the story of "Monseigneur's foundling" to her husband, who +just then came into the kitchen to take his breakfast before +starting off to work in his market-garden. He listened with interest +and attention. + +"A boy is always a trouble," he said sententiously--"And it is +likely that so Monseigneur will find it. How old would the child +be?" + +"About twelve, I should say," answered Madame--"But beautiful as a +little angel, Jean!" + +"That's a pity!" and Patoux shook his head ominously--"Tis bad +enough when a girl is beautiful,--but a boy!--Well, well! +Monseigneur is a wise man, and a saint they say,--he knows best,-- +but I fear he has taken a burden upon himself which he will very +soon regret! What dost thou think of it, petite?" + +Madame hesitated a moment before replying. + +"Truly, I do not know what to think," she answered--"For myself, I +have not spoken to the child. I have seen him,--yes!--and at the +sight of him a something in my throat rose up and choked me as it +were,--and stopped me from saying a rough word. Such a lonely gentle +lad!--one could not be harsh with him, and yet--" + +"Yet! Oh, yes, I know!" said Patoux, finishing his coffee at a gulp +and smiling,--"Women will always be women,--and a handsome face in +girl or boy is enough to make fools of them all. Where are the +children? Are they gone to school?" + +"Yes--they went before the Cardinal was up. 'Tis a Saturday, and +they will be back early,--they are going to bring little Fabien +Doucet to Monseigneur." + +"What for?" enquired Patoux, his round eyes opening widely in +amazement. + +"Oh, for a strange fancy! That he may bless the child and pray Our +Lady to cure him of his lameness. It was Babette's whim. I told her +the Cardinal was a saint,--and she said,--well! she said she would +never believe it unless he worked a miracle! The wicked mischief +that girl is!--as bad as Henri, who puts a doubt on everything!" + +"'Tis the school," said Jean gloomily--"I must speak to Pere +Laurent." + +"Truly that would be well," said Madame--"He may explain what we +cannot. All the same, you may be sure the children WILL bring Fabien +Doucet to Monseigneur;--they have made up their minds about it,--and +if the little miserable's lameness gets no better, we shall have +work enough in future to make the saints respected!" + +Patoux muttered something inaudible, and went his way. Life was in +his opinion, a very excellent thing,--nevertheless there were a few +details about it which occasionally troubled him, and one of these +details was decidedly the "national education" question. It struck +him as altogether remarkable that the State should force him to send +his children to school whether he liked it or no; and moreover that +the system of instruction at the said school should be totally +opposed to his own ideas. He would have certainly wished his son to +learn to read and write, and then to have been trained as a thorough +florist and gardener;--while for his daughter he also desired +reading and writing as a matter of course, and then a complete +education in cooking and domestic economy, so that she might be a +useful and efficient wife and mother when the proper time for such +duties came. Astronomy he felt they could both do without, and most +of the "physical sciences." Religion he considered an absolute +necessity, and this was the very thing that was totally omitted from +the national course of education. He was well aware that there are +countless numbers of unhappy people nowadays who despise religion +and mock at the very idea of a God. Every day he saw certain works +exposed for sale on the out-of-door bookstalls which in their very +titles proclaimed the hideous tone of blasphemy which in France is +gradually becoming universal,--but this did not affect his own sense +of what was right and just. He was a very plain common man, but he +held holy things in reverence, and instinctively felt that, if the +world were in truth a bad place, it was likely to become much worse +if all faith in God were taken out of it. And when he reached his +plot of ground that morning, and set to work as usual, he was, for a +non-reflective man, very much absorbed in thought. His heavy +tramping feet over the soil startled some little brown birds from +their hidden nests, and sent them flying to and fro through the +clear air uttering sharp chirrups of terror,--and, leaning on his +spade, he paused and looked at them meditatively. + +"Everything is afraid," he said,--"Birds, beasts, and men,--all are +afraid of something and cannot tell what it is that frightens them. +It seems hard sometimes that there should be so much trouble and +struggle just to live--however, the good God knows best,--and if we +could not think and hope and believe He knew best, we might just as +well light up a charcoal fire, shut all the doors and windows, and +say 'Bon jour! Bon jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!--for if YOU do not +know YOUR business, it is evident we do not know ours, and therefore +'tis best for both our sakes to make an end of sheer Stupidity!'" + +He chuckled at his own reasoning, and moistening his hands +vigorously, seized his spade and began to bank up a ridge of celery, +singing "Bon jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!" under his breath without +the slightest idea of irreverence. And looking up at the bright sky +occasionally, he wished he had seen the stray boy rescued from the +streets by Cardinal Bonpre. + +"That he will be a trouble, there is no doubt," he said as he turned +and patted the rich dark earth--"Never was there a boy born yet into +the world that was not a trouble except our Lord, and even in His +case His own people did not know what to make of Him!" + +Meantime, while Jean Patoux dug in his garden, and sang and +soliloquized, his two children, Henri and Babette, their school +hours being ended, had run off to the market, and were talking +vivaciously with a big brown sturdy woman, who was selling poultry +at a stall, under a very large patched red umbrella. She was Martine +Doucet, reported to have the worst temper and most vixenish tongue +in all the town, though there were some who said her sourness of +humour only arose from the hardships of her life, and the many +troubles she had been fated to endure. Her husband, a fine handsome +man, earning good weekly wages as a stone-mason, had been killed by +a fall from a ladder, while engaged in helping to build one of the +new houses on the Boulevards, and her only child Fabien, a boy of +ten had, when a baby, tumbled from the cart in which his mother was +taking her poultry to market, and though no injury was apparent at +the time, had, from the effects of the fall, grown into a poor +little twisted mite of humanity with a bent spine, and one useless +leg which hung limply from his body, while he could scarcely hobble +about on the other, even with the aid of a crutch. He had a soft, +pretty, plaintive face of his own, the little Fabien, and very +gentle ways,--but he was sensitively conscious of his misfortune, +and in his own small secret soul he was always praying that he might +die while he was yet a child, and not grow up to be a burden to his +mother. Martine, however, adored him; and it was through her intense +love for this child of hers that she had, in a strange vengeful sort +of mood abandoned God, and flung an open and atheistical defiance in +the face of her confessor, who, missing her at mass, had ventured to +call upon her and seriously reproach her for neglecting the duties +of her religion. Martine had whirled round upon him,--a veritable +storm in petticoats. + +"Religion!" she cried--"Oh--he! What good has it done for ME, if you +please! When I said my prayers night and morning, went to mass and +confession, and told my rosary every Mary-Feast, what happened? Was +not my man killed and my child crippled? And then,--(not to lose +faith--) did I not give the saints every chance of behaving +themselves? For my child's sake did I not earn good money and pay it +to the Church in special masses that he might be cured of his +lameness? And Novenas in plenty, and candles in plenty to the +Virgin, and fastings of my own and penitences? And is the child not +as lame as ever? Look at him!--the dear angel!--with never an evil +thought or a wicked way,--and will you try to make me believe there +is a good God, when He will not help a poor little creature like +that, to be happy, though He is prayed to night and morning for it! +No--no! Churches are kept up for priests to make a fat living out +of,--but there is never a God in them that I can see;--and as for +the Christ, who had only to be asked in order to heal the sick, +there is not so much as a ghost of Him anywhere! If what you priests +tell us were true, poor souls such as I am, would get comfort and +help in our sorrows, but it is all a lie!--the whole thing!--and +when we are in trouble, we have got to bear it as best we can, +without so much as a kind word from our neighbours, let alone any +pity from the saints. Go to mass again? Not I!--nor to confession +either!--and no more of my earnings will click into your great brass +collection plate, mon reverend! Ah no!--I have been a foolish woman +indeed, to trust so long in a God who for all my tears and prayers +never gives me a sign or a hope of an answer,--and though I suppose +this wretched world of ours was made by somebody, whoever it is that +has done it is a cruel creature at best, so _I_ say,--without as +much good feeling as there is in the heart of an ordinary man, and +without the sense of the man either! For who that thinks twice about +it would make a world where everything is only born to die?--and for +no other use at all! Bah! It is sheer folly and wickedness to talk +to me of a God!--a God, if there were one, would surely be far above +torturing the creatures He has made, all for nothing!" + +And the priest who heard this blasphemous and savage tirade on the +part of Martine Doucet, retreated from her in amazement and horror, +and presently gave out that she was possessed of a devil, and was +unfit to be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. Whereat, when she heard +of it, Martine laughed loudly and ferociously. + +"Look you!--what a charitable creature a priest is!" she cried--"If +you don't do the things he considers exactly right and fitting, he +tells your neighbours that the devil has got you!--and so little +does he care to pick you out of the clutches of this same devil, +that he refuses you the Sacrament, though THAT is said to drive away +Satan by the mere touch of it! But wait till I ASK to have the +Sacrament given to me!--it will be time enough then to refuse it! +Many a fat chicken of my stock has the reverend father had as a free +gift to boil in his soup maigre!" and again she laughed angrily--" +But no more of them does he get to comfort his stomach while doing +penance for his soul!--the hypocrite! He must find another silly +woman to cheat with his stories of a good God who never does +anything but kill and curse us every one!--he has had all that he +will ever get out of Martine Doucet!" + +It was to this redoubtable virago that Henri and Babette had betaken +themselves in the market place directly school was over. She always +held the same stall in the same position on market days,--and she +sat under her red umbrella on a rough wooden bench, knitting +rapidly, now keeping an eye on her little lame son, coiled up in a +piece of matting beside her, and anon surveying her stock-in-trade +of ducks and geese and fowls, which were heaped on her counter, +their wrung necks drooping limply from the board, and their yellow +feet tied helplessly together and shining like bits of dull gold in +the warm light of the September sun. She listened with an impassive +countenance while Babette poured out her story of the great +Cardinal,--the Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whom people said was a saint,- +-how he had come unexpectedly to stay two nights at the Hotel +Poitiers,--how "petite maman" had declared he was so good that even +angels might visit him,--how kind and gentle and grand he seemed,-- +"Yes," said Babette somewhat eagerly, "there was no doubt that he +LOOKED good,--and we have told him all about Fabien and he has +promised to bless him and ask Our Lord to cure his lameness." + +"Well, and of what use is that, mignonne?" demanded Martine, +clicking her knitting-needles violently and stooping over her work +to wink away the sudden tears that had risen in her bold brown eyes +at Babette's enthusiastic desire to benefit her afflicted child.-- +"Asking our Lord is poor business,--you may ask and ask, but you +never get answered!" + +Babette hung her curly brown head despondingly, and looked +appealingly at her brother. Now Henri was a decided cynic;--but his +sister exercised a weird fascination over him,--a sort of power to +command which he always felt more or less constrained to obey. He +stared solemnly at Martine, and then at the little Fabien, who, half +rising from his mat, had listened with a visibly painful interest to +Babette's story. + +"I think you might let us take Fabien and see if a Cardinal CAN do +anything," he said with a kind of judicial air, as of one who, +though considering the case hopeless, had no objection to try a last +desperate remedy. "This one is a very old man, and he must know a +good deal. He could not do any harm. And I am sure Babette would +like to find out if there is any use at all in a Cardinal. I should +like it too. You see we went into Notre Dame last night,--Babette +and I,--and everything was dark,--all the candles were out at Our +Lady's statue--and we had only ten centimes between us. And the +candles are ten centimes each. So we could only light one. But we +lit that one, and said an Ave for Fabien. And the candle was all by +itself in the Cathedral. And now I think we ought to take him to the +Cardinal." + +Martine shook her head, pursed up her lips, and knitted more +violently than ever. + +"It is all no use--no use!" she muttered--"There is no God,--or if +there is, He must be deaf as well as blind!" + +But here suddenly the weak plaintive voice of Fabien himself piped +out-- + +"Oh, mother, let me go!" + +Martine looked down at him. + +"Let thee go? To see the Cardinal? Why he is nought but an old man, +child, as helpless as any of us. What dost thou think he can do for +thee?" + +"Nothing!" and the boy clambered up on his crutch, and stood +appealingly before his mother, his fair curls blowing back in the +breeze,--"But I SHOULD like to see him. Oh, do let me go!" + +Babette caught him by the hand. + +"Yes, oh yes, Martine!" she exclaimed--"Let him come with us!" + +Martine hesitated a moment longer, but she could never altogether +resist an imploring look in her boy's eyes, or refuse any request he +made of her,--and gradually the hard lines of her mouth relaxed into +a half smile. Babette at once perceived this, and eagerly accepted +it as a sign that she had gained her point. + +"Come, Fabien!" she exclaimed delightedly--"Thy mother says yes! We +will not be long gone, Martine! And perhaps we will bring him home +quite well!" + +Martine shook her head sorrowfully, and paused for a while in her +knitting to watch the three children crossing the market-place +together, Henri supporting her little son on one side, Babette on +the other, both carefully aiding his slow and halting movements over +the rough cobbles of the uneven pavement. Then as they all turned a +corner and disappeared, she sighed, and a couple of bright tears +splashed down on her knitting. But the next moment her eyes were as +bold and keen and defiant as ever while she stood up to attend to +two or three customers who just then approached her stall, and her +voice was as shrill and sharp as any woman's voice could be in the +noisy business of driving a bargain. Having disposed of three or +four fat geese and fowls at a good profit, she chinked and counted +the money in her apron pockets, hummed a tune, and looked up at the +genial sky with an expression of disfavour. + +"Oh, yes, 'tis a fine day!" she muttered,--"And the heavens look as +if the saints lived in them;--but by and by the clouds will come, +and the cold!--the sleet, the snow, the frost and the bitterness of +winter!--and honest folk will starve while thieves make a good +living!--that is the way the wise God arranges things in this +world." + +She gave a short laugh of scorn, and resumed the clicking of her +needles, not raising her eyes from her work even when her neighbour, +the old woman who sold vegetables at the next stall, ventured to +address her. + +"Where is thy unfortunate boy gone to, Martine?" she enquired,--"Is +it wise to let him be with the Patoux children? They are strong and +quick and full of mischief,--they might do him fresh injury in play +without meaning it." + +"I will trust them," answered Martine curtly,--"They have taken him +to see a Cardinal." + +"A Cardinal!" and the old woman craned her withered neck forward in +amazement and began to laugh feebly,--"Nom de Jesus! That is +strange! What does the Cardinal want with him?" + +"Nothing," said Martine gruffly--"It seems that he is an old man who +is kind to children, and the girl Babette has a fancy to get his +blessing for my Fabien,--that is all." + +"And that is little enough," responded the old vegetable-vendor, +still laughing, or rather chuckling hoarsely--"A blessing is not +worth much nowadays, is it Martine? It never puts an extra ounce of +meat in the pot-au-feu,--and yet it is all one gets out of the +priests for all the prayers and the praise. Last time I went to +confession I accused myself of the sin of envy. I said 'Look here, +my father, I am a widow and very old; and I have rheumatism in all +my bones, and I have only a bit of matting to sleep on at home, and +if I have a bad day with the market I can buy no food. And there is +a woman living near me who has a warm house, with a stove in it,-- +and blankets to cover her, and a bit of money put by, and I envy her +her blankets and her stove and her house and her money. Is that a +sin?' And he said it was a sin; but that he would absolve me from it +if I said ten Paters and ten Aves before Our Lady of Bon-Secours. +And then he gave me his blessing,--but no blankets and no stove and +no money. And I have not said ten Paters and Aves yet, because my +bones have ached too much all the week for me to walk up the hill to +Bon-Secours. And the blessing has been no use to me at all." + +"Nor is it likely to be!" scoffed Martine--"I thought you had given +up all that Church-nonsense long ago." + +"Nay--nay--not altogether,"--murmured the old woman timidly--"I am +very old,--and one never knows--there may be truth in some of it. It +is the burning and the roasting in hell that I think of,--you know +that is very likely to happen, Martine!--because you see, in this +life we have nothing but trouble,--so whoever made us must like to +see us suffering;--it must be a pleasure to God, and so it is sure +to go on and on always. And I am afraid!--and if a candle now and +then to St. Joseph would help matters, I am not the one to grudge +it,--it is better to burn a candle than burn one's self!" + +Martine laughed loudly, but made no answer. She could not waste her +time arguing against the ridiculous superstitions of an old creature +who was so steeped in ignorance as to think that a votive candle +could rescue her soul from a possible hell. She went on knitting in +silence till a sudden shadow came between her and the sunlight, and +a girl's voice, harsh, yet with a certain broken sweetness in it, +said-- + +"A fine morning's killing, aye! All their necks wrung,--all dead +birds! Once they could fly--fly and swim! Fly and swim! All dead +now--and sold cheap in the open market!" + +A shrill laugh finished this outburst, but Martine knew who it was +that spoke, and maintained her equanimity. + +"Is that you again, Marguerite?" she said, not unkindly--"You will +tire yourself to death wandering about the streets all day." + +Marguerite Valmond, "la folle" as she was called by the townsfolk, +shook her head and smiled cunningly. She was a tall girl, with black +hair disordered and falling loosely about her pale face,--her eyes +were dark and lustrous, but wild, and with a hunted expression in +them,--and her dress was composed of the strangest remnants of oddly +assorted materials and colours pinned about her without any order or +symmetry, the very idea of decent clothing being hardly considered, +as her bosom was half exposed and her legs were bare. She wore no +head-covering, and her whole aspect was that of one who had suddenly +awakened from a hideous dream and was striving to forget its +horrors. + +"I shall never be tired!" she said--"If I could be tired I should +sleep,--but I never sleep! I am looking for HIM, you know!--it was +at the fair I lost him--you remember the great fair? And when I find +him I shall kill him! It is quite easy to kill--you take a sharp +glittering thing, so!" and she snatched up a knife that lay on +Martine's counter--"And you plunge it--so!" and she struck it down +with singular fury through the breast of one of the "dead birds" +which were Martine's stock-in-trade. Then she threw the knife on the +ground--rubbed her hands together, tossed her head, and laughed +again--"That is how I shall do it when I meet him!" + +Martine said nothing. She simply removed the one stabbed bird from +among the others, and setting it aside, picked up the knife from the +ground and went on knitting as calmly as ever. + +"I am going to see the Archbishop," proceeded Marguerite, tossing +back her dishevelled locks and making one or two fantastic dance- +steps as she spoke--"The great Archbishop of this wonderful city of +Rouen! I want to ask him how it happened that God made men. It was a +mistake which He must be sorry for! The Archbishop knows +everything;--he will tell me about it. Ah!--what a beautiful mistake +is the Archbishop himself!--and how soon women find it out! Bon +jour, Martine!" + +"Bon jour, Marguerite!" responded Martine quietly. + +Singing to herself, the crazed girl sauntered off. Several of the +market women looked after her. + +"She killed her child, they say," muttered the old vegetable-seller- +-"But no one knows--" + +"Sh--sh--sh!" hissed Martine angrily--"What one does not know one +should not say. Mayhap there never was a child at all. Whatever the +wrong was, she has suffered for it;--and if the man who led her +astray ever comes nigh her, his life is not worth a centime." + +"Rough justice!" said one of the market porters, who had just paused +close by to light his pipe. + +"Aye, rough justice!" echoed Martine--"When justice is not given to +the people, the people take it for themselves! And if a man deals +ill by a woman, he has murdered her as surely as if he had put a +knife through her;--and 'tis but even payment when he gets the knife +into himself. Things in this life are too easy for men and too hard +for women; men make the laws for their own convenience, and never a +thought of us at all in the making. They are a selfish lot!" + +The porter laughed carelessly, and having lit his pipe to his +satisfaction went his way. + +A great many more customers now came to Martine's stall, and for +upwards of an hour there was shrill argument and driving of bargains +till she had pretty well cleared her counter of all its stock. Then +she sat down again and looked to right and left of the market-place +for any sign of the Patoux children returning with her little son, +but there was not a glimpse of them anywhere. + +"I wonder what they are doing!" she thought--"And I wonder what sort +of a Cardinal it is they have taken the child to see! These great +princes of the Church care nothing for the poor,--the very Pope +allows half Italy to starve while he shuts himself up with his +treasures in the Vatican;--what should a great Cardinal care for my +poor little Fabien! If the stories of the Christ were true, and one +could only take the child to Him, then indeed there might be a +chance of cure!--but it is all a lie,--and the worst of the lie is +that it would give us all so much comfort and happiness if it were +only true! It is like holding out a rope to a drowning man and +snatching it away again. And when the rope goes, the sooner one +sinks under the waves the better!" + + + + +VI. + +The Cardinal was still in his room alone with the boy Manuel, when +Madame Patoux, standing at her door under the waving tendrils of the +"creeping jenny" and shading her eyes from the radiance of the sun, +saw her children approaching with Fabien Doucet between them. + +"Little wretches that they are!" she murmured--"Once let them get an +idea into their heads and nothing will knock it out! Now I shall +have to tell Monseigneur that they are here,--what an impertinence +it seems!--and yet he is so gentle, and has such a good heart that +perhaps he will not mind . . ." + +Here she broke off her soliloquy as the children came up, Babette +eagerly demanding to know where the Cardinal was. Madame Patoux set +her arms akimbo and surveyed the little group of three half- +pityingly, half derisively. + +"The Cardinal has not left his room since breakfast," she answered-- +"He is playing Providence already to a poor lad lost in the streets, +and for that matter lost in the world, without father or mother to +look after him,--he was found in Notre Dame last night,--" + +"Why, mother," interrupted Henri--"how could a boy get into Notre +Dame last night? When Babette and I went there, nobody was in the +church at all,--and we left one candle burning all alone in the +darkness,--and when we came out the Suisse swore at us for having +gone in, and then locked the door." + +"Well, if one must be so exact, the boy was not found actually in +Notre Dame, obstinate child," returned his mother impatiently--"It +happened at midnight,--the good Cardinal heard someone crying and +went to see who it was. And he found a poor boy outside the +Cathedral weeping as if his heart were breaking, and leaning his +head against the hard door for a pillow. And he brought him back and +gave him his own bed to sleep in;--and the lad is with him now." + +Little Fabien Doucet, leaning on his crutch, looked up with +interest. + +"Is he lame like me?" he asked. + +"No, child," replied Madame compassionately--"He is straight and +strong. In truth a very pretty boy." + +Fabien sighed. Babette made a dash forward. + +"I will go and see him!" she said--"And I will call Monseigneur." + +"Babette! How dare you! Babette!" + +But Babette had scurried defiantly past her mother, and breathless +with a sense of excitement and disobedience intermingled, had burst +into the Cardinal's room without knocking. There on the threshold +she paused,--somewhat afraid at her own boldness,--and startled too +at the sight of Manuel, who was seated near the window opposite the +Cardinal, and who turned his deep blue eyes upon her with a look of +enquiry. The Cardinal himself rose and turned to greet her, and as +the wilful little maid met his encouraging glance and noted the +benign sweetness of his expression she trembled,--and losing nerve, +began to cry. + +"Monseigneur . . . Monseigneur . . ." she stammered. + +"Yes, my child,--what is it?" said the Cardinal kindly--"Do not be +afraid,--I am at your service. You have brought the little friend +you spoke to me of yesterday?" + +Babette peeped shyly at him through her tears, and drooping her +head, answered with a somewhat smothered "Yes." + +"That is well,--I will go to him at once,"--and the Cardinal paused +a moment looking at Manuel, who as if responding to his unuttered +wish, rose and approached him--"And you, Manuel--you will also come. +You see, my child," went on the good prelate addressing Babette, the +while he laid a gently caressing hand on her hair--"Another little +friend has come to me who is also very sad,--and though he is not +crippled or ill, he is all alone in the world, which is, for one so +young, a great hardship. You must be sorry for him too, as well as +for your own poor playmate." + +But Babette was seized with an extraordinary timidity, and had much +ado to keep back the tears that rose in her throat and threatened to +break out in a burst of convulsive sobbing. She did not know in the +least what was the matter with her,--she was only conscious of an +immense confusion and shyness which were quite new to her ordinarily +bold and careless nature. Manuel's face frightened yet fascinated +her; he looked, she thought, like the beautiful angel of the famous +stained glass "Annunciation" window in the crumbling old church of +St. Maclou. She dared not speak to him,--she could only steal +furtive glances at him from under the curling length of her dark +tear-wet lashes,--and when the Cardinal took her by the hand and +descended the staircase with her to the passage where the crippled +Fabien waited, she could not forbear glancing back every now and +then over her shoulder at the slight, supple, almost aerial figure +of the boy, who, noiselessly, and with a light gliding step, +followed. And now Madame Patoux came forward;--a bulky, anxious +figure of gesticulation and apology. + +"Alas, Monseigneur!" she began plaintively--"It is too shameful that +your quiet should be disturbed in this way, but if you could only +know the obstinacy of these children! Ah yes!--if you knew all, you +would pity their parents!--you would indeed! And this is the unhappy +little creature they have brought to you, Monseigneur,--a sad sight +truly!--and afflicted sorely by the will of God,--though one could +hardly say that God was anywhere about when he fell, poor baby, from +his mother's cart and twisted his body awry,--one would rather think +the devil was in the business, asking your pardon, Monseigneur; for +surely the turning of a human creature into a useless lump has +little of good, or divine kindness in it! Now make thy best bow to +the Cardinal," went on Madame with a gasp for breath in her voluble +speech, addressing the little cripple--" And it is a pity them hast +no time to confess thy sins and take the Sacrament before so holy a +man lay hands on thee!" + +But at these words Cardinal Bonpre turned to her with a reproving +gesture. + +"I pray you do not call me holy, my daughter," he said earnestly, +the old shadows of pain and prote gathering in his eyes, "Nothing +can make me more sorrowful than to hear such an epithet applied to +one who is so full of errors and sins as myself. Try to look upon me +just as I am,--merely an old man, nearing the grave, with nothing of +merit in me beyond the desire to serve our Lord and obey His +commands,--a desire which is far stronger than the practical force +to obey it. Much that I would do I cannot; and in much that I +attempt I fail. Come to me, my child." + +Here, interrupting himself, he bent down, and putting his arms +tenderly round Fabien, lifted him bodily, crutch and all, and +carried him into the next room, and as he did so, the young Manuel +glided in before him, and stood beside his chair, his blue eyes +shining with a soft and eager light of interest, and a little smile +lifting the delicate upper curve of his lips as he looked on. Fabien +meanwhile, perched on the Cardinal's knee, and held close in the +Cardinal's arms, was not at all frightened,--he simply sat, +contented, gazing up confidingly at the pale venerable face above +him. Henri and Babette, having as they considered, got their way, +stayed at the door half afraid to enter, and their mother peered +over their heads at the little scene in mingled awe and curiosity. + +"My poor child," then said the Cardinal gently--"I want you to +understand quite clearly how sorry I am for you, and how willingly I +would do anything in the world to make you a strong, well, and happy +boy. But you must not fancy that I can cure you. I told your little +friends yesterday that I was not a saint, such as you read about in +story-books,--and that I could not work miracles, because I am not +worthy to be so filled with the Divine Spirit as to heal with a +touch like the better servants of our Blessed Lord. Nevertheless I +firmly believe that if God saw that it was good for you to be strong +and well, He would find ways to make you so. Sometimes sickness and +sorrow are sent to us for our advantage,--sometimes even death comes +to us for our larger benefit, though we may not understand how it is +so till afterwards. But in Heaven everything will be made clear; and +even our griefs will be turned into joys,--do you understand?" + +"Yes," murmured Fabien gravely, but two large tears welled up in his +plaintive eyes as the faint glimmer of hope he had encouraged as to +the possibility of his being miraculously cured by the touch of a +saintly Cardinal, expired in the lonely darkness of his little +afflicted soul. + +"That is well," continued the Cardinal kindly--"And now, since it is +so difficult for you to kneel, you shall stay where you are in my +arms,--so!"--and he set him on his knee in a position of even +greater comfort than before, "You shall simply shut your eyes, and +clasp your little hands together as I put them here,"--and as he +spoke he crossed the child's hands on his silver crucifix-"And I +will ask our Lord to come and make you well,--for of myself I can do +nothing." + +At these words Henri and Babette glanced at each other +questioningly, and then as if simultaneously moved by some +inexplicable emotion, dropped on their knees,--their mother, too +stout and unwieldy to do this with either noiselessness or +satisfaction to herself, was contented to bend her head as low as +she could get it. Manuel remained standing. Leaning against the +Cardinal's chair, his eyes fixed on the crippled Fabien, he had the +aspect of a young Angel of compassion, whose sole immortal desire +was to lift the burden of sorrow and pain from the lives of +suffering humanity. And after a minute or two passed in silent +meditation, the Cardinal laid his hands tenderly on Fabien's fair +curly head and prayed aloud. + +"Oh merciful Christ! Most pitying and gentle Redeemer!--to Whom in +the days of Thy sacred life on earth, the sick and suffering and +lame and blind were brought, and never sent away unhealed or +uncomforted; consider, we beseech Thee, the sufferings of this Thy +little child, deprived of all the joys which Thou hast made so sweet +for those who are strong and straight in their youth, and who have +no ailment to depress their courage or to quench the ardour of their +aspiring souls. Look compassionately upon him, oh gentle King and +Master of all such children!--and even as Thou wert a child Thyself, +be pleased to heal him of his sad infirmity. For, if Thou wilt, Thou +canst make this bent body straight and these withered muscles +strong,--from death itself Thou canst ordain life, and nothing is +impossible to Thee! But above all things, gracious Saviour, we do +pray Thee so to lift and strengthen this child's soul, that if it is +destined he should still be called upon to bear his present pain and +trouble, grant to him such perfection in his inward spirit that he +may prove worthy to be counted among Thy angels in the bright +Hereafter. To Thy care, and to Thy comfort, and to Thy healing, +great Master, we commend him, trusting him entirely to Thy mercy, +with perfect resignation to Thy Divine Will. For the sake and memory +of Thy most holy childhood mercifully help and bless this child! +Amen!" + +A deep silence ensued. Only the slow ticking of the big old- +fashioned clock in Madame Patoux's kitchen, which was next door to +the room they were all in, could be distinctly heard. Henri and +Babette were the first to stir. They got up from their knees, +brushed the dust of the floor from their clothes, and stared +curiously at Fabien. Was a miracle going to happen? Fabien, however- +-still resting against the Cardinal's breast, with his meagre little +hands clasped tight on the Cardinal's crucifix, kept his eyes +solemnly shut and gave no sign, till the Cardinal himself gently +moved him and set him down. Then he glanced around him +bewilderingly, tottered, and would have fallen had he not been given +his little crutch for support. Very pathetic was the smile which +then quivered on his pale lips,--very doleful was the shake of his +head as he prepared to hobble away. + +"Thank you very much, Monseigneur," he murmured gently--"I felt +almost cured while you were praying,--but I am afraid it is no use! +You see there are so many miserable people in the world,--many +cripples, too,--I am not the only one. Our Lord must have enough to +do if He is asked to heal them all! But I am sure you have done +everything you can for me, and I am grateful to you, Monseigneur. +Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye, my child!" and the Cardinal, strongly moved by the sight +of the little helpless twisted figure, and painfully impressed too +by the sense of his own entire powerlessness to remove the cause of +the trouble, bent down and kissed him--"Believe me, if the giving of +my own life could make you strong, you should have that life +willingly. May God bless and heal you!" + +At that moment Manuel moved from the place he had kept near the +Cardinal's chair. With a light, eager step forward, he went up to +the little cripple, and putting his arms round him kissed him on the +forehead. + +"Good-bye, dear little brother!" he said smiling--"Do not be sad! +Have patience! In all the universe, among all the millions and +millions of worlds, there is never a pure and unselfish prayer that +the great good God does not answer! Be sure of that! Take courage, +dear little brother! You will soon be well!" + +Fabien stared, half amazed, at the gentle young face that shone upon +him with such an expression of hope and tenderness. + +"You are very kind," he said--"And you are just a boy yourself,--so +you can perhaps guess how it must feel not to be like other boys who +can run and leap and walk for miles and miles through the fields and +the green shady forests where the birds sing,--and where there is so +much to see and think about,--when one is lame one cannot go far you +know--and then there is my mother--she is very sad about me,--and it +will be hard for her if I live to be a man and still can do nothing +to help her . . ." + +His weak voice broke, and two large tears filled his eyes and +brimmed over, trickling slowly down his pale cheeks. Manuel took his +hand and pressed it encouragingly. + +"Do not cry!" he said gently--"Believe in what I say--that you will +soon be quite well. The Cardinal has prayed for you as only good men +CAN pray,--without one selfish thought, in faith and deep humility,- +-such prayers draw angels down! Be patient--be brave! Believe in the +best and the best will come!" + +His words rang out with a sweet convincing clearness, and even +Cardinal Bonpre felt a sense of comfort as he listened. The little +cripple smiled through his tears. + +"Oh, yes," he murmured--"I WILL hope and I WILL believe! I am always +sure God is near us, though my mother thinks He must be very far +away. Yes,--I will be as brave as I can. You are very good to me,--I +know you understand just how I feel, and I thank you very much. I +hope you will be happy yourself some day. Good-bye!" Then, turning +to Henri and Babette he asked, "Shall we go now?" + +Henri's brows were drawn together in a dark frown. + +"I suppose so," he replied--"I suppose there's nothing more to be +done?" This, with a somewhat sarcastic air of inquiry directed at +the Cardinal, who met his bold bright glance, mildly and half +compassionately. + +"Nothing more my child"--he answered--"Did you expect a miracle? I +told you from the first that I was no saint,--I can do no good +unless our Lord wills it." + +"The Pope believes in miracles"--said Henri, flushing as he spoke +with the heat of a sudden angry emotion--"But only those that are +performed on his own behalf! HE thinks that God's chief business is +to look after HIM!" + +A silence ensued,--whether of horror or embarrassment could hardly +be determined. The Cardinal said nothing,--Babette trembled a +little,--what a dreadful boy Henri really was, she thought!--Madame +Patoux shut up her eyes in horror, crossed herself devoutly as +against some evil spirit, and was about to speak, when Henri, +nothing daunted, threw himself into the breach again, and turned +with a fiery vehemence of appeal towards the young and thoughtful- +looking Manuel. + +"It's just as I say!" he declared hotly--"The Pope is taken as much +care of as if he were a peach wrapped in wadding! Was Christ taken +care of? No,--He suffered all sorts of hardships and at last was +crucified! The Pope shuts himself up in the Vatican with millions +and millions of money's worth, while thousands of people around him +in Italy alone, are starving and miserable. Christ would not allow +such a thing. Christ said 'Sell half that thou hast and give to the +poor'--now the Pope doesn't sell half, nor a quarter, nor a bit of a +quarter! He takes all he can get and keeps it! And yet God is +supposed to work miracles for an old man like that!--Oh I know all +about it! Boys read the newspapers as well as grown men!" + +"Henri!" gasped Madame Patoux, extending her fat arm and hand with a +solemn gesture of reproach--"Henri, thou art mad . . . wicked . . ." + +But Henri went on unheedingly, still addressing Manuel. + +"Now you are a boy, and I daresay you can read and think,--you are +about my age I suppose. And you are left all alone in the world, +with nobody to care for you,--well, do you think that is well- +arranged?--And do you think there is any sense in believing in a God +who does such a lot of cruel things? And when He won't help us ever +so little? How can people be good if they keep on praying and +praying, and hoping and hoping, and working and working--and yet +nothing comes of it all but trouble and pain and loss . . ." He stopped +for sheer lack of breath to go on. + +Manuel looked at him quietly, full in the eyes. + +"Yes, it is hard!" he said--"Very hard! But it is not God who does +any cruel thing. God is Love,--and the Spirit of Love cannot be +cruel. It is the people of the world themselves,--the people who +injure each other in thought, word and deed,--and who have no spirit +of love in them,--these invite sorrow and pain, and rush upon +misfortune. Then they blame God for it! Ah, it is easy to blame +God!--so much easier than to blame one's self! And if you ask me if +it is well for those who suffer cruel things to still believe in +God, I say yes, I do think it well,--for it is the only chance they +have of finding the right way of life after much wandering in the +wrong." + +His sweet voice fell on the silence like a soft chime, and Henri, +for no particular reason that he could give, felt suddenly abashed. +Cardinal Bonpre listened to the words of this strange foundling with +a singular emotion,--an emotion too deep to find any outlet in +speech. Babette raised her brown trustful eyes, and timidly ventured +to put in her opinion. + +"Yes"--she said--"I am sure that is true. You see Henri"--with a +wise glance at her brother--"you see it is always the same,--when +anyone suffers something unfortunate, there is certain to be some +cause for it. Now everybody says that if poor Martine had not put +Fabien in the cart to save herself the trouble of holding him on her +knee, he would not have tumbled out and been hurt. That was the +beginning of it. And that was not God's fault. Come Fabien!--we'll +take you back now." + +At this, Madame Patoux started from her stricken condition of +horrified dumbness into speech and action. + +"Ah yes, it is indeed time!" she exclaimed--"Enough trouble has been +given, I am sure, to Monseigneur, and if such a prayer as his does +not reach Heaven, why then there is no Heaven at all, and it is no +good bothering ourselves about it. And what things have been said by +my son!--MY son!--against the Holy Father! Ah, mon Dieu! The +wickedness of it!--The horror! And if thou learnest such blasphemy +from newspapers, Henri, thou shalt not read them--" + +"Who is to prevent me?" demanded Henri, his eyes sparkling +defiantly. + +"Hush--hush my child!" interposed the Cardinal quietly "Nothing +indeed can prevent thee,--no one can hinder thee from walking the +world according to thine own will and direction. Thou must take good +and evil as they come, and strive thy best to discern between them-- +and if the love of God cannot help thee--well!--perchance the love +of thy mother may!" + +There was a pause. Henri's head drooped, and quick tears filled his +eyes. He said nothing further, but turned to assist Babette in +guiding the little Fabien's hesitating steps as he hobbled from the +room. The emotional Madame Patoux choked back a rising sob. + +"God bless you Monseigneur!" she murmured--"Henri will not forget +those words--the lad has a hasty temper, but a good heart--yes, +believe me--a good heart--" + +"That I am sure of"--responded the Cardinal--"He is quick and +intelligent--and seeks to know the truth. If he could feel an +asserted 'truth' to be really true, I am confident he would frame +his life upon it, and be a good, brave man. Yes--he is a clever +lad,--and our modern system of education pushes the brain to a +precocity exceeding bodily years,--his impatience and anger only +come from puzzling over what he finds it difficult to understand. It +is all a puzzle to him--all a puzzle!--as it is to most of us!" He +sighed--then added in a lighter tone--"I shall want nothing more at +your kindly hands, my daughter. I have decided to leave Rouen for +Paris to-day and will take an early afternoon train. Manuel"--and he +hesitated a moment--"Manuel will go with me." + +Madame was scarcely surprised at this announcement. She had indeed +expected it. She glanced at Manuel himself to see how he accepted +this sudden change in his fortunes, but he was entirely absorbed in +watching Henri and Babette lead their little crippled friend away. +After all, there was nothing to be said. The Cardinal was a free +agent,--he had a perfect right to befriend a homeless boy and give +him sustenance and protection if he chose. He would make, thought +Madame, a perfect acolyte, and would look like a young angel in his +little white surplice. And so the good woman, deciding in her own +mind that such was the simple destiny for which the Cardinal +intended him, smiled, murmured something deferential and approving, +and hastened from the room, to prepare for Monseigneur, whether he +asked for it or not, a dish of her most excellent soup, to +strengthen and support him before starting on his journey. And ere +four o'clock had chimed from all the towers of the city, the Hotel +Poitiers was deprived of its honoured guest,--the Cardinal, +accompanied by his foundling, had departed, and the black, smoky, +snake-like train had rushed with them through the smiling peace of +the Normandy pasture-lands on towards the brilliant "city enthroned +in wickedness," which sparkles like a jewel on the borders of the +Seine as gloriously as ever Babylon sparkled on the shores of +Euphrates. As godless, as hollow to the very core of rottenness, as +her sister of ancient days, wanton "Lutetia" shines,--with the +ghastly and unnatural lustre of phosphorescent luminance arising +from old graves--and as divinely determined as the destruction of +the old-time city splendid, is the approaching downfall of the +modern capital. To the inhabitants of Rouen, the very name of Paris +carries with it a kind of awe,--it excites various emotions of +wonder, admiration, longing, curiosity and even fear,--for Paris is +a witches' cauldron in which Republicanism, Imperialism, Royalism, +Communism and Socialism, are all thrown by the Fates to seethe +together in a hellish broth of conflicting elements--and the smoke +of it ascends in reeking blasphemy to Heaven. Not from its church- +altars does the cry of "How long, O Lord, how long!" ascend +nowadays,--for its priests are more skilled in the use of the witty +bon-mot or the polished sneer than in the power of the prophet's +appeal,--it is from the Courts of Science that the warning note of +terror sounds,--the cold vast courts where reasoning thinkers +wander, and learn, and deeply meditate, knowing that all their +researches but go to prove the fact that apart from all creed and +all forms of creed, Crime carries Punishment as surely as the seed +is born with the flower,--thinkers who are fully aware that not all +the forces of all mankind, working with herculean insistence to +support a Lie, can drive back the storm-cloud of the wrath of that +"Unknown Quantity" called God, whose thunders do most terribly +declare the truth "with power and great glory." "How long O Lord, +how long!" Not long, we think, O friends!--not long now shall we +wait for the Divine Pronouncement of the End. Hints of it are in the +air,--signs and portents of it are about us in our almost terrific +discoveries of the invisible forces of Light and Sound,--we are not +given such tremendous powers to play with in our puny fashion for +the convenience of making our brief lives easier to live and more +interesting,--no, there is some deeper reason,--one, which in our +heedless way of dancing over our own Earth-grave, we never dream of. +And we go on making our little plans, building our ships and making +loud brags of our armies, and our skill, and our prowess both by +land and sea, and our amazing importance to ourselves and to +others,--which importance has reached such a height at the present +day as to make of us a veritable spectacle for Olympian laughter,-- +and we draw out our little sums of life from the Eternal exchequer, +and add them up and try to obtain the highest interest for them, +always forgetting to calculate that in making up the sum total, that +mysterious "Unknown Quantity" will have to come in, and (un less it +has been taken into due counting from the first) will be a figure +likely to swamp the whole banking business. And in this particular +phase of speculation and exchange, Paris has long been playing a +losing game. So steadily has she lost, in honour, in prestige, in +faith, in morals, in justice, in honesty and in cleanly living, that +it does not seem possible she can ever retrieve herself. Her men are +dissolute,--her women shameless--her youth of both sexes depraved,-- +her laws are corrupt--her arts de cadent--her religion dead. What +next can be expected of her?--or rather to what extent will Destiny +permit her to go before the bolt of destruction falls? "Thus far, +and no farther" has ever been the Principle of Nature--and Paris has +almost touched the "Thus far." + +Sitting quietly in her tidy kitchen near the open window, after the +Cardinal's departure, Madame Patoux knitted busily, her thoughts +flying faster than her glittering needles. A certain vague +impression of solemnity had been left on her mind by the events of +the morning,--she could not quite reason out the why or the +wherefore of it--and yet--it was a fact that after Monseigneur had +gone, she had, when entering the rooms he had vacated, felt a +singular sense of awe. + +"Almost as if one were in the Cathedral at the ringing of the +'Sanctus'" she murmured under her breath, glancing about timidly at +the plain furniture and bare walls. And after putting everything in +order, she closed and locked the doors jealously, with a +determination that she would not let those rooms to the first +chance-comer for a long time,--no, though she might have to lose +money by her refusal. And now, as she sat actively employed in +knitting socks for Henri, whom she could see sitting with his sister +outside on the bench under the house porch, reading or pretending to +read, she began to wonder what opinion those two young miscreants +had formed in their minds respecting the Cardinal, and also what +they thought of the boy who had been taken so suddenly under his +protection. She was almost tempted to call Henri and ask him a few +questions on the subject,--but she had learnt to value peace and +quietness when she could secure those rare blessings at the hands of +her children, and when they were employed with a book and visibly +out of mischief she thought it wisest to leave them alone. And so +she left them in the present instance, pushing her window open as +she sat and knitted, for the air was warm and balmy, and the long +rays of sunshine streaming across the square were of the hue of a +ripe nectarine just gathered, and the delicate mouldings and +traceries and statues on the porch of the Cathedral appeared like so +many twinings of grey gossamer web glistening in a haze of gold. Now +and then neighbours passed, and nodded or called a greeting which +Madame Patoux answered cheerily, still knitting vivaciously; and the +long shafts of sunshine grew longer, casting deeper shadows as the +quarters chimed. All at once there was a cry,--a woman's figure came +rushing precipitately across the square,--Madame Patoux sprang up, +and her children ran out of the porch as they recognised Martine +Doucet. + +"Martine! Martine! What is it!" they all cried simultaneously. + +Martine, breathless, dishevelled, laughing and sobbing alternately, +tried to speak, but could only gesticulate and throw up her hands in +a kind of ecstasy, but whether of despair or joy could not be +guessed. Madame Patoux shook her by the arm. + +"Martine!--speak--what is it!" + +Martine made a violent effort. + +"Fabien!--Fabien--" she gasped, flinging herself to and fro and +still sobbing and laughing. + +"Mon Dieu!" cried Madame in horror. "Is the child dead?" + +"No, no!--" and Martine again tossed her arms aloft in a kind of +frenzy. "No--but look you!--there IS a God! Yes!--we thought He was +an invention of the priests--but no--He is a real God after all!--Oh +mes enfants!" and she tried to grasp the amazed Henri and Babette in +her arms, "You are two of His angels!--you took my boy to the +Cardinal--" + +The children glanced at each other. + +"Yes--yes!" they murmured breathlessly. + +"Well! and see what has happened!--See!--Here comes Fabien--!" + +And as she spoke exultantly with an excitement that seemed to +inspire every nerve of her body, a little figure came running +lightly towards them,--the light strong figure of a boy with fair +curls flying in the wind, and a face in which the large, grey, +astonished eyes flashed with an almost divine joy. + +"Mother!--Mother!" he cried. + +Madame Patoux felt as though the heavens had suddenly opened to let +the angels down. Was this Fabien? Fabien, who had hobbled painfully +upon crutches all his life, and had left her house in his usual +condition an hour or so ago?--This straight-limbed child, running +with the graceful and easy movement of a creature who had never +known a day's pain? + +"Fabien, is it thou?" almost screamed Henri, "Speak, is it thou?" + +"It is I" said Fabien, and he stopped, panting for breath,--then +threw his arms round his mother's neck and faced them,--"It is I-- +strong and well!--thanks to God and the prayers of the Cardinal!" + +For a moment there was a dead silence,--a silence of stupefied +amazement unbroken save by the joyful weeping of Martine. Then +suddenly a deep-toned bell rang from the topmost tower of Notre +Dame--and in the flame-red of the falling sun the doves that make +their homes among the pinnacles of the great Cathedral, rose +floating in cloudy circles towards the sky. One bell--and then +another--yet another!-- + +"The Angelus!" cried Babette dropping on her knees and folding her +hands, "The Angelus!--Mother--Martine--Henri!--Fabien!--the +Angelus!"-- + +Down they all knelt, a devotional group, in the porch through which +the good Cardinal had so lately passed, and the bells chimed sweetly +and melodiously as Fabien reverently repeated the Angelic Salutation +amid responses made with tears and thanksgiving, and neighbours and +townfolk hearing of the miracle came hastening to the Hotel Poitiers +to enquire into its truth, and pausing as they saw the cluster of +kneeling figures in the porch instinctively and without question +knelt also,--then as the news spread, group after group came running +and gathering together, and dropping on their knees amazed and awe- +struck, till the broad Square showed but one black mass of a +worshipping congregation under the roseate sky, their voices joining +in unison with the clear accents of one little happy child; while +behind them rose the towers of Notre Dame, and over their heads the +white doves flew and the bells of the Angelus rang. And the sun +dropped slowly into the west, crimson and glorious like the shining +rim of a Sacramental Cup held out and then drawn slowly back again +by angel hands within the Veil of Heaven. + + + + +VII. + +Meanwhile, unconscious of the miracle his prayer had wrought, +Cardinal Bonpre and his young charge Manuel, arrived in Paris, and +drove from the station direct to a house situated near the Bois du +Boulogne, where the Cardinal's niece, Angela Sovrani, only daughter +of Prince Sovrani, and herself famous throughout Europe as a painter +of the highest promise, had a suite of rooms and studio, reserved +for her occasional visits to the French capital. Angela Sovrani was +a rare type of her sex,--unlike any other woman in the world, so +those who knew her best were wont to declare. Without being actually +beautiful, according to the accepted lines and canons of physical +perfection, she created around her an effect of beauty, which was +dazzling and exciting to a singular degree,--people who came once +within the charmed circle of her influence could never forget her, +and always spoke of her afterwards as a creature apart;--a "woman of +genius,--yes!"--they said, "But something more even than that." And +this "something more," was just the inexplicable part of her which +governed her whole being, and rendered her so indescribably +attractive. And she was not without beauty--or perhaps it should be +termed loveliness rather,--of an exquisitely suggestive kind, which +provoked the beholder into questioning where and how the glamour of +it fell. In her eyes, perhaps, the secret lay,--they were violet- +grey in hue, and drowsy-lidded, with long lashes that swept the +delicate pale cheeks in a dark golden fringe of shadow, through +which the sparkle of vision gleamed,--now warningly, now tenderly,-- +and anon, these same half-shut and deep fringed lids would open +wide, letting the full brilliance of the soul behind the eyes pour +forth its luminance, in flashes of such lightning-like clearness and +compelling force, that it was impossible not to recognise something +higher than mere woman in the dazzle of that spiritual glory. In +figure she was wonderfully slight,--so slight indeed that she +suggested a delicate willow-withe such as can be bent and curved +with one hand--yet this slightness stood her in good stead, for +being united with extreme suppleness, it gave her a grace of +movement resembling that of some skimming mountain bird or sea- +swallow, which flies with amazing swiftness yet seeming slowness. +Angela never moved quickly,--no one had ever seen her in what is +termed a "rush," or a vulgar hurry. She did everything she had to do +without haste, without noise, without announcement or assertion of +any kind;--and all that she did was done as perfectly as her ability +could warrant. And that ability was very great indeed, and displayed +itself in small details as well as large attempts. Whether she +merely twisted her golden-brown hair into a knot, or tied a few +flowers together and fastened them on her dress with a pearl pin, +either thing was perfectly done--without a false line or a +discordant hue. Her face, form, voice and colouring were like a +chord of music, harmonious,--and hence the impression of +satisfaction and composure her presence always gave. In herself she +was a creature of remarkable temperament and character;--true +womanly in every delicate sentiment, fancy and feeling, but with +something of the man-hero in her scorn of petty aims, her delight in +noble deeds, her courage, her ambition, her devotion to duty and her +unflinching sense of honour. Full of rare perceptions and +instinctive knowledge of persons and motives, she could only be +deceived and blinded where her deepest affections were concerned, +and there she could certainly be fooled and duped as completely as +the wisest of us all. Looking at her now as she stood awaiting her +uncle's arrival in the drawing-room of her "suite," the windows of +which faced the Bois, she expressed to the air and surroundings the +personality of a thoughtful, charming young woman,--no more. Her +black silk gown, cut simply in the prevailing mode of definitely +outlining the figure from throat to hips, and then springing out in +pliant folds of trailing drapery, had nothing remarkable about it +save its Parisian perfection of fit,--the pale "Gloire de France" +rose that rested lightly amongst the old lace at her neck, pinned, +yet looking as though it had dropped there merely out of a languid +desire to escape from further growing, was her only ornament. Her +hair, full of curious lights and shades running from brown to gold +and gold to brown again, in a rippling uncertain fashion, clustered +thickly over her brow and was caught back at the sides in a loose +twist after the style of the Greek vestals,--and her fine, small +white hands and taper fingers, so skilled in the use of the artist's +brush, looked too tiny and delicate to be of any service save to +receive the kisses of a lover's lips,--or to be raised, folded pure +and calm, in a child-like appeal to Heaven. Certainly in her fragile +appearance she expressed nothing save indefinable charm--no one, +studying her physiognomy, would have accredited her with genius, +power, and the large conceptions of a Murillo or a Raphael;--yet +within the small head lay a marvellous brain--and the delicate body +was possessed by a spirit of amazing potency to conjure with. While +she watched for the first glimpse of the carriage which was to bring +her uncle the Cardinal, whom she loved with a rare and tender +devotion, her thoughts were occupied with a letter she had received +that morning from Rome,--a letter "writ in choice Italian," which +though brief, contained for her some drops of the essence of all the +world's sweetness, and was worded thus-- + +"MY OWN LOVE!--A century seems to have passed away since you left +Rome. The hours move slowly without you--they are days,--even +years!--but I feel your spirit is always with me! Absence for those +who love, is not absence after all! To the soul, time is nothing,-- +space is nothing,--and my true and passionate love for you makes an +invisible bridge, over which my thoughts run and fly to your sweet +presence, carrying their delicious burden of a thousand kisses!--a +thousand embraces and blessings to the Angela and angel of my life! +From her devoted lover, + +"Florian." + +Her devoted lover, Florian! Yes; Florian Varillo--her comrade in +art, was her lover,--a genius himself, who had recognised HER genius +and who bowed before it, conquered and subdued! Florian, the creator +of exquisitely delicate landscapes and seascapes, with nymphs and +cupids and nereids and sirens all daintily portrayed therein,-- +pictures so ethereal and warm and bright in colour that they were +called by some of the best Italian critics, the "amoretti" of +painting,--he, this wonderful man, had caught her soul and heart by +storm, in a few sudden, quickly-whispered words one night when the +moon was at the full, hanging high over the gardens of the Pincio,-- +and, proud of her security in the love she had won, Angela had risen +by leaps and bounds to a magnificence of creative effort and +attainment so far beyond him, that old and wise persons, skilled in +the wicked ways of the world, would sometimes discourse among +themselves in dubious fashion thus: "Is it possible that he is not +jealous? He must surely see that her work is superior to his own!" +And others would answer, "Oh no! No man was ever known to admit, +even in thought, that a woman can do better things in art than +himself! If a masculine creature draws a picture on a paving-stone +he will assure himself in his own Ego, that it is really much more +meritorious simply as 'man's work' than the last triumph of a Rosa +Bonheur. Besides, you have to remember that in this case the man is +the woman's lover--he could soon kill her genius if he chose. He has +simply to desert her,--such an easy thing!--so often done!--and she +will paint no more. Women are all alike,--they rest on love,--when +that fails, then everything fails, and they drop into old age +without a groan." And then perhaps a stray cynic would say, "But +Angela Sovrani need not depend on one lover surely?--" and he would +get for answer, "No, she need not--but it so happens that she +does,"--which to everybody seemed extraordinary, more particularly +in Italy, where morals are so lax, that a woman has only to be seen +walking alone in the public gardens or streets with one of the +opposite sex, and her reputation is gone for ever. It is no use to +explain that the man in question is her father, her brother or her +uncle,--he simply could not be. He is THE man, the one inevitable. +Few Italians (in Italy) believe in the chastity of English women,-- +their reasons for doubt being simply because they see the fair and +free ones going to parties, theatres and other places of amusement +with their friends of the other sex in perfect ease and confidence. +And in the case of Angela Sovrani, though she was affianced to +Florian Varillo with her father's consent, (reluctantly obtained,) +and the knowledge of all the Roman world of society, she saw very +little of him,--and that little, never alone. Thus it was very sweet +to receive such consoling words as those she had had from him that +day--"Time is nothing,--space is nothing,--and my true and +passionate love for you makes an invisible bridge over which my +thoughts run and fly to your sweet presence!" The letter lay warm in +her bosom just under the "Gloire de France" rose; she pressed it +tenderly with her little hand now simply for the childish pleasure +of hearing the paper rustle, and she smiled dreamily. + +"Florian," she murmured half aloud!--"MY Florian!" And she recalled +certain lines of verse he had written to her,--for most Italians +write verse as easily as they eat maccaroni;--and there are +countless rhymes to "amor" in the dulcet Dante-tongue, whereas our +rough English can only supply for the word "love" some three or four +similar sounds,--which is perhaps a fortunate thing. Angela spoke +English and French as easily and fluently as her native Tuscan, and +had read the most notable books in all three languages, so she was +well aware that of all kinds of human speech in the world there is +none so adapted for making love and generally telling lies in, as +the "lingua Toscana in bocca Romana." And this particular "lingua" +Florian possessed in fullest perfection of sweetness, so far as +making love was concerned;--of the telling of lies he was, according +to Angela's estimate of him, most nobly ignorant. She had not many +idle moments, however, for meditation on her love matters, or for +dreamy study of the delicate beginnings of the autumnal tints on the +trees of the Bois, for the carriage she had been awaiting soon made +its appearance, and bowling rapidly down the road drew up sharply at +the door. She had just time to perceive that her uncle had not +arrived alone, when he entered,--and with a pretty grace and +reverence for his holy calling, she dropped on one knee before him +to receive his benediction, which he gave by laying a hand on her +soft hair and signing the cross on her brow. After which he raised +her and looked at her fondly. + +"My dear child!"--he said, tenderly,--and again "My dear child!" + +Then he turned towards Manuel, who had followed him and was now +standing quietly on the threshold of the apartment. + +"Angela, this is one of our Lord's 'little ones,'" he said,--"He is +alone in the world, and I have made myself his guardian and +protector for the present. You will be kind to him--yes--as kind as +if you were his sister, will you not?--for we are all one family in +the sight of Heaven, and sorrow and loneliness and want can but +strengthen the love which should knit us all together." + +Raising her candid eyes, and fixing them on Manuel, Angela smiled. +The thoughtful face and pathetic expression of the boy greatly +attracted her, and in her heart she secretly wondered where her +uncle had found so intelligent and inspired-looking a creature. But +one of her UNfeminine attributes was a certain lack of curiosity +concerning other people's affairs, and an almost fastidious dislike +of asking questions on matters which did not closely concern her. So +she contented herself with giving him that smile of hers which in +itself expressed all sweetness, and saying gently,-- + +"You are very welcome! You must try to feel that wherever my uncle +is,--that is 'home'." + +"I have felt that from the first,"--replied Manuel in his soft +musical voice, "I was all alone when my lord the Cardinal found me,- +-but with him the world seems full of friends." + +Angela looked at him still more attentively; and the fascination of +his presence became intensified. She would have liked to continue +the conversation, but her uncle was fatigued by his journey, and +expressed the desire for an hour's rest. She therefore summoned a +servant to show him to the rooms prepared for his reception, whither +he went, Manuel attending him,--and when, after a little while, +Angela followed to see that all was arranged suitably for his +comfort, she found that he had retired to his bed-chamber, and that +just outside his door in a little ante-room adjoining, his "waif and +stray" was seated, reading. There was something indescribable about +the boy even in this reposeful attitude of study,--and Angela +observed him for a minute or two, herself unseen. His face reminded +her of one of Fra Angelico's seraphs,--the same broad brow, deep +eyes and sensitive lips, which seemed to suggest the utterance of +wondrous speech or melodious song,--the same golden hair swept back +in rich clusters,--the same eager, inspired, yet controlled +expression. A curious fluttering of her heart disturbed the girl as +she looked--an indefinable dread--a kind of wonder, that almost +touched on superstitious awe. Manuel himself, apparently unconscious +of her observation, went on reading,--his whole attitude expressing +that he was guarding the door to deter anyone from breaking in upon +the Cardinal's rest, and Angela at last turned away reluctantly, +questioning herself as to the cause of the strange uneasiness which +thrilled her mind. + +"It is foolish, of course,"--she murmured, "but I feel just as if +there were a supernatural presence in the house, . . . however,--I +always do have that impression with Uncle Felix, for he is so good +and noble-minded,--almost a saint, as everyone says--but to-day +there is something else--something quite unusual--" + +She re-entered the drawing-room, moving slowly with an abstracted +air, and did not at once perceive a visitor in the room,--a portly +person in clerical dress, with a somewhat large head and strongly +marked features,--a notable character of the time in Paris, known as +the Abbe Vergniaud. He had seated himself in a low fauteuil, and was +turning over the pages of the month's "Revue de Deux Mondes", +humming a little tune under his breath as he did so,--but he rose +when he saw Angela, and advanced smilingly to greet her as she +stopped short, with a little startled exclamation of surprise at the +sight of him. + +"Forgive me" he said, with an expressively apologetic gesture,-- +"Have I come at an inopportune moment? I saw your uncle arrive, and +I was extremely anxious to see him on a little confidential matter-- +I ventured to persuade your servant to let me enter--" + +"No apologies are necessary, Monsieur l'Abbe" said Angela, quickly, +"My uncle Felix is indeed here, but he is tired with his journey and +is resting--" + +"Yes, I understand!" And Monsieur l'Abbe, showing no intention to +take his leave on account of the Cardinal's non-presence, bowed low +over the extended hand of "the Sovrani" as she was sometimes called +in the world of art, where her name was a bone for envious dogs-in- +the-manger to fight over--"But if I might wait a little while--" + +"Your business with my uncle is important?" questioned Angela with +slightly knitted brows. + +"My dear child, all business is important,"--declared the Abbe, with +a smile which spread the light of a certain satirical benevolence +all over his plump clean-shaven face, "or so we think--we who +consider that we have any business,--which is of course a foolish +idea,--but one that is universal to human nature. We all imagine we +are busy--which is so curious of us! Will you sit here?--Permit me!" +And he dexterously arranged a couple of cushions in an arm-chair and +placed it near the window. Angela half-reluctantly seated herself, +watching the Abbe under the shadow of her long lashes as he sat down +opposite to her. "Yes,--the emmets, the flies, the worms and the +men, are all of one equality in the absurd belief that they can do +things--things that will last. Their persistent self-credulity is +astonishing,--considering the advance the world has made in science, +and the overwhelming proofs we are always getting of the fact that +we are only One of an eternal procession of many mighty +civilizations, all of which have been swept away with everything +they have ever learnt, into silence,--so that really all we do, or +try to do, amounts to doing nothing in the end!" + +"That is your creed, I know," said Angela Sovrani with a faint sigh, +"But it is a depressing and a wretched one." + +"I do not find it so," responded the Abbe, complacently looking at a +fine diamond ring that glittered on the little finger of his plump +white hand, "It is a creed which impresses upon us the virtue of +being happy during the present moment, no matter what the next may +bring. Let each man enjoy himself according to his temperament and +capabilities. Do not impose bounds upon him--give him his liberty. +Let him alone. Do not try to bamboozle him with the idea that there +is a God looking after him. So will he be spared much disappointment +and useless blasphemy. If he makes his own affairs unpleasant in +this world', he will not be able to lift up his hands to the +innocent skies, which are only composed of pure ether, and blame an +impossible Large Person sitting up there who can have no part in +circumstances which are entirely unknown outside the earth's +ridiculously small orbit." + +He smiled kindly as he spoke, and looked paternally at "the +Sovrani," who flushed with a sudden warmth that sent a wave of pale +rose over her face, and made her cheeks the colour of the flower she +wore. + +"How cruel you are!" she said,--"How cold--how didactic! You would +give each man his freedom according to habit and temperament,--no +matter whether such habit and temperament led to crime or +otherwise,--you would impose upon him no creed,--no belief in +anything higher than himself,--and yet--you remain in the Church!" + +The Abbe laughed softly. + +"Chere Sovrani! You are angry--deliciously angry! Impulsively, +enthusiastically, beautifully vexed with me! I like to see you so,-- +you are a woman of remarkable genius, and yet you are quite a little +child in heart,--a positive child, with beliefs and hopes! I should +not wonder if you even believed that love itself is eternal!--that +most passing of phantoms!--yes--and you exclaim against me because I +venture to think for myself? It is appalling that I should think for +myself and yet remain in the Church? My dear lady, you might just as +well, after unravelling the dirty entanglement of the Dreyfus case, +have turned upon our late friend Faure ancl exclaimed 'And yet you +remained President!'" + +Angela's violet eyes glowed. + +"He was not allowed to remain President," she said. + +"No, he was not. He died. Certainly! And I know you think he would +not have died if he had done his best to clear the character of an +innocent man. To women of your type, it always seems as if God--the +Large Person up above--stepped in exactly at the right moment. It +would really appear as if it were so at times. But such things are +mere coincidences." + +"I do not believe in coincidences," said Angela decisively, "I do +not believe in 'chance' or 'luck', or what you call 'fortuitous' +haphazard arrangements of any sort. I think everything is planned by +law from the beginning; even to the particular direction in which a +grain of dust floats through space. It is all mathematical and +exact. And the moving Spirit--the Divine Centre of things, whom I +call God,--cannot dislodge or alter one particle of the majestic +system without involving the whole in complete catastrophe. It is +our mistake to 'chance' things--at least, so I think. And if I +exclaim against you and say,--"Why do you remain in the Church?' it +is because I cannot understand a man of conscience and intellect +outwardly professing one thing while inwardly he means another. +Because God will take him in the end at his own interior valuation, +not at his outward seeming." + +"Uncomfortable, if true," said the Abbe, still smiling. "When one +has been at infinite pains all one's life to present a charmingly +virtuous and noble aspect to the world, it would be indeed +distressing if at the last moment one were obliged to lift the +mask . . ." + +"Sometimes one is not given the chance to lift it," interposed +Angela, "It is torn off ruthlessly by a force greater than one's +own. 'Call no man happy till his death,' you know." + +"Yes, I know," and the Abbe settled himself in his chair more +comfortably;--he loved an argument with "the Sovrani", and was wont +to declare that she was the only woman in the world who had ever +made him wish to be a good man,--"But that maxim can be taken in two +ways. It may mean that no man is happy till his death,--which I most +potently believe,--or it may mean that a man is only JUDGED after +his death, in which case it cannot be said to affect his happiness, +as he is past caring whether people think ill or well of him. +Besides, after death it must needs be all right, as every man is so +particularly fortunate in his epitaph!" + +Angela smiled a little. + +"That is witty of you," she said, "but the fact of every man having +a kindly-worded epitaph only proves goodness of heart and feeling in +his relatives and friends--" + +"Or gratitude for a fortune left to them in his will," declared the +Abbe gaily, "or a sense of relief that the dear creature has gone +and will never come back. Either motive, would, I know, inspire me +to write most pathetic verses! Now you bend your charming brows at +me,--mea culpa! I have said something outrageous?" + +"Not from the point of view at which YOU take life," said Angela +quietly, "but I was just then thinking of a cousin of mine,--a very +beautiful woman; her husband treated her with every possible sort of +what I should term civil cruelty,--polite torture--refined agony. If +he had struck her or shot her dead it would have been far kinder. +But his conduct was worse than murder. He finally deserted her, and +left her penniless to fight her own way through the world. Then he +died suddenly, and she forgot all his faults, spoke of him as though +he had been a model of goodness, and lives now for his memory, ever +mourning his loss. In her case the feeling of regret had nothing to +do with money, for he spent all her fortune and left her nothing +even of her own. She has to work hard for her living now,--but she +loves him and is as true to him as if he were still alive. What do +you say to that?" + +"I say that the lady in question must be a charming person!" replied +the Abbe, "Perfectly charming! But of course she is deceiving +herself; and she takes pleasure in the self-deception. She knows +that the man had deserted her and was quite unworthy of her +devotion;--but she pretends to herself that she does NOT know. And +it is charming, of course! But women will do that kind of thing. It +is extraordinary,--but they will. They all deceive themselves in +matters of love. Even you deceive yourself." + +Angela started. + +"I?" she exclaimed. + +"Yes--you--why not?" And the Abbe treated her to one of his +particularly paternal smiles. "You are betrothed to Florian +Varillo,--but no man ever had or ever could have all the virtues +with which you endow this excellent Florian. He is a delightful +creature,--a good artist--unique in his own particular line,--but +you think him something much greater than even artist or man--a sort +of god, (though the gods themselves were not impeccable) only fit to +be idealised. Now, I am not a believer in the gods,--but of course +it is delightful to me to meet those who are." + +"Signor Varillo needs neither praise nor defence," said Angela with +a slight touch of hauteur, "All the world knows what he is." + +"Yes, precisely! That is just it,--all the world knows what he is,-- +" and the Abbe rubbed his forehead with an air of irritation, "And I +am vexing you by my talk, I can see! Well, well!--You must forgive +my garrulity;--I admit my faults--I am old--I am a cynic--I talk too +much--I have a bad opinion of man, and an equally bad opinion of the +Forces that evolved him. By the way, I met that terrible reformer +and socialist Aubrey Leigh at the Embassy the other day--the man who +is making such a sensation in England with his 'Addresses to the +People.' He is quite an optimist, do you know? He believes in +everything and everybody,--even in me!" + +Angela laughed, and her laughter sweet and low, thrilled the air +with a sense of music. + +"That is wonderful!" she said gaily,--"Even in you! And how does he +manage to believe in you, Monsieur l'Abbe? Do tell me!" + +A little frown wrinkled the Abbe's brow. + +"Well! in a strange way," he responded. "You know he is a very +strange man and believes in very strange things. When I treat +humanity as a jest--which is really how it should be treated--he +looks at me with a grand air of tolerance, 'Oh, you will progress;' +he says, 'You are passing through a phase.' 'My dear sir,' I assure +him, 'I have lived in this "phase", as you call it, for forty years. +I used to pray to the angels and saints and to all the different +little Madonnas that live in different places, till I was twenty. +Then I dropped all the pretty heaven-toys at once;--and since then I +have believed in nothing--myself, least of all. Now I am sixty--and +yet you tell me I am only passing through a phase.' 'Quite so,' he +answered me with the utmost coolness, 'Your forty years--or your +sixty years, are a Moment merely;--the Moment will pass--and you +will find another Moment coming which will explain the one which has +just gone. Nothing is simpler.' And when I ask him which will be the +best Moment,--the one that goes, or the one that comes--he says that +I am making the coming Moment for myself--'which is so satisfactory' +he adds with that bright smile of his, 'because of course you will +make it pleasant!' 'Il faut que tout homme trouve pour lui meme une +possibilite particuliere de vie superieure dans l'humble et +inevitable realite quotidienne.' I do not find the 'possibilite +particuliere'--but this man assures me it is because I do not +trouble to look for it. What do you think about it?" Angela's eyes +were full of dreamy musing. + +"I think Mr. Leigh's ideas are beautiful," she said, slowly, "I have +often heard him talk on the subject of religion--and of art, and of +work,--and all he says seems to be the expression of a noble and +sincere mind. He is extraordinarily gifted." + +"Yes,--and he is becoming rather an alarming personage in England, +so I hear,--" returned the Abbe--"He writes books that are +distinctly dangerous, because true. He wants to upset shams like our +Socialist writer Gys Grandit. Gys Grandit, you know, will never be +satisfied till, like Rousseau, he has brought about another French +Revolution. He is only a peasant, they say, but he writes with the +pen of a prophet. And this Englishman is of the same calibre,--only +his work is directed against religious hypocrisies more than social +ones. I daresay that is why I always feel so uneasy in his +presence!" And Vergniaud laughed lightly. "For the rest, he is a +brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly. The other evening +at the Club that little Vicomte de Lorgne was chattering in his +usual offensive manner about women, and Leigh astonished everyone by +the way in which he pulled him up. There was almost a very pretty +quarrel,--but a stray man happened to mention casually,--that Leigh +was considered one of the finest shots in England. After that the +dear Vicomte vanished, and did not return." + +Angela laughed. + +"Poor de Lorgne! Yes--I have heard that Mr. Leigh excels in +everything that is distinctly English--riding, shooting, and all +that kind of thing. He is not effeminate." + +"Few Englishmen are," said the Abbe,--"And yet to my mind there is +something not altogether English in this man. He has none of the +heavy British mental and physical stolidity. He is strong and +muscular certainly,--but also light and supple,--and with that keen, +intellectual delicate face of his, he is more of the antique Greek +type than like a son of Les Isles Sans-Soleil." + +"Sans-Soleil," echoed Angela, "But there is plenty of sunshine in +England!" + +"Is there? Well, I have been unfortunate,--I have never seen any,--" +and the Abbe gave a shrug of half regret, half indifference. "It is +very curious the effect that this so brave England has upon me! In +crossing to its shores I suffer of course from the mal de mer--then +when I arrive exhausted to the white cliffs, it is generally +raining--then I take train to London, where it is what is called +black fog; and I find all the persons that I meet either with a +cold, or going to have a cold, or just recovering from a cold! It is +not lively--the very funerals are dull. And you--this is not your +experience?" + +"No--frankly I cannot say it is," replied Angela, "I have seen rain +and fog in Rome that cannot be surpassed for wretchedness anywhere. +Italy is far more miserable in cold weather than England. I passed a +summer once in England, and it was to me like a glimpse of Paradise. +I never saw so many flowers--I never heard so many birds--(you know +in Italy we kill all the singing birds and eat them), and I never +met so many kind and gentle people." + +"Well!--perhaps the religious sects in England are responsible for +the general feeling of depression in the English atmosphere," said +the Abbe with a light laugh, "They are certainly foggy! The one +round Sun of one Creed is unknown to them. I assure you it is best +to have one light of faith, even though it be only a magic lantern,- +-a toy to amuse the children of this brief life before their +everlasting bedtime comes--" He broke off abruptly as a slow step +was heard approaching along the passage, and in another moment +Cardinal Bonpre entered the room. + +"Ah, le bien aime Felix!" cried Vergniaud, hastening to meet him and +clasp his outstretched hand, bowing slightly over it as he did so, +"I have taken the liberty to wait for you, cher Monseigneur, being +anxious to see you--and I understand your stay in Paris will not be +long?" + +"A few days at most, my dear Abbe",--replied the Cardinal, gently +pressing the hand of Vergniaud and smiling kindly. "You are well? +But surely I need not ask--you seem to be in the best of health and +spirits." + +"Ah, my seeming is always excellent," returned the Abbe, "However, I +do not fare badly. I have thrown away all hard thinking!" + +"And you are happier so?" + +"Well, I am not quite sure! There is undoubtedly a pleasure in +analysing the perplexities of one's own mind. Still, on the whole, +it is perhaps better to enjoy the present hour without any thought +at all." + +"Like the butterflies!" laughed Angela. + +"Yes,--if butterflies DO enjoy their hour,--which I am not at all +prepared to admit. In my opinion they are very dissatisfied +creatures,--no sooner on one flower than off they go to another. +Very like human beings after all! But I imagine they never worry +themselves with philosophical or religious questions." + +"And do you?" enquired Bonpre, smiling, as he sat down in the easy +chair his niece placed for him. + +"Not as a rule!--" answered Vergniaud frankly, with a light laugh-- +"But I confess I have done a little in that way lately. Some of the +new sciences puzzle me,--I am surprised to find how closely they +approach to the fulfilment of old prophecies. One is almost inclined +to believe that there must be a next world and a future life." + +"I think such belief is now placed beyond mere inclination," said +the Cardinal--"There is surely no doubt of it." + +Vergniaud gave him a quick side-glance of earnest scrutiny. + +"With you, perhaps not--" he replied--"But with me,--well!--it is a +different matter. However, it is really no use worrying one's self +with the question of 'To be, or not to be.' It drove Hamlet mad, +just as the knotty point as to whether Hamlet himself was fat or +lean nearly killed our hysterical little boy, Catullus Mendes. It's +best to leave eternal subjects like God and Shakespeare alone." + +He laughed again, but the Cardinal did not smile. + +"I do not agree with you, Vergniaud," he said--"I fear it is because +we do not think sufficiently for ourselves on the One eternal +subject that so much mischief threatens us at the present time. To +take gifts and ignore the Giver is surely the blackest ingratitude, +yet that is what the greater part of humanity is guilty of in these +days. Never was there so much beholding and yet ignoring of the +Divine as now. Science is searching for God, and is getting closer +to Him every day;--the Church remains stationary and refuses to look +out beyond her own pale of thought and conventional discipline. I +know,--" and the Cardinal hesitated a moment, "I know I can speak +quite plainly to you, for you are what is called a freethinker--yet +I doubt whether you are really as free as you imagine!" + +The Abbe shrugged his shoulders. + +"I imagine nothing!" he declared airily, "Everything is imagined for +me nowadays,--and imagination itself is like a flying Geni which +overtakes and catches the hair of some elusive Reality and turns its +face round, full-shining on an amazed world!" + +"A pretty simile!" said Angela Sovrani, smiling. + +"Is it not? Almost worthy of Paul Verlaine who was too 'inspired' to +keep either his body or his soul clean. Why was I not a poet! +Helas!--Fact so much outweighs fancy that it is no longer any use +penning a sonnet to one's mistress's eyebrow. One needs to write +with thunderbolts in characters of lightning, to express the wonders +and discoveries of this age. When I find I can send a message from +here to London across space, without wires or any visible means of +communication,--and when I am told that probably one of these days I +shall be able at will to SEE the person to whom I send the message, +reflected in space while the message is being delivered,--I declare +myself so perfectly satisfied with the fairy prodigies revealed to +me, that I have really no time, and perhaps no inclination to think +of any other world than this one." + +"You are wrong, then," said the Cardinal, "Very wrong, Vergniaud. To +me these discoveries of science, this apparent yielding of invisible +forces into human hands, are signs and portents of terror. You +remember the line 'the powers of heaven shall be shaken'? Those +powers are being shaken now! We cannot hold them back;--they are +here, with us;--but they mean much more than mere common utility to +our finite selves. They are the material declarations of what is +spiritual. They are the scientific proofs that Christ's words to +'THIS generation,' namely, this particular phase of creation,--are +true. 'Blessed are they which have not seen and yet believed,' He +said;--and many there are who have passed away from us in rapt faith +and hope, believing not seeing, and with whom we may rejoice in +spirit, knowing that all must be well with them. But now--now we are +come upon an age of doubt in the world--doubt which corrodes and +kills the divine spirit in man, and therefore we are being forced to +SEE that we may believe,--but the seeing is terrible!" + +"Why?" + +"Because in the very beholding of things we remain blind!" answered +the Cardinal, "Our intense selfishness obscures the true light of +every fresh advance. We accept new marvels of knowledge, as so much +practical use to us, and to the little planet we live on,--but we do +not see that they are merely reflections of the Truth from which +they emanate. The toy called the biograph, which reflects pictures +for us in a dazzling and moving continuity, so that we can see +scenes of human life in action, is merely a hint to us that every +scene of every life is reflected in a ceaseless moving panorama +SOMEWHERE in the Universe, for the beholding of SOMEONE,--yes!-- +there must be Someone who so elects to look upon everything, or such +possibilities of reflected scenes would not be,--inasmuch as nothing +exists without a Cause for existence. The wireless telegraphy is a +stupendous warning of the truth that 'from God no secrets are hid', +and also of the prophecy of Christ 'there is nothing covered that +shall not be revealed'--and, 'whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness +shall be revealed in light.' The latter words are almost appalling +in their absolute accord with the latest triumphant discoveries of +science." + +Abbe Vergniaud looked at the Cardinal, and slightly raised his +eyebrows in a kind of wondering protest. + +"TRES-SAINT Felix!" he murmured, "Are you turning into a mystic? One +of those doubtful personages who are seeking to reconcile science +with the Church?--" + +"Stop!" interposed the Cardinal, raising his hand with an eloquent +gesture, "Science is, or should be, the Church!--science is Truth, +and Truth is God! God cannot be found anywhere in a lie; and the +Church in many ways would make our Divine Redeemer Himself a lie +were it not that His words are every day taking fresh meaning, and +bringing new and solemn conviction to those who have eyes to see and +ears to hear!" + +He spoke as if carried beyond himself,--his pale cheeks glowed,--his +eyes flashed fire,--and the combined effect of his words and manner +was startling to the Abbe, and in a way stupefying to his niece +Angela. She had never heard him give utterance to such strong +sentiments and she shrank a little within herself, wondering whether +as a Cardinal of the Roman Church he had not been too free of +speech. She glanced apprehensively at Vergniaud, who however only +smiled a little. + +"If you should be disposed to express yourself in such terms at the +Vatican,--" he began. + +The Cardinal relapsed into his usual calm, and met the Abbe's +questioning, half cynical glance composedly. "I have many things to +speak of at the Vatican," he answered,--"This matter will probably +be one of them." + +"Then--" But whatever Vergniaud was about to say was interrupted by +the entrance of the boy Manuel, who at that moment came into the +room and stood beside the Cardinal's chair. The Abbe gave him an +upward glance of surprise and admiration. + +"Whom have we here?" he exclaimed, "One of your acolytes, +Monseigneur?" + +"No," replied the Cardinal, his eyes resting on the fair face of the +lad with a wistful affection, "A little stray disciple of our Lord,- +-to whom I have ventured to offer protection. There is none to +question my right to do so, for he is quite alone in the world." + +And in a few words he related how he had discovered the boy on the +previous night, weeping outside the Cathedral in Rouen. Angela +Sovrani listened attentively, her violet eyes darkening and +deepening as she heard,--now and then she raised them to look at the +youthful waif who stood so quietly while the story of his troubles +was told in the gentle and sympathetic way which was the Cardinal's +usual manner of speech, and which endeared him so much to all. "And +for the present," finished Bonpre, smiling--"he stays with me, and +already I have found him skilled in the knowledge of many things,-- +he can read Scripture with a most musical and clear emphasis,--and +he is a quick scribe, so that he will be valuable to me in more ways +than one." + +"Ah!" and the Abbe turned himself round in his chair to survey the +boy more attentively, "You can read Scripture? But can you +understand it? If you can, you are wiser than I am!" + +Manuel regarded him straightly. + +"Was it not once said in Judaea that "IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT +QUICKENETH'?" he asked. + +"True!--And from that you would infer . . . ?" + +"That when one cannot understand Scripture, it is perhaps for the +reason that 'THE LETTER KILLETH, BECAUSE LACKING THE SPIRIT THAT +GIVETH LIFE." + +The boy spoke gently and with grace and modesty,--but something in +the tone of his voice had a strange effect on the cynical +temperament of Abbe Vergniaud. + +"Here," he mused, "is a lad in whom the principle of faith is strong +and pure,--shall I drop the poison of doubt into the open flower of +his mind, or leave it uncontaminated?" Aloud he said, kindly, + +"You speak well,--you have evidently thought for yourself. Who +taught you to recognise 'the Spirit that giveth life'?" + +Manuel smiled. + +"Does that need teaching?" he asked. + +Radiance shone in his eyes,--the look of purity and candour on his +young face was infinitely touching to the two men who beheld it,-- +the one worn with age and physical languors, the other equally worn +in mind, if not in body. In the brief silence which followed,--a +silence of unexpressed feeling,--a soft strain of organ-music came +floating deliciously towards them,--a delicate thread of grave +melody which wove itself in and out the airspaces, murmuring +suggestions of tenderness and appeal. Angela smiled, and held up one +finger, listening. + +"That is Mr. Leigh!" she said, "He is in my studio improvising." + +"Happy Mr. Leigh!" said the Abbe with a little malicious twinkle in +his eyes, "To be allowed to improvise at all in the studio of the +Sovrani!" + +Angela flushed, and lifted her fair head with a touch of pride. + +"Mr. Leigh is a friend," she said, "He is welcome in the studio +always. His criticism of a picture is valuable,--besides--he is a +celebrated Englishman!" She laughed, and her eyes flashed. + +"Ah! To a celebrated Englishman all things are conceded!" said the +Abbe satirically, "Even the right to enter the sanctum of the most +exclusive lady in Europe! Is it not a curious thing that the good +Britannia appears to stick her helmet on the head, and put her +sceptre in the hand of every one of her sons who condescends to soil +his boots by walking on foreign soil? With the helmet he defies the +gemdarme,--with the sceptre he breaks open every door,--we prostrate +ourselves before his face and curse him behind his back,--c'est +drole!--yet we are all alike, French, Germans, Austrians, and +Italians;--we hate the Englishman, but we black his boots all the +same,--which is contemptible of us,--MAIS, QUE FAIRE! He is so +overwhelming in sheer impudence! With culture and politeness we +might cross swords in courtly duel,--but in the presence of absolute +bluff, or what is called 'cheek', we fall flat in sheer dismay! What +delicious music! I see that it charms our young friend,--he is fond +of music." + +"Yes," said Manuel speaking for himself before any question could be +put to him, "I love it! It is like the fresh air,--full of breath +and life." + +"Come then with me," said Angela, "Come into the studio and we will +hear it more closely. Dearest uncle," and she knelt for a moment by +the Cardinal's chair, "Will you come there also when Monsieur l'Abbe +has finished talking with you?" + +Cardinal Bonpre's hand rested lovingly on her soft hair. + +"Yes, my child, I will come." And in a lower tone he added,--"Do not +speak much to Manuel,--he is a strange lad; more fond of silence and +prayer than other things,--and if such is his temperament I would +rather keep him so." + +Angela bowed her head in acquiescence to this bidding,--then rising, +left the room with a gentle gesture of invitation to the boy, who at +once followed her. As the two disappeared a chill and a darkness +seemed to fall upon the air, and the Cardinal sank back among the +cushions of his fauteuil with a deep sigh of utter exhaustion. Abbe +Vergniaud glanced at him inquisitively. + +"You are very tired, I fear?" he said. + +"Physically, no,--mentally, yes. Spiritually, I am certainly +fatigued to the death." + +The Abbe shrugged his shoulders. + +"Helas! There is truly much in spiritual matters to engender +weariness!" he said. + +With a sudden access of energy the Cardinal gripped both arms of his +chair and sat upright. + +"For God's sake, do not jest," he said earnestly, "Do not jest! We +have all been jesting too long, and the time is near when we shall +find out the bitter cost of it! Levity--carelessness--doubt and +final heresy--I do not mean heresy against the Church, for that is +nothing--" + +"Nothing!" exclaimed the Abbe, "YOU say this?" + +"I say it!" And Bonpre's thin worn features grew transfigured with +the fervour of his thought. "I am a priest of the Church--but I am +also a man!--with reason, with brain, and with a love of truth;--and +I can faithfully say I have an almost jealous honour for my Master-- +but I repeat, heresy against the Church is nothing,--it is heresy +against Christ which is the crime of the age,--and in that, the very +Church is heretic! Heresy against Christ!--Heresy against Christ! A +whole system of heresy! 'I never knew you,--depart from me, ye +workers of iniquity,' will be our Lord's words at the Last +Judgment!" + +The Abbe's wonderment increased. He looked down a moment, then +looked up, and a quizzical, half-melancholy expression filled his +eyes. + +"Well, I am very much concerned in all this," he said, "I wanted to +have a private talk with you on my own account, principally because +I know you to be a good man, while I am a bad one. I have a trouble +here,--" and he touched the region of his heart, "which the wise +doctors say may end my days at any moment; two years at the utmost +is the ultimatum of my life, so I want to know from you, whom I know +to be intelligent and honest, whether you believe I am going to +another existence,--and if so, what sort of a one you think is in +prospect for such a man as I am? Now don't pity me, my dear Bonpre,- +-don't pity me!--" and he laughed a little huskily as the Cardinal +took his hand and pressed it with a silent sympathy more eloquent +than words, "We must all die,--and if I am to go somewhat sooner +than I expected, that is nothing to compassionate me for. But there +is just a little uncertainty in my mind,--I am not at all sure that +death is the end--I wish I could be quite positive of the fact. I +was once--quite positive. But science, instead of giving me this +absolute comfort has in its later progress upset all my former +calculations, and I am afraid I must own that there is indubitably +Something Else,--which to my mind seems distinctly disagreeable!" + +Though the Abbe spoke lightly, the troubled look remained in his +eyes and the Cardinal saw it. + +"My dear Vergniaud," he began gently, "I am grieved at what you tell +me--" + +"No, don't be grieved," interrupted Vergniaud, "because that is not +it. Talk to me! Tell me what you truly think. That this life is only +a schoolroom where we do our lessons more or less badly?--That death +is but the name for another life? Now do not FORCE your faith for +me. Tell me your own honest conviction. Do we end?--or do we begin +again? Be frank and fair and true; according to the very latest +science, remember!--not according to the latest hocus-pocus of +twelfth-century mandate issued from Rome. You see how frank I am, +and how entirely I go with you. But I am going further than you,--I +am bound for the last voyage--so you must not offer me the wrong +pass-word to the shore!" + +"No, I will give you the right pass-word," said the cardinal, a +fervid glow of enthusiasm lighting up his features. "It is CHRIST in +all, and through all! Christ only;--Christ, the friend and brother +of man;--the only Divine Teacher this world has ever had, or ever +will have!" + +"You believe in Him really,--truly,--then?" exclaimed the Abbe +wonderingly. + +"Really--truly, and with all my heart and soul!" responded the +Cardinal firmly,--"Surely, you too, believe?" + +"No," said the Abbe firmly, "I do not! I would as soon believe that +the lad you have just rescued from the streets of Rouen is divine, +as that there is any divinity in the Man of Nazareth!" + +He rose up as he spoke in a kind of petulance,--then started +slightly as he found himself face to face with Manuel. The boy had +entered noiselessly and stood for a moment glancing from one priest +of the Church to the other. A faint smile was on his face,--his blue +eyes were full of light. + +"Did you call me, my lord Cardinal?" he asked. + +The Cardinal looked up. + +"No, my child!" + +"I thought I heard you. If you should need me, I am close at hand." + +He went away as quietly as he had entered; and the same silence +followed his departure as before,--a silence which was only +disturbed by the occasional solemn and sweet vibrations of the +distant music from the studio. + + + + +VIII. + +"A strange lad!" said Abbe Vergniaud, abruptly. + +"Strange? In what way do you find him so?" asked the Cardinal with a +touch of anxiety. + +The Abbe knitted his brows perplexedly, and took a short turn up and +down the room. Then he laughed. + +"Upon my word, I cannot tell you!" he declared, with one of those +inimitable gestures common to Frenchmen, a gesture which may mean +anything or nothing,--"But he speaks too well, and, surely, thinks +too much for his years. Is there nothing further to tell of him save +what you have already said? Nothing that you know of him, beyond the +plain bare fact of having found him weeping alone outside the doors +of the Cathedral?" + +"Nothing indeed!" replied the Cardinal bewildered. "What else should +there be?" + +The Abbe hesitated a moment, and when he spoke again it was in a +softer and graver tone. "Forgive me! Of course there could be +nothing else with you. You are so different to all other Churchmen I +have ever known. Still, the story of your foundling is exceptional;- +-you will own that it is somewhat out of the common course of +things, for a Cardinal to suddenly constitute himself the protector +and guardian of a small tramp--for this boy is nothing else. Now, if +it were any other Cardinal-Archbishop than yourself, I should at +once say that His Eminence knew exactly where to find the mother of +his protege!" + +"Vergniaud!" exclaimed the Cardinal. + +"Forgive me! I said 'forgive me' as a prelude to my remarks," +resumed Vergniaud, "I am talking profanely, sceptically, and +cynically,--I am talking precisely as the world talks, and as it +always will talk." + +"The world may talk itself out of existence, before it can hinder me +from doing what I conceive to be my duty," said Felix Bonpre, +calmly, "The lad is alone and absolutely friendless,--it is but +fitting and right that I should do what I can for him." + +Abbe Vergniaud sat down, and for a moment appeared absorbed in +thought. + +"You are a curious man;" he at length observed, "And a more than +curious priest! Here you are, assuming the guardianship of a boy +concerning whom you know nothing,--when you might as well have +handed him over to one of the orphanages for the poor, or have paid +for his care and education with some of the monastic brethren +established near Rouen,--but no!--you being eccentric, feel as if +you were personally responsible to God for the child, simply because +you found him lost and alone, and therefore you have him with you. +It is very good of you,--we will call it great of you--but it is not +usual. People will say you have a private motive;--you must remember +that the world never gives you credit for doing a good action simply +for the pure sake of doing it,--'There must be something behind it +all,' they say. When the worst cocotte of the age begins to lose her +beauty, the prospect is so alarming that she thinks there may be a +possible hell, after all, and she straightway becomes charitable and +renowned for good works;--precisely in the same way as our famous +stage 'stars', knowing their lives to be less clean than the lives +of their horses and their dogs, give subscriptions and altar-cloths +and organs to the clergy. It is all very amusing!--I assure you I +have often laughed at it. It is as if they took Heaven by its +private ear in confidence, and said, 'See now, I want to put things +straight with you if I can!--and if a few church-ornaments, and +candlesticks will pacify you, why, take them and hold your tongue!'" + +He paused, but the Cardinal was silent. + +"I know," went on the Abbe, "that you think I am indulging in the +worst kind of levity to talk in this way. It sounds horrible to you. +And you perhaps think I cannot be serious. My dear Saint Felix, +there never was a more serious man than I. I would give worlds-- +universes--to believe as you do! I have written books of religious +discussion,--not because I wanted the notice of the world for them,- +-for that I do not care about,--but for the sake of wrestling out +the subject for myself, and making my pen my confidant. I tell you I +envy the woman who can say her rosary with the simple belief that +the Virgin Mary hears and takes delight in all those repetitions. +Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have composed a +volume of prayers,--a 'Garland of Flowers'--such as an innocent girl +could hold in her hands, and bend her sweet eyes over. It would have +been a taste of the sensual-spiritual, or the spiritual-sensual,-- +which is the most exquisite of all human sensations." + +"There is no taint of sensuality in the purely spiritual," said the +Cardinal reprovingly. + +"Not for your nature,--no! You have made your body like a +transparent scabbard through which the glitter of the soul-sword is +almost visible. But I am different. I am so much of a materialist +that I like to pull down Heaven to the warm bosom of Earth and make +them mingle. You would lift up Earth to Heaven! Ah, that is +difficult! Even Christ came down! It is the chief thing I admire in +Him, that He 'descended from Heaven and was made Man'. TRES CHER +Felix, I shall bewilder you to death with my specious and frivolous +reasoning,--and after all, I had much better come to the main fact +of what I intended to tell you,--a sort of confession out of church. +You know I have already told you I am going to die soon, and that I +am a bad man confessedly and hopelessly,--but among other things is +this, (and if you can give me any advice upon it I will take it,) +that for the last four or five years I have been dodging about to +escape being murdered,--not because I particularly mind being +murdered, because I probably deserve it,--and one way of exit is as +good as another,--but because I want to save the would-be murderer +from committing his crime. Is not that a good motive?" + +Cardinal Bonpre gazed at him in astonishment. Vergniaud appeared to +him in an entirely new light. He had always known him as a careless, +cynical-tempered man;--a close thinker,--a clever writer, and a +brilliant talker,--and he had been inclined to consider him as a +"society" priest,--one of those amiable yet hypocritical personages, +who, by the most jesuitical flatteries and studied delicacies of +manner, succeed in influencing weak-minded persons of wealth, +(especially women) to the end of securing vast sums of money to the +Church,--obtaining by these means such rank and favour for +themselves as would otherwise never have been granted to them. But +now the Abbe's frank admission of his own sins and failings seemed a +proof of his inherent sincerity,--and sincerity, whether found in +orthodoxy or heterodoxy, always commanded the Cardinal's respect. + +"Are you speaking in parables or in grave earnest?" he asked. "Do +you really mean that you are shadowed by some would-be assassin? An +assassin, too, whom you actually wish to protect?" + +"Exactly!" And Vergniaud smiled with the air of one who admits the +position to be curious but by no means alarming. "I want to save him +from the guillotine; and if he murders me I cannot! It is a question +of natural instinct merely. The would-be assassin is my son!" + +Cardinal Bonpre raised his clear blue eyes and fixed them full on +the Abbe. + +"This is a very serious matter," he said gently, "Surely it is best +to treat it seriously?" + +"Oh, I am serious enough, God knows!" returned Vergniaud, with a +heavy but impatient sigh, "I suppose there is, there must be, some +terribly exact Mathematician concerned in the working of things, +else a man's past sins and failings being done with and over, would +not turn up any more. But they DO turn up,--the unseen Mathematician +counts every figure;--and of course trouble ensues. My story is +simply this;--Some twenty-five years ago I was in Touraine;--I was a +priest as I am now--Oh, yes!--the sin is as black as the Church can +make it!--and one mid-summer evening I strolled into a certain +quaint old church of a certain quaint old town,--I need not name it- +-and saw there a girl, as sweet as an apple blossom, kneeling in +front of the altar. I watched her,--I see her now!--the late +sunlight through the stained glass window fell like a glory on her +pretty hair, and on the little white kerchief folded so daintily +across her bosom, and on her small hands and the brown rosary that +was twisted round her fingers. She was praying, so she told me +afterwards, to her guardian angel,--I wonder what that personage was +about just then, Bonpre! Anyhow, to her petition came no answer but +a devil,--a devil personified in me,--I made her love me,--I tempted +her by ever subtle and hellish persuasion I could think of,--I can +never even now think of that time without wondering where all the +eloquent evil of my tongue came from--and--well!--she never was able +to ask the guardian angel any more favours! And I?--I think I loved +her for a while,--but no, I am not sure;--I believe there is no such +good thing as absolute love in my composition. Anyway, I soon left +Touraine, and had almost forgotten her when she wrote to tell me of +the birth of her child--a son. I gave her no reply, and then she +wrote again,--such a letter!--such words! At the moment they burnt +me,--stabbed me--positively hurt me,--and I was not then easily +hurt. She swore she would bring the boy up to curse his father,-- +and, to put it quite briefly,--she did. She died when he was twenty, +and it now appears the lad took an oath by her death-bed that he +would never rest till he had killed the man who had dishonoured his +mother, and broken her heart, and brought him into the world with a +stigma on his name. No filial respect, you see!" And Vergniaud tried +to force a smile. "To do the boy justice, he apparently means to +keep his oath,--he has not rested; he has been at infinite pains to +discover me; he has even been at the trouble to write me a warning +letter, and is now in Paris watching me. I, in my turn, take care to +protect myself;--I am followed by detectives, and am at enormous +pains to guard my life; not for my own sake but for his. An odd +complication of circumstances, is it not? I cannot have him arrested +because he would at once relate his history, and my name would be +ruined. And that would be quite as good a vengeance for him as the +other thing. You will admit that it is a very dramatic situation!" + +"It is a retribution!" said the Cardinal in a low voice, "And a +terrible one!" + +"Yes, I suppose it is. I imagined you would consider it in that +light," and Vergniaud half closed his eyes, leaning back in his +chair languidly, "But here I am, willing to set things as straight +as I can, and it really seems impossible to arrange matters. I am to +die soon, according to the doctors;--and so I have made my +willleaving everything I possess to this ridiculous boy who wishes +to kill me; and it is more than probable that he,--considering how +he has been brought up and educated--will cast all the money into +the dirt, and kick at my grave. But what can I do?" + +"Nothing," said the Cardinal, "You can do nothing, Vergniaud! That +is the worst of having inflicted a wrong upon the innocent,--you can +never by any means retrieve it. You can repent,--and it is probable +that your very repentance ensures your forgiveness at a higher +tribunal than that of earth's judgment,--but the results of wrong +cannot be wiped out or done away with in this life;--they continue +to exist, and alas!--often multiply. Even the harsh or unjust word +cannot be recalled, and however much we may regret having uttered +it, somehow it is never forgotten. But--" here leaning forward, he +laid one hand gently on Vergniaud's arm, "My dear friend--my dear +brother--you have told me of your sin;--it is a great sin,--but God +forbid that I should presume to judge you harshly when our Lord +Himself declared that 'He came not to call the righteous but sinners +to repentance'. It may be that I can find a way to help you. Arrange +for me to see this misguided son of yours,--and I will endeavour to +find a means of restitution to him and to the memory of his mother +before you pass away from us,--if indeed you are to pass away so +soon. Under the levity you assume I perceive you have deep feeling +on this matter;--you shall not die with a wrong on your soul, +Vergniaud!--you shall not if I can prevent it! For there undoubtedly +is another life; you must go into it as purely as prayer and +penitence can make you." + +"I thought," said the Abbe, speaking somewhat unsteadily, "that you +might when you heard all, hurl some of Rome's thunderous +denunciations upon me . . ." + +"What am I, and what is Rome, compared with the Master's own word?" +said the Cardinal gently. "If our brothers sin against us seventy +times seven we are still to forgive, and they are still our +brothers! Denunciations, judgments and condemnations of one another +are not any part of our Lord's commands." + +Vergniaud rose up and held out his hand. + +"Will you take it," he said, "as a pledge that I will faithfully do +whatever you may see fitting and right to retrieve the past?--and to +clear my son's soul from the thirst of vengeance which is consuming +it?" + +Cardinal Bonpre clasped the extended hand warmly. + +"There is your answer!" he said, with a smile which irradiated his +fine countenance with an almost supernatural beauty and tenderness, +"You have sinned against Heaven, and you have sinned against the +Church and your own calling,--but the greatest sinner can do no more +than repent and strive to make amends. For I see you fully know and +comprehend the extent of your sin." + +"Yes, I know it," and Vergniaud's eyes were clouded and his brows +knitted, "I know it only too well! Greater than any fault of Church- +discipline is a wrong to human life,--and I wronged and betrayed an +innocent woman who loved me! Her soul was as sweet as the honey-cup +of a flower,--I poisoned it. That was as bad as poisoning the +Sacrament! I should have kept it sweet and pure; I should have let +the Church go, and been honest! I should have seen to it that the +child of my love grew up to honour his father,--not to merely live +for the murder of him! Yes!--I know what I should have done--I know +what I have not done--and I am afraid I shall always know! Unless I +can do something to atone I have a strange feeling that I shall pass +from this world to the next--and that the first thing I shall see +will be her face! Her face as I saw it when the sunshine made a halo +round her hair, and she prayed to her guardian angel." + +He shuddered slightly, and his voice died away in a half whisper. +The Cardinal pressed his hand again warmly and tenderly. + +"Courage, courage!" he said. "It is true we cannot do away with our +memories,--but we can try and make them sweet. And who knows how +much God may help us in the task? Never forget the words that tell +us how 'the angels rejoice more over one sinner that repenteth than +over ninety and nine just persons.'" + +"Ah!" and the Abbe smiled, recovering somewhat of his usual manner, +"And that is so faithfully enforced upon us, is it not? The Churches +are all so lenient? And Society is so kind?--so gentle in its +estimate of its friends? Our Church, for example, has never +persecuted a sinner?--has never tortured an unbeliever? It has been +so patient, and so unwearying in searching for stray sheep and +bringing them back with love and tenderness and pity to the fold? +And Churchmen never say anything which is slanderous or cruel? And +we all follow Christ's teaching so accurately? Yes!--Ah well--I +wonder! I wonder what will be the end! I wonder why we came into +life at all--I wonder why we go! Fortunately for me, by and by, +there will be an end of all wondering, and you can write above my +tomb, 'Implora pace'! The idea of commencing a new life is to me, +horrible,--I prefer 'Nirvana' or nothingness. Never have I read +truer words than those of Byron, + + 'Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, + Count o'er thy days from anguish free, + And know whatever thou hast been, + 'Tis something better not to be.'" + +"I cannot think that is either true or good philosophy," said the +Cardinal, "It is merely the utterance of a disappointed man in a +misanthropic mood. There is no 'not to be' in creation. Each morning +that lights the world is an expression of 'to be'! And however much +we may regret the fact, my dear Vergniaud, we find ourselves in a +state of BEING and we must make the best of it,--not the worst. Is +that not so?" + +His look was gentle and commanding,--his voice soft yet firm,--and +the worldly Abbe felt somewhat like a chidden child as he met the +gaze of those clear true eyes that were undarkened by any furtive +hypocrisies or specious meanings. + +"I suppose it is, but unfortunately I have made the worst of it," he +answered, "and having made the worst I see no best. Who is that +singing?" + +He lifted his hand with a gesture of attention as a rich mezzo- +soprano rang out towards them,-- + + "Per carita + Mostrami il cielo; + Tulto e un velo, + E non si sa + Dove e il cielo. + Se si sta + Cosi cola, + Non si sa + Se non si va + Ahi me lontano! + Tulto e in vano! + Prendimi in mano + Per carita!" + +"It is Angela," said the Cardinal, "She has a wonderfully sweet +voice." + + "Prendimi in mano, + Per carita!" + +murmured Abbe Vergniaud, still listening, "It is like the cry of a +lost soul!" + +"Or a strayed one," interposed the Cardinal gently, and rising, he +took Vergniaud's arm, and leaned upon it with a kindly and familiar +grace, an action which implied much more than the mere outward +expression of confidence,--"Nothing is utterly lost, my dear friend. +'The very hairs of our head are numbered,'--not a drop of dew +escapes to waste,--how much more precious than a drop of dew is the +spirit of a man!" + +"It is not so unsullied," declared Vergniaud, who loved +controversy,--"Personally, I think the dew is more valuable than the +soul, because so absolutely clean!" + +"You must not bring every line of discussion to a pin's point," said +Bonpre smiling, as he walked slowly across the room still leaning on +the Abbe's arm. "We can reduce our very selves to the bodiless +condition of a dream if we take sufficient pains first to advance a +theory, and then to wear it threadbare. Nothing is so deceptive as +human reasoning,--nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have +decided to call 'logic.' The truest compass of life is spiritual +instinct." + +"And what of those who have no spiritual instinct?" demanded +Vergniaud. + +"I do not think there are any such. To us it certainly often seems +as if there were masses of human beings whose sole idea of living is +to gratify their bodily needs,--but I fancy it is only because we do +not know them sufficiently that we judge them thus. Few, if any, are +so utterly materialistic as never to have had some fleeting +intuition of the Higher existence. They may lack the force to +comprehend it, or to follow its teaching,--but in my opinion, the +Divine is revealed to all men once at least in their lives." + +They had by this time passed out of the drawing-room, and now, +ascending three steps, they went through a curtained recess into +Angela Sovrani's studio,--a large and lofty apartment made beautiful +by the picturesque disorder and charm common to a great artist's +surroundings. Here, at a grand piano sat Angela herself, her song +finished, her white hands straying idly over the keys,--and near her +stood the gentleman whom the Abbe Vergniaud had called "a terrible +reformer and Socialist" and who was generally admitted to be +something of a remarkable character in Europe. Tall and fair, with +very bright flashing eyes, and a wonderfully high bred air of +concentrated pride and resolution, united to a grace and courtesy +which exhaled from him, so to speak, with his every movement and +gesture, he was not a man to pass by without comment, even in a +crowd. A peculiar distinctiveness marked him,--out of a marching +regiment one would have naturally selected him as the commanding +officer, and in any crisis of particular social importance or +interest his very appearance would have distinguished him as the +leading spirit of the whole. On perceiving the Cardinal he advanced +at once to be presented, and as Angela performed the ceremony of +introduction he slightly bent one knee, and bowed over the venerable +prelate's extended hand with a reverence which had in it something +of tenderness. His greeting of Abbe Vergniaud was, while perfectly +courteous, not quite so marked by the grace of a strong man's +submission. + +"Ah, Mr. Leigh! So you have not left Paris as soon as you +determined?" queried the Abbe with a smile, "I thought you were +bound for Florence in haste?" + +"I go to Florence to-morrow," answered Leigh briefly. + +"So soon! I am indeed glad not to have missed you," said Cardinal +Bonpre cordially. "Angela, my child, let me see what you have been +doing. All your canvases are covered, or turned with their faces to +the wall;--are we not permitted to look at any of them?" + +Angela immediately rose from the piano, and wheeled a large oaken +chair with a carved and gilded canopy, into the centre of the +studio. + +"Well, if you want to see my sketches--and they are only sketches," +she said,--"you must come and sit here. Now," as her uncle obeyed +her, "you look enthroned in state,--that canopy is just fitted for +you, and you are a picture in yourself!--Yes, you are, dearest +uncle! And not all the artists in the world could ever do you +justice I Monsieur l'Abbe, will you sit just where you please?--And +Mr. Leigh, you have seen everything, so it does not matter." + +"It matters very much," said Leigh with a smile, "For I want to see +everything again. If I may, I will stand here." + +And he took up his position close to the Cardinal's chair. + +"But where is the boy?" asked Vergniaud, "Where is the foundling of +the Cathedral?" + +"He left us some minutes ago," said Angela, "He went to your room, +uncle." + +"Was he pleased with the music?" asked the Cardinal. + +"I think he enjoyed every note of it," said Leigh, "A thoughtful +lad! He was very silent while I played,--but silence is often the +most eloquent appreciation." + +"Are we to be silent then over the work of Donna Sovrani?" enquired +the Abbe gaily. "Must we not express our admiration?" + +"If you have any admiration to express," said Angela carelessly, +setting, as she spoke, an easel facing the Cardinal; "but I am +afraid you will greatly disapprove of me and condemn all my work +this year. I should explain to you first that I am composing a very +large picture,--I began it in Rome some three years ago, and it is +in my studio there,--but I require a few French types of countenance +in order to quite complete it. The sketches I have made here are +French types only. They will all be reproduced in the larger canvas- +-but they are roughly done just now. This is the first of them. I +call it 'A Servant of Christ, at the Madeleine, Paris.'" + +And she placed the canvas she held on the easel and stood aside, +while all three men looked at it with very different eyes,--one with +poignant regret and pain,--the other with a sense of shame,--and the +third with a thrill of strong delight in the power of the work, and +of triumph in the lesson it gave. + + + + +IX. + +Low beetling brows,--a sensual, cruel mouth with a loosely +projecting under-lip,--eyes that appeared to be furtively watching +each other across the thin bridge of nose,--a receding chin and a +narrow cranium, combined with an expression which was hypocritically +humble, yet sly,--this was the type Angela Sovrani had chosen to +delineate, sparing nothing, softening no line, and introducing no +redeeming point,--a type mercilessly true to the life; the face of a +priest,--"A servant of Christ," as she called him. The title, united +with that wicked and repulsive countenance, was a terribly +significant suggestion. For some minutes no one spoke,--and the +Cardinal was the first to break the silence. + +"Angela,--my dear child"--he said, in low, strained tones, "I am +sorry you have done this! It is powerful--so powerful that it is +painful as well. It cuts me to the heart that you should find it +necessary to select such an example of the priesthood, though of +course I am not in the secret of your aims--I do not understand your +purpose . . ." + +He broke off,--and Angela, who had stood silent, looking as though +she were lost in a dream, took up his unfinished sentence. + +"You do not understand my purpose?--Dearest uncle, I hardly +understand it myself! Some force stronger than I am, is urging me to +paint the picture I have begun,--some influence more ardent and +eager than my own, burns like a fever in me, persuading me to +complete the design. You blame me for choosing such an evil type of +priest? But there is no question of choice! These faces are ordinary +among our priests. At all the churches, Sunday after Sunday I have +looked for a good, a noble face;--in vain! For an even commonly- +honest face,--in vain! And my useless search has ended by impressing +me with profound sorrow and disgust that so many low specimens of +human intellect are selected as servants of our Lord. Do not judge +me too severely! I feel that I have a work to do,--and a lesson to +give in the work, when done. I may fail;--I may be told that as a +woman I have no force, and no ability to make any powerful or +lasting impression on this generation;--but at any rate I feel that +I must try! If priests of the Church were like you, how different it +would all be! But you always forget that you are an exception to the +rule,--you do not realise how very exceptional you are! I told you +before I showed you this sketch that you would probably disapprove +of it and condemn me,--but I really cannot help it. In this matter +nothing--not even the ban of the Church itself, can deter me from +fulfilling what I have designed to do in my own soul!" + +She spoke passionately and with ardour,--and the Cardinal looked at +her with something of surprise and trouble. The fire of genius is as +he knew, a consuming one,--and he had never entirely realized how +completely it filled and dominated this slight feminine creature for +whom he felt an almost paternal tenderness. Before he could answer +her the Abbe Vergniaud spoke. + +"Donna Sovrani is faithful to the truth in her sketch," he said, +"therefore, as a lover of truth I do not see, my dear Bonpre, why +you should object! If she has,--as she says,--some great aim in +view, she must fulfil it in her own way. I quite agree with her in +her estimate of the French priests,--they are for the most part +despicable-looking persons,--only just a grade higher than their +brothers of Italy and Spain. But what would you have? The iron hand +of Rome holds them back from progress,--they are speaking and acting +lies; and like the stagemimes, have to put on paint and powder to +make the lies go down. But when the paint and powder come off, the +religious mime is often as ill-looking as the stage one! Donna +Sovrani has caught this particular example, before he has had time +to put on holy airs and turn up the footlights. What do you think +about it, Mr. Leigh?" + +"I think, as I have always thought," said Leigh quietly, "that Donna +Sovrani is an inspired artist,--and that being inspired it follows +that she must carry out her own convictions whether they suit the +taste of others or not. 'A Servant of Christ' is a painful truth, +boldly declared." + +Angela was unmoved by the compliment implied. She only glanced +wistfully at the Cardinal, who still sat silent. Then without a word +she withdrew the offending sketch from the easel and set another in +its place. + +"This," she said gently, "is the portrait of an Archbishop. I need +not name his diocese. He is very wealthy, and excessively selfish. I +call this, 'LORD, _I_ THANK THEE THAT I AM NOT AS OTHER MEN'." + +Vergniaud laughed as he looked,--he knew the pictured dignitary +well. The smooth countenance, the little eyes comfortably sunken in +small rolls of fat, the smug smiling lips, the gross neck and heavy +jaw,--marks of high feeding and prosperous living,--and above all +the perfectly self-satisfied and mock-pious air of the man,--these +points were given with the firm touch of a master's brush, and the +Abbe, after studying the picture closely, turned to Angela with a +light yet deferential bow. + +"Chere Sovrani, you are stronger than ever! Surely you have improved +much since you were last in Paris? Your strokes are firmer, your +grasp is bolder. Have your French confreres seen your work this +year?" + +"No," replied Angela, "I am resolved they shall see nothing till my +picture is finished." + +"May one ask why?" + +A flash of disdain passed over the girl's face. + +"For a very simple reason! They take my ideas and use them,--and +then, when my work is produced they say it is _I_ who have copied +from THEM, and that women have no imagination! I have been cheated +once or twice in that way,--this time no one has any idea what I am +doing." + +"No one? Not even Signer Varillo?" + +"No," said Angela, smiling a little, "Not even Signor Varillo. I +want to surprise him." + +"In what way?" asked the Cardinal, rousing himself from his pensive +reverie. + +Angela blushed. + +"By proving that perhaps, after all, a woman can do a great thing in +art,--a really great thing!" she said, "Designed greatly, and +greatly executed." + +"Does he not admit that, knowing you?" asked Aubrey Leigh +suggestively. + +"Oh, he is most kind and sympathetic to me in my work," explained +Angela quickly, vexed to think that she had perhaps implied some +little point that was not quite in her beloved one's favour. "But he +is like most men,--they have a preconceived idea of women, and of +what their place should be in the world--" + +"Unchanged since the early phases of civilization, when women were +something less valuable than cattle?" said Leigh smiling. + +"Oh, the cattle idea is not exploded, by any means!" put in +Vergniaud. "In Germany and Switzerland, for example, look at the +women who are ground down to toil and hardship there! The cows are +infinitely prettier and more preferable, and lead much pleasanter +lives. And the men for whom these poor wretched women work, lounge +about in cafes all day, smoking and playing dominoes. The barbaric +arrangement that a woman should be a man's drudge and chattel is +quite satisfactory, I think, to the majority of our sex. It is +certainly an odd condition of things that the mothers of men should +suffer most from man's cruelty. But it is the work of an all-wise +Providence, no doubt; and you, Mr. Leigh, will swear that it is all +right!" + +"It is all right," said Leigh quietly, "or rather I should say, it +WILL be all right,--and it would have been all right long ago, if we +had, as Emerson puts it, 'accepted the hint of each new experience.' +But that is precisely what we will not do. Woman is the true +helpmate of man, and takes a natural joy in being so whenever we +will allow it,--whenever we will give her scope for her actions, +freedom for her intelligence, and trust for her instincts. But for +the present many of us still prefer to play savage,--the complete +savage in low life,--the civilized savage in high. The complete +savage is found in the dockyard labourer, who makes a woman bear his +children and then kicks her to death,--the savage in high life is +the man who equally kills the mother of his children, but in another +way, namely, by neglect and infidelity, while he treats his numerous +mistresses just as the Turk treats the creatures of his harem-- +merely as so many pretty soft animals, requiring to be fed with +sweets and ornamented with jewels, and then to be cast aside when +done with. All pure savagery! But we are slowly evolving from it +into something better. A few of us there are, who honour womanhood,- +-a few of us believe in women as guiding stars in our troubled sky,- +-a few of us would work and climb to greatness for love of the one +woman we adore,--would conquer all obstacles,--ay, would die for her +if need be, of what is far more difficult, would live for her the +life of a hero and martyr! Yes--such things are done,--and men can +be found who will do such things--all for a woman's sake." + +There was a wonderful passion in his voice,--a deep thrill of +earnestness which carried conviction with sweetness. Cardinal Bonpre +looked at him with a smile. + +"You are perhaps one of those men, Mr. Leigh?" he said. + +"I do not know,--I may be," responded Leigh, a flush rising to his +cheeks;--"but,--so far, no woman has ever truly loved me, save my +mother. But apart from all personalities, I am a great believer in +women. The love of a good woman is a most powerful lever to raise +man to greatness,--I do not mean by 'good' the goody-goody +creature,--no, for that is a sort of woman who does more mischief in +her so-called 'blameless' life than a very Delilah. I mean by +'good', a strong, pure, great soul in woman,--sincere, faithful, +patient, full of courage and calm,--and with this I maintain she +must prove a truly God-given helpmate to man. For we are rough +creatures at best,--irritable creatures too!--you see," and here a +slight smile lighted up his delicate features, "we really do try +more or less to reach heights that are beyond us--we are always +fighting for a heaven of some sort, whether we make it of gold, or +politics, or art;--it is a 'heaven' or a 'happiness' that we want;-- +we would be as gods,--we would scale Olympus,--and sometimes Olympus +refuses to be scaled! And then we tumble down, very cross, very +sore, very much ruffled;--and it is only a woman who can comfort us +then, and by her love and tenderness mend our broken limbs and put +salve on our wounded pride." + +"Well, then, surely the Church is in a very bad way," said Vergniaud +smiling, "Think of the vow of perpetual celibacy!" + +"Celibacy cannot do away with woman's help or influence," said +Leigh, "There are always mothers and sisters, instead of sweethearts +and wives. I am in favour of celibacy for the clergy. I think a +minister of Christ should be free to work for and serve Christ +only." + +"You are quite right, Mr. Leigh;" said the Cardinal, "There is more +than enough to do in every day of our lives if we desire to truly +follow His commands. But in this present time, alas!--religion is +becoming a question of form--not of heart." + +"Dearest uncle, if you think that, you will not judge me too +severely for my pictures," said Angela quickly, throwing herself on +her knees beside him. "Do you not see? It is just because the +ministers of Christ are so lax that I have taken to studying them in +my way,--which is, I know, not your way;--still, I think we both +mean one and the same thing!" + +"You are a woman, Angela," said the Cardinal gently, "and as a woman +you must be careful of offences--" + +"Oh, a woman!" exclaimed Angela, her beautiful eyes flashing with +mingled tenderness and scorn, and her whole face lighting up with +animation, "Only a woman! SHE must not give a grand lesson to the +world! SHE must not, by means of brush or pen, point out to a +corrupt generation the way it is going! Why? Because God has created +her to be the helpmate of man! Excellent reason! Man is taking a +direct straight road to destruction, and she must not stop him by so +much as lifting a warning finger! Again, why? Only because she is a +woman! But I--were I twenty times a woman, twenty times weaker than +I am, and hampered by every sort of convention and usage,--I would +express my thoughts somehow, or die in the attempt!" + +"BRAVISSIMA!" exclaimed Vergniaud, "Well said, chere Sovrani!--Well +said! But I am the mocking demon always, as you know--and I should +almost be tempted to say that you WILL die in the attempt! I do not +mean that you will die physically,--no, you will probably live to a +good old age; people who suffer always do!--but you will die in the +allegorical sense. You will grow the stigmata of the Saviour in your +hands and feet--you will bear terrible marks of the nails hammered +into your flesh by your dearest friends! You will have to wear a +crown of thorns, set on your brows no doubt by those whom you most +love . . . and the vinegar and gall will be very quickly mixed and +offered to you by the whole world of criticism without a moment's +hesitation! And will probably have to endure your agony alone,--as +nearly everyone runs away from a declared Truth, orif they pause at +all, it is only to spit upon it and call it a Lie!" + +"Do not prophesy so cruel a fate for the child!" said the Cardinal +tenderly, taking Angela's hand and drawing her towards him. "She has +a great gift,--I am sure she will use it greatly. And true greatness +is always acknowledged in the end." + +"Yes, when the author or the artist has been in the grave for a +hundred years or more;" said Vergniaud incorrigibly. "I am not sure +that it would not be better for Donna Sovrani's happiness to marry +the amiable Florian Varillo at once rather than paint her great +picture! Do you not agree with me, Mr. Leigh?" + +Leigh was turning over an old volume of prints in a desultory and +abstracted fashion, but on being addressed, looked up quickly. + +"I would rather not presume to give an opinion," he said somewhat +coldly, "It is only on the rarest occasions that a woman's life is +balanced between love and fame,--and the two gifts are seldom +bestowed together. She generally has to choose between them. If she +accepts love she is often compelled to forego fame, because she +merges herself too closely into the existence of another to stand by +her own individuality. If on the other hand, she chooses fame, men +are generally afraid of or jealous of her, and leave her to herself. +Donna Sovrani, however, is a fortunate exception,--she has secured +both fame--and love." + +He hesitated a moment before saying the last words, and his brows +contracted a little. But Angela did not see the slight cloud of +vexation that darkened his eyes,--his words pleased her, and she +smiled. + +"Ah, Mr. Leigh sees how it is with me!" she said, "He knows what +good cause I have to be happy and to do the best work that is in me! +It is all to make Florian proud of me!--and he IS proud--and he will +be prouder! You must just see this one more sketch taken from life,- +-it is the head of one of our most noted surgeons,--I call it for +the present 'A Vivisectionist'." + +It was a wonderful study,--perhaps the strongest of the three she +had shown. It was the portrait of a thin, fine, intellectual face, +which in its every line suggested an intense, and almost dreadful +curiosity. The brows were high, yet narrow,--the eyes clear and +cold, and pitiless in their straight regard,--the lips thin and +compressed,--the nose delicate, with thin open nostrils, like those +of a trained sleuth-hound on the scent of blood. It was a three- +quarter-length picture, showing the hand of the man slightly raised, +and holding a surgeon's knife,--a wonderful hand, rather small, with +fingers that are generally termed "artistic"--and a firm wrist, +which Angela had worked at patiently, carefully delineating the +practised muscles employed and developed in the vivisectiomst's +ghastly business. + +Aubrey Leigh stood contemplating it intently. + +"I think it is really the finest of all the types," he said +presently, "One can grasp that man's character so thoroughly! There +is no pity in him,--no sentiment--there is merely an insatiable +avidity to break open the great treasure-house of Life by fair means +or foul! It is very terrible--but very powerful." + +"I know the man," said Abbe Vergniaud, "Did he sit to you +willingly?" + +"Very willingly indeed!" replied Angela, "He was quite amused when I +told him frankly that I wanted him as a type of educated and refined +cruelty." + +"Oh, these fellows see nothing reprehensible in their work," said +Leigh, "And such things go on among them as make the strongest man +sick to think of! I know of two cases now in a hospital; the +patients are incurable, but the surgeons have given them hope of +recovery through an 'operation' which, however, in their cases, will +be no 'operation' at all, but simply vivisection. The poor creatures +have to die anyhow, it is true, but death might come to them less +terribly,--the surgeons, however, will 'operate', and kill them a +little more quickly, in order to grasp certain unknown +technicalities of their disease." + +Angela looked at him with wide-open eyes of pain and amazement. + +"Horrible!" she murmured, "Absolutely horrible! Can nothing be done +to interfere with, or to stop such cruelty?" + +"Nothing, I fear," said Leigh, "I have been abroad some time, +studying various 'phases', of its so-called intellectual and +scientific life, and have found many of these phases nothing but an +output of masked barbarity. The savages of Thibet are more pitiful +than the French or Italian vivisectionist,--and the horrors that go +on in the laboratories would not be believed if they were told. +Would not be believed! They would be flatly denied, even by the men +who are engaged in them! And were I to write a plain statement of +what I know to be true, and send it to an English journal, it would +not be put in, not even in support of the Anti-Vivisection Society, +lest it might 'offend' the foreign schools of surgery, and also +perhaps lest English schools might prove not altogether free from +similar crimes. If, however, by chance, such a statement were +published, it would be met with an indignant chorus of denial from +every quarter of accusation! How, then, can justice be obtained from +what I call the New Inquisition? The old-time Inquisitors tortured +their kind for Religion's sake,--the modern ones do it in the name +of Science,--but the inhumanity, the callousness, the inborn savage +love of cruelty--are all the same in both instances." + +Cardinal Bonpre shuddered as he heard. + +"Lord Christ, where art thou!" he thought, "Where is Thy spirit of +unfailing tenderness and care? How is Thy command of 'love one +another' obeyed!" Aloud he said, "Surely such deeds, even in the +cause of surgical science, ought not to be permitted in a Christian +city?" + +"Christian city!" and Vergniaud laughed, "You would not apply that +designation to Paris, would you? Paris is hopelessly, riotously +pagan;--nay, not even pagan, for the pagans had gods and Paris has +none! Neither Jove--nor Jupiter--nor Jehovah! As for the Christ,--He +is made the subject of many a public caricature,--yes!--you may see +them in the side-streets pasted upon the walls and hoardings!--and +also of many a low lampoon;--but He is not accepted as a Teacher, +nor even as an Example. His reign is over, in Paris at least!" + +"Stop!" said the Cardinal, rising suddenly, "I forbid you, +Vergniaud, to tell me these things! If they are true, then shame +upon you and upon all the clergy of this unhappy city to stand by +and let such disgrace to yourselves, and blasphemy to our Master, +exist without protest!" + +His tall spare figure assumed a commanding grandeur and authority,-- +his pale face flushed and his eyes sparkled--he looked inspired-- +superb--a very apostle burning with righteous indignation. His words +seemed to have the effect of an electric shock on the Abbe,--he +started as though stung by the lash of a whip, and drew himself up +haughtily . . . then meeting the Cardinal's straight glance, his head +drooped, and he stood mute and rigid. Leigh, though conscious of +embarrassment as the witness of a strong reproof administered by one +dignitary of the Church to another, yet felt deeply interested in +the scene,--Angela shrank back trembling,--and for a few moments +which, though so brief, seemed painfully long, there was a dead +silence. Then Verginaud spoke in low stifled accents. + +"You are perfectly right, Monseigneur! It IS shame to me!--and to +the priesthood of France! I am no worse than the rest of my class,-- +but I am certainly no better! Your reproach is grand,--and just! I +accept it, and ask your pardon!" + +He bent one knee, touched the Cardinal's ring with his lips, and +then without another word turned and left the room. The Cardinal +gazed after his retreating figure like a man in a dream, then he +said gently, + +"Angela, go after him!--Call him back!--" + +But it was too late. Vergniaud had left the house before Angela +could overtake him. She came back hurriedly to say so, with a pale +face and troubled look. Her uncle patted her kindly on the shoulder. + +"Well, well!--It will not hurt him to have seen me angry," he said +smiling, "Anger in a just cause is permitted. I seem to have +frightened you, Angela? Of a truth I have rather frightened myself! +There, we will not talk any more of the evils of Paris. Mr. Leigh +perhaps thinks me an intolerant Christian?" + +"On the contrary I think you are one of the few 'faithful' that I +have ever met," said Leigh, "Of course I am out of it in a way, +because I do not belong to the Roman Church. I am supposed--I say +'supposed' advisedly--to be a Church of England man, or to put it +more comprehensively, a Protestant, and I certainly am so much of +the latter that I protest against all our systems altogether!" + +"Is that quite just?" asked Bonpre gently. + +"Perhaps not!--but what is one to do? I am not alone in my ideas! +One of our English bishops has been latterly deploring the fact that +out of a thousand lads in a certain parish nine-hundred-and-ninety- +nine of them never go to church! Well, what can you expect? I do not +blame those nine-hundred and-ninety-nine at all. I am one with them. +_I_ never go to church." + +"Why?" + +"Simply because I never find any touch of the true Spirit of Christ +there--and the whole tone of the place makes me feel distinctly un- +Christian. The nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine youths possibly would +sympathise with me. A church is a building more or less beautiful or +ugly as the case may be, and in the building there is generally a +man who reads prayers in a sing-song tone of voice, and perhaps +another man who preaches without eloquence on some text which he +utterly fails to see the true symbolical meaning of. There are no +Charles Kingsleys nowadays,--if there were, I should call myself a +'Kingsleyite'. But as matters stand I am not moved by the church to +feel religious. I would rather sit quietly in the fields and hear +the gentle leaves whispering their joys and thanksgivings above my +head, than listen to a human creature who has not even the education +to comprehend the simplest teachings of nature, daring to assert +himself as a teacher of the Divine. My own chief object in life has +been and still is to speak on this and similar subjects to the +people who are groping after lost Christianity. They need helping, +and I want to try in my way to help them." + +"Groping after lost Christianity!" echoed the Cardinal, "Those words +are a terrible indictment, Mr. Leigh!" + +"Yet in your own soul your Eminence admits it to be true," returned +Leigh quickly,--"I can see the admission in your eyes,--in the very +expression of your face! You feel in yourself that the true spirit +of Christ is lacking in all the churches of the present day,--that +the sheep are straying for lack of the shepherd, and that the wolf +is in the fold! You know it,--you feel it,--you see it!" + +Cardinal Bonpre's head drooped. + +"God help me and forgive me, I am afraid I do!" he said sorrowfully. +"I see the shadow of the storm before it draws nigh,--I feel the +terror of the earthquake before it shakes down the edifice! No, the +world is not with Christ to-day!--and unhappily it is a fact that +Christ's ministers in recent years have done more to sever Him from +Humanity than any other power could ever have succeeded in doing. +Not by action, but by inertia!--dumbness--lack of protest,--lack of +courage! Only a few stray souls stand out firm and fair in the +chaos,--only a few!" + +"'I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot,--I would +thou wert cold or hot! So because thou art lukewarm and neither cold +nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth!'" quoted Leigh, his eyes +flashing and his voice trembling with repressed earnestness, "That +is the trouble all through! Apathy,--dead, unproductive apathy and +laissez-faire!--Ah, I believe there are some of us living now who +are destined to see strange and terrible things in this new +century!" + +"For myself," said the Cardinal slowly, "I think there is not much +time left us! I feel a premonition of Divine wrath threatening the +world, and when I study the aspect of the times and see the pride, +licentiousness, and wealth-worship of men, I cannot but think the +days are drawing near when our Master will demand of us account of +our service. It is just the same as in the case of the individual +wrong-doer, when it seems as if punishment were again and again +retarded, and mercy shown,--yet if all benefits, blessings and +warnings are unheeded, then at last the bolt falls suddenly and with +terrific effect. So with nations--so with churches--so with the +world!" + +His voice grew feeble, and his eyes were clouded with pain. + +"You are fatigued," said Leigh gently, "And I ought not to have +stayed so long. I will bid you farewell now. If I am in Rome when +you are there, I trust you will permit me to pay my respects to +you?" + +"It will be a pleasure to see you, my son," answered the Cardinal, +pressing his hand and courteously preventing him from making the +formal genuflection, "And let me add that it will help me very much +to hear from you what progress you make in your intention of working +for Christ. For,--when you speak to the people as a teacher, it is +in His name, is it not?" + +"In His name, and I pray in His spirit," said Leigh, "But not +through any church." + +The Cardinal sighed, but said no more, and Leigh turned to Angela. + +"Good-bye," he said, "I may come and see the picture in Rome?" + +"You may indeed," and Angela gave him her hand in frank +friendliness, "I shall feel the necessity of your criticism and the +value of your opinion." + +He looked at her intently for a moment. + +"Be of good courage," he then said in a low tone, "'Work out your +own salvation', it is the only way! Fulfil the expression of your +whole heart and soul and mind, and never heed what opposing forces +may do to hinder you. You are so clear-brained, so spiritually +organised, that I cannot imagine your doing anything that shall not +create a power for good. You are sometimes inclined to be afraid of +the largeness of your own conceptions in the picture you are +dreaming of,--I can see that,--but do not fear! The higher +influences are with you and in you;--give yourself up to them with +absolute confidence! Good-bye--God bless you!" He stooped and kissed +her hand,--then left the room. + +Angela looked after him, and a half sigh escaped her lips +unconsciously. The Cardinal watched her with rather a troubled look. +After a little silence he said, + +"You must pardon me, my child, if I seemed over hasty in my judgment +of your work . . ." + +"Dearest uncle, do not speak of it!" exclaimed Angela, "You were +pained and sorry to see such a 'servant of Christ' as the type I +chose,--you could not help expressing your feeling--it was +natural . . ." + +"Yes, I was vexed,--I own it!--" went on Bonpre, "For I know many +priests, poor, patient, simple men, who do their best for our Lord +according to their measure and capability,--men who deserve all +honour, all love, all respect, for the integrity of their lives,-- +still--I am aware that these are in the minority, and that men of +the kind your sketch depicts, compose alas!--the majority. There is +a frightful preponderance of evil influences in the world! Industry, +and commerce, and science have advanced, and yet a noble and upright +standard of conduct among men is sadly lacking. Men are seeking for +happiness in Materialism, and find nothing but satiety and misery,-- +satiety and misery which become so insupportable that very often +suicide presents itself as the only way out of such a tangle of +wretchedness! Yes, child!--all this is true--and if you think you +have a lesson to give which will be useful in these dark days, no +one,--I least of all--should presume to hinder you from giving it. +Still, remember that the results of work are not with the worker to +determine--they rest with God." + +"Truly I hope they do," said Angela fervently, "For then all bad +work will pass away and only the good and necessary remain." + +"That always is the rule," said the Cardinal, "No criticism can kill +good work or vivify bad. So be happy, Angela mia! Paint your great +picture with courage and hope--I will neither judge nor condemn, and +if the world's verdict should be cruel, mine shall be kind!" + +He smiled and stroked her soft hair, then taking her arm he leaned +upon it affectionately as they left the studio together. + + + + +X. + +The next day, and the next after that, were passed by the Cardinal +in gratifying a certain eagerness shown by his young foundling, +Manuel, to see the churches and great public buildings of Paris. The +boy had a quiet, straightforward way of expressing his wishes and +opinions, and a certain marked individuality in his manner--in fact, +so simple and straight were his words, and so much to the point, +that they sometimes caused confusion to his hearers. Once or twice +he gave offence, as for example, on visiting a great church where +there were numerous jewelled relics and priceless treasures of old +lace and embroidery, when he said suddenly: + +"There is a woman just outside the door, very ill and poor, with two +little starving children;--would it not be well to sell some of the +jewels here and give her the money?" + +The custodian looked amazed, and the attendant priest who was +escorting Cardinal Bonpre through the building, frowned. + +"The treasures of the Church are not to be sold," he said curtly. +"The beggar outside is no doubt a trained hypocrite." + +"Christ would not say so," answered Manuel softly,--"He would not, +even if He knew her to be a hypocrite, retain anything of value for +Himself, if by giving it to her, He could ease her pain and poverty. +I cannot understand why the Church should keep jewels." + +"That is because you are ignorant," said the priest roughly. + +Manuel raised his grave blue eyes and fixed them steadily upon him. + +"That may be," he said, "Yet I think it is nowhere written in the +Gospel that Christ cared for the world's wealth or the world's +possessions. When they are offered to Him did he not say, 'Get thee +behind me, Satan'! The only gem he prized was the 'pearl of great +price,'--the pure and perfect human soul." + +"The Church is the manufactory of those pearls," said the priest, +with something between a grin and a sneer. + +"Then the Church needs no other jewels" returned Manuel quietly, +with a little gesture of his hand, "These glittering baubles you +show, are out of place." + +The priest glanced him over with angry contempt. Then he said to the +Cardinal, + +"Your Eminence will have trouble with that boy," he said. "His +opinions are heretic." + +The Cardinal smiled a little. + +"You think so? Nay, there is something of truth in what he says, +notwithstanding his simplicity of utterance, which is not perhaps in +accordance with convention. I confess that I share his opinions +somewhat. Certainly I esteem myself happy that in my far-off diocese +there are none of the world's precious things, but only the unprized +prayers of the faithful." + +The priest said nothing in reply,--but he was conscious of +discomfort and uneasiness, and hurried through the rest of his +duties with an ill-grace, annoyed, though he knew not why, by the +very presence of Manuel. The boy, however, paid no heed to his angry +glances, and noted everything in his own quiet meditative way,--a +way which was a singularly winning one, graced as it was by an +almost scholarly thoughtfulness united to the charm of youth. Once, +before a magnificent priest's garment of lace, he paused, and +touched the substance lightly. + +"See," he said softly, looking wistfully up in the Cardinal's face, +"See all the leaves and rosebuds worked in, this by the needle,--and +think how many human eyes have strained at it, and grown dull and +blind over it! If one could only believe that the poor eyes were +comforted at all in the following of the difficult thread!--but no,- +-the sunshine must have lessened and the days grown darker and +darker, till death came and gently shut up the lids of the tired +orbs of earthy vision, and opened those of the soul to Light indeed! +This work speaks with a thousand tongues! I can hear them! Torture,- +-poverty,--pain,--pitilessness,--long hours,--scant reward,--tired +fingers,--weary hearts!--and a priest of Christ wears this to +perform Christ's service! Clad in a garment of human suffering, to +preach mercy! Is it not strange?" + +"You think too deeply, my child," said the Cardinal, moved by the +tender pity in Manual's voice, "Nothing is accomplished without pain +in this world,--our dear Lord Himself suffered pain." + +"True," said Manuel, "But His pain was endured that there might be +less of it for others! He asked His children in this world to love +one another for His sake--not to grind each other down! Not to make +unnecessary hardships for each other! But it seems as if He had +asked in vain!" + +He was silent after this, and refrained from remark even when, +during their visit to Notre Dame, the treasury was unlocked for the +Cardinal's inspection, and the relics formerly contained in the now +disused "Sainte Chapelle," were shown,--including the fragments of +the "crown of thorns," and a nail from the "true cross." The +Cardinal was silent too. He had no remark to offer on these obvious +"imaginations" of the priesthood. Then they went up together to the +platform on the summit of the Cathedral, and looked at the great +bell known as the "Bourdon de Notre Dame";--and here they found a +little wizened old man sitting carelessly on the edge of a +balustrade, in a seemingly very dangerous position, who nodded and +smiled familiarly as they appeared. He acted as cicerone of the +summit of the North Tower, and was soon at their side explaining +volubly all that was of interest. + +"Tired,--oh yes, one gets tired!" he admitted, in response to a +query from the Cardinal as to whether he did not find his duties +fatiguing at his age, "But after all, I like the griffins and +dragons and devils' faces up here, better than the griffins and +dragons and devils down there,--below on the Boulevards! I call this +Heaven, and down there in the streets, Hell. Yes, truly! It is +wholesome up here,--the sky seems very near, and the sculptured +beasts do no harm. But down in the streets one feels and smells the +dirt and danger directly. I sit here all by myself for hours +thinking, when no one comes to visit the tower,--for sometimes a +whole day passes and no one wishes to ascend. And there is a moral +in that, Monseigneur, if one has eyes to see it;--days pass, years, +in the world,--and no one wishes to ascend!--to Heaven, I mean!--to +go down to Hell is delightful, and everyone is ready for it! It is +at night that the platform here is most beautiful,--oh yes, at night +it is very fine, Monseigneur!--but it is only madmen and dreamers +who call me up in the night hours, yet when they do I never refuse +to go with them, for look you, I am a light sleeper and have no wife +to bid me keep my bed. Yes,--if the authorities knew that I took +anybody up to the tower at night they would probably dismiss me," +and he chuckled like an old schoolboy with a sense of his own innate +mischief and disobedience, "But you see they do not know! And I +learn a great deal from the strange persons who come at night,--much +more than from the strange persons who come by day. Now, the last so +strange person that came here by night--you would not perhaps +believe it, Monseigneur, but it was a priest! Yes," and the old +fellow laughed, "a priest who had suddenly found out that the Church +was not following its Master! Yes, yes! . . . just fancy killing himself +for that!" + +"Killing himself!" cried the Cardinal, "What do you mean?" + +"You would like to hear the story?--ah, take care, mon ange!" he +cried, as he perceived Manuel standing lightly near the brink of the +platform, and stretching out his arms towards the city, "Thou art +not a bird to fly from that edge in the air! What dost thou see?" + +"Paris!" replied the boy in strangely sorrowful accents, turning his +young, wistful face towards the Cardinal, his hair blown back in the +light wind, "All Paris!" + +"Ah!--'tis a fine sight, all Paris!" said the old guide--"one of the +finest in the world, to judge by the outside of it. But the inside +is a very different matter; and if Paris is not a doomed city, then +there is no God, and I know nothing of the Bible. It has got all the +old sins in a new shape, and revels in them. And of the story of the +priest, if you would hear it;--ah!--that is well!" he said, as +Manuel left the giddy verge of the platform where he had been +standing, and drew near. "It is safer to be away from that edge, my +child! And for the poor priest, it happened in this way,--it was a +fair night, and the moon was high--I was dozing off in a chair in my +room below, when the bell rang quickly, yet softly. I got up with +pleasure, for I said to myself, 'here is an artist or a poet,--one +of those persons who are unlike anyone else'--just as I am myself +unlike anyone else--'and so we two shall have a pleasant evening.' +But when I opened the door there was no one but a priest, and poor- +looking even at that; and he was young and pale, and very uneasy in +his manner, and he said to me, 'Jean Lapui'--(that is my name)--'let +me pass up to the platform.' 'Willingly,' said I, 'if I may go with +you.' 'Nay, I would rather be alone,' he answered. 'That may not +be,' I told him, 'I am as pleased to see the moonbeams shining on +the beasts and devils as any man,--and I shall do you no harm by my +company.' Well, he agreed to have me then, and up we went the three +hundred and seventy-eight steps,--(it is a long way, Monseigneur;-- +)and he mounted quickly, I slowly,--but always keeping my eye upon +him. At last we reached this platform, and the moonlight was +beautiful, and clear as day. Then my little priest sat down and +began to laugh. 'Ha, my Lapui!' he said, 'Is it not droll that this +should be all a lie! All this fine building, and all the other fine +buildings of the kind in Paris! Strange, my Lapui, is it not, that +this Cathedral should be raised to the worship of a God whom no one +obeys, or even thinks of obeying! All show, my good Lapui! All to +feed priests like me, and keep them going--but God has nothing to do +with it--nothing at all, I swear to you!'--'You may be right, mon +reverend,' I said, (for I saw he was not in a mood to be argued +with)--"Yet truly the Cathedral has not always been a place of +holiness. In seventeen ninety-three there was not much of our Lord +or the blessed Saints in it.' 'No, you are right, Lapui!' he cried, +'Down came the statue of the Virgin, and up went the statue of +Liberty! There was the crimson flare of the Torch of Truth!--and the +effigies of the ape Voltaire and the sensualist Rousseau, took the +places of St. Peter and St. Paul! Ha!--And they worshipped the +goddess of Reason--Reason, impersonated by Maillard the ballet- +dancer! True to the life, my Lapui!--that kind of worship has lasted +in Paris until now!--it goes on still--Reason,--man's idea of +Reason,--impersonated by a ballet dancer! Yes,--the shops are full +of that goddess and her portraits, Jean Lapui! And the jewellers can +hardly turn out sufficient baubles to adorn her shrine!' He laughed +again, and I took hold of him by the arm. 'See here, petit pere,' I +said, 'I fancy all is not well with you.' 'You are right,' he +answered, 'all is very ill!' 'Then will you not go home and to bed?' +I asked him. 'Presently--presently;' he said, 'if I may tell you +something first!' 'Do so by all means, reverend pere,' said I, and I +sat down near him. 'It is just this, Lapui,' and he drew out a +crucifix from his breast and looked at it very earnestly, 'I am a +priest, as you see; and this symbol represents my faith. My mother +told me that to be a priest and to serve God was the highest +happiness that could befall a man. I believed it,--and when I look +at the stars up there crowding around us in such vast circles,--when +I look at all this moonlight and the majesty of creation around me, +I believe it still! Up here, it seems there MAY be a God; down +there,' and he pointed towards the streets, 'I know there is a +devil! But I have discovered that it is no use telling the people +about God, because they do not believe in Him. They think I am +telling them a lie because it is my metier to tell lies. And also +because they think I have neither the sense nor the ability to do +anything else. They know they are telling lies themselves all day +and every day. Some of them pretend to believe, because they think +it best to be on the safe side even by feigning,--and they are the +worst hypocrites. It drives me mad, Lapui, to perform Mass for +liars! If it were only unbelievers! but liars!--liars! Liars who lie +on their death-beds, telling me with mock sighs of penitence that +they believe in God when they do not! I had a dream last night--you +shall tell me if I was mistaken in it,--it was a dream of this very +tower of Notre Dame. I was up here as I am now--and the moonlight +was around me as it is now--and I thought that just behind the wing +of that third angel's head carved yonder--do you see?' and he got up +and made me get up too, and turned me round with his hand on my +shoulder--'a white dove had made its resting-place. Is there a white +dove there, Lapui? If there is I shall be a happy man and all my +griefs will be at an end! Will you go and look--and tell me if there +is a white dove nestling there? Then I will say good-night to you +and go home.' God forgive me!--I thought to humor him in his fancy, +and so I left him to walk those five steps--only five at the utmost- +-and see if perhaps among the many doves that fly about the towers, +it might not be that a white one, as he said, should have chosen to +settle in the place he pointed out to me, 'for,' thought I, 'he will +be quiet then and satisfied.' And like a blind fool I went--and when +I came back the platform was empty!--Ah, Monseigneur!--he had said +good-night indeed, and gone home!" + +"You mean that he flung himself from this parapet?" said Bonpre, in +a low, horrified tone. + +"That was the way of it, Monseigneur," said Lapui commiseratingly,-- +"His body was found next day crushed to bits on the pavement below; +but somehow no one troubled much about it, or thought he had thrown +himself from the tower of Notre Dame. It was said that he had been +murdered and thrown out of a window, but nobody knew how or when. Of +course I could have spoken, but then I should have got into trouble. +And I avoid trouble whenever I can. A very strange thing it is that +no one has ever been suspected of leaping from Notre Dame into the +next world since Victor Hugo's great story was written. 'It is +against the rules,' say the authorities, 'to mount the towers at +night.' True, but rules are not always kept. Victor Hugo's +'Quasimodo,' who never lived, is the only person the wiseacres +associate with such a deed. And I,--I could tell many a strange +story; only it is better to be silent! Life is hard living,--and +when a priest of the Church feels there is no God in this world, why +what is there left for him except to try and find out if there is in +the next?" + +"Suicide is not the way to find Heaven," said the Cardinal gravely. + +"Maybe not,--maybe not," and the old custodian turned to lead the +way down the steps of the tower, "But when the brain is gone all +through grief at losing God, it may chance that God sees the +conditions of things, and has mercy. Events happen in this world of +such a kind as to make anyone who is not a saint, doubt the sense as +well as the goodness of the Creator,--of course that is a wicked +thing to say, for we make our own evils, no doubt--" + +"That is very certain," said the Cardinal, "The unhappy man you have +told me of should have trusted God to the end, whether those whom he +preached to, believed his message or not. Their conduct was not his +business,--his task was to declare, and not to judge." + +"Now that is very well put!" and the old man paused on the stairway +and looked round approvingly. "Of course that is said as only a wise +man could say it, for after all, Christ Himself did not judge any +one in any case. He came to save us all, not to punish us." + +"Then why does not everyone remember that, and try to save one +another rather than to condemn?" asked Manuel suddenly. + +They had reached the bottom of the tower stairway, and old Jean +Lapui, shading his eyes from the glare of the daylight with one +wrinkled hand, looked at the boy with a smile of compassionate +interest. + +"Why does not everyone remember? Why does not everyone do as He did? +Ah, that is a question! You are young, and you will find out many +answers to it before you are much older. One fact is sure,--that if +everybody did remember Him and lived exactly as He wished, we should +have a new Heaven and a new Earth; and I will tell you something +else," and the old fellow looked sly and mischievous, "No offence +meant--no offence!--but there would be no churches and no priests! +Believe me, I speak the truth! But this would be a great happiness; +and is not to be our portion yet! Good-day, Monseigneur!--A thousand +pardons for my wicked speech! Good-day!" + +"Good-day!" responded the Cardinal gently, "Be careful of your night +visitors, my friend! Do not for the future leave them alone to +plunge into the Infinite without a warning!" + +The old man smiled deprecatingly. + +"Truly, Monseigneur, I am generally careful. I do not know when I +have spoken so freely to anyone as I have to you; for I am generally +in a bad humour with all Church dignitaries,--and of course I know +you for a Cardinal by your dress, while you might truly be a saint +from your manner;--so I should have held my tongue about the flight +into the air of the little priest. But you will say nothing, for you +are discreet; and even if you did, and I were asked about it, I +should know nothing. Oh, yes, I can tell lies as fast as anybody +else!--Yes, truly! I do not suppose anyone, not even an Archbishop +himself, could surpass me in lying!" + +"And are you not ashamed to lie?" asked Bonpre, with an intense +vibration of pain in his voice as he put the question. + +"Heaven bless you, no, Monseigneur!" replied Lapui cheerfully, "For +is not the whole world kept going by lies? Dear me, if we all told +the truth there would be an end of everything! I am a philosopher in +my way, Monseigneur,--and I assure you that a real serious truth +told in Paris without any gloss upon it, would be like an earthquake +in the city,--great houses would come down and numbers of people +would be killed by it! Good-day, Monseigneur!--Good-day." + +And still smiling and chuckling, the custodian of the North tower +retired into his den there to await fresh visitors. The Cardinal +walked slowly to the corner of the street where his carriage awaited +him,--his head bent and his eyes downcast; Manuel stepped lightly +along beside him, glancing at his pale face from time to time with a +grave and tender compassion. When they were seated in the vehicle +and driving homewards the boy spoke gently-- + +"You grieve too much for others, dear friend! You are now distressed +because you have heard the story of one unhappy man who sought to +find God by self-destruction, and you are pained also lest another +man should lose God altogether by the deliberate telling of lies. +All such mistakes and follies of the world weigh heavily on your +heart, but they should not do so,--for did not Christ suffer all +this for you when He was crucified?" + +The Cardinal sighed deeply. + +"Yes, my child, but He told us plainly WHY He suffered. It was that +we might learn to follow Him, and that there should be less +suffering for the future. And surely we have not obeyed Him, or +there could not be so much pain and difficulty in the world as there +is now." + +"If He come again, you think He would be grieved and disappointed in +His followers?" queried Manuel softly. + +"If He came again, I fear He would not find much of His teaching in +any of the creeds founded on His name! If He came again, then indeed +might the churches tremble, totter and fall!" + +"If He came again," pursued Manuel, still in the same soft, even +voice, "how do you think He would come?" + +"'Watch ye therefore for ye know not when He cometh,'" murmured the +Cardinal,--" My dear child, I think if He came again it would be +perhaps in the disguise of one who is poor and friendless 'despised +and rejected of men,' as when He first glorified the earth by His +presence; and I fear that in such plight He would find Himself, as +before, unwelcome." + +Manuel made no reply just then, as they had arrived at home. The +servant who admitted them told them that Donna Sovrani had a visitor +in her studio,--so that the Cardinal and his young attendant went +straight to their own apartments. + +"Read to me, Manuel," then said Bonpre, seating himself near the +window, and looking out dreamily on the rich foliage of the woods +and grassy slopes that stretched before him, "Find something in the +Gospels that will fit what we have seen to-day. I am tired of all +these temples and churches!--these gorgeous tombs and reliquaries; +they represent penances and thank-offerings no doubt, but to me they +seem useless. A church should not be a shrine for worldly stuff, +unless indeed such things are used again for the relief of poverty +and suffering; but they are not used; they are simply kept under +lock and key and allowed to accumulate,--while human creatures +dwelling perhaps quite close to these shrines, are allowed to die of +starvation. Did you think this when you spoke to the priest who was +offended with you to-day?" + +"Yes, I thought it," replied Manuel gently, "But then he said I was +a heretic. When one loves God better than the Church is one called a +heretic?" + +Cardinal Bonpre looked earnestly at the boy's inspired face,--the +face of a dreaming angel in its deep earnestness. + +"If so, then I am heretic," he answered slowly, "I love the Creator +as made manifest to me in His works,--I love Him in every flower +which I am privileged to look upon,--I find Him in every art and +science,--I worship Him in a temple not made with hands,--His own +majestic Universe! Above all churches,--above all formulated creeds +and systems I love Him! And as declared in the divine humanity of +Christ I believe in, and adore Him! If this makes me unworthy to be +His priest and servant then I confess my unworthiness!" + +He had spoken these words more to himself than Manuel, and in his +fervour had closed his eyes and clasped his hands,--and he almost +fancied that a soft touch, light as a falling rose-leaf, had for a +second rested on his brow. He looked up quickly, wondering whether +it was Manuel who had so touched him,--the boy was certainly near +him,--but was already seated with the Testament open ready to read +as requested. The Cardinal raised himself in his chair,--a sense of +lightness, and freedom, and ease, possessed him,--the hopeless and +tired feeling which had a few minutes since weighed him down with an +undefinable languor was gone,--and his voice had gained new strength +and energy when he once more spoke. + +"You have found words of our Lord which will express what we have +seen to-day?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Manuel, and he read in a clear vibrating tone, "Woe +unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because ye build the +tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous." +Here he paused and said, while the Cardinal gazed at him +wonderingly, "Is not that true of Paris? There is their great +Pantheon where most of their prophets lie,--their poets and their +teachers whom they wronged and slandered in their lifetime--" + +"My child," interrupted Bonpre gently, "Poets and so-called teachers +are not always good men. One named Voltaire, who scoffed at God, and +enunciated the doctrine of materialism in France, is buried there." + +"Nevertheless he also was a prophet," persisted Manuel, in his +quiet, half-childlike, half-scholarly way, "A prophet of evil. He +was the incarnation of the future spirit of Paris. He lived as a +warning of what was to come,--a warning of the wolves that were +ready to descend upon the Master's fold. But Paris was then perhaps +in the care of those 'hirelings' who are mentioned here as caring +not for the sheep." + +He turned a few pages and continued reading. + +"'Well hath Esais prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, +This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from +me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, TEACHING FOR DOCTRINE THE +COMMANDMENTS OF MAN.'" + +He emphasised the last few words and looked up at the Cardinal, then +he went on. + +"'Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take up his +cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, +but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake the same shall save +it.'" + +"Yes," said Cardinal Bonpre fervently, "It is all there!--'Whosoever +will come after me let him deny himself,' LET HIM DENY HIMSELF! That +is the secret of it. Self-denial! And this age is one of self- +indulgence. We are on the wrong road, all of us, both Church and +laity,--and if the Master should come He will not find us watching, +but sleeping." + +He broke off, as at that moment a knock came at the door and a +servant entered the room bringing him a letter. It was from the Abbe +Vergniaud, and ran as follows:-- + +"TRES CHER MONSIGNEUR! I preach the day after tomorrow at Notre Dame +de Lorette, and if you wish to do a favour to a dying man you will +come and hear me. I am moved to say things I have never said before, +and it is possible I may astonish and perchance scandalise Paris. +What inspires me I do not know,--perhaps your well-deserved reproach +of the other day--perhaps the beautiful smile of the angel that +dwells in Donna Sovrani's eyes,--perhaps the chance meeting with +your Rouen foundling on the stairs as I was flying away from your +just wrath. He had been gathering roses in the garden, and gave me +one with a grace in the giving which made the flower valuable. It +still lives and blooms in a glass on my writing-table at which I +have been jotting down the notes of what I mean to say. WHAT I MEAN +TO SAY! There is more in those words than there seems, if you could +but guess all! I shall trust to the day itself for the necessary +eloquence. The congregation that assembles at the Lorette is a +curious and a mixed one. 'Artistes' of the stage and the cafe +chantant are among the worshippers;--dames of rank and fashion who +worship the male 'artistes,' and the golden youth of Paris who adore +the very points of the shoes of the female ones,--are generally +there also. It is altogether what 'perfide Albion,' or Dame Grundee +would call a 'fast' audience. And the fact that I have arranged to +preach there will draw a still greater mixture and 'faster' quality, +as I am, alas!--a fashion in preachers. I pray you to come, or I +shall think you have not forgiven me! + +"VERGNIAUD." + +Cardinal Bonpre folded the letter and put it aside with a curious +feeling of compassion for the writer. + +"Yes, I will go," he thought, "I have never heard him preach, though +I know by report that he is popular. I was told once that he seems +to be possessed by a very demon of mockery, and that it is this +spirit which makes his attraction for the people; but I hope it is +something more than that--I hope--" Here interrupting his +meditations he turned to Manuel. + +"So you gave the Abbe Vergniaud a rose the other day, my child?" + +"Yes," replied Manuel, "He looked sad when I met him,--and sometimes +a flower gives pleasure to a person in sorrow." + +The Cardinal thought of his own roses far away, and sighed with a +sensation of longing and homesickness. + +"Flowers are like visible messages from God," he said, "Messages +written in all the brightest and loveliest colours! I never gather +one without finding out that it has something to say to me." + +"There is a legend," said Manuel, "which tells how a poor girl who +has lost every human creature she loved on earth, had a rose-tree +she was fond of, and every day she found upon it just one bloom. And +though she longed to gather the flower for herself she would not do +so, but always placed it before the picture of the Christ. And God +saw her do this, as He sees everything. At last, quite suddenly she +died, and when she found herself in Heaven, there were such crowds +and crowds of angels about her that she was bewildered, and could +not find her way. All at once she saw a pathway edged with roses +before her, and one of the angels said, 'These are all the roses you +gave to our Lord on earth, and He has made them into a pathway for +you which will lead you straight to those you love!' And so with +great joy she followed the windings of the path, seeing her roses +blossoming all the way, and she found all those whom she had loved +and lost on earth waiting to welcome her at the end!" + +"A pretty fancy," said the Cardinal smiling, "And, as not even a +thought is wasted, who knows if it might not prove true?" + +"Surely the beautiful must be the true always!" said Manuel. + +"Not so, my child,--a fair face may hide an evil soul." + +"But only for a little while," answered the boy, "The evil soul must +leave its impress on the face in time, if life lasts long enough." + +"That is quite possible," said Bonpre, "In fact, I think it often +happens,--only there are some people who simulate the outward show +of goodness and purity perfectly, while inwardly 'they are as +ravening wolves,' and they never seem to drop the mask. Others +again--" Here he paused and looked anxiously at his young companion, +"I wonder what you will be like when you grow up, Manuel!" + +"But if I never grow up, what then?" asked Manuel with a smile. + +"Never grow up? You mean--" + +"I mean if I die," said Manuel, "or pass through what is called +dying before I grow up?" + +"God forbid!" said the Cardinal gently, "I would have you live--" + +"But why," persisted Manuel, "since death is a better life?" + +Bonpre looked at him wistfully. + +"But if you grow up and are good and great, you may be wanted in the +world," he said. + +An expression of deep pain swept like a shadow across the boy's fair +open brow. + +"Oh no!" he said quietly, "the world does not want me! And yet I +love the world--not because it is a world, for there are millions +upon millions of worlds,--they are as numerous as flowers in a +garden--but because it is a sorrowful world,--a mistaken world,--and +because all the creatures in it have something of God in them. Yes, +I love the world!--but the world does not love me." + +He spoke in a tone of gentle pathos, with the resigned and patient +air of one who feels the burden of solitude and the sense of +miscomprehension. And closing the Testament he held he rested his +clasped hands upon it, and for a moment seemed lost in sorrowful +reverie. + +"I love you," said the Cardinal tenderly, "And I will take care of +you as well as I can." + +Manuel looked up at him. + +"And that will be well indeed, my lord Cardinal!" he said softly, +"And you serve a Master who will hereafter say to you, remembering +your goodness,--'Verily, in asmuch as ye have done it unto the least +of my brethren ye have done it unto Me.'" + +He smiled; and the Cardinal meeting his glance wondered whether it +was the strong level light of the sinking sun through the window- +pane that made such a glory shine upon his face, and gave such a +brilliancy to his deep and steadfast eyes. + + + + +XI. + +Meanwhile, Angela Sovrani was detained in her studio by the +fascinating company and bewildering chatter of a charming and very +well-known personage in Europe,--a dainty, exquisitely dressed piece +of femininity with the figure of a sylph and the complexion of a +Romney "Lady Hamilton,"--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein, an Austro- +Hungarian of the prettiest and most bewitching type, who being a +thorough bohemienne in spirit, and having a large fortune at her +disposal, travelled everywhere, saw everything, and spent great sums +of money not only in amusing herself, but in doing good wherever she +went. By society in general, she was voted "thoroughly heartless,"-- +when as a matter of fact she had too much heart, and gave her +"largesse" of sympathy somewhat too indiscriminately. Poor people +worshipped her,--the majority of the rich envied her because most of +them had ties and she had none. She might have married scores of +times, but she took a perverse pleasure in "drawing on" her admirers +till they were just on the giddy brink of matrimony,--then darting +off altogether she left them bewildered, confused, and not a little +angry. + +"They tell me I cannot love, cara mia," she was saying now to Angela +who sat in pleased silence, studying her form, her colouring, and +her animated expression; with all the ardour of an artist who knows +how difficult it is to catch the swift and variable flashes of +beauty on the face of a pretty woman, who is intelligent as well as +personally charming. "They tell me I have no heart at all. Me-- +Sylvie!--no heart! Helas!--I am all heart! But to love one of those +stupid heavy men, who think that just to pull a moustache and smile +is sufficient to make a conquest--ah, no!--not for me! Yet I am now +in love!--truly!--ah, you laugh!--" and she laughed herself, shaking +her pretty head, adorned with its delicate "creation" in gossamer +and feathers, which was supposed to be a hat--"Yes, I am in love +with the Marquis Fontenelle! Ah!--le beau Marquis! He is so +extraordinary!--so beautiful!--so wicked! It must be that I love +him, or why should I trouble myself about him?" + +She spread out her tiny gloved hands appealingly, with a delightful +little shrug of her shoulders, and again Angela laughed. + +"He is good-looking, certainly," she said, "He is very like +Miraudin. They might almost be brothers." + +"Miraudin, ce cher Miraudin!" exclaimed the Comtesse gaily, "The +greatest actor in Europe! Yes, truly!--I go to the theatre to look +at him and I almost fancy I am in love with him instead of +Fontenelle, till I remember he stage-manages;--ah!--then I shudder!- +-and my shudder kills my love! After all it is only his resemblance +to the Marquis that causes the love,--and perhaps the shudder!" + +"Sylvie, Sylvie!" laughed Angela, "Can you not be serious? What do +you mean?" + +"I mean what I say," declared Sylvie, "Miraudin used to be the +darling of all the sentimental old maids and little school-girls who +did not know him off the stage. In Paris, in Rome, in Vienna, in +Buda-Pesth--always a conqueror of ignorant women who saw him in his +beautiful 'make-up'! Yes, he was perfectly delightful,--this big +Miraudin, till he became his own manager and his own leading actor +as well! Helas! What it is to be a manager! Do you know? It is to +keep a harem like a grand Turk;--and woe betide the woman who joins +the company without understanding that she is to be one of the many! +The sultana is the 'leading lady'. Poor Miraudin!--he must have many +little faggots to feed his flame! Oh, you look so shocked! But the +Marquis is just like him,--he also stage-manages." + +"In what way?" + +"Ah, he has an enormous theatre,--the world! A big stage,--society! +The harem is always being replenished! And he plays his part so +well! He has what the wise-acrescall 'perverted morals',--they are +so charming!--and he will not marry. He says, 'Why give myself to +one when I can make so many happy!' And why will not I, Sylvie +Hermenstein, be one of those many? Why will I not yield to the +embraces of Monsieur le beau Marquis? Not to marry him,--oh, no! so +free a bird could not have his wings clipped! And why will I not see +the force of this?--" + +She stopped, for Angela sprang towards her exclaiming, + +"Sylvie! Do you mean to tell me that the Marquis Fontenelle is such +a villain?--" + +"Tais-toi! Dear little flame of genius, how you blaze!" cried +Sylvie, catching her friend by the hand and kissing it, "Do not call +Fontenelle a villain--he is too charming!--and he is only like a +great many other men. He is a bold and passionate person; I rather +like such characters,--and I really am afraid--afraid--" here she +hesitated, then resumed, "He loves me for the moment, Angela, and I- +-I very much fear I love him for a little longer than that! C'est +terrible! He is by no means worthy of it,--no, but what does that +matter! We women never count the cost of loving--we simply love! If +I see much of him I shall probably sink into the Quartier Latin of +love--for there is a Quartier Latin as well as a high class Faubourg +in the passion,--I prefer the Faubourg I confess, because it is so +high, and respectable, and clean, and grand--but--" + +"Sylvie," said Angela determinedly, "You must come away from Paris,- +-you must not see this man--" + +"That is what I have arranged to do," said Sylvie, her beautiful +violet eyes flashing with mirth and malice intermingled, "I am +flying from Paris . . . I shall perhaps go to Rome in order to be near +you. You are a living safety in a storm,--you are so serene and +calm. And then you have a lover who believes in the ideal and +perfect sympathy." + +Angela smiled,--and Sylvie Hermenstein noted the warm and tender +flush of pleasure that spread over her fair face. + +"Yes, Florian is an idealist," she said, "There is nothing of the +brute in him." + +"And you think Fontenelle a brute?" queried Sylvie, "Yes, I suppose +he is; but I have sometimes thought that all men are very much +alike,--except Florian!" She paused, looking rather dubiously, and +with a touch of compassion at Angela, "Well!--you deserve to be +happy, child, and I hope you will be! For myself, I am going to run +away from Monsieur le Marquis with as much speed as if I had stolen +his watch!" + +"It is the best thing you can do," said Angela with a little sigh of +relief, "I am glad you are resolved." + +Comtesse Sylvie rose from her chair and moved about the studio with +a pretty air of impatience. + +"If his love for me could last," she said, "I might stay! I would +love him with truth and passion, and I would so influence him that +he should become one of the most brilliant leading men of his time. +For he has all the capabilities of genius,--but they are dormant,-- +and the joys of self-indulgence appeal to him more strongly than +high ambition and attainment. And he could not love any women for +more than a week or a month at most,--in which temperament he +exactly resembles the celebrated Miraudin. Now I do not care to be +loved for a week or a month--I wish to be loved for always,--for +always!" she said with emphasis, "Just as your Florian loves you." + +Angela's eyes grew soft and pensive. + +"Few men are like Florian," she said. Again Sylvie looked at her +doubtfully, and there was a moment's silence. Then Sylvie resumed. + +"Will you help me to give a little lesson to Monsieur le Marquis, +Angela?" + +"Willingly, if I can. But how?" + +"In this way. It is a little drama! To-morrow is Saturday and you +'receive.' 'Tout Paris', artistic Paris, at any rate, flocks to your +studio. Your uncle, the Cardinal Bonpre, is known to be with you, +and your visitors will be still more numerous. I have promised +Fontenelle to meet him here. I am to give him his answer--" + +"To what?" enquired Angela. + +"To his proposal." + +"Of marriage?" + +"Dear me, no!" And Sylvie smiled, but there was a look of pain in +her eyes, "He has an idyllic house buried in the Foret St. Germain, +and he wants me to take possession . . . you know the rest! He is a +villain? Yes--he is like Miraudin, who has a luxurious flat in Paris +and sends each lady of his harem there in turn. How angry you look! +But, my dear, I am not going to the house in the Foret, and I shall +not meet him here. He will come--looking charming as usual, and he +will wait for me; but I shall not arrive. All I want you to do for +me is to receive him very kindly, talk to him very sweetly, and tell +him quite suddenly that I have left Paris." + +"What good will that do?" enquired Angela, "Could you not write it +to him?" + +"Of course I could write it to him but--" Here Sylvie paused and +turned away her head. Angela, moved by quick instinct, went to her +and put her arm around her waist. + +"Now there are tears in your eyes, Sylvie," she said, "You are +suffering for this man's heartlessness and cruelty. For it IS +heartless,--it is insulting, and selfish, and cruel to offer you +nothing but dishonour if he knows you love him." + +Sylvie took out a tiny cobweb of a lace handkerchief and dried her +tears. + +"No, I will not have him called heartless, or cruel," she said, "He +is merely one of his class. There are hundreds like him in Paris. +Never mind my tears!--they are nothing. There are hundreds of women +who would accept his proposals,--and he thinks I must be like them,- +-ready to fall into his arms like a ripe peach at a touch! He thinks +all I say to him is an assumed affectation of virtue, and that he +can easily break down that slight barricade. He tells me I am a +charming preacher, but that he could never learn anything from +sermons!" She laughed, "Oh, he is incorrigible! But I want you to +let him know that for once he is mistaken. Will you? And you shall +not have to say even the smallest figment of an untruth,--your news +will be quite correct--for I leave Paris to-morrow morning." + +She was very quiet now as she spoke--her brilliant eyes were dark +with thought, and her delicate face wore a serious, almost +melancholy expression. + +"Dear Sylvie!" said Angela, kissing her soft cheek, "You really care +for this wretched man?" + +"I am not sure," she answered with a touch of hesitation in her +voice, "I think I do--and yet despise myself for it!--but--who knows +what wonders change of air and scene may work! You see, if I go away +he will forget at once, and will trouble himself about me no more." + +"Are you sure of that?" + +Sylvie hesitated. + +"Well, no, I cannot be quite certain,--you see no woman has ever +avoided him,--it will be quite a new experience for him, and a +strange one!" Her laughter rippled out musically on the air. +"Positively I do not think he will ever get over it!" + +"I begin to understand," said Angela, "You wish to make this callous +man of the world realise that a woman may be beautiful, and +brilliant, and independent, and yet live a pure, good life amid +numerous temptations?" + +"Yes,--I wish him to feel that all women are not to be led away by +flattery, or even by the desire to be loved, which is the hardest +temptation of all to resist! Nothing so hard as that, Angela! +Nothing so hard! I have often thought what a contemptible creature +Goethe's Gretchen was to allow herself to be tempted to ruin with a +box of jewels! Jewels! Worthless baubles! I would not cross the road +to look at the biggest diamond in the world! But to be loved! To +feel that you are all in all to one man out of the whole world! That +would be glorious! That I have never felt--that I shall never know!" + +Angela looked at her sympathetically,--what a strange thing it was, +she thought, that this pretty creature, with her winsome, bright, +bewitching ways, should be craving for love, while she, Angela +Sovrani, was elected to the happiness of having the absolute +devotion of such an ideal lover as Florian Varillo! + +"But I am becoming quite tragic in my remarks," went on Sylvie, +resuming her usual gaiety, "Melodramatic, as they say! If I go on in +this manner I shall qualify to be the next 'leading lady' to +Miraudin! Quelle honneur! Good-bye Angela;--I will not tell you +where I am going lest Fontenelle should ask you,--and then you would +have to commit yourself to a falsehood,--it is enough to say I have +left Paris." + +"Shall I see you again soon?" said Angela, holding her by both hands +and looking at her anxiously. + +"Yes, very soon, before the winter is over at any rate. You sweet, +calm, happy Angela! I wonder if anything could ever whip you in a +storm!" + +"Would you like to see me in a stormy humour?" asked Angela, +smiling. + +"No, not exactly;--but,--you are TOO quiet,--too secure--too +satisfied in your art and your surroundings; and you do not enter at +all into the passions and griefs of other people. You are absorbed +in your love and your work,--a beautiful existence! Only I hope the +gods will not wake you up some day!" + +"I am not asleep," said Angela, "nor dreaming." + +"Yes you are! You dream of beautiful things,--and the world is full +of ugly ones; you dream of love and constancy, and purity,--and the +world is full of spite, and hate, and bribery, and wickedness; you +have a world of your own,--but Angela, it is a glass world!--in +which only the exquisite colours of your own soul are reflected, +take care that the pretty globe does not break!--for if it does you +will never be able to put it together again! Adieu!" + +"Adieu!" and Angela returned her loving embrace with equal +affection, "I will announce your departure to the Marquis Fontenelle +to-morrow." + +"You will? Sweet Angela! And when you hear from me, and know where I +am, you will write me a long, long letter and tell me how he looked, +and what he said, and whether he seemed sorry or indifferent, or +angry, or ashamed--or--" + +Before she could finish the sentence the studio door was thrown +open, and the servant announced, "Monsieur le Marquis Fontenelle!" + + + + +XII. + +A moment's flashing glance of half-amused dismay at Angela, and the +Comtesse Sylvie had vanished. Passing quickly behind one of the +several tall tapestry screens that adorned the studio, she slipped +away through a little private door at which Angela's "models" +presented themselves, a door which led into the garden and then into +the Bois, and making straight for her carriage which was in waiting +round the corner, she sprang into it and was rapidly driven away. +Meanwhile, Angela Sovrani, rather bewildered by her friend's swift +departure, was left alone to face the Marquis, who entered almost on +the heels of the servant who announced him, and in one swift survey +of the studio saw that the object of his search was not there. +Concealing his disappointment, however, under an admirable show of +elegant indifference, he advanced towards Angela and saluted her +with a courtly old-world grace that very well became his handsome +face and figure. + +"I must apologise for this intrusion," he said, speaking in deep, +soft accents which gave a singular charm to his simplest words, +"But--to be quite frank with you--I thought I should find the +Comtesse Hermenstein here." + +Angela smiled. In her heart she considered the man a social +reprobate, but it was impossible to hear him speak, and equally +impossible to look at him without a vague sense of pleasure in his +company. + +"Sylvie was here a moment ago," she answered, still smiling. + +The Marquis took one or two quick impulsive steps forward--then +checking himself, stopped short, and selecting a chair deliberately +sat down. + +"I understand!" he said, "She wished to avoid me, and she has done +so. Well!--I would not run after her for the world. She must be +perfectly free." + +Angela looked at him with a somewhat puzzled air. She felt herself +in a delicate and awkward position. To be of any use in this affair +now seemed quite impossible. Her commission was to have told the +Marquis that Sylvie had left Paris, but she could not say that now +as Sylvie was still in the city. Was she supposed to know anything +about the Marquis's dishonourable proposals to her friend? Surely +not! Then what was she to do? She stood hesitating, glancing at the +fine, clear-cut, clean-shaven face of Fontenelle, the broad +intellectual brows, and the brilliant hazel eyes with their languid, +half-satirical expression, and her perplexity increased. Certainly +he was a man with a grand manner,--the manner of one of those never- +to-be-forgotten haughty and careless aristocrats of the "Reign of +Terror" who half redeemed their vicious lives by the bravery with +which they faced the guillotine. Attracted, yet repelled by him, +Angela had always been,--even when she had known no more of him than +is known of a casual acquaintance met at different parties and +reunions, but now that she was aware of Sylvie's infatuation, the +mingled attraction and revulsion became stronger, and she caught +herself wishing fervently that the Marquis would rouse himself from +his lethargy of pleasure, and do justice to the capabilities which +Nature had evidently endowed him with, if a fine head and noble +features are to be taken as exponents of character. Fontenelle +himself, meanwhile, leaning carelessly back in the chair he had +taken, looked at her with a little quizzical lifting of his +eyebrows. + +"You are very silent, mademoiselle," he broke out at last, "Have you +nothing to say to me?" + +At this straight question Angela recovered her equanimity. + +"I HAD something to say to you, Marquis," she answered quietly, "but +it was to have been said to-morrow." + +"To-morrow? Ah, yes! You receive your world of art to-morrow," he +said, "and I was to come and meet la Comtesse,--and of course she +would not have been here! I felt that by a natural instinct! +Something psychological--something occult! I saw her carriage pass +my windows up the Champs Elysees,--and I followed in a common +fiacre. I seldom ride in a common fiacre, but this time I did so. It +was an excitement--la chasse! I saw the little beauty arrive at your +door,--I gave her time to pour out all her confidences,--and then I +arranged with myself and le bon Dieu to escort her home." + +"You arranged well," said Angela, inclined to laugh at his easy +audacity, "but le bon Dieu was evidently not of your opinion,--and +you must remember that the most excellent arrangements are not +always carried out." + +"True!" and Fontenelle smiled, "In the case of the fascinating +Sylvie, I do not know when I have had so much trouble about a woman. +It is interesting, but vexatious. Sometimes I think I shall have to +give up and gallop off the hunting-field altogether--" + +"Excuse me, Marquis," said Angela coldly, "Sylvie Hermenstein is my +friend--pray understand that I cannot allow her to be spoken of in +the tone of badinage you are pleased to assume." + +He looked up with a curious air of surprise and mock penitence. + +"Pardon! But there is no badinage at all about the very serious +position in which I find myself," he said, "You, mademoiselle, as a +woman, have not the slightest idea of the anxiety and trouble your +charming sex gives to ours. That is, of course, when you are +charming--which is not always. Now Sylvie, your friend Sylvie--is so +distinctly charming that she becomes provoking and irritating. I am +sure she has told you I am a terrible villain . . ." + +"She has never said so,--never spoken one word against you!" +interposed Angela. + +"No? That is curious--very curious! But then Sylvie is curious. You +see the position is this;--I wish to give her all I am worth in the +world, but she will not have it,--I wish to love her, but she will +not be loved--" + +"Perhaps," said Angela, gaining courage to speak plainly, "Perhaps +your love is not linked with honour?" + +"Honour?" echoed the Marquis, lifting his finely arched eyebrows, +"You mean marriage? No--I confess I am not guilty of so much +impudence. For why should the brilliant Sylvie become the Marquise +Fontenelle? It would be a most unhappy fate for her, because if +there WERE a Marquise Fontenelle, my principles would oblige me to +detest her!" + +"You would detest your own wife!" said Angela surprised. + +"Naturally! It is the fashion. To love one's wife would be petite +bourgoisie--nothing more absurd! It is the height of good form to +neglect one's wife and adore one's mistress,--the arrangement works +perfectly and keeps a man well balanced,--perpetual complaint on one +side, perpetual delight on the other." + +He laughed, and his eyes twinkled satirically. + +"Are you serious?" asked Angela. + +"I never was more serious in my life," declared the Marquis +emphatically, "With all my heart I wish to make the delicious pink +and white Sylvie happy,--I am sure I could succeed in my way. If I +should ever allow myself to do such a dull thing as to marry,-- +imagine it!--such a dull and altogether prosy thing!--my gardener +did it yesterday;--I should of course choose a person with a +knowledge of housekeeping and small details,--her happiness it would +be quite unnecessary to consider. The maintenance of the +establishment, the servants, and the ever increasing train of +milliners and dressmakers would be enough to satisfy Madame la +Marquise's ambitions. But for Sylvie,--half-fairy, half-angel as she +is,--there must be poetry and moonlight, flowers, and romance, and +music, and tender nothings,--marriage does not consort with these +delights. If you were a little school-girl, dear Donna Sovrani, I +should not talk to you in this way,--it would not be proper,--it +would savour of Lord Byron, and Maeterlinck, and Heinrich Heine, and +various other wicked persons. It would give you what the dear +governesses would call 'les idees folles', but being an artist, a +great artist, you will understand me. Now, you yourself--you will +not marry?" + +"I am to be married next year if all is well, to Florian Varillo," +said Angela, "Surely you know that?" + +"I have heard it, but I will not believe it," said the Marquis +airily, "No, no, you will never marry this Florian! Do not tell me +of it! You yourself will regret it. It is impossible! You could not +submit to matrimonial bondage. If you were plain and awkward I +should say to you, marry, and marry quickly, it is the only thing +for you!--but being what you are, charming and gifted, why should +you be married? For protection? Every man who has once had the +honour of meeting you will constitute himself your defender by +natural instinct. For respectability? Ah, but marriage is no longer +respectable,--the whole estate of matrimony is as full of bribery +and corruption as the French War Office." + +He threw himself back in his chair and laughed, running one hand +through his hair with a provoking manner of indifferent ease and +incorrigible lightheartedness. + +"I cannot argue with you on the matter," said Angela, rather +vexedly, "Your ideas of life never will be mine,--women look at +these things differently . . ." + +"Poor dear women! Yes!--they do," said the Marquis, "And that is +such a pity,--they spoil all the pleasure of their lives. Now, just +think for a moment what your friend Sylvie is losing! A devoted, +ardent and passionate lover who would spare no pains to make her +happy,--who would cherish her tenderly, and make her days a dream of +romance! I had planned in my mind such a charming boudoir for +Sylvie, all ivory and white satin,--flowers, and a soft warm light +falling through the windows,--imagine Sylvie, with that delicate +face of hers and white rose skin, a sylph clad in floating lace and +drapery, seen in a faint pink hue as of a late sunset! You are an +artist, mademoiselle, and you can picture the fairy-like effect! I +certainly am not ashamed to say that this exquisite vision occupies +my thoughts,--it is a suggestion of beauty and deliciousness in a +particularly ugly and irksome world,--but to ask such a dainty +creature as Sylvie to be my housekeeeper, and make up the +tradesmen's books, I could not,--it would be sheer insolence on my +part,--it would be like asking an angel just out of heaven to cut +off her wings and go downstairs and cook my dinner!" + +"You please yourself and your own fanciful temperament by those +arguments," said Angela,--"but they are totally without principle. +Oh, why," and raising her eyes, she fixed them on him with an +earnest look, "Why will you not understand? Sylvie is good and +pure,--why would you persuade her to be otherwise?" + +Fontenelle rose and took one or two turns up and down the room +before replying. + +"I expect you will never comprehend me," he said at last, stopping +before Angela, "In fact, I confess sometimes I do not comprehend +myself. Of course Sylvie is good and pure--I know that;--I should +not be so violently in love with her if she were not--but I do not +see that her acceptance of me as a lover would make her anything +else than good and pure. Because I know that she would be faithful +to me." + +"Faithful to you--yes!--while you were faithless to her!" said +Angela, with a generous indignation in her voice, "You would expect +her to be true while you amused yourself with other women. A one- +sided arrangement truly!" + +The Marquis seemed unmoved. + +"Every relation between the sexes is one-sided," he declared, "It is +not my fault! The woman gives all to one,--the man gives a little to +many. I really am not to blame for falling in with this general +course of things. You look very angry with me, Donna Sovrani, and +your eyes positively abash me;--you are very loyal to your friend +and I admire you for it; but after all, why should you be so hard +upon me? I am no worse than Varillo." + +Angela started, and her cheeks crimsoned. + +"Than Varillo? What do you mean?" + +"Well, Varillo has Pon-Pon,--of course she is useful--what he would +do without her I am sure I cannot imagine,--still she IS Pon-Pon." + +He paused, checked by Angela's expression. + +"Please explain yourself, Marquis," she said in cold, calm accents, +"I am at a loss to understand you." + +Fontenelle glanced at her and saw that her face had grown as pale as +it was recently flushed, and that her lips were tightly set; and in +a vague way he was sorry to have spoken. But he was secretly chafing +at everything,--he was angry that Sylvie had escaped him,--and +angrier still that Donna Sovrani should imply by her manner, if not +by her words, that she considered him an exceptional villain, when +he himself was aware that nearly all the men of his "Cercle" +resembled him. + +"Pon-Pon is Signor Varillo's model," he said curtly, "I thought you +were aware of it. She appears in nearly all his pictures." + +Angela breathed again. + +"Oh, is that all!" she murmured, and laughed. + +Fontenelle opened his eyes a little, amazed at her indifference. +What a confiding, unsuspecting creature was this "woman of genius"! +This time, however, he was discreet, and kept his thoughts to +himself. + +"That is all," he said, "But . . . artists have been known to admire +their models in more ways than one." + +"Yes," said Angela tranquilly, "But Florian is entirely different to +most men." + +The Marquis was moved to smile, but did not. He merely bowed with a +deep and reverential courtesy. + +"You have reason to know him best," he said, "and no doubt he +deserves your entire confidence. For me--I willingly confess myself +a vaurien--but I assure you I am not as bad as I seem. Your friend +Sylvie is safe from me." + +Angela's eyes lightened,--her mind was greatly relieved. + +"You will leave her to herself--" she began. + +"Certainly I will leave her to herself. She will not like it, but I +will do it! She is going away to-morrow,--I found that out from her +maid. Why will you beautiful ladies keep maids? They are always +ready to tell a man everything for twenty or forty francs. So +simple!--so cheap!--Sylvie's maid is my devoted adherent,--and why?- +-not only on account of the francs, but because I have been careful +to secure her sweetheart as my valet, and he depends upon me to set +him up in business. So you see how easy it is for me to be kept +aware of all my fair lady's movements. This is how I learned that +she is going away to-morrow--and this is why I came here to-day. She +has given me the slip--she has avoided me and now I will avoid her. +We shall see the result. I think it will end in a victory for me." + +"Never!" said Angela, "You will never win Sylvie to your way of +thinking, but it is quite possible she may win you!" + +"That would be strange indeed," said the Marquis lightly, "The world +is full of wonders, but that would be the most wonderful thing that +ever happened in it! Commend me to the fair Comtesse, Mademoiselle, +and tell her it is _I_ who am about to leave Paris." + +"Where are you going?" asked Angela impulsively. + +"Ah, feminine curiosity!" said the Marquis laughing, "How it leaps +out like a lightning flash, even through the most rigid virtue! +Chere Mademoiselle, where I am going is my own secret, and not even +your appealing looks will drag it out of me! But I am in no hurry to +go away; I shall not fly off by the midnight train, or the very +early one in the morning, as your romantic friend the Comtesse +Sylvie will probably do,--I have promised the Abbe Vergniaud to hear +him preach on Sunday. I shall listen to a farewell sermon and try to +benefit by it,--after that I take a long adieu of France;--be good +enough to say to the Countesse with my humblest salutations!" + +He bowed low over Angela's hand, and with a few more light parting +words took his graceful presence out of the room, and went down the +stairs humming a tune as he departed. + +After he had gone Angela sat for some minutes in silence thinking. +Then she went to her desk and wrote a brief note to the Comtesse as +follows:-- + +"Dear Sylvie: Dismiss your maid. She is in the employ of Fontenelle +and details to him all your movements. He has been here for half an +hour and tells me that he takes a long adieu of France after Sunday, +and he has promised me to LEAVE YOU TO YOURSELF. I am sure you are +glad of this. My uncle and I go to Rome next week. + +"ANGELA." + +She sealed and marked the envelope "private", and ringing the bell +for her man-servant requested him to deliver it himself into the +hands of the Comtesse Hermenstein. This matter dismissed from her +mind she went to a portfolio full of sketches, and turned them over +and over till she came to one dainty, small picture entitled, +"Phillida et les Roses". It was a study of a woman's nude figure set +among branching roses, and was signed "Florian Varillo". Angela +looked at it long and earnestly,--all the delicate flesh tints +contrasting with the exquisite hues of red and white roses were +delineated with wonderful delicacy and precision of touch, and there +was a nymph-like grace and modesty about the woman's form and the +drooping poise of her head, which was effective yet subtle in +suggestion. Was it a portrait of Pon-Pon? Angry with herself Angela +tried to put the hateful but insinuating thought away from her,--it +was the first slight shadow on the fairness of her love-dream,--and +it was like one of those sudden clouds crossing a bright sky which +throws a chill and depression over the erstwhile smiling landscape. +To doubt Florian seemed like doubting her own existence. She put the +"Phillida" picture back in the portfolio and paced slowly to and fro +in her studio, considering deeply. Love and Fame--Fame and Love! She +had both,--and yet Aubrey Leigh had said such fortune seldom fell to +the lot of a woman as to possess the two things together. Might it +not be her destiny to lose one of them? If so, which would she +prefer to keep? Her whole heart, her whole impulses cried out, +"Love"! Her intellect and her ambitious inward soul said, "Fame"! +And something higher and greater than either heart, intellect, or +soul whispered to her inmost self, "Work!--God bids you do what is +in you as completely as you can without asking for a reward of +either Love or Fame." "But," she argued with herself, "for a woman +Love is so necessary to the completion of life." And the inward +monitor replied, "What kind of Love? Ephemeral or immortal? Art is +sexless;--good work is eternal, no matter whether it is man or woman +who has accomplished it." And then a great sigh broke from Angela's +lips as she thought, "Ah, but the world will never own woman's work +to be great even if it be so, because men give the verdict, and +man's praise is for himself and his own achievements always." "Man's +praise," went on the interior voice, "And what of God's final +justice? Have you not patience to wait for that, and faith to work +for it?" Again Angela sighed; then happening to look up; in the +direction of the music-gallery which occupied one end of her studio +where the organ was fitted, she saw a fair young face peering down +at her over the carved oak railing, and recognised Manuel. She +smiled;--her two or three days' knowledge of him had been more than +sufficient to win her affection and interest. + +"So you are up there!" she said, "Is my uncle sleeping?" + +"No," replied Manuel, "he is writing many letters to Rome. Will you +come and play to me?" + +"Willingly!" and Angela went lightly up the winding steps of the +gallery, "But you have been out all day,--are you not tired?" + +"No, not now. I WAS weary,--very weary of seeing and hearing so many +false things . . ." + +"False things?" echoed Angela thoughtfully, as she seated herself at +the organ, "What were they?" + +"Churches principally," said Manuel quietly; "How sad it is that +people should come into those grand buildings looking for Christ and +never finding Him!" + +"But they are all built for the worship of Christ," said Angela, +pressing her small white fingers on the organ keys, and drawing out +one or two deep and solemn sounds by way of prelude, "Why should you +think He is not in them?" + +"He cannot be," answered Manuel, "They are all unlike Him! Remember +how poor he was!--He told His followers to despise all riches and +worldly praise!--and now see how the very preachers try to obtain +notice and reward for declaring His simple word! The churches seem +quite empty of Him,--and how empty too must be the hearts and souls +of all the poor people who go to such places to be comforted!" + +Angela did not reply,--her hands had unconsciously wandered into the +mazes of a rich Beethoven voluntary, and the notes, firm, grand, and +harmonious, rolled out in the silence with a warm deep tenderness +that thrilled the air as with a rhythmic beat of angels' wings. Lost +in thought, she scarcely knew what she played, nor how she was +playing,--but she was conscious of a sudden and singular exaltation +of spirit,--a rush of inward energy that was almost protest,--a +force which refused to be checked, and which seemed to fill her to +the very finger tips with ardours not her own,--martyrs going to the +destroying flames might have felt as she felt then. There was a +grave sense of impending sorrow hanging over her, mingled with a +strong and prayerful resolve to overcome whatever threatened her +soul's peace,--and she played on and on, listening to the rushing +waves of sound which she herself evoked, and almost losing herself +in a trance of thought and vision. And in this dreamy, +supersensitive condition, she imagined that even Manuel's face fair +and innocent as it was, grew still more beautiful,--a light, not of +the sun's making, seemed to dwell like an aureole in his clustering +hair and in his earnest eyes,--and a smile sweeter than any she had +ever seen, seemed to tremble on his lips as she looked at him. + +"You are thinking beautiful things," he said gently, "And they are +all in the music. Shall I tell you about them?" + +She nodded assent, while her fingers, softly pressing out the last +chord of Beethoven's music, wandered of their own will into the +melancholy pathos of a Schubert "Reverie." + +"You are thinking of the wonderful plan of the world," he said,--"Of +all the fair and glorious things God has made for those who love +Him! Of the splendour of Faith and Hope and Courage,--of the soul's +divine origin and responsibility,--and all the joy of being able to +say to the Creator of the whole universe, 'Our Father!' You are +thinking--because you know--that not a note of the music you are +playing now fails to reach the eternal spheres,--echoing away from +your touch, it goes straight to its mark,--sent with the soul's +expression of love and gratitude, it flies to the centre of the +soul's worship. Not a pulsation of true harmony is lost! You are +thinking how grand it is to live a sweet and unsullied life, full of +prayer and endeavour, keeping a spirit white and clean as the light +itself, a spirit dwelling on the verge of earth but always ready to +fly heavenward!--You are thinking that no earthly reward, no earthly +love, no earthly happiness, though good in itself, can ever give you +such perfect peace and joy as is found in loving, serving, and +obeying God, and suffering His will to be entirely worked in you!" + +Angela listened, deeply moved--her heart throbbed quickly,--how +wonderfully the boy expressed himself!--with what sweetness, +gentleness, and persuasion! She would have ceased playing, but that +something imperative urged her to go on,--and Manuel's soft voice +thrilled her strangely when he spoke again, saying-- + +"You know now--because your wise men are beginning to prove it--that +you can in very truth send a message to heaven." + +"To heaven!" murmured Angela, "That is a long way! We know we can +send messages in a flash of lightfrom one part of the world to +another--but then there must be people to receive them--" + +"And heaven is composed of millions of worlds," said Manuel, "'In my +Father's house are many mansions!" And from all worlds to all +worlds--from mansion to mansion, the messages flash! And there are +those who receive them, with such directness as can admit of no +error! And your wise men might have known this long ago if they had +believed their Master's word, 'Whatsoever is whispered in secret +shall be proclaimed on the housetops.' But you will all find out +soon that it is true, and that everything you say, and that every +prayer you utter God hears." + +"My mother is in heaven," said Angela wistfully, "I wish I could +send her a message!" + +"Your very wish has reached her now!" said Manuel, "How is it +possible that you in the spirit could ardently wish to communicate +with one so beloved and she not know it! Love would be no use then, +and there would be a grave flaw in God's perfect creation." + +Angela ceased playing, and turned round to face the young speaker. + +"Then you think we never lose those we love? And that they see us +and hear us always?" + +"They must do so," said Manuel, "otherwise there would be cruelty in +creating the grace of love at all. But God Himself is Love. Those +who love truly can never be parted,--death has no power over their +souls. If one is on earth and one in heaven, what does it matter? If +they were in separate countries of the world they could hear news of +each other from time to time,--and so they can when apparent death +has divided them." + +"How?" asked Angela with quick interest. + +"Your wise men must tell you," said Manuel, with a grave little +smile, "I know no more than what Christ has said,--and He told us +plainly that not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without our +Father. 'Fear not,' He said, 'Ye are more than many sparrows.' So, +as there is nothing which is useless, and nothing which is wasted, +it is very certain that love, which is the greatest of all things, +cannot lose what it loves." + +Angela's eyes filled with tears, she knew not why, "Love which is +the greatest of all things cannot lose what it loves!"--How +wonderfully tender was Manuel's voice as he spoke these words! + +"You have very sweet thoughts, Manuel," she said, "You would be a +great comfort to anyone in sorrow." + +"That is what I have always wished to be," he answered, "But you are +not in sorrow yet,--that is to come!" + +She looked up quickly. + +"You think I shall have some great trouble?" she asked, with a +little tremour in her accents. + +"Yes, most surely you will!" replied Manuel, "No one in the world +ever tried to be good and great at the same time without suffering +miscomprehension and bitter pain. Did not Christ say, 'In the world +ye shall have tribulation'?" + +"Yes,--and I have often wondered why," said Angela musingly. + +"Only that you might learn to love God best," answered Manuel with a +delicate inflexion of compassion in his voice, "And that you might +know for certain and beyond all doubt that this life is not all. +There is something better--greater--higher!--a glory that is worth +winning because immortal. 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'-- +yes, that is true!--but the rest of the saying is true also--'Be of +good cheer,--I have overcome the world'!" + +Moved by an impulse she could not understand, Angela suddenly turned +and extended her hands with an instinctive grace that implied +reverence as well as humility. The boy clasped them lightly then let +them go,--and without more words went softly away and left her. + + + + +XIII. + +The Church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris with its yellow stucco +columns, and its hideous excess of paint and gilding, might be a +ball-room designed after the newest ideas of a vulgar nouveau riche +rather than a place of sanctity. The florid-minded Blondel, pupil of +the equally florid-minded Regnault, hastily sketched in some of the +theatrical frescoes in the "Chapel of the Eucharist," and a +misguided personage named Orsel, splashed out the gaudy decorations +of the "Chapel of the Virgin." The whole edifice glares at the +spectator like a badly-managed limelight, and the tricky, +glittering, tawdry effect blisters one's very soul. But here may be +seen many little select groups out of the hell of Paris,--fresh from +the burning as it were, and smelling of the brimstone,--demons who +enjoy their demonism,--satyrs, concerning whom, one feels that their +polished boots are cleverly designed to cover their animal hoofs, +and that skilful clothiers have arranged their garments so that +their tails are not perceived. But that hoofs and tails are existent +would seem to be a certainty. Here sometimes will sing a celebrated +tenor, bulky and brazen,--pouring out from his bull-throat such +liquid devotional notes as might lift the mind of the listener to +Heaven ifone were not so positive that a moral fiend sang them;-- +here sometimes may be seen the stout chanteuse who is the glory of +open-air cafes in the Champs Elysees, kneeling with difficulty on a +velvet hassock and actually saying prayers. And one must own that it +is an exhilarating and moving sight to behold such a woman +pretending to confess her sins, with the full delight of them +written on her face, and the avowed intention of committing them all +over again manifesting itself in every turn of her head, every grin +of her rouged lips, and every flash of her painted eyes! For these +sections out of the French "Inferno," Notre Dame de Lorette is a +good place to play penitence and feign prayer;--the Madeleine is too +classic and serene and sombre in its interior to suggest anything +but a museum, from which the proper custodian is absent,--Notre Dame +de Paris reeks too much with the blood of slain Archbishops to be +altogether comfortable,--St. Roch in its "fashionable" congregation, +numbers too many little girls who innocently go to hear the music, +and who have not yet begun to paint their faces, to suit those whose +lives are all paint and masquerade,--and the "Lorette" is just the +happy medium of a church where, Sham being written on its walls, one +is scarcely surprised to see Sham in the general aspect of its +worshippers. Among the ugly columns, and against the heavy ceiling +divided into huge raised lumps of paint and gilding, Abbe +Vergniaud's voice had often resounded,--and his sermons were looked +forward to as a kind of witty entertainment. In the middle or the +afterwards of a noisy Mass,--Mass which had been "performed" with +perhaps the bulky tenor giving the "Agnus Dei," with as sensually +dramatic an utterance as though it were a love-song in an opera, and +the "basso," shouting through the "Credo," with the deep musical +fury of the tenor's jealous rival,--with a violin "interlude," and a +'cello "solo,"--and a blare of trumpets at the "Elevation," as if it +were a cheap spectacle at a circus fair,--after all this +melodramatic and hysterical excitement it was a relief to see the +Abbe mount the pulpit stairs, portly but lightfooted, his black +clerical surtout buttoned closely up to his chin, his round +cleanshaven face wearing a pious but suggestive smile, his eyes +twinkling with latent satire, and his whole aspect expressing, +"Welcome excellent humbugs! I, a humbug myself, will proceed to +expound Humbug!" His sermons were generally satires on religion,-- +satires delicately veiled, and full of the double-entendres so dear +to the hearts of Parisians,--and their delight in him arose chiefly +from never quite knowing what he meant to imply, or to enforce. Not +that his hearers would have followed any counsel even if he had been +so misguided as to offer it; they did not come to hear him "preach" +in the full sense of the word,--they came to hear him "say things,"- +-witty observations on the particular fad of the hour--sharp +polemics on the political situation--or what was still more +charming, neat remarks in the style of Rochefoucauld or Montaigne, +which covered and found excuses for vice while seemingly condemning +viciousness. There is nothing perhaps so satisfactory to persons who +pride themselves on their intellectuality, as a certain kind of +spurious philosophy which balances virtue and vice as it were on the +point of a finger, and argues prettily on the way the two can be +easily merged into each other, almost without perception. "If +without perception, then without sin," says the sophist; "it is +merely a question of balance." Certainly if generosity drifts into +extravagance you have a virtue turned into a vice;--but there is one +thing these spurious debaters cannot do, and that is to turn a vice +into a virtue. That cannot be done, and has never been done. A vice +is a vice, and its inherent quality is to "wax fat and gross," and +to generally enlarge itself;--whereas, a virtue being a part of the +Spiritual quality and acquired with difficulty, it must be +continually practised, and guarded in the practice, lest it lapse +into vice. We are always forgetting that we have been, and still are +in a state of Evolution,--out of the Beast God has made Man,--but +now He expects us, with all the wisdom, learning and experience He +has given us, to evolve for ourselves from Man the Angel,--the +supreme height of His divine intention. Weak as yet on our spiritual +wings, we hark back to the Beast period only too willingly, and +sometimes not all the persuasion in the world can lift us out of the +mire wherein we elect to wallow. Nevertheless, there must be and +will be a serious day of reckoning for any professing priest of the +Church, or so-called "servant of the Gospel", who by the least word +or covert innuendo, gives us a push back into prehistoric slime and +loathliness,--and that there are numbers who do so, no one can deny. +Abbe Vergniaud had flung many a pebble of sarcasm at the half- +sinking faith of some of his hearers with the result that he had +sunk it altogether. In his way he had done as much harm as the +intolerant bigot, who when he finds persons believing devoutly in +Christ, but refusing to accept Church-authority, considers such +persons atheists and does not hesitate to call them so. The +"Pharisees" in Christian doctrine are as haughty, hypocritical and +narrow as the Pharisees whom Jesus calls "ravening wolves," and +towhom He said, "Ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men; for +ye neither go in yourselves, NEITHER SUFFER YE THEM THAT ARE +ENTERING TO GO IN," and "Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous +unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." The +last words, it may be said, will apply fittingly to more than one- +half of the preachers of the Gospel at the present day! + +It was a brilliant, soft autumnal Sunday morning when Cardinal +Bonpre, mindful of Abbe Vergniaud's request that he should be +present to hear him preach, took his slow and thoughtful way to the +church of the Lorette, accompanied by his niece Angela and Manuel. +The building was crammed, and had not the Abbe been previously +careful to reserve seats, and to mention the Cardinal's name to the +custodian, he would have scarcely obtained admission. As it was, +however, he passed slowly up the centre aisle without hindrance, +followed by Manuel and Angela, and watched by a good many +inquisitive persons, who wondered as they looked, who the boy was +that walked after His Eminence with such easy self-possession,--with +such a noble and modest bearing, and with such a strangely +thoughtful face. A few whispered and nudged each other as "the +Sovrani" passed them, dressed in her usual quiet black, her head +slightly bent and her eyes downcast. The Marquis Fontenelle, seated +in an attitude which suggested a languid indifference to all persons +and events, lifted his bright hazel eyes as she passed,--and a +sudden wave of consciousness swept over him,--uneasy consciousness +that perhaps this small slight woman despised him. This was not +quite a pleasant reflection for a man and a Marquis to boot,--one +who could boast of an ancient and honourable family pedigree dating +back to the fighting days of Coeur-de-Lion and whose coat-of-arms +was distinguished by three white lilies of France on one of its +quarterings. The lilies of France!--emblems of honour, loyalty, +truth, and chivalry!--what smudged and trampled blossoms they seem +to day! He frowned as this fancy crossed his mind, and turned his +eyes away from the following of Angela's slight form up the aisle; +and his glance fell instead on a face he detested, because it was +almost the counterpart of his own,--the face of the great French +actor Miraudin. The same clean-shaven classic face and clustering +hair,--the same glittering, amorous hazel eyes;--the same charming +and kindly smile,--all these attributes were in Miraudin's face, +indefinably coarsened, while in Fontenelle's they remained refined +and inicative of the highest breeding. The Marquis moved uneasily in +his seat,--he saw himself in the famous actor,--himself as he would +be, if he continued his career of self-indulgence,--for Miraudin +though gifted with a genius that could move all Paris to the wildest +excesses of admiration, was in private life known as a man of +detestable reputation, whose liaisons with women were endless, but +who, in his extreme egotism and callousness had never been known to +yield to the saving grace of a "grande passion,"--one of those +faithful passions which sometimes make the greatness of both man and +woman concerned, and adorn the pages of dull history with the +brilliancy of deathless romance. Was he, Guy Beausire de Fontenelle +no better, no nobler, no higher, in his desires and ambitions than +Miraudin? What was he doing with the three lilies emblazoned on his +escutcheon? He thought with a certain fretful impatience of Sylvie, +of her captivating grace, her tender eyes, her sweet laughter, and +sweeter smile. She had seemed to him a mere slight creation of the +air and the moonbeams,--something dainty that would have melted at a +touch, and dropped into his mouth, as it were, like a French bon- +bon. So he, man-like, had judged, and now lo!--the little ethereal +creature had suddenly displayed a soul of adamant--hard and pure, +and glittering as a diamond,--which no persuasion could break or +bend. She had actually kept her word!--she had most certainly left +Paris. The Marquis knew that, by the lamentable story of her +dismissed maid who had come to him with hysterical tears, declaring +that "Madame" had suddenly developed a "humeur incroyable"--and had +gone away alone,--alone, save for a little dusky-skinned Arab boy +whom she had once brought away from Biskra and had trained as an +attendant,--her "gouvernante" and companion, Madame Bozier, and her +old butler who had known her from childhood. Fontenelle felt that +the dismissal of the maid who had been such a convenient spy for +him, was due to Angela Sovrani's interference, and though angry, he +was conscious of feeling at the same time mean in himself, and +miserable. To employ a servant to play the spy on her mistress, and +report to him her actions and movements, might be worthy of a +Miraudin, but was it quite the thing for a Marquis Fontenelle? +Thinking over these things his handsome face grew flushed and anon +pale again, as from time to time he stole a vexed side glance at the +easy Miraudin,--so like him in features and--unfortunately so +equally like him in morals! Meanwhile, the music of the Mass surged +round him, in thunders of the organ, wailings of violins, groaning +of 'cellos, and flutings of boys' and men's voices,--and as the +cloudy incense rose upon the air he began to weave strange fancies +in his mind, and to see in the beams of sunlight falling through the +stained glass windows a vision of the bright face of Sylvie looking +down upon him with a half-tender, half-reproving smile,--a smile +that seemed to say, "If thou lovest me, set the grace of honour on +thy love!" These were strange thoughts for him to entertain, and he +was almost ashamed of them,--but as long as the melodies of the Mass +kept rolling on and reverberating around him he could not help +thinking of them; so that he was relieved when a pause came,--the +interval for the sermon,--and Abbe Vergniaud, leisurely mounting the +steps of the pulpit, stood surveying the congregation with the +composed yet quizzical air for which he was celebrated, and waiting +till the rustling, fidgeting, coughing, snuffing, toe-scraping +noises of the congregation had settled down into comparative +silence. His attitude during this interval was suggestive. It +implied contempt, wearied patience, resignation, and a curious touch +of defiance. Holding himself very erect he rested his left hand on +the elaborate sculptured edge of the pulpit,--it was the hand on +which he usually wore his ring, a diamond of purest lustre,--but on +this occasion the jewel had been removed and the white, firm +fingers, outlined against the pulpit edge, looked as though they had +just relaxed their grasp of something that had been more or less of +a trouble to retain. Nothing perhaps is so expressive as a hand,-- +the face can disguise itself,--even the eyes can lie,--but the hand +never. Its shape, its movements, its attitude in repose, give a more +certain clue to character and disposition than almost any other +human feature. Thus, with the Abbe, while his left hand suggested a +"letting go," his right hand, which held a small black-bound +Testament implied defiance, grip, resolve and courage. And when the +people seated immediately around the pulpit lifted their eyes +expectantly to the popular preacher's face, several of the more +observant noticed something in his look and manner which was +unfamiliar and curiously disconcerting. If it be true, as there is +every reason to believe it is, that each human being unconsciously +gives out an "aura" of his interior personality which is made more +or less powerful to attract or repel by the nature of his +intentions, and which affects the "aura" of those with whom he is +brought in contact, then Abbe Vergniaud was this morning creating +all unawares to himself a very singular impression of uneasiness. +Some of the persons thus uncomfortably influenced coughed violently +in an instinctive attempt to divert or frustrate the preacher's +mood, but even the most persistent cougher must cease coughing at +some time or another--and the Abbe was evidently determined to wait +for an absolute silence before he spoke. At last silence came, and +he opened the Testament. Holding it up to the view of the +congregation, he began with all that easy eloquence which the French +tongue gives to a cultured speaker,--his voice full and sonorous, +reaching distinctly to every part of the crowded church. + +"This," he said, "is a small book which you all pretend to know. It +is so small a book that it can easily be read through in an hour. It +is the Testament;--or the Last Will and Command to the world of one +Jesus Christ, who was crucified on account of His Divinity more than +eighteen hundred years ago. I mention the fact, in case any of you +have forgotten it! It is generally understood that this book is the +message of God and the key of Faith;--upon it our churches and +religious systems are founded;--by its teaching we are supposed to +order our conduct of life--and yet,--though as I have said, it is a +very small book, and would not take you an hour to read it--none of +you know any thing about it! That is a strange thing, is it not?" + +Here he leaned over the pulpit edge, and his bright eyes, coldly +satiric, flashed a comprehensive glance over the whole congregation. + +"Yes, it is a strange thing, but I affirm it true,--that none of you +know anything whatever about the contents of this small volume which +is the foundation of the Christian Faith! You never read it +yourselves,--and if we priests read it to you, you never remember +it! It is a locked Mystery,--perhaps, for all we know, the greatest +mystery in the world,--and the one most worth probing! For the days +seem to be coming, if they have not already come, which were +prophesied by St. John the Divine, whom certain 'clever' men of the +time have set down as mad;--days which were described as 'shaking +the powers of heaven and creating confusion on the earth.' St. John +said some strange things; one thing in particular, concerning this +very book, which reads thus;--'I saw in the right hand of Him that +sat upon the throne a book sealed with seven seals. And I saw a +strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice; Who is worthy to open +and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven or in earth was +able to open the book neither to look thereon. And I wept much +because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, +neither to look thereon.' But St. John the Divine was mad, we are +told,--madness and inspiration being judged as one and the same +thing. Well, if in these statements he is supposed to prove his +madness, I consider a doubt must be set upon everyone's sanity. For +his words are an exact description of the present period of the +world's existence and its attitude towards the Gospel of Christ,-- +'NO MAN IS FOUND WORTHY TO LOOSE THE SEALS OF THE BOOK OR TO LOOK +THEREON.' But I am not going to talk to you about the seven seals. +They adequately represent our favourite 'seven deadly sins,' which +have kept the book closed since the days of the early martyrs;--and +are likely to keep it closed still. Nor shall I speak of our +unworthiness to read what we have never taken the trouble to rightly +understand,--for all this would be waste of time. It is part of our +social sham to pretend we know the Gospel,--and it is a still +greater sham to assume that we have ever tried in the smallest +degree to follow its teaching. What we know of these teachings has +influenced us unconsciously, but the sayings in the Gospel of Christ +are in very truth as enveloped in mystery to each separate +individual reader as the oracles of the ancient Egyptians were to +the outside multitude. And why? Merely because, to comprehend the +teaching of Jesus we should have to think,--and we all hate +thinking. It is too much exertion,--and exertion itself is +unpleasant. A quarter of an hour's hard thinking will convince each +one of us that he or she is a very worthless and ridiculous person, +and we strongly object to any process which will, in itself, bring +us to that conclusion. I say 'we' object,--that is, I and you; +particularly I. I admit at once that to appear worthless and +ridiculous to the world has always seemed to me a distressing +position, and one to be avoided. Worthless and ridiculous in my own +eyes I have always been,--but that is not your affair. It is +strictly mine! And though I feel I am not worthy 'to loose the seals +of the book or look thereon,' there is one passage in it which +strikes me as particularly applicable to the present day, and from +it I will endeavour to draw a lesson for your instruction, though +perhaps not for your entertainment." + +Here he paused and glanced at his hearers with an indefinable +expression of mingled scorn and humour. + +"What an absurdity it is to talk of giving a 'lesson' to you!--you +who will barely listen to a friend's advice,--you who will never +take a hint for your mental education or improvement, you who are +apt to fly into a passion, or take to the sulks when you are ever so +slightly contradicted. Tiens, tiens! c'est drole! Now the words I am +about to preach from, are supposed to have been uttered by Divine +lips; and if you thoroughly believed this, you would of your own +accord kneel down and pray that you might receive them with full +comprehension and ready obedience. But you do not believe;--so I +will not ask you to kneel down in mockery, or feign to pray when you +are ignorant of the very spirit of prayer! So take the words,-- +without preparation, without thought, without gratitude, as you take +everything God gives you, and see what you can make of them. 'The +light of the body is the eye,--if therefore thine eye be single, thy +whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy +whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is +in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!'" + +Here he closed the Testament, and rested it edgewise on the pulpit +cushion, keeping one hand firmly clasped upon it as he turned +himself about and surveyed the whole congregation. + +"What is the exact meaning of the words, 'IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE'? +It is an expressive term; and in its curt simplicity covers a +profound truth. 'If thine eye,' namely,--the ability to see,--'be +single,' that is straight and clear, without dimness or obliquity,-- +'thy whole body shall be full of light.' Christ evidently did not +apply this expression to the merely physical capability of sight,-- +but to the moral and mental, or psychic vision. It matters nothing +really to the infinite forces around us, whether physically +speaking, we are able to see, or whether we are born blind; but +spiritually, it is the chief necessity of our lives that we should +be able to see straight morally. Yet that is what we can seldom or +never do. Modern education, particularly education in France, +provides us at once with a double psychic lens, and a side-squint +into the bargain! Seeing straight would be too primitive and simple +for us. But Christ says, 'If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall +be full of darkness.' Now this word 'evil,' as set in juxtaposition +to the former term 'single,' evidently implies a double sight or +perverted vision. With this 'evil,' or double sight, our whole body +'shall be full of darkness.' Very well, my friends, if this be +true,--(and you surely must believe it true, otherwise you would not +support churches for the exposition of the truth as spoken by the +Founder of our Faith;--) then we are children of the dark indeed! I +doubt if one amongst us,--for I include myself with you,--can be +said to see clearly with a straight psychic vision. The straight +psychic vision teaches us that God is the Creator of all things,-- +God is Light and Love,--God desires good from us, and from every +particle of his creation;--but the double or perverted line of sight +offers a different view and declares, 'This life is short and offers +many pleasures. I cannot be sure of God because I have never seen +Him;--the Universe is certainly very majestic, and somewhat +startling to me in its exact mathematical proportions; but I have no +more to do with it than has a grain of sand;--my lot is no more +important than that of the midge in the sunbeam;--I live,--I breed-- +I die;--and it matters to no one but myself how I do these three +things, provided I satisfy my nature.' This is the Philosophy of the +Beast, and it is just now very fashionable. It is 'la haute mode' +both in France, and England, Italy, and Spain. Only young America +seem to be struggling for a Faith,--a Christian Faith;--it has +almost, albeit faintly and with a touching indecision, asked for +such a Faith from the Pope,--who has however declared it to be +impossible in these words addressed to Cardinal Gibbons, 'Discussion +of the principles of the Church cannot be tolerated even in the +United States. There can only be one interpreter, the Pope. In the +matter of discipline, concessions may be allowed, but in doctrine +none.' Mark the words, 'cannot be tolerated'! Consider what +stability a Faith can have whose principles may not be discussed! +Yet the authority of the Church is, we are told the authority of God +Himself. How is this? We can discuss God and His principles. He +'tolerates' us while we search for His laws, and stand amazed and +confounded before His marvellous creation. The more we look for Him +the more He gives Himself gloriously to us; and Christ declares +'Seek and ye shall find,'--the Church says 'Seek and ye shall not be +tolerated'! How are we to reconcile these two assertions? We do not +reconcile them; we cannot; it is a case of double sight,--oblique +and perverted psychic vision. Christ spoke plainly;--the Church +speaks obscurely. Christ gave straight commands,--we fly in the face +of them and openly disobey them. Truth can always be 'discussed,' +and Truth MUST be 'tolerated' were a thousand Holy Fathers to say it +nay! But note again the further words to America, 'There can only be +one interpreter,--the Pope. In the matter of discipline, concessions +may be allowed, but in doctrine none.' Let us examine into this +doctrine. It is the doctrine of Christ, plain and straightforward; +enunciated in such simple words that even a child can understand +them. But the Church announces with a strident voice that there can +only be one interpreter,--the Pope. Nevertheless Truth has a more +resonant voice than even that of the Church. Truth cries out at this +present day, 'Unless you will listen to Me who am the absolute +utterance of God, who spake by the prophets, who spake through +Christ,--who speaks through Christ and all things still,--your +little systems, your uncertain churches, your inefficient creeds, +your quarrelsome sects, shall crumble away into dust and ruins! For +humanity is waiting for the true Church of Christ; the one pure +House of Praise from which all sophistry, all superstition and +vanity shall have fled, and only God in the Christ-Miracle and the +perfection of His Creation shall remain!' And there is no more sure +foundation for this much-needed House of Praise than the Catholic +Church,--the word 'catholic' being applied in its widest sense, +meaning a 'Universal' answering to the needs of all;--and I am +willing to maintain that the ROMAN Catholic Church has within it the +vital germ of a sprouting perfection. If it would utterly discard +pomp and riches, if it would set its dignity at too high an estimate +for any wish to meddle in temporal or political affairs, if it would +firmly trample down all superstition, idolatry and bigotry, and 'use +no vain repetition as the heathen do'--to quote Christ's own words,- +-if in place of ancient dogma and incredible legendary lore, it +would open its doors to the marvels of science, the miracles and +magnificence daily displayed to us in the wonderful work of God's +Universe, then indeed it might obtain a lasting hold on mankind. It +might conquer Buddhism, and Christianize the whole earth. But--'If +thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness,'--and +while the Church remains double-sighted we are bound also to see +double. And so we listen with a complete and cynical atheism to the +conventional statement that 'one man alone' shall interpret Christ's +teaching to us of the Roman following,--and this man an old frail +teacher, whose bodily and intellectual powers are, in the course of +nature, steadily on the decline. Why we ask, must an aged man be +always elected to decide on the teaching of the ever-young and +deathless Christ?--to whom the burden of years was unknown, and +whose immortal spirit, cased for a while in clay, saw ever the rapt +vision of 'old things being made new'? In all other work but this of +religious faith, men in the prime of life are selected to lead,--men +of energy, thought, action, and endeavour,--but for the sublime and +difficult task of lifting the struggling human soul out of low +things to lofty, an old man, weak, and tottering on the verge of the +grave, is set before us as our 'infallible' teacher! There is +something appalling in the fact, that look where we may, no +profession holds out much chance of power or authority to any man +past sixty, but the Head of the Church may be so old that he can +hardly move one foot before the other, yet he is permitted to be +declared the representative of the ever-working, ever-helping, ever- +comforting Christ, who never knew what it was to be old! Enough, +however of this strange superstition which is only one of many in +the Church, and which are all the result of double or perverted +sight,--I come to the last part of the text which runs, 'If +therefore the light in thee be darkness how great is that darkness.' +IF THEREFORE THE LIGHT IN THEE BE DARKNESS! My friends, that is +exactly my condition, and has been my condition ever since I was +twenty. The light in me has been darkness. The intellectual quality +of my brain which has helped me to attain my present false position +among you . . ." + +Here he paused, for there was a distinct movement of surprise among +his audience, which till now, had remained to a man so still that +the buzz of a fly on the window-pane sounded almost as loud as the +drone of a bag-pipe,--then with a faint smile on his lips he +resumed,-- + +"I hope you all heard my words distinctly! I said, the false +position I have attained among you. I repeat it lest there should be +any mistake. It IS a false position and always has been. I have +never for an instant believed half what I have asked you to believe! +And I have preached to you what I have never dreamed of practising! +Yet I venture to say that I am not worse than most of my brethren. +The intellectual men of France, whether clergy or laity, are in a +difficult situation. Their brains are keen and clear; and, +intellectually speaking, they are totally unable to accept the +Church superstitions of the tenth and twelfth centuries. But in +rejecting superstition it would have been quite possible to have +held them fast to a sublime faith in God and an Immortal Future, had +the Church caught them when slipping, and risen to the mental demand +made upon her resources. But the old worn-out thunder of the +Vatican, which lately made a feeble noise in America, has rolled +through France with the same assertion, 'Discussion cannot be +tolerated'; and what has been the result? Simply this,--that all the +intellectual force of the country is arrayed against priestcraft;-- +and the spirit of an insolent, witty, domineering atheism and +materialism rules us all. Even young children can be found by the +score who laugh at the very idea of a God, and who fling a jeer at +the story of the Crucifixion of Christ,--while vice and crime are +tolerated and often excused. Moral restraint is being less and less +enforced, and the clamouring for sensual indulgence has become so +incessant that the desire of the whole country, if put into one +line, might be summed up in the impotent cry of the Persian +voluptuary Omar Khayyam to his god, 'Reconcile the law to my +desires'. This is as though a gnat should seek to build a cathedral, +and ask for the laws of architecture to be altered in order to suit +his gnat-like capacity. The Law is the Law; and if broken, brings +punishment. The Law makes for good,--and if we pull back for evil, +destroys us in its outward course. Vice breeds corruption in body +and in soul; and history furnishes us with more than sufficient +examples of that festering disease. It is plainly demanded of us +that we should assist God's universe in its way towards perfection; +if we refuse, and set a drag on the majestic Wheel, we are ourselves +crushed in its progress. Here is where our Church errs in the +present generation. It is setting itself as a drag on the Wheel. +Meanwhile, Truth advances every day, and with no uncertain voice +proclaims the majesty of God. Heaven's gates are thrown open;--the +secrets of the stars are declared,--the mysteries of light and sound +are discovered; and we are approaching possibly to the time when the +very graves shall give up their dead, and the secrets of all men's +hearts shall be made manifest. Yet we go on lying, deceiving, +cajoling, humbugging each other and ourselves;--living a daily life +of fraud and hypocrisy, with a sort of smug conviction in our souls +that we shall never be found out. We make a virtue of animalism, and +declare the Beast-Philosophy to be in strict keeping with the order +of nature. We gloat over our secret sins, and face the world with a +brazen front of assumed honour. Oh, we are excellent liars all! But +somehow we never seem to think we are fools as well! We never +remember that all we do and all we say, is merely the adding of +figures to a sum which in the end must be made up to the grand +total, and paid! Every figure tells;--the figure 'nought' +especially, puts an extra thousand on the whole quantity! But the +light in us being darkness, how great is that darkness! So great +that we refuse to look an inch before us! We will not see, we will +not understand,--we utterly decline to accept any teaching or advice +which might inflict some slight inconvenience on our own Ego. And so +we go on day after day, till all at once a reckoning is called and +death stares us in the face. What! So soon finished? All over? Must +we go at once, and no delay? Must we really and truly drop all our +ridiculous lies and conventions and be sent away naked-souled into +the Living Unknown? Not the Dead Unknown remember!--for nothing is +actually dead! The whole universe palpitates and burns with ever re- +created life. What have we done with the past life?--and what shall +we do with this other life? Oh, but there is no time to ask +questions now,--we should have asked them before; the hour of +departure is come, and there is not a moment's breathing time! Our +dear friends (if we have any), and our paid doctors and servants +stand around us awe-struck,--they watch out last convulsive shudder- +-and weep--not so much for sorrow sometimes as terror,--and then +when all is over, they say we are 'gone'. Yes,--we are gone--but +where? Well, we shall each of us find that out, my friends, when we +pass away from Popes, Churches, Creeds, and Conventions to the +majesty of the actual Glory! Shall we pray then? Shall we weep? +Shall we talk of rituals? Shall we say this or that form of prayer +was the true one?--this or that creed was the 'only' one? Shall we +complain of our neighbours?--or shall we not suddenly realise that +there never was but one way of life and progress through creation,-- +the good and pure, the truthful and courageous, as taught with +infinite patience by the God-Man, and that wheresoever we have +followed our own inclinations rather than His counsel, then our OWN +action, not God's punishment, condemns us,--our OWN words, not +God's, re-echo back our sins upon ourselves!" + +He paused, looking everywhere around him,--all his hearers were +listening with an almost breathless attention. + +"Oh, yes! I know the charm of sin!" he continued with mingled +mockery and passion vibrating in his voice;--"The singular +fascination of pure devilry! All of you know it too,--those of you +who court the world's applause on the stage, or in the salons of art +and literature, and who pretend that by your work you are elevating +and assisting humanity, while in your own private lives you revel in +such vice as the very dogs you keep might be ashamed of! There is no +beast so bestial as man at his worst! And some of you whom I know, +glory in being seen at your worst always. There are many among you +here to-day whose sole excuse for a life of animalism is, that it is +your nature, 'I live according to my temperament,--my disposition,-- +I do not wish to change myself--you cannot change me; I am as I am +made'! So might the thief argue as he steals his neighbour's money,- +-so may the murderer console himself as he stabs his victim! 'It is +my nature to stab and to steal--it is my nature to live as a beast-- +I do not wish to change; you cannot change me'. Now if these +arguments were true, and hold good, man would be still where he +begun,--in the woods and caves,--an uncouth savage with nothing save +an animal instinct to lead him where he could find food. But even +this earliest instinct, savage though it was, taught him that +something higher than himself had made him, and so he began to creep +on by slow degrees towards that higher at once; hence instinct led +to reason, and reason to culture and civilization. And now having +touched as high a point of experience and knowledge as the ancient +Assyrians and Egyptians attained before their decline, he is +beginning even as they did, to be weary and somewhat afraid of what +lies beyond in the as yet unfathomed realms of knowledge; and he +half wishes to creep back again on all-fours to the days when he was +beast merely. The close contemplation of the Angel terrifies him,-- +he dare not grow his wings! Further than life, as life appears to +him on its material side, he is afraid to soar,--what lies in the +far distance he dare not consider! This is where the Pause comes in +all progress,--the hesitation, the doubt, the fear;--the moment when +the Creature draws so near to his Creator that he is dazzled and +confounded. And it is a strange fact that he is always left alone,-- +alone with his own Will, in every such grand crisis. He has been +helped so much by divine influences, that he is evidently considered +strong enough to decide his own fate. He is strong enough,--he has +sufficient reason and knowledge to decide it for the Highest, if he +would. But, with national culture goes national luxury,--the more +civilised a community, the greater its bodily ease,--the more +numerous the temptations against which we are told we must fight. +Spirit flies forward--Body pulls back. But Spirit is one day bound +to win! We have attained in this generation a certain knowledge of +Soul-forces--and we are on a verge, where, if we hesitate, we are +lost, and must recoil upon our own Ego as the centre of all desire. +But if we go on boldly and leave our own Ego behind, we shall see +the gates of Heaven opening indeed, and all the Mysteries unveiled! +How often we pause on the verge of better things, doubting whether +to rise or grovel! The light in us is darkness, and how great is +that darkness! Such is the state of mind in which I, your preacher, +have found myself for many years! I do not know whether to rise or +grovel,--to sink or soar! To be absolutely candid with you, I am +quite sure that I should not sink in your opinion for confessing +myself to be as outrageous in my conceptions of mortality as many of +you are. You would possibly pretend to be ashamed of me, but in your +hearts you would like me all the better. The sinking or the soaring +of my nature has therefore nothing whatever to do with you. It is a +strictly personal question. But what I specially wish to advise you +of this morning,--taking myself as an example,--is that none of you, +whether inclined to virtue or to vice, should remain such arrant +fools as to imagine that your sins will not find you out. They +will,--the instant they are committed, their sole mission is to +start on your track, and hunt you down! I cannot absolutely vouch to +you that there is a God,--but I am positive there is a hidden +process of mathematics going on in the universe which sums up our +slightest human affairs with an exactitude which at the least is +amazing. Twenty-five years ago I did a great wrong to a human +creature who was innocent, and who absolutely trusted me. There is +no crime worse than this, yet it seemed to me quite a trifling +affair,--an amusement--a nothing! I was perfectly aware that by some +excessively straightlaced people it might be termed a sin; but my +ideas of sin were as easy and condoning as yours are. I never +repented it,--I can hardly say I ever thought of it,--if I did I +excused myself quickly, and assured my own conscience in the usual +way, that the fault was merely the result of circumstances over +which I had no control. Oh, those uncontrollable circumstances! How +convenient they are! And what a weak creature they make of man, who +at other times than those of temptation, is wont to assert himself +master of this planet! Master of a planet and cannot control a vice! +Excellent! Well,--I never, as I say, thought of the wrong I had +done,--but if _I_ forgot it, some One or some Thing remembered it! +Yes--remembered it!--put it down--chronicled it with precision as to +time and place,--and set it, a breathing fact, before me in my old +age,--a living witness of my own treachery." + +He paused, the congregation stirred,--the actor Miraudin looked up +at him with a surprised half-smile. Angela Sovrani lifted her +beautiful violet eyes towards him in amazed compassion,--Cardinal +Bonpre, recalling the Abbe previous confession to him, bent his +head, deeply moved. + +"Treachery," resumed Vergniaud determinedly, "Is always a covert +thing. We betray each other in the dark, with silent foot-steps and +sibilant voices. We whisper our lies. We concoct our intrigues with +carefully closed doors. I did so. I was a priest of the Roman Church +as I am now; it would never have done for a priest to be a social +sinner! I therefore took every precaution to hide my fault;--but out +of my lie springs a living condemnation; from my carefully concealed +hypocrisy comes a blazonry of truth, and from my secret sin comes an +open vengeance . . ." + +At the last words the loud report of a pistol sounded through the +building . . . there was a puff of smoke, a gleam of flame, and a bullet +whizzed straight at the head of the preacher! The congregation rose, +en masse, uttering exclamations of terror,--but before anyone could +know exactly what had happened the smoke cleared, and the Abbe +Vergniaud was seen leaning against the steps of the pulpit, pale but +uninjured, and in front of him stood the boy Manuel with arms +outstretched, and a smile on his face. The bullet had split the +pulpit immediately above him. An excited group assembled round them +immediately, and the Abbe was the first to speak. + +"I am not hurt!--" he said quickly--"See to the boy! He sprang in +front of me and saved my life." + +But Manuel was equally unhurt, and waived aside all enquiries and +compliments. And while eager questions were poured out and answered, +a couple of gendarmes were seen struggling in the centre of the +church with a man who seemed to have the power of a demon, so fierce +and frantic were his efforts to escape. + +"Ah, voila! The assassin!" cried Miraudin, hastening to give +assistance. + +"The assassin!" echoed a dozen other persons pressing in the same +direction. + +Vergniaud heard, and gave one swift glance at Cardinal Bonpre who, +though startled by the rapidity and excitement of the scene that had +occurred, was equal to the occasion, and understood his friend's +appeal at once, even before he said hurriedly, + +"Monseigneur! Tell them to let him go!--or--bring him face to face +with me!" + +The Cardinal endeavoured to pass through the crowd, but though some +made way for him on account of his ecclesiastical dignity, others +closed in, and he found it impossible to move more than a few steps. +Then Vergniaud, moved by a sudden resolve, raised himself a little, +and resting one hand on the shoulder of Manuel, who still remained +on the steps of the pulpit in front of him, he called, + +"Let Monsieur the assassin come here to me! I have a word to say to +him!" + +Through the swaying, tumultuous, murmuring throng came a sudden +stillness, and everyone drew back as the gendarmes responding to +Abbe Vergniaud's command, pushed their way along, dragging and +hustling their prisoner between them,--a young black-browed, black- +eyed peasant with a handsome face and proud bearing, whose defiant +manner implied that having made one fierce struggle for liberty and +finding it in vain, he was now disdainfully resigned to the +inevitable. When brought face to face with the Abbe he lifted his +head, and flashed his dark eyes upon him with a look of withering +contempt. His lips parted,--he seemed about to speak when his glance +accidentally fell upon Manuel,--then something caused him to +hesitate,--he checked himself on the very verge of speech and +remained silent. The Abbe surveyed him with something of a quizzical +half-admiring smile, then addressing the gendarmes he said, + +"Let him go!" + +The men looked up astonished, doubting whether they had heard +aright. + +"Let him go!" repeated the Abbe firmly, "I have no accusation to +make against him. Had he killed me he would have been perfectly +justified! Let him go!" + +"Cher Abbe!" remonstrated the Marquis Fontenelle, who had made +himself one of the group immediately around the pulpit, "Is not this +a mistake on your part? Let me advise you not to be so merciful . . ." + +"'Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy'"! quoted the +Abbe with a strange smile, while his breath came and went quickly, +and his face grew paler as he spoke. "Set him free, messieurs, if +you please! I decline to prosecute my own flesh and blood! I will be +answerable for his future conduct,--I am entirely answerable for his +past! He is my son!" + + + + +XIV. + +No one ever afterwards quite knew how the crowd in the church broke +up and dispersed itself after this denouement. For a few minutes the +crush of people round the pulpit was terrific; all eyes were fixed +on the young black-browed peasant who had so nearly been a +parricide,--and on the father who publicly exonerated him,--and then +there came a pressing towards the doors which was excessively +dangerous to life and limb. Cardinal Bonpre, greatly moved by the +whole unprecedented scene, placed himself in front of Angela as a +shield and defence from the crowd; but before he had time to +consider how he should best pilot her through the pushing and +scrambling throng, a way was made for him by Manuel, who,--with a +quiet step and unruffled bearing,--walked through the thickest +centre of the crowd, which parted easily on either side of him, as +though commanded to do so by some unheard but absolute authority. +Admiring and wondering glances were turned upon the boy, whose face +shone with such a grave peace and sweetness;--he had saved the +Abbe's life, the people whispered, by springing up the steps of the +pulpit, and throwing himself between the intended victim and the +bullet of his assailant. Who was he? Where did he come from? No one +knew;--he was merely the attendant of that tall ascetic-looking +Cardinal, the uncle of the famous Sovrani. So the words ran from +mouth to mouth, as Felix Bonpre and his niece moved slowly through +the throng, following Manuel;--then, when they had passed, there +came a general hubbub and confusion once more, and the people +hustled and elbowed each other through the church regardless of +consequences, eager to escape and discuss among themselves the +sensation of the morning. + +"C'est un drame! Un veritable drame!" said Miraudin, pausing, as he +found himself face to face with the Marquis Fontenelle. + +Fontenelle stared haughtily. + +"Did you speak to me, Monsieur?" he enquired, glancing the actor up +and down with an air of supreme disdain. + +Miraudin laughed carelessly. + +"Yes, I spoke to you, Marquis!" he replied, "I said that the public +confession of our dear priest Vergniaud was a veritable drame!" + +"An unfortunate scandal in the Church!" said Fontenelle curtly. + +"Yes!" went on the unabashed Miraudin, "If it were on the stage it +would be taken as a matter of course. An actor's follies help to +populate the world. But a priest's petite faute would seem to +suggest the crushing down of a universe!" + +"Custom and usage make the rule in these things," said Fontenelle +turning away, "I have the honour to wish you good-day, Monsieur!" + +"One moment!" said the actor smiling, "There is a curious personal +resemblance between you and me, Monsieur le Marquis! Have you ever +noticed it? We might almost be brothers by our looks--and also I +believe by our temperaments!" + +Fontenelle's hazel eyes flashed angrily. + +"I think not!" he said coldly, "A certain resemblance between +totally unrelated persons is quite common. For the rest, we are +absolutely different--absolutely!" + +Again Miraudin laughed. + +"As you will, Marquis!" and he raised his hat with a light, half- +mocking air, "Au revoir!" + +Fontenelle scarcely acknowledged the salutation,--he was too much +annoyed. He considered it a piece of insolence on Miraudin's part to +have addressed him at all without previous introduction. It was true +that the famous actor was permitted a license not granted to the +ordinary individual,--as indeed most actors are. Even princes, who +hedge themselves round with impassable barriers to certain of their +subjects who are in all ways great and worthy of notice, unbend to +the Mime who today takes the place of the Court-jester, and allow +him to enter the royal presence, often bringing his newest wanton +with him. And there was not the slightest reason for the Marquis +Fontenelle to be at all particular in his choice of acquaintances. +Yet somehow or other, he was. The fine and sensitive instincts of a +gentleman were in him, and though in the very depths of his own +conscience he knew himself to be as much of a social actor as +Miraudin was a professional one,--though he was aware that his +passions were as sensual, and therefore as vulgar, (for sensuality +is vulgarity), there was a latent pride in him which forbade him to +set himself altogether on the same level. And now as he walked away +haughtily, his fine aristocratic head lifted a little higher in air +than usual, he was excessively irritated--with everything and +everybody, but with himself in particular. Abbe Vergniaud's sermon +had stung him in several ways, and the startling FINALE had vexed +him still more. + +"What folly!" he thought, as he entered his luxuriously appointed +flat, and threw himself into a chair with a kind of angry weariness, +"How utterly stupid of Vergniaud to blazon the fact that he is no +better than other men, in the full face of his congregation! He must +be mad! A priest of the Roman Church publicly acknowledging a +natural son! [Footnote: ROME, August 19, 1899--A grave scandal has +just burst upon the world here. The Gazetta di Venezia having +attacked the bishops attending the recent conclave of "Latin +America," that is, Spanish-speaking America, as men of loose +morality, the Osservatore Cattolico, the Vatican organ, replied +declaring that the life of the bishops present at the conclave was +above suspicion. The Gazetta di Venezia responds, affirming that the +majority of the bishops brought with them to Rome their mistresses, +and in some instances their children. The Gazetta offers to disclose +the names of these bishops, and demands that the Pope shall satisfy +the Catholic world by taking measures against them.--Central News.] +Has ever such a thing been heard of! And the result is merely to +create scandal and invite his own disgrace! A quoi bon!" + +He lit a cigarette and puffed at it impatiently. His particular +"code" of morality had been completely upset;--things seemed to have +taken a turn for general offence, and the simplest thoughts became +like bristles in his brain, pricking him uncomfortably in various +sore and sensitive places. Then, added to his general sense of +spleen was the unpleasant idea that he was really in love, where he +had never meant to be in love. "In love", is a wide term nowadays, +and covers a multitude of poor and petty passing emotions,--and it +is often necessary to add the word "really" to it, in order to +emphasise the fact that the passion has perhaps,--and even then it +is only a perhaps,--taken a somewhat lasting form. Why could not +Sylvie Hermenstein have allowed things to run their natural course?- +-this natural course being according to Fontenelle, to drop into his +arms when asked, and leave those arms again with equal alacrity also +when asked! It would have been quite pleasant and satisfactory to +him, the Marquis;--and for Sylvie--well!--for Sylvie, she would soon +have got over it! Now there was all this fuss and pother about +virtue! Virtue, quotha! In a woman, and in Paris! At this time of +day! Could anything be more preposterous and ridiculous! + +"One would imagine I had stumbled into a convent for young ladies," +he grumbled to himself, "What with Sylvie actually gone, and that +pretty pattern of chastity, Angela Sovrani, preaching at me with her +big violet eyes,--and now Vergniaud who used to be 'bon camarade et +bon vivant', branding himself a social sinner--really one would +imagine that some invisible Schoolmaster was trying to whip me into +order . . ." + +"Peut-on entrer?" called a clear voice outside at this juncture, and +without waiting for permission the speaker entered, a very pretty +woman in an admirably fitting riding habit, which she held daintily +up with one gloved hand, extending the other as she came to the +Marquis who gracefully bent over it and kissed it. + +"Charme de vous voir Princesse!" he murmured. + +"Not at all! Spare me your falsehoods!" was the gay reply, +accompanied by a dazzling smile, "You are not in the least charmed, +nothing,--nobody charms you,--I least of all! Did you not see me in +church? No! Where were your eyes? On the courageous Vergniaud, who +so nearly gave us the melancholy task of arranging a 'Chapelle +ardente' for him this afternoon?" She laughed, and her eyes twinkled +maliciously,--then she went on, "Do you know he is quite a +delightful boy,--the peasant son and assassin? I think of taking him +to my Chateau and making something of him. I waited to see the whole +play out, and bring you the news. Papa Vergniaud has gone home with +his good-looking offspring--then Cardinal Bonpre--do you know the +Cardinal Bonpre?" + +"By reputation merely," replied the Marquis, setting a chair for his +fair visitor, "And as the uncle of Donna Sovrani." + +"Oh, reputation is nothing," laughed the lady, known as the +Princesse D'Agramont, an independent beauty of great wealth and +brilliant attainments, "Your butler can give you a reputation, or +take it away from you! But the Cardinal's reputation is truly +singular. It is goodness, merely! He is so good that he has become +actually famous for it! Now I once thought that to become famous for +goodness must surely imply that the person so celebrated had a very +hypocritical nature,--the worst of natures indeed;--that of +pretending to be what he was not,--but I was mistaken. Cardinal +Bonpre IS good. Absolutely sincere and noble--therefore a living +marvel in this age!" + +"You are pleased to be severe, Princesse," said the Marquis, "Is +sincerity so difficult to find?" + +"The most difficult of virtues!" answered the Princesse, lightly +tapping out a little tune with the jewelled handle of her riding +whip on the arm of her chair, "That is why I like horses and dogs so +much--they are always honest. And for that reason I am now inclined +to like Abbe Vergniaud whom I never liked before. He has turned +honest! To-day indeed he has been as straightforward as if he were +not a man at all!--and I admire him for it. He and his son will be +my guests at the Chateau D'Agramont." + +"What a very strange woman you are!" said Fontenelle, with a certain +languid admiration beginning to glimmer in his eyes, "You always do +things that nobody else would dare do--and yet . . . no lovers!" + +She turned herself swiftly round and surveyed him with a bright +scorn that swept him as with a lightning flash from head to heel. + +"Lovers! Who would be bored by them! Such delightful company! So +unselfish in their demands--so tender and careful of a woman's +feelings! Pouf! Cher ami!--you forget! I was the wife of the late +Prince D'Agramont!" + +"That explains a great many of your moods certainly," said the +Marquis smiling. + +"Does it not? Le beau Louis!--romantic Louis!--poet Louis!--musician +Louis!--Louis, who talked pretty philosophies by the hour,--Louis +who looked so beautiful by moonlight,--who seemed fastidious and +refined to a degree that was almost ethereal!--Louis who swore, with +passion flashing in his eyes, that I was the centre of the universe +to him, and that no other woman had ever occupied, would ever +occupy, or SHOULD ever occupy his thoughts!--yes, he was an ideal +lover and husband indeed!" said the Princesse smiling coldly, "I +gave him all my life and love, till one day, when I found I was +sharing his caresses with my plumpest dairymaid, who called him "HER +Louis"! Then I thought it was time to put an end to romance. TIENS!" +and she gave a little shrug and sigh, "It is sad to think he died of +over-eating." + +The Marquis laughed. + +"You are incorrigible, belle Loyse!" he said, "You should write +these things, not speak them." + +"Really! And do I not write them? Yes, you know I do, and that you +envy me my skill. The Figaro is indebted to me for many admirable +essays. At the same time I do not give you permission to call me +Loyse." + +"Forgive me!" and the Marquis folded his hands with an air of mock +penitence. + +"Perhaps I will, presently," and she laughed, "But meanwhile I want +you to do something for me." + +"Toujours a votre service, madame!" and Fontenelle bowed profoundly. + +"How theatrical you look! You are alarmingly like Miraudin;--and one +MUST draw the line at Miraudin! This is a day of truth according to +the Abbe Vergniaud; how dare you say you are at my service when you +do not mean it?" + +"Princesse, I protest . . ." + +"Oh, protest as much as you like,--on the way to Rome!" + +The Marquis started. + +"To Rome?" + +"Yes, to Rome. I am going, and I want someone to look after me. Will +you come? All Paris will say we have eloped together." She laughed +merrily. + +The Marquis stood perplexed and silent. + +"Well, what is it?" went on the Princesse gaily, "Is there some +faint sense of impropriety stealing over you? Not possible! Dear me, +your very muscles are growing rigid! You will not go?" + +"Madame, if you will permit me to be frank with you,--I would rather +not!" + +"A la bonheur!--then I have you!" And the Princesse rose, a dazzling +smile irradiating her features, "You have thrown open your heart! +You have begun to reform! You love Sylvie Hermenstein--yes!--you +positively LOVE her!" + +"Princesse--" began the Marquis, "I assure you--" + +"Assure me nothing!" and she looked him straight in the eyes, "I +know all about it! You will not journey with me because you think +the Comtesse Sylvie will hear of it, and put a wrong construction on +your courtesy. You wish to try for once, to give her no cause for +doubting you to be sans peur et sans reproche. You wish to make her +think you something better than a sort of Miraudin whose amorous +inclinations are not awakened by one woman, but by women! And so you +will not do anything which, though harmless in itself, may seem +equivocal. For this you refuse the friendly invitation of one of the +best known 'society leaders' in Europe! CHER Marquis!--it is a step +in the right direction! Adieu!" + +"You are not going so soon," he said hurriedly, "Wait till I +explain . . ." + +"There is nothing to explain!" and the pretty Princesse gave him her +hand with a beneficent air, "I am very pleased with you. You are +what the English call 'good boy'! Now I am going to see the Abbe and +place the Chateau D'Agramont at his disposal while he is waiting to +be excommunicated,--for of course he will be excommunicated--" + +"What does it matter!--Who cares?" said the Marquis recklessly. + +"It does not matter, and nobody cares--not in actual Paris. But very +very nice people in the suburbs, who are morally much worse than the +Abbe, will perhaps refuse to receive him. That is why my doors are +open to him, and also to his son." + +"Original, as usual!" + +"Perfectly! I am going to write a column for the Figaro on the +amazing little scene of this morning. Au revoir! My poor horse has +been waiting too long already,--I must finish my ride in the Bois, +and then go to Angela Sovrani; for all the dramatis personae of to- +day's melodrama are at her studio, I believe." + +"Who is that boy with the Cardinal?" asked the Marquis suddenly. + +"You have noticed him? I also. A wonderful face! A little acolyte, +no doubt. And so you will not go to Rome with me?" + +"I think not," and Fontenelle smiled. + +"Comme il vous plaira! I will tell Sylvie." + +"The Comtesse Hermenstein is not in Paris." + +"No!" and the Princesse laughed mischievously, "She is in Rome! She +must have arrived there this morning. Au revoir, Marquis!" Another +dazzling smile, and she was gone. + +Fontenelle stood staring after her in amazement. Sylvie was in Rome +then? And he had just refused to accompany the Princesse D'Agramont +thither! A sudden access of irritation came over him, and he paced +the room angrily. Should he also go to Rome? Never! It would seem +too close a pursuit of a woman who had by her actions distinctly +shown that she wished to avoid him. Now he would prove to her that +he also had a will of his own. HE would leave Paris;--he would go-- +yes, he would go to Africa! Everybody went to Africa. It was +becoming a fashionable pasture-land for disappointed lives. He would +lose himself in the desert,--and then--then Sylvie would be sorry +when she did not know where he was or what he was doing! But also,-- +he in his turn would not know where Sylvie was, or what she was +doing! This was annoying. It was certain that she would not remain +in Rome a day longer than she chose to,--well!--then where would she +go? In Africa he would find some difficulty in tracing her +movements. On second thoughts he resolved that he would lose himself +in another fashion--and would go to Rome to do it! + +"She shall not know I am there!" he said to himself, with a kind of +triumph in his own decision, "I shall amuse myself--I shall see her- +-but she shall not see me." + +Satisfied with this as yet vague plan of entertainment, he began at +once making his arrangements for departure;--meanwhile, the +Princesse D'Agramont riding gracefully through the Bois on her +beautiful Arab, was amusing herself with her thoughts, and weighing +the PROS and CONS of the different lives of her friends, without +giving the slightest consideration to her own. Here was a strange +nature,--as a girl she had been intensely loving, generous and warm- +hearted, and she had adored her husband with exceptional faith and +devotion. But the handsome Prince's amours were legion, though he +had been fairly successful in concealing them from his wife, till +the unlucky day when she had found him making desperate love to a +common servant,--and after that her confidence, naturally, was at an +end. One discovery led to another,--and the husband around whom she +had woven her life's romance, sank degraded in her sight, never to +rise again. She was of far too dignified and proud a nature to allow +her sense of outrage and wrong to be made public, and though she +never again lived with D'Agramont as his wife, she carried herself +through all her duties as mistress of the household and hostess of +his guests, with a brave bright gaiety, which deceived even the +closest observer,--and the gossips of Paris used to declare that she +did not know the extent of her husband's follies. But she did know,- +-and while filled with utter disgust and loathing for his conduct +she nevertheless gave him no cause of complaint against herself. And +when he died of a fever brought on through over-indulgence in vice, +she conformed to all the strictest usages of society,--wore her +solemn widow's black for more than the accustomed period,--and then +cast it off,--not to dash into her fashionable "circle" again with a +splurge of colour, but rather to glide into it gracefully, a vision +of refinement, arrayed in such soft hues as may be seen in some rare +picture; and she took complete possession of it by her own unaided +charm. No one could really tell whether she grieved for D'Agramont's +death or not; no one but herself knew how she had loved him,--no one +guessed what agonies of pain and shame she had endured for his sake, +nor how she had wept herself half blind with despair when he died. +All this she shut up in her own heart, but the working of the secret +bitterness within her had made a great change in her disposition. +Her nature, once as loving and confiding as that of a little child, +had been so wronged in its tenderest fibres that now she could not +love at all. + +"Why is it," she would ask herself, "that I am totally unable to +care for any living creature? That it is indifferent to me whether I +see any person once, or often, or never? Why are all men like +phantoms, drifting past my soul's immovability?" + +The answer to her query would be, that having loved greatly once and +been deceived, it was impossible to love again. Some women,--the +best, and therefore the unhappiest--are born with this difficult +temperament. + +Now, as she rode quietly along, sometimes allowing her horse to +prance upon the turf for the delight of its dewy freshness, she was +weaving quite a brilliant essay on modern morals out of the scene +she had witnessed at the Church of the Lorette that morning. She +well knew how to use that dangerous weapon, the pen,--she could +wield it like a wand to waken tears or laughter with equal ease, and +since her husband's death she had devoted a great deal of time to +authorship. Two witty novels, published under a nom-de-plume had +already startled the world of Paris, and she was busy with a third. +Such work amused her, and distracted her from dwelling too much on +the destroyed illusions of the past. The Figaro snatched eagerly at +everything she wrote; and it was for the Figaro that she busied her +brain now, considering what she should say of the Abbe Vergniaud's +confession. + +"It is wisest to be a liar and remain in the Church? or tell the +truth and go out of the Church?" she mused, "Unfortunately, if all +priests told the truth as absolutely as the Abbe did this morning we +should have hardly any of them left." + +She laughed a little, and stroked her horse's neck caressingly. + +"Good Rex! You and your kind never tell lies; and yet you are said +to have no souls. Now I wonder why we, who are mean and cunning and +treacherous and hypocritical should have immortal souls, while +horses and dogs who are faithful and kind and honest should be +supposed to have none." + +Rex gave a gay little prance forward as one who should say, "Yes, +but it is only you silly human beings who suppose such nonsense. We +know what WE know;--we have our own secrets!" + +"Now the Church," went on Loyse D'Agramont, pursuing the tenor of +her thoughts, "is in a bad way all over the world. It is possible +that God is offended with it. It is possible, that after nearly two +thousand years of patience He is tired of having come down to us to +teach us the path of Heaven in vain. Something out of the common has +surely moved the Abbe Vergniaud to speak as he spoke to-day. He was +quite unlike himself and beyond himself; if all our preachers were +seized by the spirit of frankness in like manner--" + +Here she broke off for she had arrived at Angela Sovrani's door, and +a servant coming out, assisted her to alight, and led her horse into +the courtyard there to await her leisure. She was an old friend of +Angela's and was accustomed to enter the house without announcement, +but on this occasion she hesitated, and after ascending the first +few steps leading to the studio paused and rang the bell. Angela +herself answered the summons. + +"Loyse! Is it you! Oh, I am so glad!" and Angela caught her by both +hands,--"You cannot imagine the confusion and trouble we have been +in this morning!" + +"Oh yes, I can!" answered the Princesse smiling, as she put an arm +round her friend's waist and entered the studio, "You have certainly +had an excitement! What of the courageous Abbe? Where is he?" + +"Here!" And Angela's eyes expressed volumes,--"Here, with my uncle. +They are talking together--and that young man--Cyrillon--the son, +you know--" + +"Is that his name?--Cyrillon?" queried the Princesse. + +"Yes,--he has been brought up as a peasant. But he is not ignorant. +He has written books and music, so it appears--yet he still keeps to +his labour in the fields. He seems to be a kind of genius; another +sort of Maeterlinck--" + +"Oh, capricious Destiny!" exclaimed the Princesse, "The dear Abbe +scandalises the Church by acknowledging his son to all men,--and +lo!--the son he was ashamed of all these years, turns out a prodigy! +The fault once confessed, brings a blessing! Angela, there is +something more than chance in this, if we could only fathom it!" + +"This Cyrillon is all softness and penitence now,' Angela went on, +"He is overcome with grief at his murderous attempt,--and has asked +his father's pardon. And they are going away together out of Paris +till--" + +"Till excommunication is pronounced," said the Princesse, "Yes, I +thought so! I came here to place my Chateau at the Abbe's disposal. +I am myself going to Rome; so he and his son can be perfectly at +home there. I admire the man's courage, and above all I admire his +truthfulness. But I cannot understand why he was at such pains to +keep silence all these years, and THEN to declare his fault? He must +have decided on his confession very suddenly?" + +Angela's eyes grew dark and wistful. + +"Yes," she answered slowly,--then with a sudden eagerness in her +manner she added, "Do you know, Loyse, I feel as if some very +strange influence had crept in among us! Pray do not think me +foolish, but I assure you I have had the most curious sensations +since my uncle, Cardinal Bonpre arrived from Rouen--bringing Manuel- +-" + +"Manuel? Is that the boy I saw in the church this morning? The boy +who threw himself as a shield between Verginaud and the flying shot? +Yes? And do you not know who he is?" + +"No," and Angela repeated the story of the way in which Manuel had +been found and rescued by the Cardinal; "You see," she continued, +"it is not possible to ask him any questions since he has declined +to tell us more than we already know." + +"Strange!" And the Princesse D'Agramont knitted her delicate brows +perplexedly. "And you have had curious feelings since he came, you +say? What sort of feelings?" + +"Well, you will only laugh at me," replied Angela, her cheeks paling +a little as she spoke, "but it really is as if some supernatural +being were present who could see all my inward thoughts,--and not +only mine, but the thoughts of everyone else. Someone too who impels +us to do what we have never thought of doing before--" + +The Princesse opened her eyes in amazement. + +"My dear girl! You must have been over-working to get such strange +fancies into your head! There is nothing supernatural left to us +nowadays except the vague idea of a God,--and even that we are +rather tired of!" + +Angela trembled and grew paler than usual. + +"Do not speak in that way," she urged, "The Abbe talked in just such +a light fashion until the other day here,--yet this morning I think- +-nay, I am sure he believes in something better than himself at +last." + +The Princesse was silent for a minute. + +"Well, what is to happen next?" she queried, "Excommunication of +course! All brave thinkers of every time have been excommunicated, +and many of our greatest and most valuable scientific works are on +the Index Expurgatorius. It is my ambition to get into that Index,-- +I shall never rest till I win the honour of being beside Darwin's +'Origin of Species'!" + +Angela smiled, but her thoughts were elsewhere. + +"I hope the Abbe will go away at once," she said meditatively, "But +you have no idea how happy and at ease he is! He seems to be ready +for anything." + +"What does Cardinal Bonpre think?" asked the Princesse. + +"My uncle never thinks in any way except the way of Christ," replied +Angela. "He says, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee; arise and walk', to +every soul stricken with the palsy of pain and repentance. He helps +the fallen; he does not strike them down more heavily." + +"Ah, so! And is he fit to be a Cardinal?" queried the Princesse +D'Agramont dubiously. + +Angela gave her a quick look, but had no time to reply as at that +moment a servant entered and announced, "Monsignor Moretti!" + +Angela started nervously. + +"Moretti!" she said in a low tone, "I thought he had left Paris!" + +Before she had time to say any more the visitor himself entered, a +tall spare priest with a dark narrow countenance of the true Tuscan +type,--a face in which the small furtive eyes twinkled with a +peculiarly hard brilliancy as though they were luminous pebbles. He +walked into the room with a kind of aggressive dignity common to +many Italians, and made a slight sign of the cross in air as the two +ladies saluted him. + +"Pardon me, Mesdames, for this intrusion," he said in a harsh +metallic voice, "But I hear that the Abbe Vergniaud is in this +house,--and that Cardinal Felix Bonpre has received him here SINCE" +(and he emphasised the word "since") "the shameful scene of this +morning. My business in Paris is ended for the moment; and I am +returning to Italy to-night,--but I wish to know if the Abbe has +anything to say through me to His Holiness the Pope in extenuation +of his conduct before I perform the painful duty of narrating this +distressing affair at the Vatican." + +"Will you see him for yourself, Monsignor?" said Angela quietly, +offering to lead the way out of the studio, "You will no doubt +obtain a more direct and explicit answer from the Abbe personally." + +For a moment Moretti hesitated. Princesse D'Agramont saw his +indecision, and her smile had a touch of malice in it as she said, + +"It is a little difficult to know how to address the Abbe to-day, is +it not, Monsignor? For of course he is no longer an Abbe--no longer +a priest of Holy Church! Helas! When anybody takes to telling the +truth in public the results are almost sure to be calamitous!" + +Moretti turned upon her with swift asperity. + +"Madame, you are no true daughter of the Church," he said, "and my +calling forbids me to enter into any discussion with you!" + +The Princesse gave him a charming upward glance of her bright eyes, +and curtsied demurely, but he paid no heed to her obeisance, and +moving away, went at once with Angela towards the Cardinal's +apartments. In the antechamber he paused, hearing voices. + +"Is there anyone with His Eminence, besides Vergniaud?" he asked. + +"The Abbe's son Cyrillon," replied Angela timidly. + +Moretti frowned. + +"I will go in alone," he said, "You need not announce me. The Abbe +knows me well, and--" he added with a slight sneer, "he is likely to +know me better!" + +Without further words he signed to Angela to retire, and passing +through the antechamber, he opened the door of the Cardinal's room +and entered abruptly. + + + + +XV. + +The Cardinal was seated,--he rose as Moretti appeared. + +"I beg your Eminence to spare yourself!" said Moretti suavely, with +a deep salutation, "And to pardon me for thus coming unannounced +into the presence of one so highly esteemed by the Holy Father as +Cardinal Bonpre!" + +The Cardinal gave a gesture of courteous deprecation; and Monsignor +Moretti, lifting his, till then, partially lowered eyelids, flashed +an angry regard upon the Abbe Vergniaud, who resting his back +against the book-case behind him, met his glance with the most +perfect composure. Close to him stood his son and would-be murderer +Cyrillon,--his dark handsome face rendered even handsomer by the +wistful and softened expression of his eyes, which ever and anon +rested upon his father with a look of mingled wonder and respect. +There was a brief silence--of a few seconds at most,--and then +Moretti spoke again in a voice which thrilled with pent-up +indignation, but which he endeavoured to render calm and clear as he +addressed the Cardinal. + +"Your Eminence is without doubt aware of the cause of my visit to +you. If, as I understand, your Eminence was present at Notre Dame de +Lorette this morning, and witnessed the regrettable conduct of the +faithless son of the Church here present--" + +"Pardon! This is my affair." interposed Vergniaud, stepping forward, +"His Eminence, Cardinal Bonpre, is not at all concerned in the +matter of the difficult dispute which has arisen between me and my +own conscience. You call me faithless, Monsignor,--will you explain +what you mean by 'faithless' under these present conditions of +argument?" + +"It shows the extent and hopelessness of your retrogression from all +good that you should presume to ask such a question," answered +Moretti, growing white under the natural darkness of his skin with +an impotency of rage he could scarcely suppress, "Your sermon this +morning was an open attack on the Church, and the amazing scene at +its conclusion is a scandal to Christianity!" + +"The attack on the Church I admit," said the Abbe quietly, "I am not +the only preacher in the world who has so attacked it. Christ +Himself would attack it if He were to visit this earth again!" + +Moretti turned angrily towards the Cardinal. + +"Your Eminence permits this blasphemy to be uttered in your +presence?" he demanded. + +"Nay, wherever and whenever I perceive blasphemy, my son, I shall +reprove it," said the Cardinal, fixing his mild eyes steadily on +Moretti's livid countenance, "I cannot at present admit that our +unhappy and repentant brother here has blasphemed. In his address to +his congregation to-day he denounced social hypocrisy, and also +pointed out certain failings in the Church which may possibly need +consideration and reform; but against the Gospel of Christ, or +against the Founder of our Faith I heard no word that could be +judged ill-fitting. As for the conclusion which so very nearly ended +in disaster and crime, there is nothing to be said beyond the fact +that both the persons concerned are profoundly sorry for their +sins." + +"No sorrow can wipe out such infamy--" began Moretti hotly. + +"Patience! Patience, my son!" and the Cardinal raised his hand with +a slight gesture of authority, "Surely we must believe the words of +our Blessed Lord, 'There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner that +repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons which have no need +of repentance'!" + +"And on this old and well-worn phrase you excuse a confessed +heretic?" said Moretti, with a sneer. + +"This old and well-worn phrase is the saying of our Master," +answered the Cardinal firmly, "And it is as true as the truth of the +sunshine which, in its old and well-worn way, lights up this world +gloriously every morning! I would stake my very life on the depth +and the truth of Vergniaud's penitence! Who, seeing and knowing the +brand of disgrace he has voluntarily burnt into his own social name +and honour, could doubt his sincerity, or refuse to raise him up, +even as our Lord would have done, saying, 'Thy sins be forgiven +thee! Go, and sin no more!'?" + +Moretti's furtive eyes disappeared for a moment under his +discoloured eyelids, which quivered rapidly like the throbbings in +the throat of an angry snake. Before he could speak again however, +Vergniaud interposed. + +"Why trouble His Eminence with my crimes or heresies?" he said +quietly, "I am grateful to him from my soul for his gentleness and +charity of judgment--but I need no defence--not even from him. I am +answerable to God alone!--neither to Church nor Creed! It was +needful that I should speak as I spoke to-day--" + +"Needful to scandalize the Church?" demanded Moretti sharply. + +"The Church is not scandalized by a man who confesses himself an +unworthy member of it!" returned Vergniaud, "It is better to tell +the truth and go out of the Church than to remain in it as a liar +and a hypocrite." + +"According to your own admission you have been a liar and a +hypocrite for twenty-five years!" said Moretti bitterly, "You should +have made your confession before, and have made it privately. There +is something unnatural and reprehensible in the sudden blazon you +have made to the public of your gross immorality." + +"'A sudden blazon' you call it,--" said the Abbe, "Well, perhaps it +is! But murder will out, no matter how long it is kept in. You are +not entirely aware of my position, Monseigneur. Have you the +patience to hear a full explanation?" + +"I have the patience to hear because it is my duty to hear," replied +Moretti frigidly, "I am bound to convey the whole of this matter to +His Holiness." + +"True! That is your duty, and who shall say it is not also your +pleasure!" and Vergniaud smiled a little. "Well!--Convey to His +Holiness the news that I, Denis Vergniaud, am a dying man, and that +knowing myself to be in that condition, and that two years at the +utmost, is my extent of life on this planet, I have taken it +seriously into my head to consider as to whether I am fit to meet +death with a clean conscience. Death, Monsignor, admits of no lying, +no politeness, no elegant sophistries! Now, the more I have +considered, the more I am aware of my total unfitness to confront +whatever may be waiting for me in the Afterwards of death--(for +without doubt there is an afterwards,)--and being conscious of +having done at least one grave injury to an innocent person, I have +taken the best and quickest way to make full amends. I wronged a +woman--this boy's mother--" and he indicated with a slight gesture +Cyrillon, who had remained a silent witness of the scene,--"and the +boy himself from early years set his mind and his will to avenge his +mother's dishonour. I--the chief actor in the drama,--am thus +responsible for a woman's misery and shame; and am equally +responsible for the murderous spirit which has animated one, who +without this feeling, would have been a promising fellow enough. The +woman I wronged, alas!--is dead, and I cannot reinstate her name, +save in an open acknowledgment of her child, my son. I do +acknowledge him,--I acknowledge him in your presence, and therefore +virtually in the presence of His Holiness. I thus help to remove the +stigma I myself set on his name. Plainly speaking, Monsignor, we men +have no right whatever to launch human beings into the world with +the 'bar sinister' branded upon them. We have no right, if we follow +Christ, to do anything that may injure or cause trouble to any other +creature. We have no right to be hasty in our judgment, even of +sin." + +"Sin is sin,--and demands punishment--" interrupted Moretti. + +"You quote the law of Moses, Monsignor! I speak with the premise +'if'. IF we follow Christ;--if we do not, the matter is of course +different. We can then twist Scripture to suit our own purpose. We +can organise systems which are agreeable to our own convenience or +profit, but which have nothing whatever of Christ's Divine Spirit of +universal love and compassion in them. My action this morning was +unusual and quixotic no doubt. Yet, it seemed to me the only way to +comport myself under those particular circumstances. I did a wrong-- +I seek to make amends. I believe this is what God would have me do. +I believe that the Supernal Forces judge our sins against each other +to be of a far worse nature than sins against Church or Creed. I +also believe that if we try to amend our injustices and set crooked +things straight, death will be an easier business, and Heaven will +come a little nearer to our souls. As for my attack on the Church--" + +"Ah truly! What of your attack on the Church?" said Moretti, his +small eyes glistening, and his breath going and coming quickly. + +"I would say every word of it again with absolute conviction," +declared Vergniaud, "for I have said nothing but the truth! There is +a movement in the world, Monsignor, that all the powers of Rome are +unable to cope with!--the movement of an advancing resistless force +called Truth,--the Voice of God,--the Voice of Christ! Truth cannot +be choked, murdered and killed nowadays as in the early Inquisition! +Rather than that the Voice of Truth should be silenced or murdered +now at this period of time, God will shake down Rome!" + +"Not so!" exclaimed Moretti hotly--"Every nation in the world shall +perish before Rome shall lose her sacred power! She is the +'headstone of the corner'--and 'upon whomsoever that stone shall +fall, it shall grind him to powder!'" + +"You think so?" and Verginaud shrugged his shoulders ever so +slightly--"Well! For me, I believe that material as well as +spiritual forces combine to fight against long-concealed sin and +practised old hypocrisies. It would not surprise me if the volcanic +agencies which are for ever at work beneath the blood-stained soil +of Italy, were to meet under the Eternal City, and in one fell burst +of flame and thunder prove its temporary and ephemeral worth! The +other day an earthquake shook the walls of Rome and sent a warning +shock through St. Peter's. St. Peter's, with its vast treasures, its +gilded shrines, its locked-up wealth, its magnificence,--a strange +contrast to Italy itself!--Italy with its people ground down under +the heel of a frightful taxation, starving, and in the iron bonds of +poverty! 'The Pope is a prisoner and can do nothing'? Monsignor, the +Pope is a prisoner by his own choice! If he elected to walk abroad +among the people and scatter Peter's Pence among the sick and needy, +he would then perhaps be BEGINNING to do the duties our Lord +enjoined on all His disciples!" + +Moretti had stood immovable during this speech, his dark face rigid, +his eyes downcast, listening to every word, but now he raised his +hand with an authoritative gesture. + +"Enough!" he said, "I will hear no more! You know the consequences +of this at the Vatican?" + +"I do." + +"You are prepared to accept them?" + +"As prepared as any of the truth-tellers who were burned for the +love of Christ by the Inquisition," replied Vergniaud deliberately. +"The world is wide,--there is room for me in it outside the Church." + +"One would imagine you were bitten by the new 'Christian Democratic' +craze," said Moretti with a cold smile, "And that you were a reader +and follower of the Socialist, Gys Grandit!" + +At this name, Vergniaud's son Cyrillon stirred, and lifting his dark +handsome head turned his flashing eyes full on the speaker. + +"Did you address me, Monsignor?" he queried, in a voice rich with +the musical inflexions of Southern France, "I am Gys Grandit!" + +Had he fired another pistol shot in the quiet room as he had fired +it in the church, it could hardly have created a more profound +sensation. + +"You--you--" stammered Moretti, retreating from him as from some +loathsome abomination, "You--Gys Grandit!" + +"You, Cyrillon!--you!--you, my son!"--and the Abbe almost lost +breath in the extremity of his amazement, while Cardinal Bonpre half +rose from his chair doubting whether he had heard aright. Gys +Grandit!--the writer of fierce political polemics and powerful +essays that were the life and soul, meat and drink of all the +members of the Christian Democratic party! + +"Gys Grandit is my nom-de-plume," pursued the young man, composedly, +"I never had any hope of being acknowledged as Cyrillon Vergniaud, +son of my father,--I had truly no name and resolved to create one. +That is the sole explanation. My history has made me--not myself." + +There was a dead pause. At last Moretti spoke. + +"I have no place here!" he said, biting his lips hard to keep them +from trembling with rage, "This house which I thought was the abode +of a true daughter of the Church, Donna Sovrani, is apparently for +the moment a refuge for heretics. And I find these heretics kept in +countenance by Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whose reputation for justice +and holiness should surely move him to denounce them were he not +held in check by some malignant spirit of evil, which seems to +possess this atmosphere--" + +"Monsignor Moretti," interposed the Cardinal with dignity, "it is no +part of justice or holiness to denounce anything or anybody till the +full rights of the case have been heard. I was as unaware as +yourself that this young man, Cyrillon Vergniaud, was the daring +writer who has sent his assumed name of 'Gys Grandit' like a flame +through Europe. I have read his books, and cannot justly denounce +them, because they are expressed in the language of one who is +ardently and passionately seeking for Truth. Equally, I cannot +denounce the Abbe, because he has confessed his sin, declared +himself as he is, to the public, saved his son from being a +parricide, and has to some extent we trust, made his peace with God. +If you can find any point on which, as a servant of Christ, I can +denounce these two human beings who share with me the strange and +awful privileges of life and death, and the promise of an immortal +hereafter, I give you leave to do so. The works of Gys Grandit do +not blaspheme Christ,--they call, they clamour, they appeal for +Christ through all and in all--" + +"And with all this clamour and appeal their writer is willing to +become a murderer!" said Moretti satirically. + +Young Vergniaud sprang forward. + +"Monsignor, in the name of the Master you profess to serve I would +advise you to set a watch upon your tongue!" he said, "Granted that +I was willing to murder the man who had made my mother's life a +misery, I was also willing to answer to God for it! I saw my mother +die--" here he gave a quick glance towards the Abbe who +instinctively shrank at his words, "I shall pain you, my father, by +what I say, but the pain is perhaps good for us both! I repeat--I +saw my mother die. She passed away uncomforted after a long life of +patient loneliness and sorrow--for she was faithful to the last, +ever faithful! I have seen her weep in the silence of the night!--I +have heard her ever since I was able to understand the sound of +weeping! Oh, those tears!--Do you not think God has seen them! She +worked and toiled, and starved herself to educate me,--she had no +friends, for she had 'fallen', they said, and sometimes she could +get no employment, and often we starved together; and when I thought +of the man who had done this thing, even as a young boy I said to +myself, 'I will kill him!' She did not mean, poor mother, to curse +her lover to me--but unconsciously she did,--her sorrow was so +great--her loneliness so bitter!" + +Moretti gave a gesture of impatience and contempt. Cyrillon noted +it, and his dark eyes flashed, but he went on steadily,-- + +"And then I saw her die--she stretched her poor thin hard-working +hands out to God, and over and over again she muttered and moaned in +her fever the refrain of an old peasant song we have in Touraine, +'Oh, la tristesse d'avoir aime!' If you had heard her--if you had +seen her--if you had, or have a heart to feel, nerves to wrench, a +brain to rack, blood to be stung to frenzy, you would,--seeing your +mother perish thus,--have thought, that to kill the man who had made +such a wreck of a sweet pure life, would be a just, aye even a +virtuous deed! I thought so. But my intended vengeance was +frustrated--whether by the act of God, who can say? But the conduct +of the man whom I am now proud to call my father--" + +"You have great cause for pride!" said Moretti sarcastically. + +"I think I have"--said the young man, "In the close extremity of +death at my hands, he won my respect. He shall keep it. It will be +my glory now to show him what a son's love and pardon may be. If it +be true as I understand, that he is attacked by a disease which +needs must be fatal, his last hours will not be desolate! It may be +that I shall give him more comfort than Churches,--more confidence +than Creeds! It may be that the clasp of my hand in his may be a +better preparation for his meeting with God,--and my mother,--than +the touch of the Holy Oils in Extreme Unction!" + +"Like all your accursed sect, you blaspheme the Sacraments"-- +interrupted Moretti indignantly--"And in the very presence of one of +her chiefest Cardinals, you scorn the Church!" + +Cyrillon gave a quick gesture of emphatic denial. + +"Monsignor, I do not scorn the Church,--but I think that honesty and +fair dealing with one another is better than any Church! Christ had +no Church. He built no temples, He amassed no wealth,--He preached +simply to those who would hear Him under the arching sky,--in the +open air! He prophesied the fall of temples; 'In this place,' He +said, 'is One greater than the temple.' [Footnote: Matt. xii. v. 6.] +He sought to destroy long built-up hypocrisies. 'My house is called +the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Thieves, +not only of gold, but of honour!--thieves of the very Gospel, which +has been tampered with and twisted to suit the times, the conditions +and opinions of varying phases of priestcraft. Who that has read, +and thought, and travelled and studied the manuscripts hidden away +in the old monasteries of Armenia and Syria, believes that the +Saviour of the world ever condescended to 'pun' on the word Petrus, +and say, 'On this Rock (or stone) I will build my Church,' when He +already knew that He had to deal with a coward who would soon deny +Him?" + +"Enough! I will hear no further!" cried Moretti, turning livid with +fury--"Cardinal Bonpre, I appeal to you . . ." + +But Cyrillon went on unheedingly,-- + +"Beware of that symbol of your Church, Monsignor! It is a very +strange one! It seems about to be expanded into a reality of +dreadful earnest! 'I know not the man,' said Peter. Does not the +glittering of the world's wealth piled into the Vatican,--useless +wealth lying idle in the midst of hideous beggary and starvation,-- +proclaim with no uncertain voice, 'I KNOW NOT THE MAN'? The Man of +sorrows,--the Man of tender and pitying heart,--the Man who could +not send the multitude away without bread, and compassed a miracle +to give it to them,--the Man who wept for a friend's death,--who +took little children in His arms and blessed them,--who pardoned the +unhappy outcast and said, 'Sin no more,'--who was so selfless, so +pure, so strong, so great, that even sceptics, while denying His +Divinity, are compelled to own that His life and His actions were +more Divine than those of any other creature in human shape that has +ever walked the earth! Monsignor, there is no true representative of +Christ in this world!" + +"Not for heretics possibly," said Moretti disdainfully. + +"For no one!" said Cyrillon passionately--"For no poor sinking, +seeking soul is there any such visible comforter! But there is a +grand tendency in Mankind to absorb His Spirit and His teaching;--to +turn from forms and shadows of faith to the Faith itself,--from +descriptions of a possible heaven to the REAL Heaven, which is being +disclosed to us in transcendent glimpses through the jewel-gates of +science! There were twelve gates in the visioned heaven of St. +John,--and each gate was composed of one pearl! Truly do the +scoffers say that never did any planetary sea provide such pearls as +these! No,--for they were but prophetic emblems of the then +undiscovered Sciences. Ah, Monsignor!--and what of the psychic +senses and forces?--forces which we are just beginning to discover +and to use,--forces which enable me to read your mind at this +present moment and to see how willingly you would send me to the +burning, Christian as you call yourself, for my thoughts and +opinions!--as your long-ago predecessors did with all men who dared +to reason for themselves! But that time has passed, Monsignor; the +Spirit of Christ in the world has conquered the Church THERE!" + +The words rushed from his lips with a fervid eloquence that was +absolutely startling,--his eyes were aglow with feeling--his face so +animated and inspired, that it seemed as though a flame behind it +illumined every feature. Abbe Vergniaud, astonished and overcome, +laid a trembling hand on the arm of the passionate speaker with a +gesture more of appeal than restraint, and the young man caught that +hand within his own and held it fast. Moretti for a moment fixed his +eyes upon father and son with an expression of intense hatred that +darkened his face with a deep shadow as of a black mask,--and then +without a word deliberately turned his back upon both. + +"Your Eminence has heard all this," he said coldly, addressing the +Cardinal who sat rigidly in his chair, silent and very pale. + +"I have," replied Bonpre in a low strained tone. + +"And I presume your Eminence permits--?" + +"Why talk of permission?" interrupted the Cardinal, raising his eyes +with a sorrowful look, "Who is to permit or deny freedom of speech +in these days? Have I--have you--the right to declare that a man +shall not express his thoughts? In what way are we to act? Deny a +hearing? We cannot--we dare not--not if we obey our Lord, who says, +'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to +them.' If we ask for ourselves to be heard, we must also hear." + +"We may hear--but in such a case as the present one must we not also +condemn?" demanded Moretti, watching the venerable prelate narrowly. + +"We can only condemn in the case of a great sin," replied Bonpre +gently, "and even then our condemnation must be passed with fear and +trembling, and with full knowledge of all the facts pertaining to +the error. 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' We are told plainly +that our brother may sin against us not only seven times but seventy +times seven, and still we are bound to forgive, to sustain, to help, +and not to trample down the already fallen." + +"These are your Eminence's opinions?" said Moretti. + +"Most assuredly! Are they not yours?" + +Moretti smiled coldly. + +"No. I confess they are not! I am a faithful servant of the Church; +and the Church is a system of moral government in which, if the +slightest laxity be permitted, the whole fabric is in danger--" + +"A house of cards then, which a breath may blow down!" interposed +"Gys Grandit," otherwise Cyrillon Vergniaud, "Surely an unstable +foundation for the everlasting ethics of Christ!" + +"I did not speak to you, sir," said Moretti, turning upon him +angrily. + +"I know you did not. I spoke to you," answered the young man coolly, +"I have as much right to speak to you, as you have to speak to me, +or to be silent--if you choose. You say the Church is a system of +moral government. Well, look back on the past, and see what it has +done in the way of governing. In the very earliest days of +Christianity, when men were simple and sincere, when their faith in +the power of the Divine things was strong and pure, the Church was +indeed a safeguard, and a powerful restraint on man's uneducated +licentiousness and inherent love of strife. But when the lust of +gain began to creep like a fever into the blood of those with whom +worldly riches should be as nothing compared to the riches of the +mind, the heart, and the spirit, then the dryrot of hypocrisy set +in--then came craftiness, cruelty, injustice, and pitilessness, and +such grossness of personal conduct as revolts even the soul of an +admitted sinner. Moral government? Where is it to day? Look at +France--Italy--Spain! Count up the lies told by the priests in these +countries to feed the follies of the ignorant! Did Christ ever tell +lies? No. Then why, if you are His follower, do you tell them?" + +"I repeat, I did not speak to you," said Moretti, his eyes sparkling +with fury,--"To me you are a heretic, accursed, and excommunicate!-- +thrust out of salvation, and beyond my province to deal with!" + +"Oh, that a man should be thrust out of salvation in these Christian +days!" exclaimed Cyrillon with a flashing look of scorn, "And that +he should find a servant of Christ to tell him so! Accursed and +excommunicate! Then I am a kind of leper in the social community! +And you, as a disciple of your Master, should heal me of my +infirmity--and cleanse me of my Leprosy! Loathsome as leprosy is +whether of mind or body, Christ never thrust it out of salvation!" + +"The leper must wish to be cleansed!" said Moretti fiercely, "If he +does not himself seek to be healed of his evil, no miracle can help +him." + +"Oh but I do seek!" And young Vergniaud threw back his handsome head +with a splendid gesture of appeal, "With all my soul, if I am +diseased, I wish to be cleansed! Will YOU cleanse me? CAN you? I +wish to stand up whole and pure, face to face with the Divine in +this world, and praise Him for His goodness to me. But surely if He +is to be found anywhere it is in the Spirit of Truth! Not in any +sort of a lie! Now, according to His own words the Holy Ghost is the +Spirit of Truth. 'When the Spirit of Truth is come He will guide you +into all Truth.' And what then? Monsignor, it is somewhat dangerous +to oppose the Spirit of Truth, whether that Force speak through the +innocent lips of a child or the diseased ones of a leper! 'For +whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be +forgiven him, BUT WHOSOEVER SPEAKETH AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST'--or the +Spirit of Truth, known sometimes as Inspiration . . . "IT SHALL NOT BE +FORGIVEN HIM in this world, neither in the world to come.' That is a +terrible curse, which an ocean of Holy Water could scarcely wash +away!" + +"Your argument is wide of the mark," said Moretti, impatiently, yet +forced in spite of himself to defend his position, "the Church is +not opposed to Truth but to Atheism." + +"Atheism! There is no such thing as a real atheist in the world!" +declared Cyrillon passionately, "No reasoning human being alive, +that has not felt the impress of the Divine Image in himself and in +all the universe around him! He may, through apathy and the +falsehoods of priestcraft, have descended into callousness, +indifference and egotism, but he knows well that that impress cannot +be stamped out--that he will have to account for his part, however +small it be, in the magnificent pageant of life and work, for he has +not been sent into it 'on chance.' Inasmuch as if there is chance in +one thing there must be chance in another, and the solar system is +too mathematically designed to be a haphazard arrangement. With all +our cleverness, our logic, our geometrical skill, we can do nothing +so exact! As part of the solar system, you and I have our trifling +business to enact, Monsignor,--and to enact it properly, and with +satisfaction to our Supreme Employer, it seems to me that if we are +honest with the world and with each other, we shall be on the right +road." + +"For my part, I am perfectly honest with you," said Moretti smiling +darkly, "I told you, and I tell you again, that to me you are a +heretic, accursed and excommunicate. You will, as the democrat 'Gys +Grandit,' no doubt feel a peculiar pleasure when your father is also +declared accursed and excommunicate. I have said, and I say again, +that the Church is a system of moral government, and that no laxity +can be permitted. It is a system founded on the Gospel of our Lord, +but to obey the commands of our Lord to the letter we should have to +find another world to live in--" + +"Pardon me--I ask for information," interposed Cyrillon, "You of +course maintain that Christ was God in Man?" + +"Most absolutely!" + +"And yet you say that to obey His commands to the letter we should +have to find another world to live in! Strange! Since He made the +world and knows all our capabilities of progress! But have you never +fancied it possible that we may be forced to obey His commands to +the letter, or perish for refusing to do so?" + +Moretti made as though he would have sprung forward,--his face was +drawn and rigid, his lips tightly compressed, but he had no answer +to this unanswerable logic. He therefore took refuge in turning +brusquely away as before and was about to address himself to Bonpre, +but stopped short, as he perceived Manuel, who had entered while the +conversation was going on, and who now stood quietly by the +Cardinal's chair in an attitude of composed attention. Moretti +glanced at him with a vexed sense of irritation and reluctant +wonder;--then moistening his dry lips he began, + +"I am bound to regret deeply that your Eminence has allowed this +painful discussion to take place in your presence without reproof. +But I presume you are aware of the responsibility incurred?" + +The Cardinal slowly inclined his head in grave assent. + +"In relating the scene of to-day to His Holiness, I shall be +compelled to mention the attitude you have maintained throughout the +conversation." + +"You are at perfect liberty to do so, my son," said Bonpre with +unruffled gentleness. + +Moretti hesitated. His eyes again rested on Manuel. + +"Pardon me," he said suddenly and irrelevantly, "This boy . . ." + +"Is a foundling," said the Cardinal, "He stays with me till I can +place him well in the world. He has no friends." + +"He took some part in the affair of this morning, I believe?" +queried Moretti, with a doubtful air. + +"He saved my life," said Abbe Vergniaud advancing, "It was not +particularly worth saving--but he did it. And I owe him much--for in +saving me, he also saved Cyrillon from something worse than death." + + +"Naturally you must be very gratefu," retorted Moretti satirically, +"The affection of a son you have denied for twenty-five years must +be exceedingly gratifying to you!" He paused--then said, "Does this +boy belong to the Church?" + +"No," said Manuel, answering for himself, "I have no Church." + +"No Church!" exclaimed Moretti, "His Eminence must educate you, boy. +You must be received." + +"Yes," said Manuel, raising his eyes, and fixing them full on +Moretti, "I must be received! I need education to understand the +Church. And so,--for me to be received might be difficult!" + + + + +XVI. + +As he thus spoke, slowly and with an exquisite softness, something +in his voice, manner, or words aroused a sudden and violent +antipathy in Moretti's mind. He became curiously annoyed, without +any possible cause, and out of his annoyance answered roughly. + +"Ignorance is always difficult to deal with," he said, "But if it is +not accompanied by self-will or obstinacy--(and boys of your age are +apt to be self-willed and obstinate)--then much can be done. The +Church has infinite patience even with refractory sinners." + +"Has it?" asked Manuel simply, and his clear eyes, turning slowly +towards Vergniaud and his son, rested there a moment, and then came +back to fix the same steady look upon Moretti's face. Not another +word did he say,--but Moretti flushed darkly, and anon grew very +pale. Restraining his emotions however by an effort, he addressed +himself with cold formality once more to the Abbe. + +"You have no explanation then to offer to His Holiness, beyond what +you have already said?" + +"None!" replied Vergniaud steadily. "The reasons for my conduct I +think are sufficiently vital and earnest to be easily understood." + +"And your Eminence has nothing more to say on this matter?" pursued +Moretti, turning to the Cardinal. + +"Nothing, my son! But I would urge that the Holy Father should +extend his pardon to the offenders, the more so as one of them is on +the verge of that land where we 'go hence and are no more seen.'" + +Moretti's eyelids quivered, and his lips drew together in a hard and +cruel line. + +"I will assuredly represent your wishes to His Holiness," he +replied, "But I doubt whether they will meet with so much approval +as surprise and regret. I have the honour to wish your Eminence +farewell!" + +"Farewell, my son!" said the Cardinal mildly, "Benedicite!" + +Moretti bent down, as custom forced him to do, under the gently +uttered blessing, and the extended thin white hand that signed the +cross above him. Then with a furtive under-glance at Manuel, whose +quiet and contemplative observation of him greatly vexed and +disturbed his composure, he left the room. + +There was a short silence. Then Abbe Vergniaud, somewhat +hesitatingly, approached Bonpre. + +"I much fear, my dear friend, that all this means unpleasantness for +you at the Vatican," he said, "And I sincerely grieve to be the +means of bringing you into any trouble." + +"Nay, there should be no trouble," said Bonpre quietly, "Nothing has +happened which should really cause me any perplexity--on the +contrary, events have arranged themselves so that there shall be no +obstacle in the way of speaking my mind. I have journeyed far from +my diocese to study and to discover for myself the various phases of +opinion on religious matters in these days, and I am steadily +learning much as I go. I regret nothing, and would have nothing +altered,--for I am perfectly confident that in all the things I +meet, or may have to consider, my Master is my Guide. All is well +wherever we hear His Voice;--all things work for the best when we +are able to perceive His command clearly, and have strength and +resolution enough to forsake our sins and follow Him." + +As he spoke, a tranquil smile brightened his venerable features, and +seeing the fine small hand of Manuel resting on his chair, he laid +his own wrinkled palm over it and clasped it tenderly. Cyrillon +Vergniaud, moved by a quick impulse, suddenly advanced towards him. + +"Monseigneur," he said, with unaffected deference, "You are much +more than a Cardinal,--you are a good and honest man! And that you +serve Christ purely is plainly evidenced in your look and bearing. +Do me one favour! Extend your pardon to me for my almost committed +crime of to-day,--and give me your blessing! I will try to be worthy +of it!" + +The Cardinal was silent for a few minutes looking at him earnestly. + +"My blessing is of small value," he said, "And yet I do not think +you would ask it for mere mockery of an old man's faith. I should +like,--" here he paused--then slowly went on again, "I should like +to say a few words to you if I might--to ask you one or two +questions concerning yourself--" + +"Ask anything you please, Monseigneur," replied Cyrillon, "I will +answer you frankly and fully. I have never had any mysteries in my +life save one,--that of my birth, which up till to day was a stigma +and a drawback;--but now, I feel I may be proud of my father. A man +who sacrifices his entire social reputation and position to make +amends for a wrong done to the innocent is worthy of honour." + +"I grant it!" said the Cardinal, "But you yourself--why have you +made a name which is like a firebrand to start a conflagration of +discord in Europe?--why do you use your gifts of language and +expression to awaken a national danger which even the strongest +Government may find itself unable to stand against? I do not blame +you till I hear,--till I know;--but your writings,--your appeals for +truth in all things,--are like loud clarion blasts which may awaken +more evil than good." + +"Monseigneur, the evil is not of my making,--it exists!" replied +Cyrillon, "My name, my writings,--are only as a spark from the huge +smouldering fire of religious discontent in the world. If it were +not MY name it would be another's. If _I_ did not write or speak, +someone else would write and speak--perhaps better--perhaps not so +well. At any rate I am sincere in my convictions, and write from the +fulness of the heart. I do not care for money--I make none at all by +literature,--but I earn enough by my labour in the fields to keep me +in food and lodging. I have no desire for fame,--except in so far as +my name may serve as an encouragement and help to others. If you +care to hear my story--" + +"I should appreciate your confidence greatly," said the Cardinal +earnestly, "The Fates have made you a leading spirit of the time,-- +it would interest me to know your thoughts and theories. But if you +would prefer not to speak--" + +"I generally prefer not to speak," replied Cyrillon, "But to-day is +one of open confession,--and I think too that it is sometimes +advisable for men of the Church to understand and enter into the +minds of those who are outside the Church,--who will have no +Church,--not from disobedience or insubordination, but simply +because they do not find God or Christ in that institution as it at +present exists. And nowadays we are seeking for God strenuously and +passionately! We have found Him too in places where the Church +assured us He was not and could not be." + +"Is there any portion of life where God is not?" asked Manuel +gently. + +Cyrillon's dark eyes softened as he met the boy's glance. + +"No, dear child!--truly there is not,--but the priests do nothing to +maintain or to prove that," he replied; "and the more the world +lifts itself higher and higher into the light, the more we shall +perceive God, and the less we will permit anything to intervene +between ourselves and Him. But you are too young to understand--" + +"No, not at all too young to understand!" answered Manuel, "Not at +all too young to understand that God is love, and pardon, and +patience;--and that wheresoever men are intolerant, uncharitable, +and bigoted, there they straightway depart from God and know Him not +at all." + +"Truly that is how I understand Christianity," said Cyrillon, "But +for so simple and plain a perception of duty one is called atheist +and socialist, and one's opinions are branded as dangerous to the +community. Truth is dangerous, I know--but why?" + +"Would that not take a century to explain?" said the silvery voice +of the Princesse D'Agramont, who entered with Angela at that moment, +and made her deep obeisance before the Cardinal, glancing +inquisitively as she did so at Manuel who still stood resting +against the prelate's chair, "Pardon our abrupt appearance, +Monseigneur, but Angela and I are moved by the spirit of curiosity!- +-and if we are swept out of the Church like straws before the wind +for our impertinence, we care not! Monsignor Moretti has just left +the house, wrapt up in his wrath like a bird of prey in a thunder- +cloud, muttering menaces against 'Gys Grandit' the Socialist writer. +Now what in the world has Gys Grandit to do with him or with us? +Salut, cher Abbe!"--and she gave Vergniaud her hand with charming +friendliness; "I came here really to see you, and place the Chateau +D'Agramont at your disposal, while I am away passing the winter in +Italy. Pray make yourself at home there--and your son also . . ." + +"Madame," said the Abbe, profoundly touched by the sincerity of her +manner, and by the evident cordiality of her intention, "I thank you +from my heart for your friendship at this moment when friendship is +most needed! But I feel I ought not to cast the shadow of my +presence on your house under such circumstances--and as for my son-- +it would certainly be unwise for you to extend your gracious +hospitality to him . . . he is my son--yes truly!--and I acknowledge him +as such; but he is also another person of his own making--Gys +Grandit!" + +Angela Sovrani gave a slight cry, and a wave of colour flushed her +face,--the Princesse stood amazed. + +"Gys Grandit!" she echoed in a low tone, "And Vergniaud's son! Grand +Dieu! Is it possible!" Then advancing, she extended both her hands +to Cyrillon, "Monsieur, accept my homage! You have a supreme +genius,--and with it you command more than one-half of the thoughts +of France!" + +Cyrillon took her hands,--lightly pressed, and released them. + +"Madame, you are too generous!" + +But even while he exchanged these courtesies with her, his eyes were +fixed on Angela Sovrani, who, moving close to her uncle's chair, had +folded her hands upon its sculptured edge and now stood beside it, a +graceful nymph-like figure of statuesque repose. But her breath came +and went quickly, and her face was very pale. + +"No wonder Monsignor Moretti was so exceedingly angry," resumed the +Princesse D'Agramont with a smile, "I understand the position now. +It is a truly remarkable one. Monseigneur," this with a profound +reverence to the Cardinal, "you have found it difficult to be umpire +in the discussion." + +"The discussion was not mine," said the Cardinal slowly, "But the +cause of the trouble is a point which affects many,--and I am one of +those who desire to hear all before I presume to judge one. I have +asked the son of my old friend Vergniaud to tell me what led him to +make his assumed name one of such terror and confusion in the world; +he is but six-and-twenty, and yet . . ." + +"And yet people talk much of me you would say, Monseigneur," said +Cyrillon, a touch of scorn lighting up his fine eyes, "True, and it +is easy to be talked of. That is nothing, I do not wish for that, +except in so far as it helps me to attain my ambition." + +"And that ambition is?" queried the Princesse. + +"To lead!" answered Cyrillon with a passionate gesture, "To gather +the straying thoughts of men into one burning focus--and turn THAT +fire on the world!" + +They were all silent for a minute--then the Princesse D'Agramont +spoke again-- + +"But--Pardon me! Then you were about to destroy all your own chances +of the future in your wild impulse of this morning?" + +"Oh, Madame, it was no wild impulse! When a man takes an oath by the +side of a dead woman, and that woman his mother, he generally means +to keep it! And I most resolutely meant to kill my father and make +of myself a parricide. But I considered my mother had been murdered +too--socially and morally--and I judged my vengeance just. If it had +not been for the boy there--" and he glanced at Manuel, "I should +certainly have fulfilled my intention." + +"And then there would have been no Abbe Vergniaud, and no 'Gys +Grandit,'" said the Princesse lightly, endeavouring to change the +sombre tone of the conversation,--"and the 'Christian Democratic' +party would have been in sackcloth and ashes!" + +"The Christian Democratic party!" echoed the Cardinal, "What do they +mean? What do they want?" + +"Christianity, Monseigneur! That is all!" replied Cyrillon, "All-- +but so much! You asked me for my history--will you hear it now?" + +There was an immediate murmur of assent, and the group around +Cardinal Bonpre were soon seated--all save Manuel, who remained +standing. Angela sat on a cushion at her uncle's feet, and her deep +violet eyes were full of an eager, almost feverish interest which +she could scarcely conceal; and the Abbe Vergniaud, vitally and +painfully concerned as he was in the narrative about to be told, +could not help looking at her, and wondering at the extraordinary +light and beauty of her face thus transfigured by an excitation of +thought. Was she a secret follower of his son's theories, he +wondered? Composing himself in his chair, he sat with bent head, +marvelling as he heard the story of the bold and fearless and +philosophic life that had sprung into the world all out of his +summer's romance with a little innocent girl, whom he had found +praying to her guardian angel. + +"It is not always ourselves," began Cyrillon in his slow, emphatic, +yet musical voice, "who are responsible for the good or the evil we +may do in our lives. Much of our character is formed by the earliest +impressions of childhood--and my earliest impressions were those of +sorrow. I started life with the pulse of my mother's broken heart +beating in me,--hence my thoughts were sombre, and of an altogether +unnatural character to a child of tender years. We lived--my mother +and I--in a small cottage on the edge of a meadow outside the quaint +old city of Tours--a meadow, full at all seasons, of the loveliest +wild flowers, but sweetest in the springtime when the narcissi +bloomed, lifting their thousand cups of sweet perfume like incense +to the sky. I used to sit among their cool green stems,--thinking +many thoughts, chief among which was a wonder why God had made my +little mother so unhappy. I heard afterwards that God was not to +blame,--only man, breaking God's laws of equity. She was a good +brave woman, for despite her loneliness and tears, she worked hard;- +-worked to send me to school, and to teach me all she herself knew-- +which was little enough, poor soul,--but she studied in order to +instruct me,--and often when I slept the unconscious sleep of +healthy childhood, she was up through half the night spelling out +abstruse books, difficult enough for an educated woman to master, +but for a peasant--(she was nothing more)--presenting almost +superhuman obstacles. I was very quick to learn, and her loving +patience was not wasted upon me;--but when I was about eleven years +old I resolved that I could no longer burden her with the expenses +of my life--so without asking her consent, I hired myself out to a +farmer, to clear weeds from his fields, and so began to earn my +bread, which is the best and noblest form of knowledge existing in +the world for all of us. With the earning of my body's keep came +spiritual independence, and young as I was I began to read and +consider for myself--till when I was about fifteen chance brought me +across the path of a man whose example inspired me and decided my +fate, named Aubrey Leigh." + +Angela gave a slight exclamation of surprise, and Cyrillon turned +his dark eyes upon her. + +"Yes, mademoiselle!--I am aware that he has been in Paris lately. No +doubt you know him. Certainly he is born to be a leader of men, and +if a noble life and unsullied character, together with eloquence, +determination, and steadfastness of purpose can help him to fulfil +his mission, he will assuredly succeed. He is from America, though +born of British parents, and the first thing I gathered from him was +an overwhelming desire to study and to master the English language-- +not because it was English, but because it was the universal +language spoken by America. I felt from what he said then,--and I +feel still from what I have learnt and know now,--that America has +all the future in the hollow of her hand. My intention, had I +succeeded in my revengeful attempt this morning, was to escape to +America immediately, and from there write under the nom de plume +which I have already made known. I can write as easily in English as +in French,--for my friend Aubrey Leigh was very kind and took a +great liking to me, and stayed in Touraine for a year and a half, +simply for the pleasure of instructing me and grafting his theories +upon my young and aspiring mind. And now we are as one in our hopes +and endeavours, and the years make little disparity between us. He +was twenty-two when I was but fifteen,--but now that I am twenty-six +and he thirty-three we are far better matched associates. From him I +learnt much of the discontents,--ethical and religious,--of the +world; from him I learnt how to speak in public. He was then an +actor, a sort of wandering 'Bohemian,'--but he soon tired of the +sordidness of the stage and aspired to higher platforms of work, and +he had already begun to lead the people by his powers of oratory, as +he leads them now. I heard him speak in French as fluently as in +English; and I resolved on my part to speak likewise in English as +easily as he did in French. And when we parted it was with a mutual +resolve TO LEAD!--to lead--and ever still to lead!--we would starve +on our theories, we said, but we would speak out if it cost us our +very lives. To earn daily bread I managed to obtain steady +employment as a labourer in the fields,--and I soon gained +sufficient to keep my mother and myself. My friend Aubrey had imbued +me thoroughly with the love of incessant hard work; there was no +disgrace, he said, in digging the soil, if the brain were kept +working as well as the hands. And I did keep my brain working; I +allowed it also to lie fallow, and to absorb everything of nature +that was complex, grand and beautiful,--and from such studies I +learnt the goodness and the majesty of the Creator as they are never +found in human expositions of Him made by the preachers of creeds. +At eighteen I made my first public address,--and the next year +published my first book in Tours. But though I won an instant +success my soul was hampered and heavy with the burning thought of +vengeance; and this thought greatly hindered the true conceptions of +life that I desired to entertain. When my mother died, and her +failing voice crooned for the last time, 'Ah, la tristesse d'avoir +aime!' the spark of hatred I had cherished all the years of my life +for my father burst into a flame, and leapt up to its final height +this morning as you saw. Now it has gone out into dust and ashes-- +the way of all such flames! I have been spared for better things I +hope. What I have written and done, France knows,--but my thoughts +are not limited to France, they seek a wider horizon. France is a +decaying nation--her doom is sealed. I work and write for the To-Be, +not the Has-Been. Such as my life is, it has never been darkened or +brightened by love of any sort, save that which my mother gave me. +Your Eminence," and he turned towards the Cardinal, "asks me why I +inculcate theories which suggest change, terror and confusion;-- +Monseigneur, terror and confusion can never be caused save among the +ranks of those who have secret reason to be terrorised! There is +nothing terrifying in Truth to those who are true! If I distract and +alarm unworthy societies, revolting hypocrism, established shams and +miserable conventions, I am only the wielder of the broom that +sweeps out the cobwebs and the dust from a dirty house. My one +desire is to make the habitation of Christian souls clean! Terror +and confusion there will be,--there must be;--the time is ripe for +it--none of us can escape it--it is the prophesied period of 'men's +hearts failing them for fear, and looking after those things which +are coming on the earth.' I have not made the time. I am born OF it- +-one WITH it;--God arranges these things. I am not working for self +or for money,--I can live on bread and herbs and water. I want no +luxurious surroundings,--no softnesses--no delicacies--no +tendernesses--no sympathies! I set my face forward in the teeth of a +thousand winds of opposition, forward still forward! I seek nothing +for my own personal needs! I know that nothing can hinder me or keep +me back! Nothing! Monseigneur, I voice the cry of multitudes!--they +have, as it were, been wandering in the wilderness listening to the +Gospel for many days,--days which have accumulated to more than +eighteen hundred years; just as they did of old,--only the Master +did not send them away hungry--He fed them lest they should 'faint +by the way.' He thought of that possibility!--we seldom care how +many faint by the way, or die in the effort to live! Monseigneur, I +must--I will speak for the dumb mouths of the nations! And every +unit that can so speak, or can so write, should hasten to turn +itself into a Pentecostal flame of fire to blaze and burn a warning +upon the verge of this new century,--causing men to prophesy with +divers tongues, of the Truth of God,--not of the lies that have been +made to represent Him!" + +Felix Bonpre raised one hand with a slight gesture enjoining +silence, and seemed wrapped for a moment in painful meditation. +Angela looking anxiously up at him caught, not his glance, but that +of Manuel, who smiled at her encouragingly. Presently the Cardinal +spoke,--gently and with a kind of austere patience. + +"Am I to understand from your speech, my son, and the work of your +life, that you consider the Church a lie? I put the question +plainly; but I do not ask it either to reproach or intimidate you. I +am well aware I can do neither. Thought is free to the individual as +well as to the nations; and whereas, in past time we had one man who +could think and speak, we have now a thousand! We are unfortunately +apt to forget the spread of education;--but a man who thinks as you +do, and dares all things for the right to act upon his thought, +should surely be able to clearly explain his reasons for arming +himself against any outwardly expressed form of faith, which has +received the acceptance and submission of the world?" + +"Monseigneur, I do not attack any faith! Faith is necessary,--faith +is superb! I honour this uplifting virtue,--whether I find it in the +followers of the Talmud or the Koran, or the New Testament, and, +personally speaking, I would die for my belief in the great name and +ethical teaching of Christ. I attack the Church--yes,--and why? +Because it has departed from the Faith! Because it is a mere system +now,--corrupt in many parts, as all systems must naturally become +when worn out by long usage. In many ways it favours stupid +idolatries, and in others it remains deaf and blind and impervious +to the approach of great spiritual and religious facts, which are +being made splendidly manifest by Science. Why, there is not a +miracle in the Testament that science will not make possible!--there +is not a word Christ ever spoke that shall not be proved true! And +may I not be called a Christian? I may,--I must,--I will be,--for I +am! But hypocrisy, false measures, perverted aims, and low pandering +to ignorance and brutality, vile superstition and intimidation-- +these things must be destroyed if the Church is to last with honour +to itself and with usefulness to others. To-day, over in England, +they are quarrelling with bitter acrimony concerning forms and +outward symbols of religion, thus fulfilling the words of the Lord, +'Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within +ye are full of extortion and excess.' Now, if the Spirit of Christ +were at all in these men who thus argue, there would be no trouble +about forms or symbols of faith,--there would be too much of the +faith itself for any such petty disputation. Monseigneur, I swear to +you, I say nothing, teach nothing but what is the straight and true +command of Christ! . . . no more, but also no less!" + +Moved by the young man's eloquence, the Cardinal looked at him +straightly in the eyes. + +"You speak well," he said, "Some people would tell you that you have +that fluency of tongue which is judged dangerous. But danger is +after all only for those who have something to fear. If we of the +Church are pure in our intent nothing should disturb our peace,-- +nothing should move us from our anchorage. Your ideas, you say, are +founded on the Master's Word?" + +"Entirely," replied Cyrillon, "I am working,--Aubrey Leigh is +working,--we are all working for a House of Praise more than a Place +of Prayer. We want to give thanks for what we are, and what, if we +follow the sane and healthy laws of life, we may be,--rather than +continue the clamour for more benefits when we have already +received, and are receiving so much." + +"Would you not pray at all then?" asked Bonpre. + +"Yes--for others, not for ourselves! And then not as the Church +prays. Her form of service is direct disobedience!" + +"In what way?" + +"Monseigneur, I always preface my remarks on these subjects with the +words 'IF we believe in Christ.' I say IF we believe, we must accept +His commands; and they are plain enough. 'WHEN YE PRAY, USE NOT VAIN +REPETITIONS AS THE HEATHEN DO, FOR THEY THINK THEY SHALL BE HEARD +FOR THEIR MUCH SPEAKING. BE NOT YE THEREFORE LIKE UNTO THEM, FOR +YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT THINGS YE HAVE NEED OF BEFORE YE ASK HIM.' +Now if this is to be understood as the command of Christ, the +Messenger of God, do we not deliberately act against it in all +directions? Vain repetitions! The Church is full of them,--choked +with them! The priests who order us to say ten or twenty +'Paternosters' by way of penance, are telling us to do exactly what +Christ commanded us not to do! The terrible Litany of the Protestant +Church, with its everlasting 'Good Lord deliver us,' is another +example of vain repetition. Again--think of these words--'When thou +prayest, thou shalt NOT BE AS THE HYPOCRITES ARE, for they love to +pray standing in the synagogues, and at the corners of the streets +THAT THEY MAY BE SEEN OF MEN.' Is not all our churchgoing that we +may be seen of men?" + +"Then, my son, it seems that you would do away with the Church +altogether in the extremity of your zeal!" said the Cardinal gently, +"There must surely be some outward seeming--some city set on a hill +whose light cannot be hid--some visible sign of Christ among us--" + +"True, Monseigneur, but such a sign must be of so brilliant and pure +a nature,--so grand an uplifted Cross of unsullied light that it +shall be as the sun rising out of darkness! Oh, I would have +churches built gloriously, with every possible line of beauty and +curve of perfect architecture in their fabrication;--but I would +have no idolatrous emblems,--no superstitious ceremonies within +them,--no tawdry reliquaries of gems--no boast of the world's wealth +at all; but great Art,--the result of man's great Thought rendered +and given with pure simplicity! I would have great music,--and more +than all I would have thanksgiving always! And if valuables were +brought to the altar for gifts, the gifts should be given out again +to those in need-not kept,--not left untouched like a miser's +useless hoard, while one poor soul was starving!" + +"My son, such a scheme of purification as yours will take centuries +to accomplish," murmured Bonpre slowly, "Almost it would need Christ +to come again!" + +"And who shall say He will not come!" exclaimed Cyrillon fervently, +"Who shall swear He is not even now among us! Has he not told us all +to 'watch,' because we know not the hour at which He cometh? No, +Monseigneur!--centuries are not needed for Truth to make itself +manifest nowadays! We hold Science by the hand,--she is becoming our +familiar friend and companion, and through her guidance we have +learned that the Laws of the Universe are Truth,--Truth which cannot +be contradicted; and that only the things which move and work in +harmony with those laws can last. All else must perish! 'WHOSOEVER +IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME'--or in other words, whosoever opposes +himself to Eternal Laws must be against the whole system of the +Universe. and is therefore a discord which is bound to be silenced. +Monseigneur, Christ was a Divine Preacher of Truth;--and I, in my +humble man's way endeavour to follow Truth. And if I ever fail now, +after to-day's attempted crime, to honour the commands of Christ, +and obey them as closely as I can, then pass your condemnation upon +me, but not till then! Meanwhile, give me a good man's blessing!" + +Deeply interested as he was, the Cardinal nevertheless still +hesitated. To him, though the sayings and opinions of the famous +"Gys Grandit" were not exactly new, there was something terrible in +hearing him utter them with such bold and trenchant meaning. He +sighed, and appeared lost in thought; till Manuel touched him gently +on the arm. + +"Dear friend, are you afraid to bless this man who loves our +Father?" + +"Afraid? My child, I am afraid of nothing--but there is grave +trouble in my heart--" + +"Nay, trouble should never enter there!" said Manuel softly, +"Stretch out your hand!--let no human soul wait for a benediction!" + +Profoundly moved, the Cardinal obeyed, and laid his white trembling +hand on Cyrillon's bent head. + +"May God forgive thee the intention of thy sin today!" he said, in a +low and solemn tone--"May Christ guide thee out of all evil, and +lead thee through the wildness of the world to Heaven's own peace, +which passeth understanding!" + +So gentle, so brave, so sweet and tender were the accents in which +he spoke these few simple works, that the tears filled Angela's +eyes, and Abbe Vergniaud, resting his head on one hand, felt a +strange contraction in his throat, and began to think of possible +happy days yet to be passed perchance in seclusion with this long- +denied son of his, who had sprung out of the secret ways of love, +first to slay and then to redeem him. Could there be a more plain +and exact measuring out of law? If he had not confessed his sin he +would have probably died in it suddenly without a chance of +amendment or repentance--but lo!--on confession, his life had been +saved as if by a miracle, and the very result of evil had been +transformed into consolation! So he sat absorbed, wondering--musing- +-and while the Cardinal spoke his blessing with closed eyes, all +heads were bent, and faces hidden. And in the reverent silence that +followed, the gentle prelate gave a sign of kind dismissal and +farewell to all, which they, understanding, accepted, and at once +made their brief adieuxthe Abbe Vergniaud only lingering a moment +longer than the rest, to bend humbly down and kiss his Apostolic +ring. Then they left him, alone with Manual. + +On their way out of the house, through Angela's studio, the +Princesse D'Agramont paused for a few minutes to say further kind +words to the Abbe respecting the invitation she had given him to her +Chateau--, and while she was thus engaged, Angela turned hurriedly +to Cyrillon. + +"As 'Gys Grandit' you receive many letters from strangers, do you +not?" + +The young man regarded her earnestly, with unconcealed admiration +glowing in his fine eyes. + +"Assuredly, Mademoiselle! And some of these letters are very dear to +me, because they make me aware of friends I might otherwise never +have known." + +"You have one correspondent who is deeply interested in your +theories, and who sympathises keenly in all your religious views--" +she went on, lowering her eyes--"a certain Madame Angele--" + +He uttered a quick exclamation of pleasure. + +"You know her?" + +She looked up,--her eyes sparkled--and she laid a finger on her +lips. + +"Keep my secret!" she said--"I am so glad to meet you personally at +last!" + +He stared, bewildered. + +"You--you . . . !" + +"Yes. I!" and she smiled--"The mysterious and Christian-Democratic +'Angele' is Angela Sovrani. So you see we have been unconscious +friends for some time!" + +His face grew radiant, and he made a quick movement towards her. + +"Then I owe you a great debt of gratitude!" he said--"For +encouragement--for sympathy--for help in dark hours!--and how +unworthy I have proved of your goodness . . . what must you think of +me--you--so beautiful--so good--" + +She moved back a little with a warning gesture--and his words were +interrupted by the Abbe, who glancing from one to the other in a +little surprise, said, as he bent reverently over her hand and +kissed it,-- + +"We must be going, Cyrillon!" + +Another few moments and Angela was left alone to think over, and try +to realise the strange and rapidly-occurring events of the day. +Whatever her thoughts were they seemed for a long time to be of a +somewhat April-like character, for her eyes brimmed over with tears +even while she smiled. + + + + +XVII. + +In one of the few remaining streets of Rome which the vandal hand of +the modern builder and restorer has not meddled with, stands the +"Casa D'Angeli", a sixteenth-century building fronted with +wonderfully carved and widely projecting balconies--each balcony +more or less different in design, yet forming altogether in their +entirety the effect of complete sculptural harmony. The central one +looks more like a cathedral shrine than the embrasure of a window, +for above it angels' heads look out from the enfolding curves of +their own tall wings, and a huge shield which might serve as a copy +of that which Elaine kept bright for Lancelot, is poised between, +bearing a lily, a cross, and a heart engraven in its quarterings. +Here, leaning far forward to watch the intense gold of the Roman +moon strike brightness and shadow out of the dark uplifted pinions +of her winged stone guardians, stood Sylvie Hermenstein, who, in her +delicate white attire, with the moonbeams resting like a halo on her +soft hair, might have easily passed for some favoured saint whom the +sculptured angels were protecting. And yet she was only one whom the +world called "a frivolous woman of society, who lived on the +admiration of men". So little did they know her,--so little indeed +does the world know about any of us. It was true that Sylvie, rich, +lovely, independent, and therefore indifferent to opinions, lived +her own life very much according to her own ideas,--but then those +ideas were far more simple and unworldly than anybody gave her +credit for. She to whom all the courts of Europe were open, +preferred to wander in the woods alone, reading some favourite book, +to almost any other pleasure,--and as for the admiration which she +won by a look or turn of her head wherever she went, nothing in all +the world so utterly bored her as this influence of her own charm. +For she had tried men and found them wanting. With all the pent-up +passion of her woman's soul she longed to be loved,--but what she +understood by love was a much purer and more exalted emotion than is +common among men and women. She was suffering just now from an +intense and overpowering ennui. Rome was beautiful, she averred, but +dull. Stretching her fair white arms out over the impervious stone- +angels she said this, and more than this, to someone within the +room, who answered her in one of the most delightfully toned voices +in the world--a voice that charmed the ear by its first cadences, +and left the listener fascinated into believing that its music was +the expression of a perfectly harmonious mind. + +"You seem very discontented," said the voice, speaking in English, +"But really your pathway is one of roses!" + +"You think so?" and Sylvie turned her head quickly round and looked +at her companion, a handsome little man of some thirty-five years of +age, who stretching himself lazily full length in an arm-chair was +toying with the silky ears of an exceedingly minute Japanese +spaniel, Sylvie's great pet and constant companion. "Oh, mon Dieu! +You, artist and idealist though you are--or shall I say as you are +supposed to be," and she laughed a little, "you are like all the +rest of your sex! Just because you see a woman able to smile and +make herself agreeable to her friends, and wear pretty clothes, and +exchange all the bon mots of badinage and every-day flirtation, you +imagine it impossible for her to have any sorrow!" + +"There is only one sorrow possible to a woman," replied the +gentleman, who was no other than Florian Varillo, the ideal of +Angela Sovrani's life, smiling as he spoke with a look in his eyes +which conveyed an almost amorous meaning. + +Sylvie left the balcony abruptly, and swept back into the room, +looking a charming figure of sylph-like slenderness and elegance in +her clinging gown of soft white satin showered over with lace and +pearls. + +"Only one sorrow!" she echoed, "And that is--?" + +"Inability to win love, or to awaken desire!" replied Varillo, still +smiling. + +The pretty Comtesse raised her golden head a little more proudly, +with the air of a lily lifting itself to the light on its stem--her +deep blue eyes flashed. + +"I certainly cannot complain on that score!" she said, with a touch +of malice as well as coldness--"But the fact that men lose their +heads about me does not make me in the least happy." + +"It should do so!" and Varillo set the little Japanese dog carefully +down on the floor, whereupon it ran straight to its mistress, +uttering tiny cries of joy, "There is no sweeter triumph for a woman +than to see men subjugated by her smile, and intimidated by her +frown;--to watch them burning themselves like moths in her clear +flame, and dying at her feet for love of her! The woman who can do +these things is gifted with the charm which makes or ruins life,-- +few can resist her,--she draws sensitive souls as a magnet draws the +needle,--and the odd part of it all is that she need not have any +heart herself--she need not feel one pulse of the passion with which +she inspires others--indeed it is better that she should not. The +less she is moved herself, the greater is her fascination. Love +clamours far more incessantly and passionately at a closed gate than +an open one!" + +Sylvie was silent for a minute or two looking at him with something +of doubt and disdain. The room they were in was one of those wide +and lofty apartments which in old days might have been used for a +prince's audience chamber, or a dining hall for the revelry of the +golden youth of Imperial Rome. The ceiling, supported by eight +slender marble columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from +Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour +and instinct with life--and on the walls were the fading remains of +other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid +poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random +into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the huge room was bare and +comfortless to a degree,--but the Comtesse Sylvie's wealth, combined +with her good taste, had filled it with things that made it homelike +as well as beautiful. The thickest velvet pile carpets laid over the +thickest of folded mattings, covered the marble floors, and deprived +them of their usual chill,--great logs of wood burned cheerfully in +the wide chimney, and flowers, in every sort of quaint vase or bowl, +made bright with colour and blossom all dark and gloomy corners, and +softened every touch of melancholy away. A grand piano stood open,-- +a mandoline tied with bright ribbons, lay on a little table near a +cluster of roses and violets,--books, music, drawings, bits of old +drapery and lace were so disposed as to hide all sharp corners and +forbidding angles,--and where the frescoes on the wall were too +damaged to be worth showing even in outline, some fine old Flemish +tapestry covered the defect. Sylvie herself, in the exquisite +clothing which she always made it her business to wear, was the +brilliant completion of the general picturesqueness,--and Florian +Varillo seemed to think so as he looked at her with the practised +underglance of admiration which is a trick common to Italians, and +which some women accept as a compliment and others resent as an +insult. + +"Do you not agree with me?" he said persuasively, with a smile which +showed his fine and even teeth to perfection, "When the chase is +over the hunters go home tired! What a man cannot have, that very +thing is what he tries most to obtain!" + +"You speak from experience, I suppose," said Sylvie, moving slowly +across the room towards the fire, and caressing her little dog which +she held nestled under her rounded chin like a ball of silk, "And +yet you, more than most men, have everything you can want in this +world--but I suppose you are not satisfied--not even with Angela!" + +"Angela is a dear little woman!" said Florian, with an air of +emotional condescension, "The dearest little woman in the world! And +she is really clever." + +"Clever!" echoed Sylvie, "Is that all?" + +"Cara Contessa, is not that enough?" + +"Angela is a genius," averred Sylvie, with warmth and energy, "a +true genius!--a great,--a sublime artist!" + +"Che Che!" and Varillo smiled, "How delightful it is to hear one +woman praise another! Women are so often like cats spitting and +hissing at each other, tearing at each other's clothes and +reputations,--clothes even more than reputations,--that it is really +quite beautiful to me to hear you admire my Angela! It is very +generous of you!" + +"Generous of me!" and the Comtesse Hermenstein looked him full in +the eyes, "Why I think it an honour to know her--a privilege to +touch her hand! All Europe admires her--she is one of the world's +greatest artists." + +"She paints wonderfully well,--for a woman," said Varillo lazily, +"But there is so much in that phrase, cara Contessa, 'for a woman'. +Your charming sex often succeeds in doing very clever and pretty +things; but in a man they would not be considered surprising. You +fairy creatures are not made for fame--but for love!" + +The Comtesse glanced him up and down for a moment, then laughed +musically. + +"And for desertion, and neglect as well!" she said, "And sometimes +for bestowing upon YOUR charming sex every fortune and every good +blessing, and getting kicked for our pains! And sometimes it happens +that we are permitted the amazing honour of toiling to keep you in +food and clothing, while you jest at your clubs about the +uselessness of woman's work in the world! Yes, I know! Have you seen +Angela's great picture?" + +Again Florian smiled. + +"Great? No! I know that the dear little girl has fixed an enormous +canvas up in her studio, and that she actually gets on a ladder to +paint something upon it;--but it is always covered,--she does not +wish me to see it till it is finished. She is like a child in some +things, and I always humour her. I have not the least desire to look +at her work till she herself is willing to show it to me. But in +myself I am convinced she is trying to do too much--it is altogether +too large an attempt." + +"What are YOU doing?" asked Sylvie abruptly. + +"Merely delicate trifles,--little mosaics of art!" said Varillo with +languid satisfaction, "They may possibly please a connoisseur,--but +they are quite small studies." + +"You have the same model you had last year?" queried Sylvie. + +Their eyes met, and Varillo shifted uneasily in his chair. + +"The same," he replied curtly. + +Again Sylvie laughed. + +"Immaculate creature!" she murmured, "The noblest of her sex, of +course! Men always call the women who pander to their vices +'noble'." + +Varillo flushed an angry red. + +"You are pleased to be sarcastic, fair lady." he said carelessly, "I +do not understand--" + +"No? You are not usually so dense with me, though to those who do +not know you as well as I do, you sometimes appear to be the very +stupidest of men! Now be frank!--tell me, is not Pon-Pon one of the +'noble' women?" + +"She is a very good creature," averred Varillo gently, and with an +air that was almost pious,--"She supports her family entirely on her +earnings." + +"How charming of her!" laughed Sylvie, "And so exceptional a thing +to do, is it not? My dressmaker does the same thing,--she 'supports' +her family; but respectably! And just think!--if ever your right +hand loses its cunning as a painter, Angela will be able to +'support' YOU!" + +"Always Angela!" muttered Varillo, beginning to sulk, "Cannot you +talk of something else?" + +"No,--not for the moment! She is an interesting subject,--to ME! She +will arrive in Rome to-morrow night, and her uncle Cardinal Bonpre, +will be with her, and they will all stay at the Sovrani Palace, +which seems to me like a bit of the Vatican and an old torture- +chamber rolled into one! And, talking of this same excellent +Cardinal, they have almost canonized him at the Vatican,--almost, +but not quite." + +"For what reason?" + +"Oh, have you not heard? It appears he performed a miracle in Rouen, +curing a child who had been a cripple ever since babyhood, and +making him run about as well and strong as possible. One prayer did +it, so it is said,--the news reached the Vatican some days ago; our +charming Monsignor Gherardi told me of it. The secretary of the +Archbishop of Rouen brought the news personally to the Holy Father." + +"I do not believe it," said Varillo indifferently, "The days of +miracles are past. And from what I know, and from what Angela has +told me of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre, he would never lend himself +to such nonsense." + +"Well, I only tell you what is just now the talk at the Vatican," +said Sylvie, "Your worthy uncle-in-law that is to be, may be Pope +yet! Have you heard from Angela?" + +"Every day. But she has said nothing about this miracle." + +"Perhaps she does not know,"--and Sylvie began to yawn, and stretch +her white arms above her head lazily, "Oh, DIO MIO! How terribly +dull is Rome!" + +"How long have you been here, Contessa?" + +"Nearly a week! If I am not more amused I shall go away home to +Budapest." + +"But how is one to amuse you?" asked Varillo, sitting down beside +her and endeavouring to take her hand. She drew it quickly from him. + +"Not in that way!" she said scornfully, "Is it possible that you can +be so conceited! A woman says she is dull and bored, and straightway +the nearest man imagines his uncouth caresses will amuse her! TIENS +TIENS! When will you understand that all women are not like Pon- +Pon?" + +Varillo drew back, chafed and sullen. His AMOUR PROPRE was wounded, +and he began to feel exceedingly cross. The pretty laugh of Sylvie +rang out like a little peal of bells. + +"Suppose Angela knew that you wished to 'amuse' me in that +particularly unamusing way?" she went on, "You--who, to her, are +CHEVALIER SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE!" + +"Angela is different to all other women," said Varillo quickly, with +a kind of nervous irritation in his manner as he spoke, "and she has +to be humoured accordingly. She is extremely fantastic--full of +strange ideas and unnatural conceptions of life. Her temperament is +studious and dreamy--self-absorbed too at times--and she is +absolutely passionless. That is why she will make a model wife." + +The Comtesse drew her breath quickly,--her blood began to tingle and +her heart to beat--but she repressed these feelings and said, + +"You mean that her passionless nature will be her safety in all +temptation?" + +"Exactly!" and Varillo, smiling, became good natured again--"For +Angela to be untrue would be a grotesque impossibility! She has no +idea of the stronger sentiment of love which strikes the heart like +a lightning flash and consumes it. Her powers of affection are +intellectually and evenly balanced,--and she could not be otherwise +than faithful because her whole nature is opposed to infidelity. But +it is not a nature which, being tempted, overcomes--inasmuch as +there is no temptation which is attractive to her!" + +"You think so?" and a sparkle of satire danced in Sylvie's bright +eyes, "Really? And because she is self-respecting and proud, you +would almost make her out to be sexless?--not a woman at all,-- +without heart?--without passion? Then you do not love her!" + +"She is the dearest creature to me in all the world!" declared +Florian, with emotional ardour, "There is no one at all like her! +Even her beauty, which comes and goes with her mood, is to an +artist's eye like mine, exquisite,--and more dazzling to the senses +than the stereotyped calm of admitted perfection in form and +feature. But, CARA CONTESSA, I am something of an analyst in +character--and I know that the delicacy of Angela's charm lies in +that extraordinary tranquillity of soul, which, (YOU suggested the +word!) may indeed be almost termed sexless. She is purer than snow-- +and very much colder." + +"You are fortunate to be the only man selected to melt that +coldness," said Sylvie with a touch of disdain, "Myself, I think you +make a great mistake in calling Angela passionless. She is all +passion--and ardour--but it is kept down,--held firmly within +bounds, and devoutly consecrated to you. Pardon me, if I say that +you should be more grateful for the love and trust she gives you. +You are not without rivals in the field." + +Florian Varillo raised his eyebrows smilingly. + +"Rivals? VERAMENTE! I am not aware of them!" + +"No, I should say you had too good an opinion of yourself to imagine +any rival possible!" said the Comtesse, "But such a person may +exist!" + +Varillo yawned, and flicked a grain of dust off his waistcoat with a +fastidious thumb and finger. + +"Impossible! No one could possibly fall in love with Angela now! She +is an icicle,--no man save myself has the ghost of a chance with +her!" + +"Of course not," said Sylvie impatiently, "Because she is betrothed +to you. But if things were not as they are--" + +"It would make no difference, I assure you," laughed Varillo gaily, +"Angela does not like men as a rule. She is fondest of romance--of +dreams--of visions, out of which come the ideas for her pictures--" + +"And she is quite passionless with all this, you think?" said +Sylvie, "The 'stronger sentiment which strikes the heart like a +flash of lightning, and consumes it', as you so poetically describe +it--could never possibly disturb her peace?" + +"I think not," replied Varillo, with a meditative air, "Angela and I +glided into love like two children wandering by chance into a meadow +full of flowers,--no storm struck us--no sudden danger signal +flashed from our eyes--no trembling hurry of the blood bade us rush +into each other's arms and cling!--nothing of this marvel touched +us!--we loved with all the calm--but without the glory!" + +His voice,--the most fascinating quality attached to his +personality,--rose and fell in this little speech with an exquisite +cadence, half sad, half sweet,--and Sylvie, impressionable creature +as she was, with her innate love of romance and poetry, was +unconsciously moved by it to a faint sigh. There was nothing to sigh +for, really,--it was just a mere melodious noise of words, in the +making of which Florian Varillo was an adept. He had not an atom of +serious thought in his remark, any more than in the dainty verses he +was wont to append to his pictures--verses which he turned out with +the lightest and swiftest ease, and which read like his spoken +sentences, as if there were a meaning in them, when truly there was +none. But Sylvie was just then in a curious state of mind, and +slight things easily impressed her. She was in love--and yet she was +not in love. The handsome face and figure of the Marquis Fontenelle, +together with many of his undoubted good and even fine qualities, +attracted her and held her in thrall, much more than the +consciousness of his admiration and pursuit of her,--but--and this +was a very interfering "but" indeed,--she was reluctantly compelled +to admit to herself that there was no glozing over the fact that he +was an incorrigibly "fast", otherwise bad man. His life was a long +record of LIAISONS with women,--an exact counterpart of the life of +the famous actor Miraudin. And though there is a saying that a +reformed rake makes the best husband, Sylvie was scarcely sure of +being willing to try this test,--besides, the Marquis had not +offered himself in that capacity, but only as a lover. In Paris,-- +within reach of him, surrounded by his gracious and graceful +courtesies everywhere, the pretty and sensitive Comtesse had +sometimes felt her courage oozing out at her finger's ends,--and the +longing to be loved became so strong and overwhelming in her soul +that she had felt she must perforce one day yield to her persistent +admirer's amorous solicitations, come what would of it in the end. +Her safety had been in flight; and here in Rome, she had found +herself, like a long-tossed little ship, suddenly brought up to firm +anchorage. The vast peace and melancholy grandeur of the slowly +dying "Mother of Nations", enveloped her as with a sheltering cloak +from the tempest of her own heart and senses, and being of an +exquisitely refined and dainty nature in herself, she had, while +employing her time in beautifying, furnishing and arranging her +apartments in the casa D'Angeli, righted her mind, so to speak, and +cleared it from the mists of illusion which had begun to envelop it, +so that she could now think of Fontenelle quietly and with something +of a tender compassion,--she could pray for him and wish him all +things good,--but she could not be quite sure that she loved him. +And this was well. For we should all be very sure indeed that we do +love, before we crucify ourselves to the cross of sacrifice. +Inasmuch as if the love in us be truly Love, we shall not feel the +nails, we shall be unconscious of the blood that flows, and the +thorns that prick and sting,--we shall but see the great light of +Resurrection springing glorious out of death! But if we only THINK +we love,--when our feeling is the mere attraction of the senses and +the lighter impulses--then our crucifixion is in vain, and our death +is death indeed. Some such thoughts as these had given Sylvie a new +charm of manner since her arrival in Rome--she was less mirthful, +but more sympathetic--less RIANTE, but infinitely prettier and more +fascinating. Florian Varillo studied her appreciatively in this +regard after he had uttered his little meaningless melody of +sentiment, and thought within himself--"A week or two and I could +completely conquer that woman!" He was mistaken--men who think these +sort of things often are. But the thought satisfied him, and gave +bold lustre to his eyes and brightness to his smile when he rose to +take his leave. He had been one of the guests at a small and early +dinner-party given by the Comtesse that evening,--and with the +privilege of an old acquaintance, he had lingered thus long after +all the others had gone to their respective homes. + +"I will bid you now the felicissima notte, cara e bella contessa!" +he said caressingly, raising her small white hand to his lips, and +kissing it with a lingering pressure of what he considered a +peculiarly becoming moustache--"When Angela arrives to-morrow night +I shall be often at the Palazzo Sovrani--shall I see you there?" + +"Of course you will see me there," replied Sylvie, a little +impatiently, "Am I not one of Angela's closest friends?" + +"True! And for the sake of la mia dolcezza, you will also be a +friend to me?" + +"'la mia dolcezza'", repeated Sylvie, "Is that what you call her?" + +"Yes--but I fear it is not original!" said Varillo smiling, "One +Ariosto called his lady thus." + +"Yes?" and Sylvie's eyes darkened and grew humid with a sudden +tenderness of thought, "It is a pretty phrase!" + +"It should be used to YOU always, by every man who has my present +privilege!" said Varillo, gallantly, kissing her hand once more, +"You will be my friend?" + +Sylvie disengaged her hand from his. + +"You must not depend upon me, Signor," she said with sudden +coldness, "To be perfectly frank with you I am not sure that I like +you. You are very charming and very clever--but I doubt your +sincerity." + +"Ah, che sono infelice!" murmured varillo softly, "you are right, +bellissima madama! I am not myself with many people--but with you-- +you are one of the few who understand me . . . I am the very soul of +candour!" + +He fixed his eyes full upon her with an open and straight regard, +adding, "Can you doubt me?" in a touching tone of wounded feeling. + +The Comtesse laughed, and her face flushed. + +"Well, I do not know!" she said, with a light gesture of her hands +as though she threw something unpleasant away from her, "I shall +fudge of you by the happiness--or sorrow--of Angela!" + +A slight frown contracted his brows--but it passed quickly, and the +candid smile illumined his mobile face once more. + +"Ebben! Buona notte, bela capricciosa!" and bowing low he turned +towards the door, "Thank you a thousand times for a very happy +evening! Even when you are unkind to me you are still charming! +Addio!" + +She murmured an "addio" in response, and when he had gone, and the +echo of his footfall down the great marble stairs had completely +died away, she went out once more to the balcony and leaned among +the sculptured angels, a dainty, slender, white figure, with her +soft flower-like face turned up to the solemn sky, where the large +moon marched like an Amazon through space, attended by her legions +and battalions of stars. So slight, so fragile and sweet a woman!-- +with a precious world of love pent up in her heart . . . yet alone-- +quite alone on this night of splendid luminousness and majestic +suggestions of infinity,--an infinity so monstrous and solitary to +the one delicate creature, whose whole soul craved for a perfect +love. Alas, for this "perfect love," of which all the dearest women +dream! Where shall they find it?--and how shall they win it? Too +often it comes when they may not have it; the cup of nectar is +offered to lips that are forbidden to drink of it, because the +world's convention stands between and turns the honey to gall. One +of the many vague problems of a future life, offered for our +consideration, is the one concerning the righteous satisfaction of +love. Will not those who have been bound fast as prisoners in the +bonds of matrimony without love, find those whose spirits are +naturally one with theirs, but whom they have somehow missed in this +life? For Byron's fine lines are eternally true,-- + + "Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,-- + Though accident, blind contact, and the strong + Necessity of loving, have removed + Antipathies--but to recur ere long + Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong." + +And the "blind contact" is the worst of all influences brought to +bear upon the mind and heart,--the most pernicious, and the most +deeply weighted with responsibility. In this regard, Sylvie +Hermenstein had acted wisely by removing herself from association, +or "blind contact" with her would-be lover,--and yet, though she was +aware that her doing so had caused a certain dispersal of the +atmosphere which almost veered towards complete disillusion, she +found nevertheless, that Rome as she had said, was "dull"; her heart +was empty, and longing for she knew not what. And that deep longing +she felt could not have been completely gratified by the brief +ardours of Fontenelle. And so she sat thinking wearily,--wondering +what was to become of her life. She had riches in plenty, a fine +estate and castle in Hungary,--servants at her beck and call--and +yet with all her wealth and beauty and brilliancy, she felt that she +was only loved by two persons in the world, her old butler, and +Madame Bozier, who had been her first governess, and who now lived +with her, as a sort of dame d'honneur surrounded with every comfort +and luxury, and who certainly served her former pupil with a +faithful worship that would not have changed, even if the direst +poverty instead of riches had been the portion of her beloved +patroness. This elderly lady it was who entered now with a soft and +hesitating step, and raising her glasses to her eyes, peered +anxiously through the lighted room towards the dark balcony where +Sylvie stood, like a fairy fallen out of the moon, and who presently +ventured to advance and call softly, + +"Sylvie!" + +The pretty Comtesse turned and smiled. + +"Is it you, Katrine? Will you come out here? It is not cold, and +there is a lace wrap on the chair,--put it round your dear old head +and come and be romantic with me!" and she laughed as the worthy +Bozier obeyed her, and came cautiously out among the angels' +sculptured wings. "Ah, dear Katrine! The happy days are gone when a +dark-eyed Roman lover would come strolling down a street like this +to strike the chords of his mandoline, and sing the dear old song, + + "'Ti voglio bene assai, E tu non pensi a me!'" + +Without thinking about it, she sang this refrain suddenly in her +sweet mezzo-soprano, every note ringing clear on the silence of the +night, and as she did so a man of slim figure and medium height, +stepped out of the dark shadows and looked up. His half laughing +eyes, piercing in their regard, met the dreamy soft ones of the +pretty woman sitting among the angels' heads above him--and pausing +a moment he hesitated--then lifted his hat. His face was excessively +delicate in outline and very pale, but a half mischievous smile +softened and sweetened the firm lines of his mouth and chin, and as +the moonbeams played caressingly on his close curling crop of fair +hair, he looked different enough to most of the men in Rome to be +considered singular as well as handsome. Sylvie, hidden as she was +among the shadows, blushed and drew back, a little vexed with +herself,--the worthy Madame Bozier was very properly scandalised. + +"My dear child!" she murmured, "Remember--we are in Rome. People +judge things so strangely! What an unfortunate error!--" + +But Sylvie became suddenly unmanageable. Her love of coquetry and +mischief got the better of her, and she thrust out her pretty head +over the balcony once more. + +"Be quiet, Katrine!" she whispered, "I was longing for a romance, +and here is one!" And detaching a rose from her dress she tossed it +lightly to the stranger below. He caught it--then looked up once +more. + +"Till we meet," he said softly in English,--and moving on among the +shadows, disappeared. + +"Now, who do you suppose HE was?" enquired Sylvie, leaning back +against the edge of the balcony, with an arch glance at her +gouvernante, "It was someone unlike anyone else here, I am sure! It +was somebody with very bright eyes,--laughing eyes,--audacious eyes, +because they laughed at me! They sparkled at me like stars on a +frosty night! Katrine, have you ever been for a sleigh-ride in +America? No, I did not take you there,--I forgot! You would have had +the rheumatism, poor dear! Well, when you are in America during the +winter, you go for rides over the snow in a big sleigh, with +tinkling bells fastened to the horses, and you see the stars flash +as you pass--like the eyes of that interesting gentleman just now. +His face was like a cameo--I wonder who he is! I shall find out! I +must do something desperate for Rome is so terribly dull! But I feel +better now! I like that man's eyes. They are SUCH a contrast to the +sleepy tiger eyes of the Marquis Fontenelle!" + +"My dear Sylvie!" remonstrated Madame Bozier, "How can you run on in +this way? Do you want to break any more hearts? You are like a lamp +for unfortunate moths to burn themselves in!" + +"Oh no, not I," said Sylvie, shaking her head with a touch of half +melancholy scorn, "I am not a 'professional' beauty! The Prince of +Wales does not select me for his admiration,--hence it follows that +I cannot possibly be an attraction in Europe. I have not the large +frame, the large hands, and the still larger feet of the beautiful +English ladies, who rule royal hearts and millionaires' pockets! Men +scarcely notice me till they come to know me--and then, pouf!--away +go their brains!--and they grovel at my small feet instead of the +large ones of the English ladies!" She laughed. "Now how is that, +Katrine?" + +"C'est du charme--toujurs du charme!" murmured Madame Bozier, +studying with a wistful affection the dainty lines of Sylvie's +slight figure, "And that is an even more fatal gift than beauty, +chere petite!" + +"Du charme! You think that is it? Yes?--and so the men grow stupid +and wild!--some want me, and some want my fortune--and some do not +know what they want!--but one thing is certain, that they all +quarrel together about me, and bore me to extinction!--Even the +stranger with the bright stars of an American winter for eyes, might +possibly bore me if I knew him!" + +She gave a short sigh of complete dissatisfaction. + +"To be loved, Katrine--really loved! What a delicious thing that +would be! Have you ever felt it?" + +The poor lady trembled a little, and gave a somewhat mournful smile. + +"No, you dear romantic child! I cannot say with truth that I have! I +married when I was very young, and my husband was many years older +than myself. He was afflicted with chronic rheumatism and gout, and +to be quite honest, I could never flatter myself that he thought of +me more than the gout. There! I knew that would amuse you!"--this, +as Sylvie's pretty tender laugh rippled out again on the air, "And +though it sounds as if it were a jest, it is perfectly true. Poor +Monsieur Bozier! He was the drawing master at the school where I was +assistant governess,--and he was very lonely; he wanted someone to +attend to him when the gouty paroxysms came on, and he thought I +should do as well, perhaps better than anyone else. And I--I had no +time to think about myself at all, or to fall in love--I was very +glad to be free of the school, and to have a home of my own. So I +married him, and did my best to be a good nurse to him,--but he did +not live long, poor man--you see he always would eat things that did +not agree with him, and if he could not get them at home he went out +and bought them on the sly. There was no romance there, my dear! And +of course he died. And he left me nothing at all,--even our little +home was sold up to pay our debts. Then I had to work again for my +living,--and it was by answering an advertisement in the Times, +which applied for an English governess to go to a family in +Budapest, that I first came to know you." + +"And that is all your history!" said Sylvie, "Poor dear Bozier! How +uneventful!" + +"Yes, it is," and the worthy lady sighed also, but hers, was a sigh +of placid arid philosophical comfort. "Still, my dear, I am not at +all sorry to be uninteresting! I have rather a terror of lives that +arrange themselves into grand dramas, with terrible love affairs as +the central motives." + +"Have you? I have not!" said Sylvie thoughtfully,--"With all my +heart I admire a 'grande passion.' Sometimes I think it is the only +thing that makes history. One does not hear nearly so much of the +feuds in which Dante was concerned, as of his love for Beatrice. It +is always so, only few people are capable of the strength and +patience and devotion needed for this great consummation of life. +Now I--" + +Madame Bozier smiled, and with tender fingers arranged one of the +stray knots of pearls with which Sylvie's white gown was adorned. + +"You dear child! You were made for sweetness and caresses,--not +suffering . . ." + +"You mistake!" said Sylvie, with sudden decision, "You, in your +fondness for me, and because you have seen me grow up from +childhood, sometimes still view me as a child, and think that I am +best amused with frivolities, and have not the soul in me that would +endure disaster. But for love's sake I would do anything--yes! + . . . anything!" + +"My child!" + +"Yes," repeated Sylvie, her eyes darkening and lightening quickly in +their own fascinating way, "I would consent to shock the stupid old +world!--though one can scarcely ever shock it nowadays, because it +has itself become so shocking! But then the man for whom I would +sacrifice myself, must love ME as ardently as I would love HIM! That +is the difficulty, Katrine. For men do not love--they only desire." + +She raised her face to the sky, and the moonbeams shed a golden halo +round her. + +"That," she said slowly, "is the reason why I have come here to +avoid the Marquis Fontenelle. He does not love me!" + +"He is a villain!" said Madame Bozier with asperity. + +"Helas! There are so many villains!" sighed Sylvie, still looking up +at the brilliant heavens, "And sometimes if a villain really loves +anybody he half redeems his villainy. But the Marquis loves himself +best of anyone in the world . . . and I--I do not intend to be second in +anyone's affections! So . . ." she paused, "Do you see that star, +Katrine? It is as bright as if it were shining on a frosty night in +America. And do you not notice the resemblance to the eyes of the +stranger who has my rose? I daresay he will put it under his pillow +to-night, and dream!" She laughed,--"Let us go in!" + +Madame Bozier followed her as she stepped back into the lighted +salon, where she was suddenly met by her little Arab page, carrying +a large cluster of exquisite red and white roses. A card was +attached to the flowers, bearing the words, "These many unworthy +blossoms in return for one beyond all worth." + +The Comtesse read and passed it in silence to Madame Bozier. A smile +was on her face, and a light in her eyes. + +"I think Rome is not so dull after all!" she said, as she set the +flowers carefully in a tall vase of Etruscan ware, "Do you know, I +am beginning to find it interesting!" + + + + +XVIII. + +Aubrey Leigh was a man who had chosen his own way of life, and, as a +natural consequence of this, had made for himself an independent and +original career. Born in the New World of America he had been very +highly educated,--not only under the care of a strict father, and an +idolising mother, but also with all the advantages one of the finest +colleges in the States could give him. Always a brilliant scholar, +and attaining his successes by leaps and bounds rather than by close +and painstaking study, the day came,--as it comes to all finely- +tempered spirits,--when an overpowering weariness or body and soul +took possession of him,--when the very attainment of knowledge +seemed absurd,--and all things, both in nature and art, took on a +sombre colouring, and the majestic pageant of the world's progress +appeared no more than a shadow too vain and futile to be worth while +watching as it passed. Into a Slough of Despond, such as Solomon +experienced when he wrote his famous "Ecclesiastes," Aubrey sank +unconsciously, and,--to do him justice,--most unwillingly. His was +naturally a bright, vivacious, healthy nature--but he was over- +sensitively organised,--his nerves did not resemble iron so much as +finely-tempered steel, which could not but suffer from the damp and +rust in the world's conventionalities. And some "little rift within +the lute" chanced to him, as it often chances to many, so that the +subtle music of his soul jarred into discord with the things of +life, making harsh sounds in place of melody. There was no adequate +cause for this,--neither disappointed love nor balked ambition +shadowed his days;--it was something altogether indefinable--a +delicate, vague discontent which, had he known it, was merely the +first stirring of an embryo genius destined one day to move the +world. He did not know what ailed him,--but he grew tired--tired of +books--tired of music--tired of sifting the perplexing yet +enchanting riddles of science--tired of even his home and his +mother's anxious eyes of love that watched his moods too closely for +his peace,--and one day, out of the merest boyish impulse, he joined +a company of travelling actors and left America. Why he did this he +could never tell, save that he was a student and lover of +Shakespeare. Much to his own surprise, and somewhat to his disgust, +he distinguished himself with exceptional brilliancy on the stage,-- +his voice, his manner, his physique and his bearing were all +exceptional, and told highly in his favour,--but unfortunately his +scholarly acumen and knowledge of literature went against him with +his manager. This personage, who was densely ignorant, and who yet +had all the ineffable conceit of ignorance, took him severely to +task for knowing Shakespeare's meanings better than he did,--and +high words resulted in mutual severance. Aubrey was hardly sorry +when his theatrical career came thus untimely to an end. At first he +had imagined it possible to become supreme in histrionic art,--one +who should sway the emotions of thousands by a word, a look or a +gesture,--he had meant to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his +day; and with his knowledge of French, which was as perfect as his +knowledge of English, he had even foreseen the possibility of taking +the French stage as well as the English by storm. But when he +gradually came to discover the mean tricks and miserable treacheries +used by his fellow-actors to keep a rising comrade down,--when he +felt to the core of his soul the sordidness and uncleanness of his +surroundings,--when he shudderingly repulsed the would-be attentions +of the painted drabs called "ladies of the stage",--and above all, +when he thought of the peace and refinement of the home he had, for +a mere freak, forsaken,--the high tone of thought and feeling +maintained there, the exquisite gracefulness and charm of womanhood, +of which his mother had been, and was still a perfect embodiment, +some new and far stronger spirit rose up within him, crying--"What +is this folly? Am I to sink to the level of those whom I know and +see are beneath me? With what I have of brain and heart and feeling, +are these unworthy souls to drag me down? Shall I not try to feel my +wings, and make one bold dash for higher liberty? And if I do so, +whither shall I fly?" + +He had come to England at this period,--and in the small provincial +town where his final rupture with the illiterate theatrical manager +had taken place, there was a curious, silent contest going on +between the inhabitants and their vicar. The vicar was an extremely +unpopular person,--and the people were striving against him, and +fighting him at every possible point of discussion. For so small a +community the struggle was grim,--and Aubrey for some time could not +understand it, till one day an explanation was offered him by a man +engaged in stitching leather, in a dirty evil-smelling little hole +of a shop under a dark archway. + +"You see, sir, it's this way," he said, "Bessie Morton,--she wor as +good a girl as ever stepped--bright and buxom and kind hearted--yes, +that was Bessie, till some black scoundrel got her love at a soft +moment, and took the better of her. Well!--I suppose some good +Christian folk would say she wor a bad 'un--but I'll warrant she +worn't bad at heart, but only just soft-like--and she an orphan, +with no one to look after her, or say she done ill or well. And +there was a little child born--the prettiest little creature ye ever +saw--Bessie's own copy--all blue eyes and chestnut hair--and it just +lived a matter of fower year, and then it took sick and died. Bessie +went nigh raving mad; that she did. And now, what do you think, sir? +The passon refused to bury that there little child in consecrated +ground, cos'twas born out of wedlock! What d'ye think of that for a +follower of Jesus with the loving heart? What d'ye think of that?" + +"Think!" said Aubrey indignantly, with an involuntary clenching of +his hand, "Why, that it is abominable--disgraceful! I should like to +thrash the brute!" + +"So would a many," said his informant with an approving chuckle, "So +would a many! But that's not all--there's more behind--and worse +too--" + +"Why, what can be worse?" + +"Well, sir, we thinks--we ain't got proofs to go on--for Bessie +keeps her own counsel--but we thinks the passon hisself is the +father of that there little thing he winnot lay in a holy grave!" + +"Good God!" cried Aubrey. + +"Ay, ay--you may say 'Good God!' with a meaning, sir," said the +leather-seller--"And that's why, as we ain't got no facts and no +power with bishops, and we ain't able to get at the passon anyhow, +we're just making it as unpleasant for him in our way as we can. +That's all the people can do, sir, but what they does, they means!" + +This incident deeply impressed Aubrey Leigh, and proved to be the +turning point in his career. Like a flash of light illumining some +divinely written scroll of duty, he suddenly perceived a way in +which to shape his own life and make it of assistance to others. He +began his plan of campaign by going about among the poorer classes, +working as they worked, living as they lived, and enduring what they +endured. Disguised as a tramp, he wandered with tramps. He became +for a time one of the "hands" in a huge Birmingham factory. After +that he worked for several months at the coal pits among the lowest +of the men employed there. Then he got a "job" in a dock-yard and +studied the ways of shipping and humanity together. During this time +of self-imposed probation, he never failed to write letters home to +Canada, saying he was "doing well" in England, but how this "doing +well" was brought about he never explained. And the actual motive +and end of all his experiences was as yet a secret locked within his +own heart. Yet when it was put into words it sounded simple enough,- +-it was merely to find out how much or how little the clergy, or so- +called "servants of Christ", obeyed their Master. Did they comfort +the comfortless? Were they "wise as serpents, and harmless as +doves"? Were they long-suffering, slow to wrath, and forbearing one +to the other? Did they truly "feed the sheep"? Did they sacrifice +themselves, their feelings, and their ambitions to rescue what was +lost? All these and sundry other questions Aubrey Leigh set himself +to answer,--and by and by he found himself on an endless path of +discovery, where at every step some new truth confronted him;--some +amazing hypocrisy burned itself in letters of flame against the +splendour of church altars;--some deed of darkness and bigotry and +cruelty smirched the white robes of the "ordained to preach the +Gospel". Gradually he became so intently and vitally interested in +his investigations, and his sympathy for the uncomforted people who +had somehow lost Christ instead of finding Him, grew so keen that he +resolved to give up his entire life to the work of beginning to try +and remedy the evil. He had no independent means,--he lived from +hand to mouth earning just what he could by hard labour,--till one +day, when the forces in his own soul said "Ready!" he betook himself +to one small room which he hired in a fisherman's cottage on the +coast of Cornwall, and there sat down to write a book. Half the day +he wrote, and half the day he earned his bread as a common +fisherman, going out with the others in storm and shine, sailing +through sleet and hail and snow, battling with the waves, and +playing with Death at every turn of the rocks, which, like the teeth +of great monsters, jagged the stormy shore. And he grew strong, and +lithe, and muscular--his outward life of hard and changeful labour, +accompanied by the inward life of intelligent and creative thought, +gradually worked off all depression of soul and effeminacy of body,- +-his experience of the stage passed away, leaving no trace on his +mind but the art, the colour and the method,--particularly the +method of speech. With art, colour, and method he used the pen;-- +with the same art, colour, and method he used his voice, and +practised the powers of oratory. He would walk for miles to any +lonely place where he could be sure of no interruption,--and there +he would speak aloud to the roaring waves and wide stretches of +desolate land, and tell them the trenchant things he meant one day +to thunder into human ears. Always of a fine figure, his bearing +grew more dauntless and graceful,--the dangers of the sea taught him +self-control,--the swift changes of the sky gave him the far-off +rapt expression and keen flash of his eyes,--the pitiful sorrows of +the poor, in which, as he had elected to be one of them, he was +bound to share, had deepened the sympathetic lines round his +delicate mouth, and had bestowed upon his whole countenance that +look which is seldom seen save in the classic marbles--the look of +being one with, and yet above mankind. All the different classes of +people with whom he had managed to associate had called him +"gentleman", a name he had gently but firmly repudiated. "Call me a +Man, and let me deserve the title!" he would say smilingly, and his +"mates" hearing this would eye each other askance, and whisper among +themselves "that he WAS a gentleman for all that, though no doubt he +had come down in the world and had to work for his living. And no +shame to him as he gave himself no airs, and could turn a hand to +anything." And so the time moved on, and he remained in the Cornish +fishing village till his book was finished. Then he suddenly went up +to London;--and after a few days' absence came back again, and went +contentedly on with the fishing once more. + +A month or so later, one night when the blackness of the skies was +so dense that it could almost be felt, it chanced that he and his +companions were far out at sea in their little smack, which lay +becalmed between two darknesses--the darkness of the rolling water, +and the darkness of the still heaven. Little waves lapped heavily +against the boat's side, and the only glimpse of light at all was +the yellow flicker of the lamp that hung from the mast of the +vessel, casting a tremulous flicker on the sombrous tide, when all +at once a great noise like the crash of thunder, or the roll of +cannon, echoed through the air, and a meteor more brilliant than an +imperial crown of diamonds, flared through the sky from height to +depth, and with a blazing coruscation of flying stars and flame, +dropped hissingly down into the sea. The fishermen startled, all +looked up--the heavy black nets dropped from their brown arms just +as they were about to pull in. + +"A sign of strife!" said one. + +"Ay, ay! We shall hev a war maybe!" + +Aubrey leaned far over the boat's side, and looked out into the +dense blackness, made blacker than ever by the sudden coming and +going of the flaming sky-phenomenon,--and half unconsciously he +murmured, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth,--I come +not to send peace, but a sword!" And he lost himself in dreams of +the past, present, and future,--till he was roused to give a hand in +the dragging up of the nets, now full of glistening fish with +silvery bodies and ruby eyes,--and then his thoughts took a +different turn and wandered off as far back as the Sea of Galilee +when the disciples, fishing thus, were called by the Divine Voice, +saying "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men!" And in +silence he helped to row the laden boat homewards, for there was no +wind to fill the sail,--and the morning gradually broke like a great +rose blooming out of the east, and the sun came peering through the +rose like the calyx of the flower,--and still in a dream, Aubrey +walked through all that splendour of the early day home to his +lodging,--there to find himself,--like Byron,--famous. His book was +in everyone's hand--his name on everyone's tongue. Letters from the +publisher whom his visit to London had made his friend, accompanied +by a bundle of the chief newspapers of the day, informed him that he +had in one bound taken his place at the very head and front of +opinion,--and, finest proof of power, the critics were out like the +hounds in full cry, and were already baying the noble quarry. The +Church papers were up in arms--indignant articles were being added +to the "weeklies" by highly respectable clergymen with a large +feminine "following", and in the midst of all these written things, +which in their silent print seemed literally to make a loud clamour +in the quiet of his room, Aubrey, in his sea-stained fisherman's +garb, with the sparkle of the salt spray still glittering on his +closely curling bright hair, looked out at the clear horizon from +which the sun had risen up in all its majesty, and devoutly thanked +God! + +"I have written part of my message," he said to himself, "And now +by-and-by I shall speak!" + +But he lived on yet for a time in the remote fishing village, +waiting,--without knowing quite what he waited for,--while the great +Gargantuan mouth of London roared his name in every imaginable key, +high and low, and gradually swept it across the seas to America and +Australia, and all the vast New World that is so swiftly rising up, +with the eternal balance of things, to overwhelm the Old. And +presently the rumour of his fame reached those whom he had left +behind in the quiet little town of his birth and boyhood,--and his +mother, reading the frantic eulogies, and still more frantic attacks +of the different sections of press opinion, wept with excitement and +tenderness and yearning; and his father, startled at the strange +power and authority with which this new Apostle of Truth appeared to +be invested, trembled as he read, but nevertheless held himself more +erect with a pride in his own old age that he had never felt before, +as he said a hundred times a day in response to eager questioners-- +"Yes,--Aubrey Leigh is my son!" Then mother and father both wrote to +Aubrey, and poured out their affectionate hearts to him and blessed +him, which blessing he received with that strange heaving of the +heart and contraction of the throat, which in a strong man means +tears. And still he waited on, earning his bread in the humble +village which knew nothing of him, save as one of themselves,--for +the inhabitants of the place were deaf and blind to the ways of the +world, and read little save old and belated newspapers, so that they +were ignorant of his newly celebrated personality,--till one day the +Fates gave him that chance for which, though he was unconscious of +it, he had been holding himself back, and counting the slow strokes +of time;--time which seems to beat with such a laggard pulse when +one sees some great thing needing to be done, and while feeling all +the force to do it, yet has to control and keep back that force till +the appointed hour strikes for action. + +There had been a terrific storm at sea, and a herring smack had gone +down within sight of land, sinking eight strong men with it, all +husbands and fathers. One after the other, the eight bodies were +thrown back from the surging deep in the sullen grey morning on the +day after the catastrophe,--one after the other they were borne +reverently up from the shore to the village, there to be claimed by +shrieking women and sobbing children,--women, who from more or less +contented, simple-hearted, hard-working souls, were transformed into +the grandly infuriated forms of Greek tragedy--their arms tossing, +their hair streaming, their faces haggard with pain, and their eyes +blind with tears. Throughout the heart-rending scene, Aubrey Leigh +worked silently with the rest--composing the stiff limbs of the +dead, and reverently closing the glared and staring eyes; gently he +had lifted fainting women from the corpses to which they clung,-- +tenderly he had carried crying children home to their beds,--and +with sorrowful eyes fixed on the still heaving and angry billows, he +had inwardly prayed for ways and means to comfort these afflicted +ones, and raised their thoughts from the gloom of the grave to some +higher consummation of life. For they were inconsolable,--they could +neither see nor understand any adequate cause for such grief being +inflicted on them,--and the entire little population of the village +wore a resentful attitude towards God, and God's inexorable law of +death. When the funeral day came, and the bodies of the eight +unfortunate victims were committed to the earth, it happened, as +fate would have it, that the rector of the parish, a kindly, +sympathetic, very simple old man, who really did his best for his +parishoners according to the faint perception of holy things that +indistinctly illumined his brain, happened to be away, and his place +was taken by the assistant curate, a man of irritable and hasty +temper, who had a horror of "scenes," and who always put away all +suggestions of death from him whenever it was possible. It was very +disagreeable to him to have to look at eight coffins,--and still +more disagreeable to see eight weeping widows surrounded by forlorn +and fatherless children--and he gabbled over the funeral service as +quickly as he could, keeping his eyes well on the book lest he +should see some sobbing child looking at him, or some woman dropping +in a dead faint before he had time to finish. He was afraid of +unpleasant incidents--and yet with all his brusque and nervous hurry +to avoid anything of the kind, an unpleasant incident insisted on +manifesting itself. Just as the fourth coffin was being lowered into +the ground, a wild-haired girl rushed forward and threw herself upon +it. + +"Oh, my man, my man!" she wailed, "My own sweetheart!" + +There was a moment's silence. Then one of the widows stepped out, +and approaching the girl, laid her hand on her arm. + +"Are ye making a mock of me, Mary Bell?" she said, "Or is it God's +truth ye're speaking to my husband lying there?" + +The distraught creature called Mary Bell looked up with a sudden +passion glowing in her tear-wet eyes. + +"It's God's truth!" she cried, "And ye needn't look scorn on me!-- +for both our hearts are broken, and no one can ever mend them. Yes! +It's God's truth! He was your husband, but my sweetheart! And we'll +neither of us see a finer man again!" + +The curate listened, amazed and aghast. Was nothing going to be done +to stop this scandalous scene? He looked protestingly from right to +left, but in all the group of fisher-folk not a man moved. Were +these two women going to fight over the dead? He hummed and hawed-- +and began in a thin piercing voice--"My friends--" when he was again +interrupted by the passionate speech of Mary Bell. + +"I'm sorry for ye," she said, lifting herself from the coffin to +which she clung, and turning upon the widow of the drowned man, "and +ye can be just as sorry for me! He loved us both, and why should we +quarrel! A man is ever like that--just chancy and changeful--but he +tried his honest hardest not to love me--yes, he tried hard!--it was +my fault! for I never tried!--I loved him!--and I'll love him, till +I go where he is gone! And we'll see who God'll give his soul to!" + +This was too much for the curate. + +"Woman!" he thundered, "Be silent! How dare you boast of your sin at +such a time, and in such a place! Take her away from that coffin, +some of you!" + +So he commanded, but still not a man moved. The curate began to lose +temper in earnest. + +"Take her away, I tell you," and he advanced a step or two, "I +cannot permit such a scandalous interruption of this service!" + +"Patience, patience, measter," said one of the men standing by, +"When a woman's heart's broke in two ways it ain't no use worrying +her. She'll come right of herself in a minute." + +But the curate, never famous for forbearance at any time, was not to +be tampered with. Turning to his verger he said, + +"I refuse to go on! The woman is drunk!" + +But now the widow of the dead man suddenly took up the argument in a +shrill voice which almost tore the air to shreds. + +"She's no more drunk than you are!" she cried passionately, "Leave +her alone! You're a nice sort of God's serving man to comfort we, +when we're all nigh on losing our wits over this mornin' o' misery, +shame on ye! Mary Bell, come here! If so be as my husband was your +sweetheart, God forgive him, ye shall come home wi' me!--and we'll +never have a word agin the man who is lying dead there. Come wi' me, +Mary!" + +With a wild cry of anguish, the girl rushed into her arms, and the +two women clung together like sisters united in the same passionate +grief. The curate turned a livid white. + +"I cannot countenance such immorality," he said, addressing the +verger, though his words were heard by all present, "Enough of the +service has been said! Lower the coffins into the earth!" and +turning on his heel he prepared to walk away. But Aubrey Leigh +stopped him. + +"You will not finish the service, sir?" he asked civilly, but with +something of a warning in the flash of his eyes. + +"No! The principal part of it is over. I cannot go on. These women +are drunk!" + +"They are not drunk, save with their own tears!" said Aubrey, his +rich voice trembling with indignation. "They are not mad, except +with grief! Is it not your place to be patient with them?" + +"My place! My place!" echoed the curate indignantly, "Man, do you +know to whom you are talking?" + +"I think I do," answered Aubrey steadily, "I am talking to a +professed servant of Christ,--Christ who had patience and pardon for +all men! I am talking to one whose calling and vocation it is to +love, to forgive, and to forbear--whose absolute protestation has +been made at the altar of God that he will faithfully obey his +Master. Even if these unhappy women were drunk, which they are not, +their fault in conduct would not release you from the performance of +your duty,--or the reverence you are bound to show towards the +dead!" + +Trembling with rage, the curate eyed him up and down scornfully. + +"How dare you speak to me about my duty! You common lout! Mind your +own business!" + +"I will," said Aubrey, fixing his eyes full upon him, "And it shall +be my business to see that you mind yours! Both your rector and +bishop shall hear of this!" + +He strode off, leaving the curate speechless with fury; and joining +the little crowd of mourners who had been startled and interrupted +by this unexpected scene, drew a prayer book from his pocket, and +without asking anyone's permission read with exquisite gravity and +pathos the concluding words of the funeral service,--and then with +his own hands assisted the grave-diggers to lay the coffined dead +tenderly to rest. Awestruck, and deeply impressed by his manner the +fisher-folk mechanically obeyed his instructions, and followed his +movements till all the sad business was over, and then they lingered +about the churchyard wistfully watching him, while he in turn, +standing erect and bare-headed near the open graves, looked at them +with a strange pity, love and yearning. + +"It'll be all right when our owld passon comes back," said one of +the men addressing him, "It's just this half eddicated wastrel of a +chap as doesn't know, and doesn't care for the troubles of common +folk like we." + +Aubrey was silent for a space. "Common folk like we!" The words were +full of pathetic humility, and the man who spoke them was a hero of +no mean type, who had often buffeted the winds and waves to save a +human life at the risk of his own. "Common folk like we!" Aubrey +laid his hand gently on his "mate's" shoulder. + +"Ben, old boy, there are no common folk in God's sight," he said, +"Look there!" and he pointed to the graves that were just beginning +to be filled in, "Every creature lying there had as much of God in +him as many a king, and perhaps more. In this majestic universe +there is nothing common!" + +Ben shuffled one foot before the other uneasily. + +"Ay, ay, but there's few as argify the way o' life in they lines!" +he said, "There's a many that think--but there's a main few that +speak." + +"That is true," said Aubrey, still keeping his hand on Ben's +shoulder, "there's a main few that speak! Now, _I_ want to speak, +Ben,--I want to have a talk to you and the rest of our mates about-- +well!--about the dangers of the sea and other things. Will you meet +me on the shore this evening near the quay and listen to a word or +two?" + +Ben looked surprised but interested, and a puzzled smile came into +his eyes. + +"Be ye a goin' to preach to us like the passon?" he said, "Or like +the fellers in the porter's caps as calls themselves Salvationists?" + +Aubrey smiled. + +"No! I only want to say a few parting words to you all." + +"Parting words!" echoed Ben with a stupefied air. + +"Yes--I am going away to-morrow--going for good. I have got some +other work to do. But I shall not forget you all . . . and you will hear +of me often,--yes, you will hear of me!--and some day I will come +back. But to-night . . . I should just like to say good-bye." + +Ben was secretly much distressed. "Gentleman Leigh" as he was +sometimes called, had greatly endeared himself to their little +community, and that he should leave them was not at all a desirable +thing, and would, as Ben well knew, cause universal regret. But +there was no time just now for either argument or protestation, so +Ben accepted the blow as he accepted all buffetings of fate, and +merely said, + +"All right! We'll be there to-night for sure!" And then Aubrey, +gravely content, walked slowly out of the little churchyard still +bare-headed, his eyes dark with thought,--and the reluctant sun came +out of the gray sky and shone on his pale face and bright hair--and +one or two of the widowed women timidly touched his arm as he +passed, and murmured, "God bless you!" And Mary Bell, the sorrowful +and sinning, clinging to the waist of the woman she had wronged, +looked up at him appealingly with the strained and hunted gaze of a +lost and desperate creature, and as he met her eyes, turned +shudderingly away and wept. And he, knowing that words were useless, +and that even the kindliest looks must wound in such a case, passed +on in silence, and when he reached his own lodging took some of the +newspapers which spoke of himself and his book, and after marking +certain passages, tied them up in a packet and sent them to the +curate with whom he had crossed swords that morning, accompanied by +a note which briefly ran thus:-- + +"You asked me how I 'dared' to speak to you about your duty. I +reply--By the force of truth and the power of the pen I dare!--and I +shall be ready to answer to God for it, as you must answer to him +for leaving any part of YOUR duty undone. + +"AUBREY LEIGH." + +And the day passed on, half in drifting clouds, half in glimpses of +sunshine, till late afternoon, when the sky cleared altogether, and +the waves sank to a dead calm;--and with the night a shield-like +moon, all glistening pearl and silver, rose up out of the east with +a royal air of white and wondering innocence, as though she +proclaimed her entire blamelessness for any havoc wrought by storm. +And in the full radiance of that silvery splendour Aubrey Leigh, +leaning against the sea-weed covered capstan of the quay, round +which coils of wet rope glistened like the body of a sleeping +serpent, told to an audience of human hearers for the first time the +story of his life, and adventures, and the varied experiences he had +gone through in order to arrive at some straight and clear +comprehension of "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" of the Gospel of +Love and Mutual Labour. His practised voice, perfect in all +modulation, inflexion, and expression, carried each simple, well- +chosen word home to the hearts of his hearers,--not one so ignorant +as not to understand him--not one so blind as not to see the beauty +of work and creative effort as he depicted them,--not one so +insensate as not to feel the calm, the grandeur, and repose of the +strong soul of a man in complete sympathy with his fellow-men. They +listened to him almost breathlessly--their bronzed weather-beaten +faces all turned towards his; forgetting to smoke, they let their +pipes die out and drop from their hands--and no interruption broke +the even flow and cadence of his earnest language, save the slow +ripple of the water beating against the quay, and the faint, +occasional sigh of a stirring wind. Silhouetted black against the +radiant sky were the masts of the fishing fleet, and the roofs of +the fishermen's cottages--dwellings so often made desolate by death- +-and as Aubrey noted the fascinated attention with which these rough +men heard him, his heart grew strong. "If a few listen, so will +many," he said to himself, "The Master of our creed first taught His +divine ethics to a few fishermen,--to them the message was first +given . . . and by them again delivered,--and it is through our having +departed from the original simplicity of utterance that all the evil +has crept in. So let me be content with this night's work and await +the future with patience." Then lifting up his voice once more he +said,-- + +"You think your lot a hard one--you, friends and brothers, who set +the brown sails out to sea on a night of threatening storm, and bid +farewell to your homes built safe upon the shore. You must meet all +the horror of white foam and cloud-blackness, to drag from the sea +its living spoil, and earn the bread to keep yourselves and those +who are dependent upon you,--you MUST do this, or the Forces of Life +will not have you,--they will cast you out and refuse to nourish +you. For so is your fate in life, and work ordained. Then where is +God?--you cry, as the merciless billows rise to engulf your frail +craft,--why should the Maker of man so deliberately destroy him? Why +should one human unit, doing nothing, and often thinking nothing, +enjoy hundreds of pounds a day, while you face death to win as many +pence? Is there a God of Love who permits this injustice? Ah, stop +there, friends! There is no such thing as injustice! Strange as it +sounds to this world of many contradictions and perplexities, I +repeat there is no such thing as injustice. There is what SEEMS +injustice--because we are all apt to consider the material side of +things only. That is where we make our great mistake in life and +conduct. We should all remember that this world, and the things of +this world, are but the outward expression of an inward soul--the +Matter evolved from Mind--and that unless we are ourselves in +harmony with the Mind, we shall never understand the Matter. Your +millionaire is surrounded with luxuries,--your fishermen has dry +bread and herring,--your millionaire dies, with a famous doctor +counting his pulse-beats, and a respectable clergyman promising him +heaven on account of the money he has left to the church in his +will; your fisherman goes down in a swirl of black water, without a +prayer--for he has no time to pray--without leaving a penny behind +him, inasmuch as he has no pence to leave; and for both these +different creatures we judge the end is come? No,--the end is NOT +come! It is the beginning only! If the millionaire has died with a +thousand selfish sores in his mind,--if his life's privileges have +been wasted in high feeding and self-indulgence,--if he has thought +only of himself, his riches, his pride, his position, or his +particular form of respectability, he will get the full result of +that mental attitude! If the fisherman has been content with his +earnings, and thanked God for them,--if he has been honest, brave, +true, and unselfish, and has shared with others their joys and +sorrows, and if at the last he goes down in the waves trying to save +some other life while losing his own,--depend upon it he will rise +to the full splendour of THAT mental attitude! For both millionaire +and fisherman are but men, made on the same lines, of the same clay, +and are each one, personally and separately responsible to God for +the soul in them,--and when both of them pass from this phase of +being to the next, they will behold all things with spiritual eyes, +not material ones. And then it may be that the dark will be +discovered to be the bright, and the fortunate prove to be the +deplorable, for at present we 'see through a glass darkly, but then, +face to face.' The friends whom we have buried to-day are not dead,- +-for death is not Death, but Life. And for those who are left behind +it is merely a time of waiting, for as the Master said, 'There shall +not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your +souls.'" + +He paused a moment,--the moon rays illumined his delicate features, +and a half sorrowful smile rested on his lips. + +"I am no clergyman, my friends! I have not been 'ordained'. I am not +preaching to you. I will not ask you to be good men, for there is +something effeminate in the sound of such a request made to brawny, +strong fellows such as you are, with an oath ready to leap from your +lips, and a blow prepared to fly from your fists on provocation. I +will merely say to you that it is a great thing to be a Man!--a Man +as God meant him to be, brave, truthful, and self-reliant, with a +firm faith in the Divine Ordainment of Life as Life should be lived. +There is no disgrace in work;--no commonness,--no meanness. +Disgrace, commonness, and meanness are with those who pretend to +work and never do anything useful for the world they live in. The +king who amuses himself at the expense and ruin of his subjects is +the contemptible person,--not the labourer who digs the soil for the +planting of corn which shall help to feed his fellows. And the most +despicable creature of our time and century, is not the man who +doubts Christ, or questions God--for Christ was patient with the +doubter, and God answers, through the medium of science, every +honest question--it is the man who pretends to believe and lives on +the pretence, while his conduct gives the lie to his profession! +That is why you--and why thousands of others like you, are beginning +to look upon many of the clergy with contempt, and to treat their +admonitions with indifference. That is why thousands of the rising +generation of men and women will not go to church. 'The parson does +not do anything for me,' is a common every-day statement. And that +the parson SHOULD do something is a necessary part of his business. +His 'doing' should not consist in talking platitudes from the +pulpit, or in sending round a collection plate. And if he has no +money, and will not 'sell half that he has and give to the poor' as +commanded, he can at any rate give sympathy. But this is precisely +what he chiefly lacks. The parson's general attitude is one of +either superiority or servility,--a 'looking down' upon his poor +parishoners--a 'looking up' to his rich ones. A disinterested, +loving observation of the troubles and difficulties of others never +occurs to him as necessary. But this was precisely the example +Christ gave us--an unselfish example of devotion to others--a +supreme descent of the Divine into man to rescue and bless humanity. +Now I know all your difficulties and sorrows,--I have worked among +you, and lived among you--and I feel the pulse of your existence +beating in my own heart. I know that when a great calamity +overwhelms you all as it has done this week, you have no one to +comfort you,--no one to assure you that no matter how strange and +impossible it seems, you have been deprived of your associates for +some GOOD cause which will be made manifest in due season,--that +they have probably been taken to save them from a worse fate than +the loss of earth-consciousness in the sea. For that, scientifically +speaking, is all that death means--the loss of earth-consciousness,- +-but the gain of another consciousness, whether of another earth or +a heaven none can say. But there is no real death--inasmuch as even +a grain of dust in the air will generate life. We must hold fast to +the Soul of things--the Soul which is immortal, not the body which +is mortal. 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world +and lose his own soul!' That is what each man of us must find, and +hold, and keep,--his own soul! Apart from all creeds, and clergy, +forms and rituals--that is the vital matter. Stand clear of all +things,--all alone if need be, surrounded by the stupendous forces +of this great universe,--let us find,--each man of us--his own soul; +find and keep it brave, truthful, upright, and bound straight on for +the highest,--the highest always! And the very stars in their +courses will help us--storms will but strengthen us--difficulties +but encourage us--and death itself shall but give us larger +liberty." + +He ceased, and one by one the men drew closer to him, and thanked +him, in voices that were tremulous with the emotion he had raised in +them. The instinct which had led them to call him "Gentleman Leigh" +had proved correct,--and there was not a man among them all who did +not feel a thrill of almost fraternal pride in the knowledge that +the dauntless, hard-working "mate" who had fronted tempests with +them, and worked with them in all weathers, had without any boast or +loquacious preparation, made his name famous and fit for discussion +in the great world of London far away, a world to which none of them +had ever journeyed. And they pressed round him and shook his hand, +and gave him simple yet hearty words of cheer and goodwill, together +with unaffected expressions of regret that he was leaving them,-- +"though for that matter," said one of them, "we allus felt you was a +scholard-like, for all that you was so handy at the nets. For never +did a bit of shell or weed come up from the sea but ye was a lookin' +at it as if God had throwed it to yer for particular notice. And +when a man takes to obsarvin' common things as if they were special +birthday presents from the Almighty, ye may be pretty sure there's +something out of the ordinary in him!" + +Aubrey smiled, and pressed the hand of this roughly eloquent +speaker,--and then they all walked with him up from the shore to the +little cottage where he had lived for so many months, and at the +gate of which he bade them farewell. + +"But only for a time," he said, "I shall see you all again. And you +will hear of me!" + +"Ay, ay, we'll hear of ye--for we'll take the papers in just for +news of yer!" said Ben, with a rough laugh which covered his deeper +feelings, "And mebbe ye'll come back afore we's all drownded!" + +And so with a few more kindly words they left him, and he stood at +the gate watching their stalwart figures disappear down the +different windings of the crooked and picturesque little street. + +"God bless them all!" he murmured, "They have taught me many a grand +lesson!" + +The next day he took his quiet departure in the early morning before +the village folks were up and stirring,--and a month later he +addressed a large meeting in one of the poorest and most densely +populated districts of London on "The Ethics of Christ versus the +Clergy", which attracted universal attention and created an enormous +sensation. His book began to sell in thousands where it had +previously sold in hundreds, and he earned sufficient from the +profits of the sale to keep him going in the simple fashion of +clothes and food to which he had strictly disciplined himself, so +that he felt free to plunge into the thick of the fight. And he +straightway did so. His name became a terror to liars, and a clarion +sound of alarm in the ears of social hypocrites. He wrote another +book which obtained even a larger hearing than the first--and he +spoke to the people on an average once a week, wherever he could +assemble them together. All his addresses were made gratuitously, +and he soon resembled a sort of blazing torch in the darkness, to +which the crowds rushed for light and leading. In the midst of the +sensation his writings and orations were creating, a noble lord, +with several Church livings in his gift, asked him to stand for +Parliament, and offered to pay the expenses of his election. At +first Aubrey was sufficiently tempted by the offer to pause +hesitatingly on the verge of acceptance, but twenty-four hours' hard +thinking promptly pulled him together. "No," he said--"I see what +you mean! You and your party wish to tie my hands--to gag my mouth, +and make me as one of yourselves--no, I will not consent to it. I +will serve the people with all my life and soul!--but not in YOUR +way!" + +And to avoid further discussion he went straight out of England for +a time, and travelled through Europe, making friends everywhere, and +learning new phases of the "Christian Dispensation" at every turn in +his road. Paris had held him fascinated for a long while, not only +because he saw her doom written like that of Babylon in letters of +fire, and Ruin, like a giant bird of prey hovering over her with +beak and claw prepared to pick the very flesh from her bones,--but +also because he had met Angela Sovrani, one of the most rarely- +gifted types of womanhood he had ever seen. He recognised her genius +at once, and marvelled at it. And still more did he marvel at her +engagement of marriage with Florian Varillo. That such a fair, proud +creature so splendidly endowed, could consent to unite herself to a +man so vastly inferior, was an interesting puzzle to him. He had met +Varillo by chance in Naples one winter before he ever saw Angela, +and knew that half his claim to the notice of the social world there +was the fact of his betrothal to the famous "Sovrani." And moved by +a strange desire to follow out this romance, and also because he was +completing his studies of the Roman Church viewed as a "moral +support to the education and elevation of man," he, after leaving +Paris, and paying a brief visit to Florence on a matter of business +which could not be attended to otherwise than personally, went on as +though drawn by some invisible magnet to Rome. He had only been +twenty-four hours in the city, when chance had led him under the +balcony where the sculptured angels fronted the moon, and from +whence the sweet voice of Sylvie Hermenstein had floated towards him +with the words,-- + +"Ti voglio ben assai, E tu non pensi a me." + +And he who had faced crowds without a tremor, and had flung +thunderbolts of splendid defiance at shams, with the manner of a +young Ajax defying the lightning, now found himself strangely put +out and disturbed in his usual composure by the innocent aspect, and +harmless perfume of a rose,--a mere little pink petalled thing, with +not even a thorn on its polished green stalk! He had placed it in a +glass of water on his writing table, and his eyes rested upon it the +morning after he had received it with almost a reproachful air. What +was its golden-hearted secret? Why, when he studied it, did he see +the soft hue of a fair cheek, the flash of a bright eye, the +drooping wave of a golden web of hair, the dainty curve of a white +arm on which the sparkle of diamonds gleamed? How was it that he +managed to perceive all this in the leaves of a rose? He could not +tell; and he was angry with himself for his inability to explain the +puzzle. He reminded himself that he had business in Rome-- +"business," he repeated sternly to his own conscience,--the chief +part of which was to ascertain from some one of the leading spirits +at the Vatican the view taken by the Papacy of the Ritualistic +movement in England. + +"If you can gauge correctly the real feeling, and render it in plain +terms, apart from all conventional or social considerations," wrote +his publisher in a letter which had just reached him--"that is, if +you dare to do so much--and I think you will scarcely hesitate--you +will undoubtedly give great and lasting help to Christian England." +As he read this over for the second or third time he remembered that +he had an appointment with a certain powerful personage, known as +Monsignor Gherardi, that morning at eleven. + +"And you," he said, apostrophising the rose with a protesting shake +of his head, "were nearly making me forget it!" He lifted the flower +out of the water and touched it with his lips. "She was a fair +creature,--the woman who wore you last night!"--he said with a smile +as he put it carefully back again in its glass, "In fact, she was +very much like you! But though I notice you have no thorns, I dare +say she has!" He paused a moment, lost in thought, the smile still +giving warmth and light to his features; then with a quick movement +of impatience at his own delaying, threw on his coat and hat and +left the room, saying, "Now for Gherardi!" + + + + +XIX. + +Set square and dark against the pale blue of the Italian sky the +Palazzo Sovrani, seen for the first time, suggests a prison rather +than a dwelling house,--a forbidding structure, which though of +unsentient marble, seems visibly to frown into the light, and exhale +from itself a cloud on the clearest day. Its lowest windows, raised +several feet from the ground, and barred across with huge iron +clamps, altogether deprive the would-be inquisitive stranger from +the possibility of peering within,--the monstrous iron gate, richly +wrought with fantastic scroll-work and heraldic emblems raised in +brass, presents so cold and forbidding a front that some of the +youthful ladies who were Angela's friends, were wont to declare that +it gave them a palpitation of the heart to summon up the necessary +courage required to ring the great bell. Within the house there was +much of a similar gloom, save in Angela's own studio, which she had +herself made beautiful with a brightness and lightness found in no +other corner of the vast and stately abode. Her father, Prince +Pietro Sovrani, was of a reserved and taciturn nature,--poor but +intensely proud--and he would suffer no interference by so much as a +word or a suggestion respecting the manner in which he chose to +arrange or to order his household. His wife Gita Bonpre, the only +sister of the good Cardinal, had been the one love of his life,--and +when she died all his happiness had died with her,--his heart was +broken, but he showed nothing of his grief to the outside world, +save that in manner he was more silent and reserved than ever,--more +difficult to deal with,--more dangerous to approach. People knew +well enough that he was poor, but they never dared to mention it,-- +though once an English acquaintance, moved by the best intentions in +the world, had suggested that he could make a good deal of money by +having a portion of the Palazzo Sovrani redecorated, and modernized, +to suit the comfort and convenience of travelling millionaires who +might probably be disposed to pay a high rent for it during the +Roman "season." But the proposal was disastrous in its results. +Sovrani had turned upon his adviser like an embodied thunder-cloud. + +"When a prince of the House of Sovrani lets out apartments," he +said, "you may ask your English Queen to take in washing!" + +And a saturnine smile, accompanied by the frowning bend of his white +fuzzy eyebrows over his flashing black eyes, had produced such a +withering, blistering effect on the soul of the unfortunate +Englishman, whose practical ideas of utility had exceeded his +prudence, that he had scarcely ever dared to look the irate Italian +noble in the face again. + +Just now, the Prince was in his library, seated in dignified +uprightness like a king enthroned to give audience, in a huge high- +backed chair, shadowed over by an ancient gilded baldacchino, +listening with a certain amount of grim patience to his daughter's +softly murmured narrative of her stay in Paris. He had received the +Cardinal an hour ago on his arrival, with first, a humble +genuflexion as became a son of the Church, and secondly with a kiss +on both cheeks as became a brother-in-law. The Cardinal's youthful +companion Manual, he had scarcely remarked, even while giving him +welcome. These two had gone to the suite of rooms prepared for the +reception of His Eminence,--but Angela, after hastily changing her +travelling dress, had come down to her father, anxious not only to +give, but to hear news--especially news of Florian Varillo. Prince +Sovrani, however, was not a man given to much social observation,-- +nor did he ever break through his half cynical, half gloomy humour, +to detail the gossip of Rome, and he therefore sat more or less +unmoved, while Angela told him all she could think of that would +interest him. At last with a little delicate hesitation, she related +the strange story of Abbe Vergniaud, and added, + +"And by this time, I suppose, the Holy Father has been told all!" + +"Naturally," said the Prince, with a stern smile moving the hard +muscles of his mouth, "Moretti's love of scandal is as deep as that +of any old woman!--and the joy of excommunicating a soul from the +salvation of the Church must be too exquisite to admit of any delay! +I am sorry for Vergniaud, but I do not think he will suffer much. +These things are scarcely ever noticed in the press nowadays, and it +will only be a very limited circle that even learns of his +excommunication. Nevertheless, I am sorry--one is always sorry for +brave men, even if they are reckless. And the son is Gys Grandit! +Corpo di Bacco! What a denouement!" + +He considered it a moment, looking straight before him at the rows +of ancient and musty books that adorned his walls,--then he gave a +sudden exclamation. + +"Pesta! I had nearly forgotten! I knew there was a curious thing I +had to tell you, Angela,--but in the hurry of your arrival it had +for the moment escaped my mind . . ." + +"About Florian?" asked Angela anxiously. + +The Prince bent his brows upon her quizzically. + +"Florian! What should I know about Florian? He has not been near me +since you left Rome. I fancy he will not be too attentive a son-in- +law! No, it is not about Florian. It is about your uncle Felix. Have +you heard of this miracle he has performed?" + +Angela's eyes opened wide. + +"A miracle! What do you mean by a miracle?" + +"Santissima Madonna! A miracle is always a miracle," retorted her +father testily, "A something out of the common, and an upsetting of +the ordinary laws of nature. Did your uncle tell you nothing of his +visit to Rouen?" + +"Nothing," replied Angela, "Nothing but the story of Manuel." + +"Manuel? Who is he?" + +"The boy he has with him now. Uncle Felix found him lost at night +near the Cathedral of Rouen, and has taken him under his protection +ever since." + +"Altro! That is nothing!" said her father, "That is only one of +Felix's quixotic ideas. There is no miracle in that. But when a +child is a cripple from babyhood, and our Felix cures him by one +simple prayer, and makes him strong and well again--Gran Dio!--it is +not remarkable that such news creates a stir at the Vatican." + +"But it cannot be true!" said Angela surprised, "Uncle Felix never +said a word about it. I am sure he knows nothing whatever of such a +report!" + +"Ebben! We will ask him presently,"--and the Prince raised himself +stiffly and slowly out of his throne-like chair, "Personally I have +considered Felix above any sort of priestly trickery; but after all, +if he has an ambition for the Papacy, I do not see why he should not +play for it. Others do!" + +"Oh, father!" cried Angela, "How can you think such a thing of Uncle +Felix! He is as nearly a saint as any mortal man can be!" + +"So I always thought, child--so I always thought!" replied the +Prince, with a vexed air, "But to perform such a miracle of healing +as to cure a child with a twisted spine and bent legs, by the mere +utterance of a prayer!--that is impossible!--impossible! It sounds +like charlatanism--not like Felix!" + +As he spoke he straightened himself and stood upright, a tall, +spare, elegant figure of a man,--his dark complexioned face very +much resembling a fine bronze cast of the Emperor Aurelius. Angela +rose too and stood beside him, and his always more or less defiant +eyes slowly softened as he looked at her. + +"You grow very like your mother," he said, with just the faintest +tremor in his voice--"Ah, la mia Gita!" + +A sigh that was like a groan broke from his lips, and Angela laid +her head caressingly against his breast in silence. He touched her +soft hair tenderly. + +"Very like your mother," he repeated, "Very like! But you will leave +me soon, as she has left me,--not for Heaven, no!--but for that +doubtful new life called marriage. It is not doubtful when there is +love--love in both hearts;--and if there is any difference at all, +the love should be greater on the man's side than on the woman's! +Remember that, Angela mia, remember that! The true lover is always +spiritually on his knees before the woman he loves; not only in +passion, but in worship--in reverence!" + +"And is not Florian so?" murmured Angela timidly. + +"I do not know, child; he may be! Sometimes I think that he loves +himself too much to love YOU as well as you deserve. But we shall +see." + +As he spoke a servant entered, carrying an exquisite basket of +flowers, and brought it to Angela who blushed and smiled divinely as +she took it and opened the envelope fastened to its handle and +addressed to her, which contained merely these words,-- + + "A la mia dolcezza! Con voto d'eterno amore! + "FLORIAN." + +"Are they not lovely?" she said, bending over the blossoms tenderly +as though she would have taken them all into her embrace, "Such a +sweet welcome home!" + +Her father nodded, but gave no verbal response to her enthusiasm. +Presently he said, + +"How about your picture? When will it be finished?" + +"A month's work will be enough now," she replied, looking up +quickly--"And then--" + +"Then it will remain in one of the galleries unsold!" said Sovrani, +with a touch of bitterness in his tone which he could not quell, +"You have chosen too large a canvas. From mere size it is +unsaleable,--for unless it were a marvel of the world no nation +would ever purchase a woman's picture." + +Angela's delicate head drooped,--she turned away to hide the tears +that rushed to her eyes. Her father's words were harsh, yet +eminently practical; she knew he did not mean them unkindly, but +that the continual pinch of poverty was sometimes greater than he +could endure with patience. Angela had earned considerable sums of +money by the smaller pictures which had established her name; and +the Prince had bitterly grudged the time she had given to the +enormous canvas which had now remained so long in her studio covered +up, even from his eyes--for he had made up his mind that it was one +of those fantastic dreams of genius, which when they become realised +into the substance of a book or a picture, terrify the timid +conventions of the world so completely as to cause general +avoidance. + +"If Raffaelle were alive he would not paint a 'Transfiguration' +now," he was wont to say, "The Church no longer employs great +artists. It keeps its money for speculation purposes. If a Michael +Angelo were in Rome he would find nothing to do." + +Which statement was true enough. For the modern Italian loves money +next to his own precious skin, and everything beautiful or sacred is +sacrificed to this insatiable craze. There is no love, no honour, no +patriotism in Italy without careful calculation as to the cost of +indulging in these sentiments,--and what wreck of religion is left +merely panders to the low melodramatic temper of an ignorant +populace. Art is at its lowest ebb, it cannot live without +encouragement and support--and it is difficult for even the most +enthusiastic creator in marble or colour to carry out glorious +conceptions for an inglorious country. But Angela Sovrani--ambitious +Angela,--was not painting for Italy. She was painting for the whole +world. She had dreams of seeing her great picture borne away out of +Rome to Paris, and London, to be gazed upon by thousands who would +take its lesson home to their hearts and lives. Italy was merely a +village in the area of her aspiring mind; but she built her "castles +in the air" alone; and never by so much as the smallest hint allowed +anyone to guess the far reaching scope of her intentions. Truth to +tell, she had obtained very little encouragement during her long +days and months of work, though in the sweetness of her nature she +pleased herself by imagining that Florian Varillo gave her a +complete and perfect sympathy. Yet even with Florian, one or two +casual remarks he had let fall lightly and unthinkingly, had vaguely +startled her, and set her wondering, "Perhaps he does not think much +of my abilities after all"--and had caused her for once to be +closely reserved upon the subject and treatment of her work, and to +refuse a glimpse of it even to him who was her elect Beloved. She +had thought he would perhaps have been pained at this inviolate +secrecy on her part,--she had feared he might take offence at +finding the doors of her studio always locked,--but on the contrary +he appeared quite amused at her uncommunicative humour, and jested +about it as if she were a little child playing in a dark corner at +some forbidden game. She was somewhat surprised at this,--the more +so as he frequently spoke of the importance of his own pictures for +the Roman "Art Season,"--pictures to which he really gave the +attentive discussion and consideration a man always bestows on +matters of his personal business--but often when Angela's work was +spoken of, he smiled with a kindly tolerance, as one who should say, +"Dear girl! How sweetly she embroiders her simple sampler!" And yet +again, he never failed, when asked about it in Angela's presence, to +say that he was "sure Donna Sovrani would astonish the world by what +she was doing!" So that one never quite knew where to have him, his +nature being that curious compound of obsequious servility and +intense self-love which so often distinguishes the Italian +temperament. Angela however put every shadow of either wonder or +doubt as to his views, entirely aside,--and worked on with an +earnest hand and trusting heart, faithfully and with a grand +patience and self-control seldom found either in masculine or +feminine heroes. Sometimes her spirit sank a little, as now, when +her father told her that her picture would remain unsold in one of +the galleries--but all the same, some force within her urged her to +go on with her intention steadily, and leave all results to God. And +the tears that had sprung to her eyes at the smart of old Sovrani's +rough speech, soon returned to their source; and she was quite her +composed sweet self again when her uncle the Cardinal, accompanied +by Manuel, entered the room, holding an open letter in his hand, and +looking strangely agitated. + +"Brother, here is a matter which I cannot possibly understand," he +said, "Monsignor Gherardi writes here to congratulate me upon a +miracle I have worked in Rouen!--and summons me at once to the +presence of His Holiness! What can it mean? I have performed no +miracle! Surely some jest is being played with me,--and one most +unbecoming to a man of Gherardi's position and influence!" + +Prince Sovrani took the letter from Bonpre's hand and read it in +silence. + +"Yes--I have heard about it already," he said, "And if you indeed +know nothing, it is strange! But can you not remember--is there no +clue to such a report? Were there no sick children brought to +you . . . ?" + +"Oh, for that," answered the Cardinal quickly, "a little boy named +Fabien Doucet, was brought to me by the children of an inn-keeper of +the Hotel Poitiers where I stayed two nights, and to grant their +wishes, (and also because it is my duty to do what I can for the +suffering and the afflicted), I laid my hands upon him and prayed to +our Lord that he might be healed." + +"Ebbene! Our Lord has then healed him," said Sovrani drily, "It is +remarkable!--but if the cure is truly accomplished, we shall have to +admit that the Deity does sometimes pay attention to our many +prayers, though for the most part they appear to fall upon a deaf, +dumb, and irresponsive Silence." + +The Cardinal sat down, wearily resting his head on his hand. + +"I do not like it!" he said, "It is altogether amazing to me; it +seems like a snare set to catch my soul! For I have no power to +perform miracles . . . I can only pray." + +"And why should not your prayer be answered?" asked Manuel suddenly. + +They had all forgotten the boy's presence in the room, and his voice +startled them. His young face was pale, yet tranquil--and the deep +tenderness that always dwelt in his eyes seemed deeper and softer at +this moment than ever. + +"Truly I do not see why," said Prince Sovrani, bending his fierce +regard full on the lad as he spoke, and beginning to wonder like the +rest at his fairness and beauty, "Only as a rule, fanciuollo mio-- +prayer is mere waste of breath--a demand without supply." + +"Is that not perhaps the fault of the person who prays?" said +Manuel, "May that person not lack faith and pure intention? May he +not even be too self-absorbed to lift his soul high enough for an +approach to God? When the disciples were vexed that they could not +cure a child that was afflicted, and saw that their Master healed +that child at once, they asked why they were unable to do what He +did. And He told them plainly, 'Because of your unbelief. For verily +I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed ye shall +say unto this mountain, remove from yonder place, and it shall +remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.' And I am sure that +my lord the Cardinal's faith is greater than a grain of mustard +seed!" + +They were all silent. Cardinal Bonpre turned his eyes thoughtfully +on the young speaker + +"You were with me, child, when the little cripple sat on my knee and +held my crucifix," he said in a low tone, "You saw--you heard all. +What did I do?--what did I say?" + +"You held him in your arms, even as Christ took little children in +His arms and blessed them," replied Manuel, "And you prayed--and in +your prayer you said--'King and Master of all such children, even as +Thou wert a child Thyself, be pleased to heal him of his sad +infirmity. For if Thou wilt, Thou canst make this bent body +straight, and these withered muscles strong,--from death itself Thou +canst ordain life, and nothing is impossible unto Thee!'" + +There was a pause. Then Manuel added,-- + +"That is what you said, my lord Cardinal;--and when the child went +away, you told him that if the giving of your own life could make +him strong, he should have that life willingly. Some people might +say that without meaning it,--but you meant what you said,--every +word came straight from your heart. And should it then surprise you +that God has granted your prayer?" + +Prince Sovrani listened to the dulcet young voice with a strange +emotion. Something holy and convincing seemed to emanate from the +boy's very presence, and though he, as became a modern Italian, was +thoroughly sceptical and atheistical, and would have willingly +argued against the very words of Christ as written in the Gospel, +some curious hesitation that was almost shamefacedness held him +silent. But the Cardinal was even more strongly moved. The earnest +spirit of truth with which Manuel appeared always to be environed,-- +his simple and straight enunciation of the old, oft-quoted phrases +used by the Divine Saviour of the world,--and then his unfaltering +memory of the simple prayer that had been said for the comfort of +the unfortunate little Fabien Doucet, together with this strange and +unexpected announcement of the child's miraculous cure,--these +things rushed over the mind of the good Bonpre like an overwhelming +flood, and confused his brain--strange half-formed thoughts occurred +to him that he dared not express, chief among which was a vague, a +terrifying idea that the young boy beside him who spoke so sweetly, +and almost so commandingly, must surely be an Angel! Strange legends +of the Church began to recur to him;--legends of old-time when +angels had descended to walk with priests in their monastic +seclusion, and instruct them as to the value of time, as in the +"Legend Beautiful," when the monk Felix, being perplexed by the +phrase "a day with God is as a thousand years," went to sleep in a +garden, soothed by the singing of the birds at sunset, and woke up +to find that in his slumber a century had rolled away! All manner of +fantastic notions swept in upon him, and he grew suddenly blind and +dizzy--rising from his chair totteringly he extended his hands--then +suddenly sank back again in a dead faint. Sovrani caught him as he +fell--and Angela ran for water, and tenderly bathed his forehead +while Manuel took his hand and held it fast. + +"Too long a journey, and too much excitement!" said the Prince,-- +"Our Felix is growing old,--he cannot stand fatigue. He is failing +fast!" + +"Oh, no," said Manuel brightly, "He is not failing! He is younger by +far than he seems! He is too strong to fail!" + +And as he spoke the Cardinal opened his eyes and smiled with an +expression of perfect rapture. + +"Why, what has ailed me?" he enquired, looking at Angela's anxious +face, "I had but gone for a moment into the presence of my Lord!" +Here he paused, and then gradually recovering himself entirely, sat +upright. + +"All is well with me!" he said, pressing the hand of Manuel in his +own, and releasing it again, "Do not fret, Angela,--it was the +merest passing faintness. Forgive me, brother, for alarming you thus +foolishly! As for the letter from the Vatican concerning this +miracle, I must needs present myself before His Holiness and assure +him that I know nothing of it,--that I did no more than pray--that I +left the crippled child still crippled--and that if indeed it be +true he is healed, it is by the merciful act of God and--the +intervention of our Lord and Saviour Christ, to Whom be all the +praise and glory!" + +He rose up again from his chair and stood full height,--a grand and +beautiful figure of noble old age, transfigured by the light of some +never-aging thought, some glorious inspiration. And Angela, who had +been startled and alarmed by his sudden fainting fit, was even more +overcome by the sight of him thus radiant and selfpossessed, and +dropping on her knees she caught his hand and kissed it, her tears +falling fast. He stooped and raised her. + +"Child, why are you weeping?" he said tenderly, "Nay, I am not so +ill as you think me! I am well--strong!--ready for the doing of many +things in my Master's service! Pietro, take this dear girl and +comfort her!" and he put her gently into her father's arms,--"For +myself, I have work to do--work to do!--" he repeated musingly,--"I +see trouble ahead!--but I shall face it--and if God please--overcome +it!" His, eyes flashed, and after a moment he resumed, "I will write +to Gherardi now--and to-morrow--to-morrow I will speak!" + +"Can I help you, brother?" asked the Prince, taken out of himself by +the air of splendour and sovereignty which seemed to surround the +Cardinal as with a divine halo, "You are fatigued with your +journey,--let me write for you!" + +"No, Pietro! I must do this myself, and think well of all I should +say." He paused, then added, "They tell me Claude Cazeau, secretary +to the Archbishop of Rouen brought the news of this so-called +miracle to Rome. I should have liked to have seen that man to- +night." + +"You will see him at the Vatican," said Sovrani. with a touch of +irony, "That will be time enough! Oh, innocent Felix! Do you not see +you will be confronted with Cazeau? And that Gherardi and his set +will be there to note your every look and gesture, and privately +judge as to whether you and the Archbishop of Rouen concocted the +miracle between you! And that if you were to see this Cazeau to- +night, that very meeting would be taken as a sign of conspiracy!" + +Over the pale features of the Cardinal rushed a warm glow of +indignation, but it died away as rapidly as it had come. + +"True!" he said simply, "I forgot! If a good deed is done in the +world by the force of the undefined Spirit of Christ, it is judged +as trickery,--and we must never forget that even the Resurrection of +our Blessed Lord from the dead is believed by some to be a mere +matter of conspiracy among His disciples. True--I forgot the +blindness,--the melancholy blindness of the world! But we must +always say, 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!' I +will write to Gherardi,--and,--if you will permit me, I will remain +in my own rooms tonight for I must think and pray,--I must be +alone . . ." + +"Without me, my lord Cardinal?" asked Manuel softly. + +"No, not without you!" and Bonpre looked at him with a smile, "Not +without you! I have no wish to be so much alone as your absence +would make me. Come!" + +And lifting the heavy velvet portiere at the door, he held it back +for his "foundling" to pass,--and then slowly followed. + + + + +XX. + +On the first floor of an ancient mansion, in a street which slopes +down towards the Tiber, there is a suite of dreary old rooms which +must evidently have once belonged to some great "Prince of the +Church", (to use the term which Cardinal Bonpre held so much in +aversion,) if one may form any opinion from the ecclesiastical +designs on the faded green hangings, which cling like moss to the +damp walls, and give an additional melancholy to the general gloom +The "salon" or audience-chamber is perhaps the best in repair, and +possesses a gorgeous, painted ceiling, bordered by a frieze of red +and gold, together with one or two large pictures, which perhaps if +cleaned might show the touch of some great Master, but which in +their sad condition of long neglect, present nothing to the view but +a dark blur of indistinct outlines. The rooms in their entirety +composed the business, or town dwelling of Monsignor Gherardi, one +of the cleverest, most astute, and most unscrupulous of men, to whom +Religion was nothing more than a means of making money and gaining +power. There was scarcely a Roman Catholic "community" in the world, +in which Gherardi had not a share,--and he was particularly +concerned in "miraculous shrines", which were to him exactly in the +same category as "companies" are to the speculator on the Stock +Exchange. He had been cautious, prudent, and calculating from his +earliest years,--from the time when, as the last male scion of the +house of Gherardi he had been educated for the Ecclesiastical career +at the "College of Nobles". He had read widely, and no religious or +social movement took place anywhere without his knowing of it and +admitting it into his calculations as a sort of new figure in his +barking sum. He was an extensive shareholder in the "Lourdes" +business; and a careful speculator in all the religious frenzies of +the uneducated and superstitious. His career had been very +successful so far. He had amassed a considerable fortune; and away +out towards Frascati he had a superb Villa, furnished with every +modern luxury and convenience, (not rented in his own name, but in +that of a man whom he paid heavily to serve him as his tool and +menial,)--where a beautiful Neapolitan danseuse condescended to live +as his mistress;--he was a diplomat for himself if not for his +country, and kept his finger on the pulse of European politics as +well as on the fluctuating fevers of new creeds. But he never +troubled himself seriously as to the possible growth of any +"movement", or "society", or "crusade"; as experience had taught him +that no matter how ardently thinkers may propound theories, and +enthusiasts support them, there is always a dense and steady wave of +opposition surging against everything new,--and that few can be +found whose patience will hold out sufficiently long to enable them +to meet and ride over that wet wall of dull resistance. + +Monsignor Gherardi was a most useful man at the Vatican, as he never +failed to comfort the Pope whenever that Holy Personage was cast +down or afraid of brooding disasters. When the Representative of the +ever-merciful Christ ventured to give it out as his Christian +opinion that the unhappy and maltreated Dreyfus would be found +guilty Monsignor Gherardi smilingly agreed with him. When His +Holiness denounced Freemasonry as a wicked association, formed for +atheistical and revolutionary purposes, Gherardi, though he knew +well enough that it was a fraternity formed for the mutual help and +sustainment of its members, denounced it too;--in the gardens of the +Vatican, but not elsewhere. There was nothing really either in the +way of Freemasonry or other sort of "society", that he was afraid +of;--no anxiety whatever troubled his mind, except the possibility +of losing money by some incautious speculation. In appearance he was +an exceedingly handsome man,--tall, with a fine figure and +commanding features,--physical advantages which greatly helped him +to enforce his spiritual authority. As he sat in his high-backed, +gilded chair, turning over papers on his desk, docketing this and +marking that for reference, his dark eyes sparkling with avidity as +he counted up certain dividends obtained from mysterious shares in +"miracle" health resorts, and a smile of satisfaction playing on the +firm, well-shaped curve of his intellectual but hard mouth, he +looked an imposing personage enough, of the very type to awe the +weak and timorous. He was much entertained on this particular +morning,--one might almost say he was greatly amused. Quite a +humorous little comedy was being played at the Vatican,--a mock- +solemn farce, which had the possibility of ending in serious +disaster to the innocent,--and he, as a student of the wily and +treacherous side of human nature, was rather interested in its +development. Cardinal Felix Bonpre, a man living far away in an +obscure cathedral-town of France, where he had become renowned for +good works and saintly living, had now, after many years, come out +of his long voluntary retirement, and had performed a miracle! + +"And very well done too!" murmured Monsignor Gherardi, smiling to +himself, "Well prepared, well thought out, and successfully +accomplished! Our good Felix is much cleverer than I gave him credit +for. First, he wins a renown for good works,--then he starts +travelling toward Rome, the Mother of our Faith,--and on his way to +the sacred city performs a miraculous cure! An excellent move! I see +a possibility of making the Cathedral of Rouen a popular shrine for +healing. Yes, much can be done there! Only I am sorry that Felix has +made a little mistake in Paris--just a little mistake!--in that +matter of Vergniaud. And it is exceedingly unfortunate that the son +should turn out to be Gys Grandit. No wonder the Holy Father is +troubled;--no wonder! It is a little drama of the age, and will no +doubt prove complex in its movement, and worth watching." Here his +smile broadened,--and his eyes glittered more keenly than ever +"Yes!--it will be an excitement; and one wants a little excitement +now and then in the general monotony. Since Agostino preached,--" +here he paused, and a dark contraction knitted his brows,--"Let me +see!--this morning, yes!--this morning I receive the English +socialist Aubrey Leigh." + +He turned in his chair, and glanced at the dial of a huge ticking +clock behind him, and saw that the hands were close on the appointed +hour of eleven. His smile slowly disappeared, and vanished +altogether in a heavy frown. "A dangerous man! I do not like his +book--it is written in melodramatic style, with heat and with +enthusiasm, and will attract the vulgar. He must be suppressed--but +how?" + +He rose and paced the room slowly, his long white hands clasped +behind his back, and the frown on his brows deepened;--how suppress +a man who had announced himself as free of every Church and Creed, +and who was resolved to stand by the moral ethics of Christ only? A +man who desired nothing for himself, not even money;--"But stop!" +thought Gherardi,--"that is absurd! Every man wants money! Every man +must have it, and the more he has, the more he seeks. There is no +one in the world who cannot be bought or bribed!" + +At that moment the green hangings of the door were lifted, and the +Italian man-servant announced,-- + +"Il Signor Aubri Lee!" + +Gherardi, who in his pacing to and fro had reached the window, +wheeled round abruptly and faced his entering visitor. The light +fell aslant upon his stately figure as he drew himself up to his +full height, and greeted Leigh with a suavely condescending bow and +smile, while Aubrey in turn glanced him up and down with a +pleasurable consciousness of his intellectual appearance, and +evident combative temperament. + +"You are welcome, Mr. Leigh," said Gherardi, speaking English with a +fluency of which he was pardonably proud, "Your letter from Florence +received my instant attention, and as you see, I have made it a +point to receive you at once--in spite of pressing business. Yes,-- +in spite of pressing business! I confess I have been curious to see +the writer who has made himself so obnoxious to our dear friends and +brothers, the English clergy!" + +A smile that was brilliant, but which conveyed no meaning whatever, +illumined his features; but for all reply to these words Aubrey +simply bowed and remained silent. Gherardi glanced at him sharply. +Was he intimidated already?--overawed at being in the presence of +one who was known to be a friend and confidant of the Pope? No-- +there was nothing of fear or embarrassment in the composed attitude, +proud manner, and reserved expression of this slim, muscular man, +with the bright hair and keen eyes,--and Gherardi dropped his tone +of patronage for one of courtesy. + +"Pray sit down!" he said, "I understand that you wish to obtain a +private audience of the Holy Father. That of course is impossible!" + +Aubrey drew a chair slowly towards the desk where Gherardi had +resumed his own usual seat, and raised his eyes with a curious look +of half satirical questioning. + +"Impossible!" he said, "And why?" + +Gherardi almost laughed. + +"Why? My dear sir, is it necessary to ask? Your name is sufficiently +well-known! and--I am sorry to tell you so,--but it is quite as +unpleasant at the Vatican as that of Gys Grandit!" + +"Gys Grandit is a friend of mine," responded Aubrey composedly, "In +fact, I may almost say he is my disciple. I found him working in the +fields as a little peasant lad,--the love child, or 'bastard,' to +put it roughly, of some priest whose name he never told me. He was +helping to earn daily bread for his deserted mother whose maiden +name he then bore; and I helped to train his evident genius in the +way it has since developed." + +"I cannot congratulate you on your pupil!" said Gherardi, smiling +coldly, "The offspring of a priest's sin is not likely to do the +world any credit. The son of the renegade Abbe Vergniaud may become +notorious, but never famous!" + +Aubrey Leigh started up from his chair doubting whether he had heard +aright. + +"The son of Abbe Vergniaud!" he exclaimed, "Is it possible! No, you +must surely be mistaken!--I know the Abbe,--I saw him in Paris but a +fortnight ago!" + +"Indeed! Well, since that time strange things have happened," said +Gherardi, still preserving his calm inscrutability of demeanour, "We +have had our news from Monsignor Moretti, an envoy of ours in Paris, +on secret service. To put it briefly,--Vergniaud, for no particular +cause whatever, save perhaps the idea--(which may be only an idea)-- +that he is going to die soon, has made a public confession of his +twenty-five-year-old crime and hypocrisy, in a blasphemous address +preached from the pulpit of Notre Dame de Lorette. The son, known to +the world as Gys Grandit, was present in the church, and fired a +pistol shot at his father, hoping to murder him,--then came the +theatrical denouement of the whole scene;--the Abbe ordered the +gendarmes to release the assassin, pronouncing him to be his son. +And finally--the saddest incident of all--there took place the +mutual pardon and reconciliation of both parties in the presence of +one of our most respected and beloved Princes of the Church, +Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whose grave error in this matter is causing +poignant and loving sorrow to the Holy Father!" + +A curious expression began to appear in the delicate lines of +Aubrey's face--an expression which some of his London audiences knew +so well, and which generally meant war. + +"You surprise me, Monsignor," he said in quiet accents,--"Events +move quickly, I know, in a quickly moving age,--still your news is +entirely unexpected. I never knew till now who the father of my +friend Gys Grandit was;--but now that I do know I think the public +confession you tell me of, was the only fitting reparation such a +man as the Abbe could make to the dead woman who was his wife in the +sight of God, as well as to his living son, and the public +generally. I never quite liked or trusted the Abbe; but if all this +be true, he has risen a hundred per cent, in my opinion! As for +Cardinal Bonpre, one of the noblest and purest of men, you surely +cannot be in earnest when you speak of his having committed a grave +error!" + +"You know the Cardinal?" asked Gherardi evading the question. + +"I was presented to him in Paris the day before I left for +Florence," replied Aubrey, "at the studio of his niece, Donna Angela +Sovrani." + +"Ah!" and Gherardi balanced a paper-knife lightly on the point of +his long forefinger, "An unpleasant woman that! One of the female +'geniuses' who presume nowadays to compete with men in art and +literature." + +"In Donna Sovrani's case there can be no question of competition," +answered Leigh quietly, "She is by far and away the best artist of +her time." + +"You think so? Very good, very good!" and Gherardi laughed a little, +"You are very chivalrous! You have a touch of the American in you, +have you not?--there is a tendency in the men of the New World to be +always on their knees before women. Strange, very strange!" + +"We begin our lives in that way," replied Leigh, "We kneel to our +mothers!" + +A slight flush reddened Gherardi's yellow paleness, but he kept his +smile well in evidence. + +"Charmingly expressed--very charmingly!" he said suavely, "And so +you have met our dear St. Felix! Well, well! And did he tell you all +about the wonderful miracle he performed at Rouen?" + +A cloud of surprise intermingled with contempt darkened Leigh's +intellectual brows. + +"Never!" he said emphatically, "I should not have thought so much of +him if he had laid any claim to such a pretence!" + +Gherardi laughed again softly. + +"What a pity," he observed, "What a pity you clever heretics are so +violent! You think the power of the Church is a decaying one, and +that our Lord has ceased to supply its ministers with the Spirit of +Grace and the powers of healing? But this is where you are mistaken! +The Church--the Roman Church--remains as it always was and always +will be; impregnable!--the source of inspiration, the seat of +miracle, the only clue and road to everlasting life! And as for its +power--" here he closed his hand and dropped it on the table with a +silent force which was strangely expressive, "its power is +immeasurable! It reaches out in every direction--it grasps--it +holds,--it keeps! Why will you and your co-workers 'kick' like St. +Paul 'against the pricks'? It is quite useless! The Church is too +strong for any one of you--aye, and for any army of you! Do you not +hear the divine Voice from heaven calling daily in your ears, 'Why +persecutest thou Me?'" + +"Yes," answered Aubrey deliberately, "I hear that every time I enter +a church! I hear it every time I see an ordained priest or minister +of the Gospel misusing his time in construing to his own purposes +the classic simplicity of Christ's doctrine. In some places of +worship, such as the tawdry church of the 'Annunziata' in Florence +that protest seems to reach its climax. When one sees the unwashen +priests expectorating every five minutes or so [Footnote: A fact] on +the very altars where they perform Mass;--when one notes the dirt, +the neglect, the gim-crackery;--the sickening and barbarous +superstition everywhere offered as being representative of sublime +Deity,--the Force which has raised the heaven above us with its +endless star-patterns of living universe,--then the cry of 'Why +persecutest thou Me?' seems to roll through the arches like the +thunder which sometimes precedes a general earthquake!" + +Leigh's clear penetrating voice, artistically modulated to the +perfectly musical expression of thought, was not without its usual +effect, even on a mind so callous as that of Gherardi. He moved +uneasily in his chair,--he was inwardly fuming with indignation, and +for one moment was inclined to assume the melodramatic pose of the +irate Churchman, and to make himself into the figure of an approved +"stage" dignitary of religion, with out stretched arm, menacing +eyes, and words that were as darts to wound and sting. But looking +under his eye lids at the cold, half satirical tranquillity of +Aubrey's pale clear-cut features, he felt that any attempt at +"acting" his part would be seen through in a second by a man who was +so terribly in earnest. So with a benevolent and regretful air, he +said, + +"Yes!--no doubt things appear to you as they do not appear to us. +The spirit of faith enables us to see through all unsatisfactory +outward forms and ceremonies, to the actual divine mysteries which +they symbolise;--and heretics perceive incongruities, where we, by +the grace of God, see nothing but harmony! And though you, Mr. +Leigh, receive the information with incredulity and a somewhat +blameable indifference, it is a matter of rejoicing to us that +Cardinal Bonpre has performed this miracle of healing at Rouen. It +would have raised him to a very high place indeed in the Holy +Father's estimation, had it not been for the strange mistake he has +unfortunately made with respect to the Abbe Vergniaud." + +"One may cure a sick person then, but one must not pardon a sinner?" +suggested Aubrey, "'For whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be +forgiven thee;' or 'Arise and walk?' The one is considered a +miracle;--the other a mistake!" + +Gherardi's cold eyes glittered. + +"We will not go into the technicalities of the question," he said +frigidly, "We will return to the point from whence we diverged. Your +wish expressed in this letter," and he drew one from a packet on the +table and glanced it over in a business-like way, "was to obtain a +private audience from the Pope. I repeat that to a mere civilian and +socialistic writer like yourself, that is impossible!" + +Aubrey sat unmoved. + +"I suppose if I were a prince of the blood-royal I should not be +refused an audience?" he said. + +Gherardi's thick dark eyebrows went up with a movement of surprise +at such an irrational remark. + +"That would make a difference certainly," he answered smiling, "The +claims of diplomacy have to be considered!" + +"If a prince of the blood-royal whose private life was a scandal to +the world"--went on Aubrey, "who was guilty of every vice known in +the calendar,--who was neither intelligent nor sympathetic,--whose +whole career was one of self and self-indulgence,--I say if he were +to seek a private audience of the man who is declared to be the +representative of Christ in Christendom, he would obtain it! On the +other hand, if a man who had denied himself every personal +gratification, and had sacrificed his whole life in working for his +fellow men, and to the following of the teachings of the Gospel as +far as it was possible,--but who yet had got no further in world's +wealth than to be earning from his writings a few hundreds a year, +he could NOT be received! Monsignor, this may be diplomacy, but it +is not Christianity!" + +"I cannot enter into these matters with you--" began Gherardi +impatiently. + +"No, you cannot, because you dare not!" said Aubrey boldly. "Man, +you are not a Christian! Why pretend to be one? Is it not time you +left off feigning what you do not feel? Is it not preposterous that +you, at your years, should consent to make your life a lie in the +face of Omnipresent Deity?" + +Gherardi rose up pale and trembling. + +"Mr. Leigh, if you have come here to insult me--" + +"Insult you!" echoed Aubrey, "Not I! I would make a man of you if I +could,--but that is too late! You are a witness of imposture and a +supporter of it,--and we are none of us worthy to be called men if +we do either of these two things. You know as well as I do, that +there is no representative of the blameless Christ at the Vatican,-- +you know there is only a poor weak old man, whose mind is swayed by +the crafty counsels of the self-seeking flatterers around him, and +who passes his leisure hours in counting up money, and inventing new +means of gaining it through forms of things that should be spiritual +and divine. If you BELIEVE Christ was God Incarnate, how dare you +tamper with such a Supernal Mystery?" + +Gherardi turned his head slowly and looked round at Aubrey,--then +recovering his composure, sat down and pretended to turn over some +documents on the table, but Aubrey went on undeterred by his aspect +of frigidity, "How dare you, I say? The God in Man! Do you realize +the stupendous meaning of such a phrase? Do you not see that it +means A DIVINE LIFE PALPITATING THROUGH EVERY ATOM OF CREATION? A +Force so great, so pure and majestic, so absolute in Its working for +good, and yet so deliberate in Its movements that It will give Its +creature Man whole centuries of chance to find and save his own soul +before utterly destroying him? What has this sublime Power in common +with the Pope, who shuts himself up in his palace, a voluntary +prisoner, all forsooth because he is denied temporal power! Temporal +power! What is temporal power compared to spiritual power! If he +were the true representative of Christ he would move the world by +deeds of benevolence, goodness, and sanctity! In such a case as that +of the unhappy Dreyfus for instance, he would have issued a solemn +warning and earnest reproach to the French nation for their +misguided cruelty;--he would have travelled himself to Rennes to use +his personal influence in obtaining an innocent man's release with +honour! That would have been Christian! That would have been a +magnificent example to the world! But what did he do? Shut +comfortably up in his luxurious palace where no harm could touch +him, where no crucifixion of the heart or soul could torture him, he +announced to his myrmidons his opinion that the wretched martyr +would be found guilty! And who can tell but that his utterance thus +unchristianly proclaimed did not help to sway the minds of the +Rennes Court-martial? Again, why are there so many poor in Italy? If +the Pope were the father indeed of those who are immediately around +him, the land should be like the fabled Paradise, flowing with milk +and honey. The Vatican is full of money and jewels. 'Sell half that +thou hast and give to the poor,' was the command of Christ.--Does +the Pope do that? Why does he not go out among the people and work +in active sympathy with them? Christ did so! Christ was never borne +with solemn flourish of trumpets like a mummy in a chair, under +canopies of cloth of gold, to give a blessing to a crowd who had got +admission to see him by paid ticket! Man, man! The theatrical +jugglery of Rome is a blasphemy in the sight of heaven;--and most +truly did St. John declare this city, throned on its seven hills, to +be, 'MYSTERY, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.' +And most clearly does God say at this period of our time, 'Come out +of her My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye +receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, +and God hath remembered her iniquities!' The days of evil are +drawing to an end; Rome must fall!" + +Gherardi's breath came and went quickly,--but he kept up the outward +appearance of cold composure. + +"You rant very well, Mr. Leigh!" he said, "You would make an +excellent Hyde Park orator! You have all the qualities which attract +the vulgar; but we--we of the Church know quite well how to deal +with men of your class,--their denunciations do not affect us at +all. They amuse us occasionally; and sometimes they pain us, for +naturally we grieve for the backslidings of refractory brethren. We +regret the clamourings of ignorance which arise from a strong +personal desire for notoriety. That passage in the Revelation of St. +John, has been quoted scores of times as being applicable to Rome, +though as a matter of fact it distinctly mentions Babylon." Here he +smiled suavely. "And thanks to the workings of an All-wise +Influence, Rome was never more powerful than she is at the present +moment. Her ramifications are everywhere; and in England she has +obtained a firm footing. Your good English Queen has never uttered +one word of reproach against the spread of our Holy Religion among +her subjects! Our prayers for the conversion of England will yet be +granted!" + +"Not while I live!" said Aubrey firmly, "Not while I can hold back +but a handful from such a disaster, and that handful shall hold back +yet another handful! The hand of Roman priestcraft shall never weigh +on England while there are any honest men left in it! The conversion +of England! The retrogression of England! Do you think such a thing +is likely to happen because a few misguided clerics choose to appeal +to the silly sentimentality of hysterical women with such church +tricks and rags of paganism as incense and candles! Bah! Do not +judge the English inward heart by its small outward follies, +Monsignor! There are more honest, brave, and sensible folk in the +British Islands than you think. And though our foreign foes desire +our fall, the seed of THEIR decay is not yet in us!" + + + + +XXI. + +Gherardi sat for two or three minutes in absolute silence. Only the +twitching of his eyelids and a slight throbbing in the muscles of +his throat showed with what difficulty he suppressed his rising +fury. But his astute and crafty powers of reasoning taught him that +it would be worse than ridiculous to give way to anger in the +presence of this cool, determined man, who, though he spoke with a +passion which from its very force seemed almost to sound like "the +mighty wind" which accompanied the cloven tongues of fire at the +first Pentecost, still maintained his personal calm,--that immovable +calmness which is always the result of strong inward conviction. A +dangerous man!--yes, there was no doubt of that! He was one of those +concerning whom Emerson wrote, "let the world beware when a Thinker +comes into it." Aubrey Leigh was a thinker,--and more than that, he +was a doer. He was of the strong heroic type of genius that turns +its dreams into facts, its thoughts into deeds. He did not talk, in +common with so many men, of what they considered OUGHT to be done, +without exerting themselves to DO it;--he was sincerely in earnest, +and cared nothing for any personal loss or inconvenience he might +suffer from carrying out his intentions. And Gherardi saw that there +was little or no possibility of moving such a man from the firm +ground of truth which he had elected to stand on. There is nothing +so inconvenient in this world as an absolutely truthful person, who +can both speak and write, and has the courage of his convictions. +One can always arrange matters with liars, because they, being +hampered by their own deceits, are compelled to study ways, means, +and chances for appearing honest. But with the man or woman who +holds truth dearer than life, and honour more valuable than +advancement, there is nothing to be done, now that governments +cannot insist on the hemlock-cure, as in the case of Socrates. +Gherardi, looking furtively under his eyelids at Leigh's strong +lithe figure, and classic head, felt he could have willingly +poisoned or stabbed him. For there were, and ARE great interests at +stake in the so-called "conversion of England,"--it is truly one of +the largest financial schemes ever set afloat in the world, if those +whose duty it is to influence and control events could only be +brought to see the practical side of the matter, and set a check on +its advancement before it is too late. Gherardi knew what great +opportunities there were in embryo of making large fortunes;--and +not only of making large fortunes but of obtaining incredible power. +There was a great plan afoot of drawing American and English wealth +into the big Church-net through the medium of superstitious fear and +sentimental bigotry,--and an opposer and enemy like Aubrey Leigh, +physically handsome, with such powers of oratory as are only granted +to the very few, was capable of influencing women as well as men-- +and women, as Gherardi well recognised, are the chief supporters of +the Papal system. Uneasily he thought of a certain wealthy American +heiress whom he had persuaded into thinking herself specially +favoured and watched over by the Virgin Mary, and who, overcome by +the strong imaginary consciousness of this heavenly protection, had +signed away in her will a million of pounds sterling to a particular +"shrine" in which he had the largest share of financial profit. Now, +suppose she should chance to come within the radius of Leigh's +attractive personality and teaching, and revoke this bequest? Deeply +incensed he sat considering, yet he was conscious enough of his own +impotency to persuade or move this man a jot. + +"I am very sorry," he said at last without raising his eyes, and +carefully preserving an equable and mild tone of voice, "I am sorry +you are so harsh in your judgments, Mr. Leigh;--and still more sorry +that you appear to be bent on opposing the Roman Catholic movement +in England. I will do you the justice to believe that you are moved +by a sincere though erroneous conviction,--and it is out of pure +kindness and interest in you that I warn you how useless you will +find the task in which you have engaged. The force of Rome is +impregnable!--the interpretation of the Gospel by the Pope +infallible. Any man, no matter how gifted with eloquence, or moved +by what he imagines to be truth-(and alas! how often error is +mistaken for truth and truth for error!)--must be crushed in the +endeavour to cope with such a divinely ordained power." + +"The Car of Juggernaut was considered to be divinely ordained," said +Aubrey, "And the wretched and ignorant populace flung themselves +under it in the fit of hysterical mania to which they were excited +by the priests of the god, and so perished in their thousands. Not +THEY were to blame; but the men who invented the imposture and +encouraged the slaughter. THEY had an ideal;--the priests had none! +But Juggernaut had its end--and so will Rome!" + +"You call yourself a Christian?" asked Gherardi, with a touch of +derision. + +"Most assuredly I do," replied Aubrey, "Most assuredly I am! I love +and honour Christ with every fibre of my being. I long to see that +Divine Splendour of the ages stand out white and shining and free +from the mud and slime with which His priests have bespattered Him. +I believe in Him absolutely! But I can find nowhere in His Gospel +that He wished us to turn Religion into a sort of stock-jobbing +company managed by sacerdotal directors in Rome!" + +"What do you know about the 'sacerdotal directors' as you call them, +of Rome?" asked Gherardi slowly, his eyes narrowing at the corners, +and his whole countenance expressing ineffable disdain, "Do you +think we give out the complex and necessary workings of our sacred +business to the uneducated public?" + +"No, I do not," replied Aubrey, "For you keep the public in the dark +as much as you can. Your methods of action are precisely those of +the priests of ancient Egypt, who juggled with what they were +pleased to call their sacred 'mysteries' in precisely the same way +as you do. Race copies race. Roman Christianity is grafted upon +Roman Paganism. When the Apostles were all dead, and their +successors (who had never been in personal touch with Christ) came +on to the scene of action, they discovered that the people of Rome +would not do without the worship of woman in their creed, so they +cleverly substituted the Virgin Mary for Venus and Diana. They +turned the statues of gods and heroes into figures of Apostles and +Saints. They knew it would be unwise to deprive the populace of what +they had been so long accustomed to, and therefore they left them +their swinging censers, their gold chalices, and their symbolic +candles. Thus it is that Roman Catholicism became, and is still, +merely a Christian form of Paganism which is made to pay +successfully, just as the feasts and Saturnalia of ancient days were +made to pay as spectacular and theatrical pastimes. I should not +blame your Church if it declared itself to be an offshoot of +Paganism at once,--Paganism, or any other form of faith, deserves +respect as long as its priests and followers are sincere; but when +their belief is a mere pretence, and their system degenerates into a +scheme of making money out of the fond faiths of the ignorant, then +I consider it is time to protest against such blasphemy in the +presence of God and all things divine and spiritual!" + +Gherardi had listened to these words very quietly, his countenance +gradually relaxing and smoothing into an amiable expression of +forbearance. He looked up now at Aubrey with a smile that was almost +benignant. + +"You are quite right, Mr. Leigh!" he said gently, "I begin to +understand you now! I see that you have studied deeply, and you have +thought still more. If you will continue your studies and your +thinking also, you will see how difficult it is for us to move as +rapidly with the times as you would have us do. You must remember +that it would be quite possible for Holy Mother Church to rise at +once to the high scientific and psychical position you wish her to +adopt, if it were not for the mass of the ignorant, with whom one +must have patience! You are a man in the prime of life--you are +zealous--eager for improvement,--yes!--all that is very admirable +and praiseworthy. But you forget the numerous and widely differing +interests with which we of the Church have to deal. For the great +majority of persons it would be useless, for example, to give them +lessons on the majesty of God's work in the science of Astronomy. +They would be confused, bewildered, and more or less frightened out +of faith altogether. They must have something tangible to cling to-- +for instance,"--and he pressed the tips of his fingers delicately +together, "there are grades of intelligence just as there are grades +of creation; you cannot instruct a caterpillar as you instruct a +man. Now there are many human beings who are of the caterpillar +quality of brain--what are you to do with them? They would not +understand God as manifested in the solar system, but they would try +to please some favourite Saint by good conduct. Is it not better +that they should believe in the Saint than in nothing?" + +"I cannot think it well for anyone to believe in a lie," said Aubrey +slowly, taken aback despite himself by Gherardi's sudden gentleness, +"There is a magnificent simplicity in truth;--truth which, the more +it is tested, the truer it proves. Where is there any necessity of +falsehood? Surely the marvels of nature could be explained with as +much ease as the supposed miracles of a Saint?" + +"I doubt it!" answered Gherardi smiling, "You must admit, my dear +sir, that our scientific men are a great deal too abstruse for the +majority;--in some cases they are almost too abstruse for +themselves! You spoke just now of the priests of Egypt;--the oracles +of Memphis were clear reading compared to the involved sentences of +some of our modern scientists! Scientific books are hard nuts to +crack even for the highly educated; but for the uneducated, believe +me, the personality of a Saint is much more consoling than the +movements of a star. Besides, Humanity must have something human to +love and to revere. The infinite gradations of the Mind of God +through Matter, appeal to none but those of the very highest +intellectual capability." + +Aubrey was silent a moment, then he said, + +"But even the most ignorant can understand Christ,--Christ as He +revealed Himself to the world in perfect beauty and simplicity as 'a +Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' There needs no Vatican, +no idolatry of the Pope, no superstitious images, no shrines of +healing and reliquaries to explain His sublime intention!" + +"I am afraid, Mr. Leigh, you entertain a very optimistic view of +mankind," said Gherardi, "Unfortunately Christ is not enough for +many people. Christ was an Incarnation of God, and though He became +Man he 'knew not sin.' He therefore stands apart; an Example, but +not a Companion. There are a certain class of sinners who like to +think of Saints;--human beings constituted like themselves, who have +committed errors, even crimes, and repented of them. This is a +similar spirit to that of the child who catches hold of any +convenient support he can find to guide his first tottering steps +across the floor to his mother,-the Saint helps the feeble-footed +folk to totter their way towards Christ. I assure you, our Church +considers everything that is necessary for the welfare of its +weakest brethren." + +"Yes,--I grant you that it is full of subtle means for approaching +and commanding the ignorant," said Aubrey. "But to the intellectual +forces it offers no progress." + +"The intellectual forces can clear their own way!" declared +Gherardi, rising to his full imposing height, and beaming sovereign +benevolence on his visitor, "and can, if they choose, make their own +Church. This is the age of freedom, and no restraint is placed on +the action of the intellectually free. But the ignorant must always +form the majority; and in their ignorance and helplessness, will do +wisely to remain like obedient children under the sway of Rome!" + +Aubrey rose also, and could not forbear an involuntary glance of +reluctant admiration at the stately figure and commanding attitude +of the man who confronted him with such a pride in the persistent +Jesuitical conviction that even a Lie may be used in religion for +the furtherance of conversion to the Truth. + +"I do not see," Gherardi went on, smiling blandly, "why after all, +you should not be received by the Holy Father. I will try to arrange +it for you. But it would avail you very little, I imagine, as he is +not strong, and would not be capable of conversing with you for more +than a few minutes. I think it would serve your purpose much more to +carefully study the movements, and the work of what you call 'the +stock-jobbing company of sacerdotal directors,'" and here his smile +became still more broadly benevolent, "and take note of their +divisions and subdivisions of influence which extend from the very +poorest and most abandoned to the very highest and most cultured. +You will then understand why I maintain that Rome as a power is +impregnable;--and why some of the more far-sighted and prophetic +among us look upon the Conversion of England as an almost +accomplished fact!" + +Aubrey smiled; but he was not without the consciousness that from +his own particular point of view Gherardi had some excuse for his +belief. + +"According to your own written opinions," went on Gherardi, "for I +have read your books,--the Church of England is in a bad way. Its +Ritualistic form is very nearly Roman. Some of your Archbishops +confess to a liking for incense! You admit that the stricter forms +of Protestantism do not comfort the sick soul in times of need; +well, what would you Socialists and Freethinkers have? Would you do +without a Church altogether?" + +"No," said Aubrey quickly, "But we would have a purified Church,--a +House of Praise to God--without any superstition or dogma." + +"You must have dogma," said Gherardi complacently, "You must +formulate something out of a chaos of opinion. As for superstition, +you will never get rid of that weakness out of the human +composition. If the Church gives nothing for this particular mood of +man to feed on, man will invent something else OUTSIDE the Church. +My dear sir, we have thought of all these difficulties for ages! In +religion one cannot appeal solely to the intellect. One must touch +the heart--the emotions. Music, painting, colour, spectacle, all +these are permitted us to use for the good purpose of lifting the +soul of a sinner to contemplate something better than himself. Women +and little children enter the Church as well as men,--would you have +THEM find no comfort? Must a woman with a broken heart take her +sorrows to the vast Silence of an unreasonable God among universes +of star systems? Or shall she find hope, and a gleam of comfort in a +prayer to a woman of the same clay as herself in the person of the +Virgin Mary? And remember, there is something very beautiful in the +symbol of the Virgin as applied to womanhood! The Mother of God! +Does it not suggest to your poetical mind that woman is destined +always to be the Mother of the God?--that is, mother of the perfect +man when that desirable consummation shall be accomplished?" + +"I have never doubted it.'" said Aubrey, "The Mother of Christ is to +me a symbol of womanhood for all time!" Gherardi smiled. + +"Good! Then in spite of your denunciations you come very near to our +faith'" + +"I never denied the beauty, romance, or mysticism of the Roman +Catholic Faith," said Aubrey, "If it were purified from the +accumulated superstition of ages, and freed from intolerance and +bigotry, it would perhaps be the grandest form of Christianity in +the world. But the rats are in the house, and the rooms want +cleaning!" + +"In every house there are those rats--in every room there is dirt!" +said Gherardi, "Presuming that you speak in a moral sense. What of +your Houses of Parliament? What of the French Senate? What of the +Reichstag? What of the Russian Autocracy?--the American Republic? In +every quarter the rats squeal, and the dirt gathers! The Church of +Rome is purity itself compared to your temporal governments! My dear +sir," and approaching, he laid a kindly hand on Aubrey's arm, "I +would not be harsh with you for the world! I understand your nature +perfectly. It is full of enthusiasm and zeal for righteousness,-- +your heart warms to the sorrows of the human race,--you would lift +up the whole world to God's footstool; you would console--you would +be a benefactor--you would elevate, purify, rejuvenate, inspire! +Yes! This is a grand mood--one which has fired many a would-be +reformer before you,--but you forget! It is not the Church against +which you should arm yourself--it is the human race! It is not one +or many religious systems with which you should set yourself to +contend--it is the blind brutishness of humanity!" As he spoke, his +tall form appeared to tower to an even greater height,--his eyes +flashed, and the intellectual pride and force of his character +became apparent in every feature of his face. "If humanity in the +mass asked us for Christ only; if men and women would deny +themselves the petty personal aim, the low vice, the crawling desire +to ingratiate themselves with Heaven, the Pharisaical affectation of +virtue--if they would themselves stand clear of 'vain repetition' +and obstinate egoism, and would of themselves live purely, the +Church would be pure! May I venture to suggest to you that men make +the Church, not the Church the men? We try to supply the spiritual +needs of the human being, such as his spiritual needs at present +are,--when he demands more we will give him more. At present his +needs are purely personal, and therefore low and tainted with +sensuality,--yet we drag him along through these emotions as near to +the blameless Christ as we can. When he is impersonal enough, +unselfish enough, loyal-hearted enough, to stand face to face with +the glorious manifestation of the Deity unaided, we can cast away +his props, such as superstitious observances, Saints and the like, +and leave him,--but then the Millennium will have come, and there +will be new heavens and a new earth!" + +He spoke well, with force and fervour, and Aubrey Leigh was for a +moment impressed. After a slight pause however, he said, + +"You admit the ignorance of human beings, and yet--you would keep +them ignorant?" + +"Keep them ignorant!" Gherardi laughed lightly. "That is more than +any of us can do nowadays! Every liberty is afforded them to learn,- +-and if they still remain barbarous it is because they elect to be +so. But OUR duty is to look after the ignorant more than the +cultured! Quite true it is that the Pope lost a magnificent +opportunity in the Dreyfus affair,--if he had spoken in favour of +mercy and justice he would have won thousands of followers; being +silent he has lost thousands. But this should be a great +satisfaction to you, Mr. Leigh! For if the Holy Father had given an +example to the Catholic clergy to act in the true Christian spirit +towards Dreyfus, the Conversion of England might have been so +grafted on enthusiastic impulse as to be a much nearer possibility +than it is now!" + +Aubrey was silent. + +"Now, Mr. Leigh, I think you have gained sufficient insight into my +views to judge me with perhaps greater favour than you were inclined +to do at the beginning of our interview," continued Gherardi, "I +assure you that I shall watch your career with the greatest +interest! You have embarked in a most hopeless cause,--you will try +to help the helpless, and as soon as they are rescued out of +trouble, they will turn and rend you,--you will try to teach them +the inner mysteries of God's working, and they will say you are +possessed of a devil! You will endeavour to upset shams and +hypocrisies, and the men of your press will write you down and say +you are seeking advertisement and notoriety for yourself. Was there +ever a great thinker left unmartyred? Or a great writer that has not +been misunderstood and condemned? You wish to help and serve +humanity! Enthusiast! You would do far better to help and serve the +Church! For the Church rewards; humanity has cursed and killed every +great benefactor it ever had INCLUDING CHRIST!" + +The terrible words beat on Aubrey's ears like the brazen clang of a +tocsin, for he knew they were true. But he held his ground. + +"There are worse things than death," he said simply. + +Gherardi smiled kindly. + +"And there are worse things than life!" he said, + +"Life holds a good many harmless enjoyments, which I am afraid you +are putting away from you in your prime, for the sake of a mere +chimera. But--after all, what does it matter! One must have a hobby! +Some men like horse-racing, others book-collecting,--others +pictures,--and so forth--you like the religious question! Well, no +doubt it affords you a great many opportunities of studying +character. I shall be very happy--" here he extended his hand +cordially, "to show you anything that may be of interest to you in +Rome, and to present you to any of our brethren that may assist you +in your researches. I can give you a letter to Rampolla--" + +Aubrey declined the offered introduction with a decided negative +shake of his head. + +"No," he said, "I know Cardinal Bonpre; that is enough!" + +"But there is a great difference between Rampolla and Bonpre," said +Gherardi, with twinkling eyes, "Bonpre is scarcely ever in Rome. He +lives a life apart--and has for a long while been considered as a +kind of saint from the privacy and austerity of his life. But he has +heralded his arrival in the Eternal City triumphantly--by the +performance of a miracle! What do you say to this?--you who would do +away with things miraculous?" + +"I say nothing till I hear," answered Aubrey, "I must know what the +nature of the so-called miracle is. I am a believer in soul-forces, +and in the exhalation of spiritual qualities affecting or +influencing others: but in this there is no miracle, it is simply +natural law." + +"Well, you must interview the Cardinal yourself," said Gherardi +indulgently, "and tell me afterwards what you think about it, if +indeed you think anything. But you will not find him at home this +morning. He is summoned to the Vatican." + +"On account of the miracle?--or the scandal affecting the Abbe +Vergniaud?" asked Aubrey. + +"Both matters are under discussion, I believe," replied Gherardi +evasively, "But they are not in my province. Now, can I be of any +further service to you, Mr. Leigh?" + +"No. I am sorry to have taken up so much of your time," said Aubrey, +"But I think I understand your views--" + +"I hope you do," interrupted Gherardi, "And that you will by and by +grasp the fact that my views are shared by almost everyone holding +any Church authority. But you must go about in Rome, and make +enquiries for yourself . . . now, let me see! Do you know the Princesse +D'Agramont?" + +"No." + +"Oh, you must know her,--she is a great friend of Donna Sovrani's, +and a witty and brilliant personage in herself. She is rather of +your way of thinking, and so is out of favour with the Church. But +that will not matter to you; and you will meet all the dissatisfied +and enthusiastic of the earth in her salons! I will tell her to send +you a card." + +Aubrey said something by way of formal acknowledgment, and then took +his leave. He was singularly depressed, and his face, always quick +to show traces of thought, had somewhat lost its former expression +of eager animation. The wily Gherardi had for the time so influenced +his sensitive mind as to set it almost to the tune of the most +despairing of Tennyson's "Two Voices", + + "A life of nothings, nothing worth, + From that first nothing ere his birth, + To that last nothing under earth." + +What was the use of trying to expound a truth, if the majority +preferred a lie? + + "Will one bright beam be less intense, + When thy peculiar difference + Is cancelled in the world of sense?" + +And Gherardi noted the indefinable touch of fatigue that gave the +slight droop of the shoulders and air of languor to the otherwise +straight slim figure as it passed from his presence,--and smiled. He +had succeeded in putting a check on unselfish ardour, and had thrown +a doubt into the pure intention of enthusiastic toil. That was +enough for the present. And scarcely had Aubrey crossed the +threshold--scarcely had the echo of his departing footsteps died +away--when a heavy velvet curtain in the apartment was cautiously +thrust aside, and Monsignor Moretti stepped out of a recess behind +it, with a dignity and composure which would have been impossible to +any but an Italian priest convicted of playing the spy. Gherardi +faced him confidently. + +"Well?" he said, with a more exhaustive enquiry expressed in his +look than in the simple ejaculation. + +"Well!" echoed Moretti, as he slowly advanced into the centre of the +room, "You have not done as much as I expected you would. Your +arguments were clever, but not--to a man of his obstinacy, +convincing." + +And sitting down, he turned his dark face and gleaming eyes full on +his confrere, who with a shrug of his massive shoulders expressed in +his attitude a disdainful relinquishment of the whole business. + +"You have not," pursued Moretti deliberately, "grasped anything like +the extent of this man Leigh's determination and indifference to +results. Please mark that last clause,--indifference to results. He +is apparently alone in the world,--he seems to have nothing to lose, +and no one to care whether he succeeds or fails;--a most dangerous +form of independence! And in his persistence and eloquence he is +actually stopping--yes, I repeat it,--stopping and putting a serious +check on the advancement of the Roman Catholic party. And of course +any check just now means to us a serious financial loss both in +England and America,--a deficit in Vatican revenues which will very +gravely incommode certain necessary measures now under the +consideration of His Holiness. I expected you to grasp the man and +hold him,--not by intimidation but by flattery." + +"You think he is to be caught by so common a bait?" said Gherardi, +"Bah! He would see through it at once!" + +"Maybe!" replied Moretti, "But perhaps not if it were administered +in the way I mean. You seem to have forgotten the chief influence of +any that can be brought to bear upon the heart and mind of a man,-- +and that is, Woman." + +Gherardi laughed outright. + +"Upon my word I think it would be difficult to find the woman suited +to this case!" he said. "But you who have a diplomacy deeper than +that of any Jew usurer may possibly have one already in view?" + +"There is now in Rome," pursued Moretti, speaking with the same even +deliberation of accent, "a faithful daughter of the Church, whose +wealth we can to a certain extent command, and whose charm is +unquestionable,--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein--" + +Gherardi started. Moretti eyed him coldly. + +"You are not stricken surely by the childlike fascination with which +this princess of coquettes rules her court?" he enquired +sarcastically. + +"I?" echoed Gherardi, shifting his position so that Moretti's gaze +could not fall so directly upon him. "I? You jest!" + +"I think not!" said Moretti, "I think I know something about women-- +their capabilities, their passions, their different grades of power. +Sylvie Hermenstein possesses a potent charm which few men can +resist, and I should not wonder if you yourself had been +occasionally conscious of it. She is one of those concerning whom +other women say 'they can see nothing in her'. Ah!" and Moretti +smiled darkly, "What a compliment that is from the majority of women +to one! This woman Sylvie is unique. Where is her beauty? You cannot +say--yet beauty is her very essence. She cannot boast perfection of +features,--she is frequently hidden away altogether in a room and +scarcely noticed. And so she reminds me of a certain flower known to +the Eastern nations, which is difficult to find, because so fragile +and small that it can scarcely be seen, but when it is found, and +the scent of it unwittingly inhaled, it drives men mad!" + +Gherardi looked at him with a broadly wondering smile. + +"You speak so eloquently," he said, "that one would almost fancy--" + +"Fancy nothing!" retorted Moretti quickly, "Fancy and I are as far +apart as the poles, except in the putting together of words, in +which easy art I daresay I am as great an adept as Florian Varillo, +who can write verses on love or patriotism to order, without +experiencing a touch of either emotion. What a humbug by the way, +that fellow is!--" and Moretti broke off to consider this new point- +-"He rants of the honour of Italy, and would not let his finger ache +for her cause! And he professes to love the 'Sovrani' while all Rome +knows that Pon-Pon is his mistress!" + +Gherardi wisely held his peace. + +"The Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein is the little magic flower you must +use;" resumed Moretti, emphasising his words with an authoritative +movement of his hand, "Use her to madden Aubrey Leigh. Bring them +together;--he will lose his head as surely as all men do when they +come under the influence of that soft deep-eyed creature, with the +full white breast of a dove, and the smile of an angel,--and +remember, it would be an excellent thing for the Church if he could +be persuaded to marry her,--there would be no more preaching then!-- +for the thoughts of love would outweigh the theories of religion." + +"You think it?" queried Gherardi dubiously. + +"I know it!" replied Moretti rising, and preparing to take his +departure, "But,--play the game cautiously! Make no false move. For- +-understand me well, this man Leigh must be silenced, or we shall +lose England!" + +And with these last words he turned abruptly on his heel and left +the apartment. + + + + +XXII. + +Cardinal Felix Bonpre sat alone in the largest and loneliest room of +the large and lonely suite of rooms allotted to him in the Palazzo +Sovrani,--alone at a massive writing table near the window, his head +resting on one hand, and his whole figure expressive of the most +profound dejection. In front of him an ancient silver crucifix +gleamed in the flicker of the small wood fire which had been kindled +in the wide cavernous chimney--and a black-bound copy of the Gospels +lay open as if but lately consulted. The faded splendour of certain +gold embroidered hangings on the walls added to the solemn and +melancholy aspect of the apartment, and the figure of the venerable +prelate seen in such darkening gloom and solitude, was the crowning +completion of an expressive and pathetic picture of patient +desolation. So might a martyr of the Inquisition have looked while +the flames were getting ready to burn him for the love of the gentle +Saviour; and something of the temper of such a possible predecessor +was in the physically frail old man, who just now was concentrating +all the energies of his mind on the consideration of a difficult +question which is often asked by many hearts in secret, but is +seldom voiced to the public ear;--"Christ or the Church? Which must +I follow to be an honest man?" + +Never had the good Cardinal been in such a strange predicament. +Living away from the great centres of thought and action, he had +followed a gentle and placid course of existence, almost unruffled, +save by the outside murmurs of a growing public discontent which had +reached him through the medium of current literature, and had given +him cause to think uneasily of possible disaster for the religious +world in the near future,--but he had never gone so far as to +imagine that the Head of the Church would, while being perfectly +conscious of existing threatening evils, deliberately turn his back +to appeals for help,--shut his ears to the cry of the "lost sheep of +the House of Israel", and even endeavour, with an impotence of +indignation which was as pitiable as useless, to shake a rod of +Twelfth-century menace over the advancement of the Twentieth! + +"For the onward movement of Humanity is God's work," said the +Cardinal, "And what are we--what is even the Church--when it does +not move side by side in perfect and pure harmony with the order of +Divine Law?" + +And he was bitterly troubled in spirit. He had spent the whole +morning at the Vatican, and the manner of his reception there had +been so curiously divided between flattery and reproach that he had +not known what to make of it. The Pope had been tetchy and +querulous,--precisely in such a humour as one naturally expects so +aged a man to be when contradicted on any matter, whether trivial or +important. For with such advanced years the faculties are often as +brittle as the bones, and the failing powers of the brain are often +brought to bear with more concentration on inconsiderable trifles +than on the large and important affairs of life. He had questioned +the Cardinal closely concerning the miraculous cure performed at +Rouen, and had become excessively angry when the honest prelate +earnestly disclaimed all knowledge of it. He had then confronted him +with Claude Cazeau, the secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen, and +Cazeau had given a clear and concise account of the whole matter, +stating that the child, Fabien Doucet, had been known in Rouen since +his babyhood as a helpless cripple, and that after Cardinal Bonpre +had prayed over him and laid hands on him, he had been miraculously +cured, and was now to be seen running about the city as strong and +straight as any other healthy child. And Bonpre listened patiently;- +-and to all that was said, merely reiterated that if the child WERE +so cured, then it was by the special intervention of God, as he +personally had done no more than pray for his restoration. But to +his infinite amazement and distress he saw plainly that the Holy +Father did not believe him. He saw that he was suspected of playing +a trick,--a trick, which if he had admitted, would have been +condoned, but which if he denied, would cause him to be looked upon +with distrust by all the Vatican party. He saw that even the man +Cazeau suspected him. And then,--when the public confession of the +Abbe Vergniaud came under discussion,--the Pope had gathered +together all the visible remains of physical force his attenuated +frame could muster, and had hurled himself impotently against the +wall of opposing fact with such frail fury as almost to suggest the +celebrated simile of "a reed shaken with the wind". In vain had the +Cardinal pleaded for Vergniaud's pardon; in vain had he urged that +after all, the sinner had branded himself as such in the sight of +all men; what further need to add the ban of the Church's +excommunication against one who was known to be within touch of +death? Would not Christ have said, "Go, and sin no more"? But this +simple quotation from the Gospels seemed to enrage the +representative of St. Peter more violently than before, and when +Bonpre left the Holy Presence he knew well enough that he was, for +no fault of his own, under the displeasure of the Vatican. How had +it all come about? Nothing could have been simpler than his life and +actions since he left his own Cathedral-town,--he had prayed for a +sick child,--he had sympathised with a sorry sinner,--that was all. +And such deeds as these were commanded by Christ. Yet--the Head of +the Church for these same things viewed him with wrath and +suspicion! Wearily he sat, turning over everything in his mind, and +longing, with a weakness which he fully admitted to his own +conscience, to leave Rome at once and return to his own home, there +to die among his roses at peace. But he saw it would never do to +leave Rome just yet. He was bound fast hand and foot. He was +"suspect"! In his querulous fit the Pope had ordered Claude Cazeau +to return to Rouen without delay, and there gather further evidence +respecting the Cardinal's stay at the Hotel Poitiers, and if +possible, to bring the little Fabien Doucet and his mother back to +Rome with him. Pending the arrival of fresh proof, Bonpre, though he +had received no actual command, knew he was expected to remain where +he was. Weary and sick at heart, the venerable prelate sighed as he +reviewed all the entangling perplexities, which had, so +unconsciously to himself, become woven like a web about his innocent +and harmless personality, and so absorbed was he in thought that he +did not hear the door of his room open, and so was sot aware that +his foundling Manuel had stood for some time silently watching him. +Such love and compassion as were expressed in the boy's deep blue +eyes could not however radiate long through any space without some +sympathetic response,--and moved by instinctive emotion, Cardinal +Felix looked up, and seeing his young companion smiled,--albeit the +smile was a somewhat sad one. + +"Where have you been, my child?" he asked gently, "I have missed you +for some hours." + +Manuel advanced a little, and stood between the pale afternoon light +reflected through the window, and the warmer glow of the wood fire. + +"I have been to the strangest place in all the world!" he answered, +"The strangest,--and surely one of the most wicked!" + +The Cardinal raised himself in his chair, and bent an anxious +wondering look upon the young speaker. + +"One of the most wicked!" he echoed, "What place are you talking +of?" + +"St. Peter's!" answered Manuel, with a thrill of passion in his +voice as he uttered the name, "St. Peter's,--the huge Theatre +misnamed a Church! Oh, dear friend!--do not look at me thus! Surely +you must feel that what I say is true? Surely you know that there is +nothing of the loving God in that vast Cruelty of a place, where +wealth and ostentation vie with intolerant officialism, bigotry and +superstition!--where even the marble columns have been stolen from +the temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the names of Isis +and Jupiter wrought in the truthful stone;--where theft, rapine and +murder have helped to build the miscalled Christian fane! You cannot +in your heart of hearts feel it to be the abode of Christ; your +soul, bared to the sight of God, repudiates it as a Lie! Yes!"--For, +startled and carried away by the boy's fervour, Cardinal Felix had +risen, and now stood upright, making a feeble gesture with his +hands, as though seeking to keep back the crushing weight of some +too overwhelming conviction,--"Yes--you would silence me!--but you +cannot!--I read your heart! You love God . . . and I--I love Him too! +You would serve Him!--and I--I would obey Him! Ah, do not struggle +with yourself, dear and noble friend! If you were thrice crowned a +martyr and saint you could not see otherwise than clearly--you could +not but accept Truth when Truth is manifested to you,--you could not +swear falsely before God! Would the Christ not say now as He said so +many centuries ago--'My House is called the house of prayer, but ye +have made it a den of thieves!' Is it not truly a den of thieves? +What has the Man of Sorrows to do with all the evil splendour of St. +Peter's?--its bronzes, its marbles, its colossal statues of dead +gods, its glittering altars, its miserable dreary immensity, its +flaring gilding and insolent vulgarity of cost! Oh, what a +loneliness is that of Christ in this world! What a second Agony in +Gethsemane!" + +The sweet voice broke--the fair head was turned away,--and Cardinal +Felix, overcome by such emotion as he found it impossible to +explain, suddenly sank on his knees, and stretched out his arms to +the young slight creature who spoke with such a passion and +intensity of yearning. + +"Child!" he said, with tremulous appeal in his accents, "For God's +sake'--you who express your thoughts with such eloquence and fervent +pain!--tell me, WHO ARE YOU? My mind is caught and controlled by +your words,--you are too young to think as you do, or to speak as +you do,--yet some authority you seem to possess, which I submit to, +not knowing why; I am very old, and maybe growing foolish in my age- +-many troubles are gathering about me in these latter days,--do not +make them more than I can bear!" + +His words were to himself incoherent, and yet it seemed as if Manuel +understood them. Suffering himself to be clasped for a moment by the +old man's trembling hands, he nevertheless gently persuaded and +assisted him to rise, and when he was once more seated, stood +quietly by his side, waiting till he should have recovered from his +sudden agitation. + +"Dear friend, you are weary and troubled in spirit," he said +tenderly then, "And my words seem to you only terrible because they +are true! If they grieve you, it is because the grief in your heart +echoes mine! And if I do think and speak more seriously than I +should, it is for the reason that I have been so much alone in the +world,--left to myself, with my own thoughts of God, which are not +thoughts such as many care for. I would not add to your sorrows,--I +would rather lighten them if I could--but I feel and fear that I +shall be a burden upon you before long!" + +"Never!" exclaimed Bonpre fervently, "Never a burden on me, child! +Surely while I live you will not leave me?" + +Manuel was silent for a little space. His eyes wandered from the +Cardinal's venerable worn features to the upstanding silver crucifix +that gleamed dully in the glow of the wood-embers. + +"I will not leave you unless it is well for you that I should go," +he answered at last, "And even then, you will always know where to +find me." + +The Cardinal looked at him earnestly, and with a searching +interrogation,--but the boy's face though sweetly composed, had a +certain gravity of expression which seemed to forbid further +questioning. And a deep silence fell between them,--a silence which +was only broken by the door opening to admit Prince Sovrani who, +pausing on the threshold, said, + +"Brother, if you will allow yourself to be disturbed, Angela would +like to see you in her studio. There are several people there,--her +fiance, Varillo among the number,--and I think the girl would be +glad of your presence." + +The Cardinal started as from a dream, and rose from his chair. + +"I will come at once--yes--I will come," he said, "I must not be +selfish and think only of my own troubles!" He stood erect,--he was +still in the scarlet robes in which he had made his appearance at +the Vatican, and they fell regally about his tall dignified form, +the vivid colour intensifying the pallor of his thin features. A +servant entering at the moment with two large silver candelabra +ablaze with lights, created an effect of luminance in the room that +made him appear to even greater advantage as an imposing figure of +ecclesiastical authority, and Prince Pietro looked at him with the +admiring affection and respect which he, though a cynic and sceptic, +had always felt for the brother of his wife,--affection and respect +which had if anything become intensified since that beloved one's +untimely death. + +"You were well received at the Vatican?" he said tentatively. + +"Not so well as I had hoped," replied the Cardinal patiently--"Not +so well! But the cloud will pass. I will go with you to the studio,- +-Manuel, will you stay here?" + +Manuel bent his head in assent; he had just closed the before open +copy of the Gospels, and now stood with his hand upon the Book. + +"I will wait till you call me, my lord Cardinal," he replied. + +Prince Pietro then led the way, and Cardinal Bonpre followed, his +scarlet robes sweeping behind him with a rich rustling sound, and as +the two entered the large lofty studio, hung with old tapestries, +and panelled with deeply carved and gilded oak, the room which was +Angela Sovrani's special sanctum, all the persons there assembled +rose from their different sitting or lounging attitudes, and +respectfully bent their heads to the brief and unostentatious +benediction given to them by the venerable prelate of whom all +present had heard, but few had seen, and everyone made way for him +as Angela met and escorted him to a seat on one of the old, throne- +like chairs with which the Sovrani palace was so amply supplied. +When he was thus installed, he made the picturesque centre of a +brilliant little scene enough,--one of those vivacious and bright +gatherings which can be found nowhere so perfectly blended in colour +and in movement as in a great art-studio in Rome. Italians are not +afraid to speak, to move, to smile,--unlike the Anglo-Saxon race, +their ease of manner is inborn, and comes to them without training, +hence there is nothing of the stiff formality and awkward gloom +which too frequently hangs like a cloud over English attempts at +sociality,--and that particular charm which is contained in the +brightness and flashing of eyes, creates a dazzling effect +absolutely unknown to colder northern climes. Eyes,--so potent to +bewitch and to command, are a strangely neglected influence in +certain forms of social intercourse. English eyes are too often dull +and downcast, and wear an inane expression of hypocrisy and prudery; +unless they happen to be hard and glittering and meaningless; but in +southern climes, they throw out radiant invitations, laughing +assurances, brilliant mockeries, melting tendernesses, by the +thousand flashes, and make a fire of feeling in the coldest air. And +so in Angela's beautiful studio, among the whiteness of classic +marbles, and the soft hues of richly falling draperies, fair faces +shone out like flowers, lit up by eyes, whose light seemed to be +vividly kindled by the heat of an amorous southern sun,--Venetian +eyes blue as a cornflower, Florentine eyes brown and brilliant as a +russet leaf in autumn, Roman eyes black as night, Sicilian eyes of +all hues, full of laughter and flame--and yet among all, no sweeter +or more penetratingly tender eyes than those of Sylvie Hermenstein +ever shot glances abroad to bewilder and dazzle the heart of man. +Not in largeness, colour or brilliancy lay their charm, but in deep, +langourous, concentrated sweetness,--a sweetness so far-reaching +from the orb to the soul that it was easy to sink away into their +depths and dream,--and never wish to wake. Sylvie was looking her +fairest that afternoon,--the weather was chilly, and the close- +fitting black velvet dress with its cape-like collar of rich sables, +well became her figure and delicately fair complexion, and many a +spiteful little whisper concerning her went round among more showy +but less attractive women,--many an involuntary but low murmur of +admiration escaped from the more cautious lips of the men. She was +talking to the Princesse D'Agramont, who with her brilliant dark +beauty could afford to confess ungrudgingly the charm of a woman so +spirituelle as Sylvie, and who, between various careless nods and +smiles to her acquaintance, was detailing to her with much animation +the account of her visit to the Marquis Fontenelle before leaving +Paris. + +"He must be very epris!" said the Princesse laughing, "For he froze +into a rigid statue of virtue when I suggested that he should escort +me to Rome! I did not wait to see the effect of my announcement that +YOU were already there!" + +Sylvie lowered her eyes, and a faint colour crimsoned her cheeks. + +"Then he knows where I am?" she asked. + +"If he believes ME, he knows," replied Loyse D'Agramont, "But +perhaps he does not believe me! All Paris was talking about the Abbe +Vergniaud and his son 'Gys Grandit', when I left, and the Marquis +appeared as interested in that esclandre as he can ever be +interested in anything or anybody. So perhaps he forgot my visit as +soon as it was ended. Abbe Vergniaud is very ill by the way. His +self-imposed punishment, and his unexpected reward in the +personality of his son, have proved a little too much for him,--both +he and 'Grandit' are at my Chateau," here she raised her lorgnon, +and peered through it with an inquisitive air, "Tiens! There is the +dear Varillo making himself agreeable as usual to all the ladies! +When does the marriage come off between him and our gifted Sovrani?" + +"I do not know," answered Sylvie, with a little dubious look, +"Nothing is contemplated in that way until Angela's great picture is +exhibited." + +The Princesse D'Agramont looked curiously at the opposite wall where +an enormous white covering was closely roped and fastened across an +invisible canvas, which seemed to be fully as large as Raffaelle's +"Transfiguration". + +"Still a mystery?" she queried, "Has she never shown it even to +you?" + +Sylvie shook her head. + +"Never!" and then breaking off with a sudden exclamation she turned +in the direction of the door where there was just now a little +movement and murmur of interest, as the slim tall figure of a man +moved slowly and with graceful courtesy through the assemblage +towards that corner of the studio where the Cardinal sat, his niece +standing near him, and there made a slight yet perfectly reverential +obeisance. + +"Mr. Leigh!" cried Angela, "How glad I am to see you!" + +"And I too," said the Cardinal, extending his hand, and kindly +raising Aubrey before he could complete his formal genuflection, +"You have not wasted much of your time in Florence!" + +"My business was soon ended there," replied Aubrey. "It merely +concerned the saving of a famous religious picture--but I find the +modern Florentines so dead to beauty that it is almost impossible to +rouse them to any sort of exertion . . ." Here he paused, as Angela +with a smile moved quickly past him saying, + +"One moment, Mr. Leigh! I must introduce you to one of my dearest +friends!" + +He waited, with a curious sense of impatience, and full beating of +his heart, answering quite mechanically one or two greetings from +Florian Varillo and other acquaintances who knew and recognised him- +-and then felt, rather than saw, that he was looking into the deep +sweet eyes of the woman who had flung him a rose from the balcony of +the angels, and that her face, sweet as the rose itself, was smiling +upon him. As in a dream he heard her name, "The Comtesse Sylvie +Hermenstein" and his own, "Mr. Aubrey Leigh"; he was dimly aware of +bowing, and of saying something vague and formal, but all the +actuality of his being was for the moment shaken and transfigured, +and only one strong and overwhelming conviction remained,--the +conviction that, in the slight creature who stood before him +gracefully acknowledging his salutation, he had met his fate. Now he +understood as he had never done before what the poet-philosopher +meant by "the celestial rapture falling out of heaven";--for that +rapture fell upon him and caught him up in a cloud of glory, with +all the suddenness and fervour which must ever attend the true birth +of the divine passion in strong and tender natures. The calculating +sensualist can never comprehend this swiftly exalted emotion, this +immediate radiation of light through all life, which is like the sun +breaking through clouds on a dark day. The sensualist has by self- +indulgence, blunted the edge of feeling, and it is impossible for +him to experience this delicate sensation of exquisite delight,-- +this marvellous assurance that here and now, face to face, stands +the One for whom all time shall be merged into a Song of Love, and +upon whom all the sweetest thoughts of imagination shall be brought +to bear for the furtherance of mutual joy! Aubrey's strong spirit, +set to stern labour for so long, and trained to toil with but scant +peace for reward, now sprang up as it were to its full height of +capability and resolution,--yet its power was tempered with that +tender humility which, in a noble-hearted man, bends before the +presence of the woman whose love for him shall make her sacred. All +his instincts bade him recognise Sylvie as the completion and +fulfilment of his life, and this consciousness was so strong and +imperative that it made him more than gentle to her as he spoke his +first few words, and obtained her consent to escort her to a seat +not far off from the Cardinal, yet removed sufficiently from the +rest of the people to enable them to converse uninterruptedly for a +time. Angela watched them, well pleased;--she too had quick +instincts, and as she noted Sylvie's sudden flush under the +deepening admiration of Aubrey's eyes, she thought to herself, "If +it could only be! If she could forget Fontenelle--if--" + +But here her thoughts were interrupted by her own "ideal",--Florian +Varillo who, catching her hand abruptly, drew her aside for a +moment. + +"Carissima mia, why did you not introduce the Princesse D'Agramont +to Mr. Leigh rather than the Comtesse Hermenstein? The Princesse is +of his way of thinking,--Sylvie is not!" and he finished his +sentence by slipping an arm round her waist quickly, and whispering +a word which brought the colour to her cheeks and the sparkle to her +eyes, and made her heart beat so quickly that she could not speak +for a moment. Yet she was supposed by the very man whose embrace +thus moved her, to be "passionless!" + +"You must not call her 'Sylvie'," she answered at last, "She does +not like such familiarity--even from you!" + +"No? Did she tell you so?" and Florian laughed, "What a confiding +little darling you are, Angela! I assure you, Sylvie Hermenstein is +not so very particular--but there! I will not say a word against any +friend of yours! But do you not see she is already trying to make a +fool of Aubrey Leigh?" + +Angela looked across the room and saw Leigh's intellectual head +bending closely towards the soft gold of Sylvie's hair, and smiled. + +"I do not think Sylvie would willingly make a fool of anyone," she +answered simply, "She is too loyal and sincere. I fancy you do not +understand her, Florian. She is full of fascination, but she is not +heartless." + +But Florian entertained a very lively remembrance of the recent +rebuff given to himself by the fair Comtesse, and took his masculine +vengeance by the suggested innuendo of a shrug of his shoulders and +a lifting of his eyebrows. But he said no more just then, and merely +contented himself with coaxingly abstracting a rose out of Angela's +bodice, kissing it, and placing it in his own buttonhole. This was +one of his "pretty drawing-room tricks" according to Loyse +D'Agramont who always laughed unmercifully at these kind of +courtesies. They had been the stock-in-trade of her late husband, +and she knew exactly what value to set upon them. But Angela was +easily moved by tenderness, and the smallest word of love, the +lightest caress made her happy and satisfied for a long time. She +had the simple primitive notions of an innocent woman who could not +possibly imagine infidelity in a sworn love. Looking at her sweet +face, earnest eyes, and slim graceful figure now, as she moved away +from Florian Varillo's side, and passed glidingly in and out among +her guests, the Princesse D'Agramont, always watchful, wondered with +a half sigh how she would take the blow of disillusion if it ever +came; would it crush her, or would she rise the nobler and stronger +for it? + +"Many a one here in this room to-day," mused the Princesse, "would +be glad if she fell vanquished in the hard fight! Many a man-- +shameful as it seems--would give a covert kick to her poor body. For +there is nothing that frets and irks some male creatures so much as +to see a woman attain by her own brain and hand a great position in +the world, and when she has won her crown and throne they would +deprive her of both, and trample her in the mud if they dared! SOME +male creatures--not all. Florian Varillo for instance. If he could +only get the world to believe that he paints half Angela's pictures +he would be quite happy. I daresay he does persuade a few outsiders +to think it. But in Rome we know better. Poor Angela!" + +And with another sigh she dismissed the subject from her mind for +the moment, her attention being distracted by the appearance of +Monsignor Gherardi, who just then entered and took up a position by +the Cardinal's chair, looking the picture of imposing and stately +affability. One glance of his eyes in the direction of Aubrey Leigh, +where he sat absorbed in conversation with the Comtesse Hermenstein, +had put the wily priest in an excellent humour, and nothing could +exceed the deferential homage and attention he paid to Cardinal +Bonpre, talking with him in low, confidential tones of the affairs +which principally occupied their attention,--the miraculous cure of +Fabien Doucet, and the defection of Vergniaud from the Church. +Earnestly did the good Felix, thinking Gherardi was a friend, +explain again his utter unconsciousness of any miracle having been +performed at his hands, and with equal fervour did he plead the +cause of Vergniaud, in the spirit and doctrine of Christ, pointing +out that the erring Abbe was, without any subterfuge at all, truly +within proximity of death, and that therefore it seemed an almost +unnecessary cruelty to set the ban of excommunication against a +repentant and dying man. Gherardi heard all, with a carefully +arranged facial expression of sympathetic interest and benevolence, +but gave neither word nor sign of active partisanship in any cause. +He had another commission in charge from Moretti, and he worked the +conversation dexterously on, till he touched the point of his secret +errand. + +"By the way," he said gently, "among your many good and kindly +works, I hear you have rescued a poor stray boy from the streets of +Rouen--and that he is with you now. Is that true?" + +"Quite true," replied the Cardinal, "But no particular goodness can +be accredited to any servant of the Gospel for trying to rescue an +orphan child from misery." + +"No--no, certainly not!" assented Gherardi--"But it is seldom that +one as exalted in dignity as yourself condescends--ah, pardon me!-- +you do not like that word I see!" + +"I do not understand it in OUR work," said the Cardinal, "There can +be no 'condescension' in saving the lost." + +Gherardi was silent a moment, smiling a little to himself. "What a +simpleton is this Saint Felix!" he thought. "What a fool to run +amuck at his own chances of distinction and eminence!" + +"And the boy is clever?" he said presently in kindly accents-- +"Docile in conduct?--and useful to you?" + +"He is a wonderful child!" answered the Cardinal with unsuspecting +candour and feeling, "Thoughtful beyond his years,--wise beyond his +experience." + +Gherardi shot a quick glance from under his eyelids at the fine +tranquil face of the venerable speaker, and again smiled. + +"You have no further knowledge of him?--no clue to his parentage?" + +"None." + +Just then the conversation was interrupted by a little movement of +eagerness,--people were pressing towards the grand piano which +Florian Varillo had opened,--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein was +about to grant a general request made to her for a song. She moved +slowly and with a touch of reluctance towards the instrument, Aubrey +Leigh walking beside her. + +"You are a musician yourself?--" she said, glancing up at him, "You +play--or you sing?" + +"I do a little of both," he answered, "But I shall be no rival to +you! I have heard YOU sing!" + +"You have? When?" + +"The other night, or else I dreamed it," he said softly, "I have a +very sweet echo of a song in my mind with words that sounded like +'Ti volglio bene', and a refrain that I caught in the shape of a +rose!" + +Their eyes met--and what Emerson calls "the deification and +transfiguration of life" began to stir Sylvie's pulses, and set her +heart beating to a new and singular exaltation. The warm colour +flushed her cheeks--the lustre brightened in her eyes, and she +looked sweeter and more bewitching than ever as she loosened the +rich sables from about her slim throat, and drawing off her gloves +sat down to the piano. Florian Varillo lounged near her--she saw him +not at all,--Angela came up to ask if she could play an +accompaniment for her,--but she shook her bright head in a smiling +negative, and her small white fingers running over the keys, played +a rippling passage of a few bars while she raised her clear eyes to +Aubrey and asked him,-- + +"Do you know an old Brittany song called 'Le Palais D'Iffry'? No? It +is just one of those many songs of the unattainable,--the search for +the 'Fortunate Isles', or the 'Fata Morgana' of happiness." + +"Is happiness nothing but a 'Fata Morgana'?'" asked Aubrey gently, +"Must it always vanish when just in sight?" + +His eyes grew darkly passionate as he spoke, and again Sylvie's +heart beat high, but she did not answer in words,--softening the +notes of her prelude she sang in a rich mezzo-soprano, whose +thrilling tone penetrated to every part of the room, the quaint old +Breton ballad, + +"Il serait un roi! Mais quelqu'un a dit, 'Non!--Pas pour toi! 'Reste +en prison,--ecoute le chant d'amour, 'Et le doux son des baisers que +la Reine a promit 'A celui qui monte, sans peur et sans retour Au +Palais D'Iffry!' Helas, mon ami, C'est triste d'ecouter le chanson +sans le chanter aussi!" + +Aubrey listened to the sweet far-reaching notes--"Sans peur, et sans +retour, au Palais D'Iffry"! Thither would he climb--to that +enchanted palace of love with its rainbow towers glittering in the +"light that never was on sea or land"--to the throne of that queen +whose soft eyes beckoned him--whose kiss waited for him--everything +now must be for her--all the world for her sake, willingly lost or +willingly won! And what of the work he had undertaken? The people to +whom he had pledged his life? The great Christ-message he had +determined to re-preach for the comfort of the million lost and +sorrowful? His brows contracted,--and a sudden shadow of pain +clouded the frank clearness of his eyes. Gherardi's words came back +to his memory,--"You have embarked in a most hopeless cause! You +will help the helpless, and as soon as they are rescued out of +trouble they will turn and rend you,--you will try to teach them the +inner mysteries of God's working and they will say you are possessed +of a devil!" Then he thought of another and grander saying--"Whoso, +putting his hand to the plough, looketh back, is not fit for the +Kingdom of God!--" and over all rang the enchanting call of the +siren's voice-- + +"Et le doux son des baisers que la Reine a promit A celui qui monte, +sans peur et sans retour Au Palais D'Iffry!" + +and he so lost himself in a tangle of thought that he did not +observe how closely Monsignor Gherardi was studying every expression +of his face, and he started as if he had been awakened from a dream +when Sylvie's song ceased, and Sylvie herself glanced up at him. + +"Music seems to make you sad, Mr. Leigh!" she said timidly. + +"Not music--but sometimes the fancies which music engenders, trouble +me," he answered, bending his earnest searching eyes upon her, and +wondering within himself whether such a small, slight gossamer thing +of beauty, brilliant as a tropical humming-bird, soft and caressable +as a dove, could possibly be expected to have the sweet yet austere +fortitude and firmness needed to be a true "helpmeet" to him in the +work he had undertaken, and the life he had determined to lead. He +noted all the dainty trifles of her toilette half doubtingly, half +admiringly,--the knot of rich old lace that fastened her sables,-- +the solitary star-like diamond which held that lace in careless +position--the numerous little touches of taste and elegance which +made her so unique and graceful among women--and a pang shot through +his heart as he thought of her wealth, and his own poverty. She +meanwhile, on her part, was studying him with all the close interest +that a cultured and refined woman feels, who is strongly conscious +of having awakened a sudden and masterful passion in a man whom she +secretly admires. A triumphant sense of her own power moved her, +allied to a much more rare and beautiful emotion--the sense of soul- +submission to a greater and higher life than her own. And so it +chanced that never had she looked so charming--never had her fair +cheeks flushed a prettier rose--never had her easy fascination of +manner been so bewitchingly troubled by hesitation and timidity-- +never had her eyes sparkled with a softer or more irresistible +languor. Aubrey felt that he was fast losing his head as he watched +her move, speak, and smile,--and with a sudden bracing up of his +energies resolved to make his adieux at once. + +"I must be going,--" he began to say, when his arm was touched from +behind, and he turned to confront Florian Varillo, who smiled with +all the brilliancy his white and even teeth could give him. + +"Why must you be going?" asked Varillo cheerily, "Why not stay and +dine with my future father-in-law, and Angela, and the eminent +Cardinal? We shall all be charmed!" + +"Thanks, no!--I have letters to write to England . . ." + +"Good-bye!" said the Comtesse Hermenstein at this juncture,--"I am +going to drive the Princesse D'Agramont round the Pincio, will you +join us, Mr. Leigh? The Princesse is anxious to know you--may I +introduce you?" + +And without waiting for a reply, as the Princesse was close at hand, +she performed the ceremony of introduction at once in her own light +graceful fashion. + +"Truly a strange meeting!" laughed Varillo, "You three ought to be +very good friends! The Comtesse Hermenstein is a devout daughter of +the Roman Church--Madame la Princesse is against all Churches--and +you, Mr. Leigh, are making your own Church!" + +Aubrey did not reply. It was not the time or place to discuss either +his principles or his work, moreover he was strangely troubled by +hearing Sylvie described as "a devout daughter of the Roman Church." + +"I am charmed!" said the Princesse D'Agramont, "Good fortune really +seems to favour me for once, for in the space of a fortnight I have +met two of the most distinguished men of the time, 'Gys Grandit', +and Aubrey Leigh!" + +Aubrey bowed. + +"You are too kind, Madame! Grandit and I have been friends for some +years, though we have never seen each other since I parted from him +in Touraine. But we have always corresponded." + +"You have of course heard who he really is? The son of Abbe +Vergniaud?" continued the Princesse. + +"I have heard--but only this morning, and I do not know any of the +details of the story." + +"Then you must certainly come and drive with us," said Loyse +D'Agramont, "for I can tell you all about it. I wrote quite a +brilliant essay on it for the Figaro, and called it 'Church +Morality'!" She laughed. "Come,--we will take no denial!" + +Aubrey tried to refuse, but could not,--the attraction,--the 'will +o' the wisp' magnetism of Sylvie's dainty personality drew him on, +and in a few minutes, after taking respectful leave of the Cardinal, +Prince Sovrani, and Angela, he left the studio in the company of the +two ladies. Passing Monsignor Gherardi on the way out he received a +wide smile and affable salute from that personage. + +"A pleasant drive to you, Mr. Leigh," he said, "The view from the +Pincio is considered extremely fine!" + +Aubrey made some formal answer and went his way. Gherardi returned +to the studio and resumed his confidential talk with Bonpre, while +one by one the visitors departed, till at last the only persons left +in the vast room were Angela and Florian Varillo, Prince Pietro, and +the two dignitaries of the Church. Florian was irritated, and made +no secret of his irritation to his fair betrothed, with whom he sat +a little apart from the others in the room. + +"Do you want a love affair between Sylvie Hermenstein and that +fellow Leigh?" he enquired, "If so, it is probable that your desire +will be gratified!" + +Angela raised her delicate eyebrows in a little surprise. + +"I have no wish at all in the matter," she answered, "except to see +Sylvie quite happy." + +"How very romantic is the friendship between you two women!" said +Varillo somewhat sarcastically, "You wish to see Sylvie happy,--and +the other day she told me she would form her judgment of me by YOUR +happiness! Really, it is most admirable and touching!" + +Angela began to feel somewhat puzzled. Petulance and temper were not +in her character, and she was annoyed to see any touch of them in +her lover. + +"Are you cross, Florian?" she asked gently, "Has something worried +you to-day?" + +"Oh, I am often worried!" he replied;--and had he spoken the exact +truth he would have confessed that he was always seriously put out +when he was not the centre of attraction and the cynosure of women's +eyes--"But what does it matter! Do not think at all about me, cara +mia! Tell me of yourself. How goes the picture?" + +"It is nearly finished now," she replied, her beautiful violet eyes +dilating and brightening with the fervour that inspired her whenever +she thought of her work, "I rise very early, and begin to paint with +the first gleam of daylight. I think I shall have it ready sooner +than I expected. The Queen has promised to come and see it here +before it is exhibited to the public." + +"Margherita di Savoja is very amiable!" said Florian, with a tinge +of envy he could not wholly conceal, "She is always useful as a +patron." + +A quick flush of pride rose to Angela's cheeks. + +"I do not need any patronage, Florian," she said simply yet with a +little coldness, "You know that I should resent it were it offered +to me. If my work is not good in itself, no 'royal' approval can +make it so. Queen Margherita visits me as a friend--not as a +patron." + +"There now! I have vexed you!" And Florian took her hand and kissed +it. "Forgive me, sweetest!--Look at me--give me a smile!--Ah! That +is kind!" and he conveyed an expression of warm tenderness into his +eyes as Angela turned her charming face upon him, softened and +radiant with the quick affection which always moved her at his voice +and caress. "I spoke foolishly! Of course my Angela could not be +patronised--she is too independent and gifted. I am very glad the +Queen is coming!" + +"The Queen is coming?" echoed Gherardi, who just then advanced. +"Here? To see Donna Sovrani's picture? Ah, that will be an excellent +advertisement! But it would have been far better, my dear young +lady, had you arranged with me, or with some other one of my +confreres, to have the picture sent to the Vatican for the +inspection of His Holiness. The Popes, as you know, have from time +immemorial been the best patrons of art!" + +"My picture would not please the Pope," said Angela quietly, "It +would more probably win his denunciation than his patronage." + +Gherardi smiled. The idea of a woman--a mere woman imagining that +anything which she could do was powerful enough to bring down Papal +denunciation! The strange conceit of these feminine geniuses! He +could almost have laughed aloud. But he merely looked her over +blandly and forbearingly. + +"I am sorry," he said, "very sorry you should consider such a thing +as possible of your work. But no doubt you speak on impulse. Your +distinguished uncle, the Cardinal Bonpre, would be sadly distressed +if your picture should contain anything of a nature to bring you any +condemnation from the Vatican,--and your father . . ." + +"Leave me out of it, if you please!" interrupted Prince Pietro, "I +have nothing whatever to do with it! Angela works with a free hand; +none of us have seen what she is doing." + +"Not even you, Signor Varillo?" enquired Gherardi affably. + +"Oh, I?" laughed Florian carelessly, "No indeed! I have not the +least idea of the subject or the treatment!" + +"A mystery then?" said Gherardi, still preserving his bland suavity +of demeanour, "But permit me, Donna Sovrani, to express the hope +that when the veil is lifted a crown of laurels may be disclosed for +you!" + +Angela thanked him by a silent inclination of her head, and in a few +minutes the stately Vatican spy had taken his leave. As he +disappeared the Cardinal rose from his chair and moving somewhat +feebly, prepared to return to his own apartments. + +"Dearest uncle, will you not stay with us to-night? Or are you too +tired?" asked Angela as she came to his side. + +He raised her sweet face between his two wrinkled hands and looked +at her long and earnestly. "Dear child!" he said, "Dear brave little +child! For you must always be nothing more than a child to me,--tell +me, are you sure you are moved by the right spirit in the painting +of your picture?" + +"I think so!" answered Angela gently, "Indeed, indeed, I think so! I +know that according to the teaching of our Master Christ, it is a +TRUE spirit!" + +Slowly the Cardinal released her, and slowly and with impressive +earnestness traced the Cross on her fair brows. + +"God bless you!" he said, "And God help you too! For if you work by +'the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter', remember it is the same Spirit +which our Lord tells us 'the world cannot receive because it seeth +Him not, neither knoweth Him.' And to testify of a Spirit which the +world cannot receive makes the world very hard to you!" + +And with these words he gently leaned on the arm she proffered and +left the studio with her, the rich glow and voluminous folds of his +scarlet robes contrasting vividly with the simple black gown which +Angela wore without other adornment than a Niphetos rose to relieve +its sombreness. As she went with her uncle she looked over her +shoulder and smiled an adieu to Florian,--he, in his turn lightly +kissed his hand to her, and then addressed Prince Pietro, who, with +the care of a man to whom expense is a consideration, was putting +out some of the tall lamps that had illumined the dusk of the late +afternoon. + +"The good Cardinal is surely breaking up," he said carelessly, "He +looks extremely frail!" + +"Young men sometimes break up before old ones!" returned the Prince +drily, "Felix is strong enough yet. You dine with us to-night?" + +"If you permit--" said Varillo, with a graceful salutation. + +"Oh, my permission does not matter'" said Sovrani eyeing him +narrowly, "Whatever gives pleasure to Angela must needs please me. +She is all that is left to me now in an exceedingly dull world. A +riverderci! At eight we dine." + +Flonan nodded,--and took his departure, and the Prince for a moment +stood hesitating, looking at the great white covering on the wall +which concealed his daughter's mysterious work. His tall upright +figure stiff and sombre, looked as if cast in bronze in the half +light shed by the wood fire,--one lamp was still burning, and after +a pause he moved from his rigid attitude of gloomy consideration, +and extinguished it, then glancing round to see that all was in +order, he left the studio, closing its great oaken door behind him. +Five minutes after he had gone a soft step trod the polished floor, +and the young Manuel, holding a lighted taper, entered all alone. +The flame of the little torch he carried cast a soft golden glow +about him as he walked noiselessly through the great empty room, his +blue eyes lifted to the marble heads of gods and heroes which +occupied their different positions on the gilded and oaken brackets +set against the tapestried walls,--and presently he paused in front +of Angela's hidden work. It was but a moment's pause, and then, +still with the same light step, and the same bright glow reflected +from the flame that glittered in his hand, he passed through the +room, lifted the velvet portiere at the other end where there was +another door leading to the corridor connected with the Cardinal's +apartments, and so unnoticed, disappeared. + + + + +XXIII. + +Meanwhile, the Marquis Fontenelle had been nearly a fortnight in +Rome, living a sufficiently curious sort of life, and passing his +time in a constant endeavour to avoid being discovered and +recognised by any of his numerous acquaintances who were arriving +there for the winter. His chief occupation was of course to watch +the Comtesse Sylvie,--and he was rewarded for his untiring pains by +constant and bewitching glimpses of her. Sometimes he would see her +driving, wrapped in furs, her tiny Japanese dog curled up in a fold +of her sables, and on her lap a knot of violets, the fresh scent of +which came to him like a sweet breath on the air as she passed. Once +he almost met her, face to face in the gardens of the Villa +Borghese, walking all alone, and reading a book in which she seemed +to be deeply interested. He made a few cautious enquiries about her, +and learnt that she lived very quietly,--that she received certain +"great" people,--especially Cardinals and Monsignori, notably +Monsignor Gherardi, who was a constant visitor. But of any closer +admirer he never gathered the slightest rumour, till one afternoon, +just when the sun was sinking in full crimson glory behind the dome +of St. Peter's, he saw her carriage come to a sudden halt on the +Pincio and she herself leaned out of it to shake hands with, and +talk to a tall fair man, who seemed to be on exceptionally friendly +terms with her. It is true she was accompanied in the carriage by +the famous Sovrani,--but that fact did not quell the sudden flame of +jealousy which sprang up in Fontenelle's mind--for both ladies +appeared equally charmed with the fair man, and their countenances +were radiant with pleasure and animation all the time they were in +conversation with him. When the carriage resumed its round again, +the Marquis sauntered by a side path where he could take quiet +observation of his apparent rival, who walked past him with a firm +light step, looking handsome, happy, and amazingly confident. There +was an old man raking the path, and of him Fontenelle asked +carelessly, + +"Do you know who that gentleman is?" + +The gardener looked up and smiled. + +"Ah, si, si! Il Signor Inglese! Molto generoso! Il Signor Aubri +Lee!" + +Aubrey Leigh! A "celebrity" then,--an English author;--not that all +English authors are considered "celebrities" in Rome. Italian +society makes very short work of spurious art, and closes its doors +ruthlessly against mere English "Grub Street". But Aubrey Leigh was +more than an author,--he was an influential power in the world, as +the Marquis well knew. + +"A great religious reformer! And yet a victim to the little Sylvie!" +he mused, "Well! The two things will not work together. Though truly +Sylvie would captivate a John Knox or a Cromwell. I really think,--I +really do begin to think, that rather than lose her altogether, I +must marry her!" + +And he went back to the obscure hotel where he had chosen +temporarily to reside in a meditative mood, and as he entered, was +singularly annoyed to see a flaring poster outside, announcing the +arrival of Miraudin and his whole French Company in Rome for a few +nights only. The name "MIRAUDIN" glared at him in big, fat, red +letters on a bright yellow ground; and involuntarily he muttered, + +"D--n the fellow! Can I go nowhere in the world without coming +across him!" + +Irritated, and yet knowing his irritation to be foolish,--for after +all, what was the famous actor to him?--what was there in his +personality to annoy him beyond the trivial fact of a curious +personal resemblance?--he retired to his room in no pleasant humour, +and sitting down began to write a letter to Sylvie asking her to be +his wife. Yet somehow the power of expression seemed lacking, and +once or twice he laid down his pen in a fit of abstraction, +wondering why, when he had sought Sylvie as a lover only, he had +been able to write the most passionate love phrases, full of ardour +and poetry, and now, when he was about to make her the offer of his +whole life, his sentences were commonplace and almost cold. And +presently he tore up what he had been writing, and paced the room +impatiently. + +"The fact is I shall make a bad husband, and I know it!" he said +candidly to himself, "And Sylvie will make a great mistake if she +accepts me!" + +He walked to the window and looked out. His hotel was not in a +fashionable or frequented quarter of Rome, and the opposite view of +the street was anything but enlivening. Dirty, frowsy women,--idle +men, lounging along with the slouching gait which is common to the +'unemployed' Italian,--half-naked children, running hither and +thither in the mud, and screaming like tortured wild animals,--this +kind of shiftless, thriftless humanity, pictured against the +background of ugly modern houses, such as one might find in a London +back slum, made up a cheerless prospect, particularly as the blue +sky was clouded and it was beginning to rain. One touch of colour +brightened the scene for a moment, when a girl with a yellow +handkerchief tied round her head passed along, carrying a huge flat +basket overflowing with bunches of purple violets, and as Fontenelle +caught the hue, and imagined the fragrance of the flowers, he was +surprised to feel his eyes smart with a sudden sting of tears. The +picture of Sylvie Hermenstein, with her child-like head, fair hair, +and deep blue eyes, floated before him,--she was fond of violets, +and whenever she wore them, their odour seemed to be the natural +exhalation of her sweet and spirituelle personality. + +"She is much too good for me!" he said half aloud, "To be perfectly +honest with myself, I know I have no stability of character, and I +cannot imagine myself remaining constant to any woman for more than +six months. And the best way is to be perfectly straight-forward +about it." + +He sat down again, and without taking any more thought wrote +straight from the heart of his present humour, addressing her by the +name he had once playfully bestowed upon her. + +"Enchanteresse! I am here in Rome, and this brief letter is to ask, +without preamble or apology, whether you will do me the infinite +honour to become my wife. I confess to you honestly that I am not +worth this consideration on your part, for I am not to be relied +upon. I repose no confidence in myself, therefore I will leave it to +you to measure my audacity in making the suggestion that you should +place a lifetime's confidence in me. But with all my heart, (as much +as I know of it at the present), I desire to show you what respect +so poor a life as mine can give to one who deserves all tenderness, +as well as trust. If I may hope that you will pardon my past follies +and libertinage with regard to you,--if you can love me well enough +to wear my not too exalted name, and preserve my remaining stock of +honour, summon me to your presence, and I will endeavour, by such +devotion and fidelity as in me lies, to atone for whatsoever offence +I may have given you previously by my too passionate pursuit of your +beauty. Yours, unless you decide my fate otherwise, + +"GUY BEAUSIRE DE FONTENELLE." + +Thrusting this note into an envelope he hastily sealed it, but +decided not to post it till late at night, in order that Sylvie +might only receive it with the early morning, when her mind was +fresh, and unswayed by any opinions or events of a long day. And to +pass the time he strolled out to one of the many "osterie," or wine- +houses which abound in Rome,--a somewhat famous example of its kind +in the Via Quattro Fontane. Choosing a table where he could sit with +his back turned towards the door, so as to avoid being seen by +either strangers or possible friends, he took up the Giornale +Romano, and ordered a "mezzo-litro" of the "Genzano" wine, for which +that particular house has long been celebrated. He sat there about +half an hour thus quietly reading,--scarcely hearing the loud voices +and louder laughter of the men who came and went around him, when +suddenly the name "Sylvie Hermenstein" caught his ear. It was spoken +carelessly and accompanied with a laugh. Quietly laying down his +newspaper, he sat very still in his chair, keeping his back turned +to the groups of wine drinkers who were gathering in large numbers +as the evening advanced, and listened. + +"The most delicious little bonbon in the whole box! Jolie a +craquer!" said a man's voice. + +"Chocolat fondant! Garantie tres pure!" cried another, his words +being followed by a shout of laughter. + +Fontenelle gripped the arm of his chair, and held himself rigid, but +ready to spring. + +"The Church always knows where to find the prettiest women," said +the first man who had spoken, "from the Santissima Madonna +downwards! What would become of the Pope if it were not for the +women!" + +"Bah! The Pope is only one man, but what would become of all the +Monsignori?" asked a voice different to the rest in mellowness and +deep quality, but with a touch of insolent mockery in its tone. + +Another burst of laughter answered him. + +Fontenelle turned in his chair and looked at the last speaker, and +to his amazement saw the actor, Miraudin. He was leaning carelessly +against the wine counter, a half-emptied "fiaschetto" in front of +him, and a full glass of wine in his hand. + +"The Monsignori would be all desolate bachelors!" he went on, +lazily, "And the greatest rascal in the Vatican, Domenico Gherardi, +would no longer be the fortunate possessor of the wealth, the +influence, and the dear embraces of the fascinating Hermenstein!" + +Scarcely had he spoken when the glass he held was dashed out of his +hand, and Fontenelle, white with fury, struck him smartly and full +across the face. A scene of the wildest confusion and uproar ensued. +All the men in the wine-shop crowded around them, and for a moment +Miraudin, blinded by the blow, and the wine that had splashed up +against his eyes, did not see who had struck him, but as he +recovered from the sudden shock and stared at his opponent, he broke +into a wild laugh. + +"Diantre! Ban soir, Monsieur le Marquis! Upon my life, there is +something very strange in this! Fate or the devil, or both! Well! +What now!" + +"You are a liar and a blackguard!" said Fontenelle fiercely, "And +unless you apologise for your insult to the lady whose name you have +presumed to utter with your mountebank tongue--" + +"Apologise! I! Moi!--genie de France! Never!" retorted Miraudin with +an air of swaggering audacity, "All women are alike! I speak from +experience!" + +White to the lips, the Marquis Fontenelle looked around. + +"Are there any MEN here?" he asked, eying the crowd about him with +ineffable hauteur. + +A young fellow stepped forward. "At your command, Marquis! You +served me once--I shall be happy to serve you now!" + +Quickly Fontenelle shook hands with this timely friend. He +recognised in him a young Italian officer, named Ruspardi, an +acquaintance of some years back, to whom he had chanced to be useful +in a pressing moment of need. + +"Thanks! Arrange everything for me, will you, Ruspardi? And as +quickly as possible!" + +"It is nearly midnight now," said Ruspardi in a low tone, "Shall we +say five or six in the morning?" + +"Yes--anything you like--but quickly!" + +Then raising his head haughtily, he addressed Miraudin in distinct +tones. + +"Monsieur Miraudin, you have greatly insulted and falsely slandered +a lady whom I have the honour to know. I have struck you for your +lie; and consider you worthy of no further treatment save a +horsewhipping in public. Gentlemen do not as a rule condescend to +meet their paid servants--actors and the like,--in single combat-- +but I will do you that honour!" + +And with these words he bowed haughtily to all present, and left the +scene of noisy disorder. + +Out in the streets the moonlight lay in broad silver bands, like +white glistening ribbon spread in shining strips across the +blackness, and there was a moisture in the air which,--dropped as it +were fresh, from the surrounding hills,--cooled Fontenelle's flushed +face and burning brows. He walked rapidly,--he had a vague, unformed +desire in his mind to see Sylvie again if possible. He knew where +she lived, and he soon turned down the street where the quaint old +central balcony of the Casa D'Angeli thrust itself forward into the +moon-rays among the sculptured angels' wings,--and he saw that the +windows were open. Pausing underneath he waited, hesitating--full of +strange thoughts and stranger regrets. How poor and valueless seemed +his life as he regarded it now!--now when he had voluntarily placed +it in jeopardy! What had he done with his days of youth and prime? +Frittered away every valuable moment,--thrown to the winds every +costly opportunity,--spent his substance on light women who had +kissed and clung to him one day, and repulsed him the next. Well-- +and after? His heart beat thickly,--if he could only see Sylvie for +a moment! Hush! There was a murmur--a voice--a ripple of sweet +laughter; and moving cautiously back into the shadows, he looked up- +-yes!--there she was--clad in some soft silvery stuff that gathered +a thousand sparkles from the light of the moon,--her fair hair +caught up in a narrow circlet of diamonds, and her sweet face purely +outlined against the dark worn stone of one of the great carved +angel-wings. But someone was with her,--someone whom Fontenelle +recognised at once by the classic shape of his head and bright curly +hair,--the man whom he had seen that very day on the Pincio,--Aubrey +Leigh. With a jealous tightening at his heart, Fontenelle saw that +Leigh held the soft plume of downy feathers which served Sylvie for +a fan, and that he was lightly waving it to and fro as he talked to +her in the musical, all-potent voice which had charmed thousands, +and would surely not be without its fascination for the sensitive +ears of a woman. Moving a little closer he tried to hear what was +being said,--but Leigh spoke very softly, and Sylvie answered with +equal softness, so that he could catch no distinct word. Yet the +mere tone of these two voices melted into a harmony more dulcet and +perfect than could be endured by Fontenelle with composure, and +uttering an impatient exclamation at his own folly he hastily left +his retreat, and with one parting glance up at the picture of fair +loveliness above him walked swiftly away. Returning to his hotel he +saw the letter that he had written to Sylvie lying on the table, and +he at once posted it. Then he began to prepare for his encounter +with Miraudin. He dressed quickly,--wrote a few business letters,-- +and was about to lie down for a rest of an hour or so when the swift +and furious galloping of a horse's hoofs awoke the echoes of the +quiet street, and almost before he had time to realise what had +happened, his friend Ruspardi stood before him, breathless and wild +with excitement. + +"Marquis, you are tricked!" he cried, "Everything is prepared-- +seconds,--pistols,--all! But your man--your man has gone!" + +"Gone!" exclaimed Fontenelle furiously, "Where?" + +"Out of Rome! In a common fiacre--taking his latest mistress, one of +the stage-women with him. They were seen driving by the Porta Pia +towards the Campagna half an hour ago! He dare not face fire--bully +and coward that he is!" + +"I will go after him!" said Fontenelle promptly, "Half an hour +ahead, you say! Good!--I will catch him up. Can I get a horse +anywhere?" + +"Take mine," said Ruspardi eagerly, "he is perfectly fresh--just out +of the stable. Have you weapons?" + +"Yes," and the Marquis unlocked a case, and loading two, placed them +in a travelling holder. Then, turning to Ruspardi he shook hands. + +"Thanks, a thousand times! There are a few letters here--see to them +if I should not come back." + +"What are you going to do?" asked Ruspardi, his excitement beginning +to cool a little, now that he saw the possible danger into which +Fontenelle was voluntarily rushing. + +"Persuade the worthy mountebank either to come back or fight at once +on whatever ground I find him, and assume to be a gentleman--for +once!" said Fontenelle, carelessly. "Addio!" + +And without further words he hurried off, and tossing a twenty-franc +piece to the sleepy hotel porter who was holding Ruspardi's horse +outside, he flung himself into the saddle and galloped away. +Ruspardi, young and hotblooded, was of too mercurial a disposition +to anticipate any really serious results of the night's adventure;-- +his contempt for a coward was far greater than his fear of death, +and he was delighted to think that in all probability the Marquis +would use his riding-whip on Miraudin's back rather than honour him +by a pistol shot. And so dismissing all fears from his mind he took +Fontenelle's letters in his charge, and went straight out of the +hotel singing gaily, charmed with the exciting thought of the +midnight chase which was going on, and the possible drubbing and +discomfiture of the "celebrated" Miraudin. + +Meanwhile, under the flashing stars, and through the sleeping +streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste. +He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon +discovered the force of his governing touch,--the resolve of his +urging speed. He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi's +hurried description of the route taken by the runaway actor, and +felt, rather than saw the outline of the Villa Torlonia, as he +rushed past, and the Basilica of St. Agnese Fuori le Mura, which is +supposed to cover the tomb of the child-martyr St. Agnes,--then +across the Ponte Nomentano, till, two miles further on, in the white +radiance of the moon, he perceived, driving rapidly ahead of him, +the vehicle of which he was in pursuit. Letting the reins fall +loosely on the neck of his straining steed, he raised himself in his +stirrups, and by his own movements assisted the animal's now +perfectly reckless gallop,--and at last, hearing the flying hoofs +behind, the driver of the fiacre became seized with panic, and +thinking of possible brigands and how to pacify them, he suddenly +pulled up and came to a dead halt. A head was thrust out of the +carriage window,--Miraudin's head,--and Miraudin's voice shouted in +bad Italian, + +"What are you stopping for, rascal! On with you! On with you! Five +hundred francs for your best speed!" + +Scarcely had he uttered the words when the Marquis gained the side +of the vehicle, and pulling up his horse till it almost fell in +rearing backwards, he cried furiously, + +"Lache! Tu vas te crever sur terre avant je te quitte!" + +And he struck his riding-whip full in the actor's face. + +Springing out of the fiacre Miraudin confronted his antagonist. His +hat was off--and his countenance, marked as it was with the crimson +line of the lash, lightened with laughter. + +"Again! Monsieur le Marquis, je vous salue!" he said, "Kismet! One +cannot escape it! Better to fight with you, beau sire, than with +destiny! I am ready!" + +Fontenelle at once dismounted, and tied his horse to the knotted +bough of a half-withered tree. Taking his pistols out of their +holder he proffered them to Miraudin. + +"Choose!" he said curtly, "Or use your own if you have any,--but +mine are loaded,--take care yours are! Play no theatrical tricks on +such a stage as this! "And then he gave a comprehensive wave of his +hand towards the desolate waste of the Campagna around them, and the +faint blue misty lines of the Alban hills just rimmed with silver in +the rays of the moon. + +At the first sight of the pistols the driver of the fiacre, who had +been more or less stupefied till now, by the suddenness of the +adventure, gave a sort of whining cry, and climbing down from his +box fell on his knees before Miraudin, and then ran a few paces and +did the same thing in front of the Marquis, imploring both men not +to fight,--not to get killed, on account of the trouble it would +cause to him, the coachman;--and with a high falsetto shriek a lady +flung herself out of the recesses of the closed vehicle, and clung +to the actor's arm. + +"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! What is it you would do?" she cried, "Be killed +out here on the Campagna? and not a soul in sight--not a house--not +a shelter? And what is to become of me!--Me!--Me!--" and she tapped +her heaving bosom in melodramatic style, "Have you thought of ME?" + +"You--you!" laughed Miraudin, tearing off the lace veil which she +wore wrapped loosely round her head and shoulders, "You, Jeanne +Richaud! What is to become of you? The same fate will attend you +that attends all such little moths of the footlights! Perhaps a +dozen more lovers after me--then old age, and the care of a third- +class lodging-house for broken-down actors!" Here he chose his +weapon. "At your service, Marquis!" + +Jeanne Richaud, a soubrette, whose chief stock-in-trade had been her +large dark eyes and shapely legs, uttered a desperate scream, and +threw herself at the feet of the Marquis Fontenelle. + +"Monsieur! Monsieur! Think for a moment! This combat is unequal--out +of rule! You are a gentleman,--a man of honour!--would you fight +without seconds? It is murder--murder--!" + +Here she broke off, terrified in spite of herself by the +immovability of Fontenelle's attitude, and the coldness of his eyes. + +"I regret to pain you, Madame," he said stiffly, "This combat was +arranged according to rule between Monsieur Miraudin and myself some +hours since--and though it seems he did not intend to keep his +engagement I intend to keep mine! The principals in the fight are +here,--seconds are, as their name implies, a secondary matter. We +must do without them." + +"By no means!" exclaimed Miraudin, "We have them! Here they are! +You, Jeanne, will you be my second--how often you have seconded me +in many a devil's game--and you--cochon d'un cocher!--you will for +once in your life support the honour of a Marquis!" + +And with these words he seized the unhappy Roman cab-driver by the +collar of his coat, and flung him towards Fontenelle, who took not +the slightest notice of him as he lay huddled up and wailing on the +grass, but merely stood his ground, silently waiting. Mademoiselle +Jeanne Richaud however was not so easily disposed of. Throwing +herself on the cold ground, thick with the dust of dead Caesars, she +clung to Miraudin, pouring out a torrent of vociferous French, +largely intermixed with a special slang of the Paris streets, and +broken by the hysterical yells when she saw her "protector" throw +off his coat, and, standing in his shirt-sleeves, take close +observation of the pistol he held. + +"Is this your care of me?" she cried, "Mon Dieu! What a thing is a +man! Here am I alone in a strange country--and you endanger your +life for some quarrel of which I know nothing,--yet you pretend to +love me! Nom de Jesus! What is your love!" + +"You do well to ask," said Miraudin, laughing carelessly, "What is +my love! A passing fancy, chere petite! We actors simulate love too +well to ever feel it! Out of the way, jou-jou! Your life will be +amusing so long as you keep a little beaute de diable. After that-- +the lodging-house!" + +He pushed her aside, but she still clung pertinaciously to his arm. + +"Victor! Victor!" she wailed, "Will you not look at me--will you not +kiss me!" + +Miraudin wheeled round, and stared at her amazed. + +"Kiss you!" he echoed, "Pardieu! Would you care! Jeanne! Jeanne! You +are a little mad,--the moonlight is too much for you! To-morrow I +will kiss you, when the sun rises--or if I am not here--why, +somebody else will!" + +"Who is the woman you are fighting for?" she suddenly demanded, +springing up from her crouching position with flushed cheeks and +flashing eyes. Miraudin looked at her with nonchalant admiration. + +"I wish you would have looked like that sometimes on my stage," he +said, "You would have brought down the house! 'Woman!' No 'woman' at +all, but WOMEN! The glamour of them--the witchery of them--women!-- +the madness of them! Women!--The ONE woman saves when the ONE woman +exists, but then,--we generally kill HER! Now, once more, Jeanne,-- +out of the way! Time flies, and Monsieur le Marquis is in haste. He +has many fashionable engagements!" + +He flashed upon her a look from the bright amorous hazel eyes, that +were potent to command and difficult to resist, and she cowered +back, trembling and sobbing hysterically as the Marquis advanced. + +"You are ready?" he enquired civilly. + +"Ready!" + +"Shall we say twelve paces?" + +"Excellent!" + +Deliberately Fontenelle dug his heel into the ground and measured +twelve paces from that mark between himself and his antagonist. Then +with cold courtesy he stood aside for Miraudin to assure himself +that the measurement was correct. The actor complied with this +formality in a sufficiently composed way, and with a certain grace +and dignity which Fontenelle might almost have taken for bravery if +he had not been so convinced that the man was "acting" still in his +mind, and was going through a "part" which he disliked, but which he +was forced to play. And with it all there was something indefinable +about him--something familiar in the turn of his head, the glance of +his eye, the movement of his body, which annoyed Fontenelle, because +he saw in all these little personal touches such a strong +resemblance to himself. But there was now no time to think, as the +moment for the combat drew near. Jeanne Richaud was still weeping +hysterically and expostulating with the cab-driver, who paid no +attention whatsoever to her pleadings, but remained obstinately on +his knees out of harm's way, begging the "Santissima Madonna" and +all his "patron saints" to see him safely with his fiacre back to +the city. That was all he cared for. + +"We have no one to give us a signal," said Miraudin lightly, "But +there is a cloud on the moon. When it passes, shall we fire?" + +The Marquis bowed assent. + +For a moment the moon-rays were obscured,--and a faint sigh from the +wind stirred the long dry grass. A bat flew by, scurrying towards +the Catacombs of Alexander,--a shadow lay upon the land. The +combatants,--so singularly alike in form and feature,--stood rigidly +in position, their weapons raised,--their only witnesses a cabman +and a wanton, both creatures terrified out of their wits for +themselves and their own safety. Swiftly the cloud passed--and a +brilliant silver glory was poured out on hill and plain and broken +column,--and as it shone, the two shots were fired simultaneously-- +the two bullets whizzed through the air. A light puff of smoke rose +in the moonbeams--it cleared--and Miraudin reeled backwards and fell +heavily to the ground. Fontenelle stood upright, but staggered a +little,--instinctively putting his hand to his breast. Jeanne +Richaud rushed to the side of her fallen lover. + +"Victor! Victor!" + +Miraudin struggled up to a half sitting position--the blood was +welling up thickly from a wound in his lungs. Half suffocated as he +was, he made a strong effort to speak, and succeeded. + +"Not you--not you!" he gasped, "Do not touch me! Do not come near +me! Him!--him!" And he pointed to Fontenelle who still stood erect, +swaying slightly to and fro with a dazed far-off look in his eyes-- +but now--as the frenzied soubrette beckoned him, he moved unsteadily +to the side of his mortally wounded opponent, and there, through +weakness, not emotion, dropped on his knees. Miraudin looked at him +with staring filmy eyes. + +"How I have hated you, Monsieur le Marquis!" he muttered thickly, +"How I have hated you! Yes--as Cain hated Abel! For we--we are +brothers as they were--born of the same father--ah! You start!" for +Fontenelle uttered a gasping cry--"Yes--in spite of your pride, your +lineage, your insolent air of superiority--YOUR father was MY +father!--the late Marquis was no more satisfied with one wife than +any of us are!--and had no higher code of honour! YOUR mother was a +grande dame,--MINE was a 'light o' love' like this feeble creature!" +and he turned his glance for a moment on the shuddering, wailing +Jeanne Richaud. "YOU were the legal Marquis--_I_ the illegal +genius! . . . yes--genius--!" + +He broke off, struggling for breath. + +"Do you hear me?" he whispered thickly, "Do you hear?" + +"I hear," answered Fontenelle, speaking with difficulty, "You have +hated me, you say--hate me no more!--for hate is done with--and love +also!--I am--dying!" + +He grasped the rank grass with both hands in sudden agony, and his +face grew livid. Miraudin turned himself on one arm. + +"Dying! You, too! By Heaven! Then the Marquisate must perish! I +should have fired in the air--but--but the sins of the +fathers . . . what is it?" Here a ghastly smile passed over his +features, "The sins of the fathers--are visited on the children! +What a merciful Deity it is, to make such an arrangement!--and the +excellent fathers!--when all the children meet them--I wonder what +they will have to say to each other I wonder . . ." A frightful shudder +convulsed his body and he threw up his arms. + + "'Un peu d'amour, + Et puis--bon soir!' + +C'est ca! Bon soir, Marquis!" + +A great sigh broke from his lips, through which the discoloured +blood began to ooze slowly--he was dead. And Fontenelle, whose wound +bled inwardly, turned himself wearily round to gaze on the rigid +face upturned to the moon. His brother's face! So like his own! He +was not conscious himself of any great pain--he felt a dizzy languor +and a drowsiness as of dreams--but he knew what the dreaming meant,- +-he knew that he would soon sleep to wake again--but where? He did +not see that the woman who had professed to love Miraudin had +already rushed away from his corpse in terror, and was entreating +the cabman to drive her quickly from the scene of combat,--he +realised nothing save the white moonbeams on the still face of the +man who in God's sight had been his brother. Fainter and still +fainter grew his breath--but he felt near his heart for a little +crumpled knot of filmy lace which he always carried--a delicate +trifle which had fallen from one of Sylvie's pretty evening gowns +once, when he had caught her in his arms and sworn his passion. He +kissed it now, and inhaled its violet perfume--as he took it from +his lips he saw that it was stained with blood. The heavy languor +upon him grew heavier--and in the dark haze which began to float +before his eyes he saw women's faces, some beautiful, some devilish, +yet all familiar,--he felt himself sinking--sinking into some deep +abyss of shadows, so dark and dreary that he shuddered with the icy +cold and horror, till Sylvie came, yes!--Sylvie's soft eyes shone +upon him, full of the pity and tenderness of some divine angel near +God's throne,--an angel of sweetness--an angel of forgiveness--ah!-- +so sweet she was, so childlike, so trusting, so fair, so enticing in +those exquisite ways of hers which had pleaded with him, prayed to +him, tried to draw him back from evil, and incite him to noble +thought; "ways" that would have persuaded him to cleanse his flag of +honour from the mud of social vice and folly, and lift it to the +heavens white and pure! Ah, sweet ways!--sweet voice!--sweet woman!- +-sweet possibilities of life now gone forever! Again that sinking,-- +that icy chill! His eyes were closing--yet he forced himself to open +them as he sank back heavily on the turf, and then--then he saw the +great white moon descending on him as it seemed, like a shield of +silver flung down to crush him, by some angry god! + +"Sylvie!--Sylvie!" he muttered, "I never knew--how much I loved you- +-till-now! Sylvie!" + +His eyes closed--a little smile flickered on his mouth for a moment- +-and then the Shadow fell. And he lay stark and pallid in the +moonlight, close to the brother he had never known till the last +hour of life had revealed the bond of blood between them. Side by +side they lay,--strangely alike in death,--men to whom the +possibilities of noble living had been abundantly given, and who had +wasted all their substance on vanity. For Victor Miraudin, despite +his genius and the brilliancy of his art, was not likely to be +longer remembered or mourned than the Marquis Fontenelle. The fame +of the actor is even less than that of the great noble,--the actor's +name is but a bubble on the air which a breath disperses,--and the +heir to a proud house is only remembered by the flattering +inscription on his tombstone. Forgotten Caesars, greater than any +living monarch, had mixed their bones with the soil where these two +sons of one father lay dead,--the bright moon was their sanctuary +lamp,--the stars their funeral torches,--the width of the Campagna +their bier, and the heavens their pall. And when the two terrified +witnesses of the fatal fight realised the position, and saw that +both combatants had truly perished, there were no regrets, no +lamentations, no prayers, no thought of going for assistance. With +the one selfish idea uppermost,--that of escaping immediate trouble- +-Jeanne Richaud rallied her scattered wits, and dragging the praying +and gesticulating cab-driver up from his knees, she bade him mount +his box and drive her back to the city. Tremblingly he prepared to +obey, but not without unfastening the horse which the dead Marquis +had so lately ridden, and taking some trouble to attach it to his +vehicle for his own uses. + +"For if we do this, they will never know!" he muttered with +chattering teeth, "A horse is always a horse--and this is a good +animal, more valuable than the men;--and when they find the men that +is none of our business. In--in with you, Madama! I will drive you +into the city,--that is, if you give me a thousand francs instead of +the five hundred your man promised me! Otherwise I will leave you +here!" + +"A thousand!" shrieked Richaud, "Oh, thief! You know I am a poor +stranger--Oh, mon Dieu! Do not murder me!" This, as the driver, +having hustled her into the vehicle and shut the door, now shook his +dirty fist at her threateningly. "Oh!--what a night of horror! Yes-- +yes!--a thousand!--anything!--only take me back to Rome!" + +Satisfied in his own mind that he had intimidated her sufficiently +to make her give him whatever he demanded, the driver who, despite +his native cupidity, was seriously alarmed for his own safety, +hesitated no longer, and the noise of the dashing wheels and the +galloping hoofs woke loud echoes from the road, and dull +reverberations from the Ponte Nomentano, as the equipage, with two +horses now instead of one, clattered out of sight. And then came +silence,--the awful silence of the Campagna--a silence like no other +silence in the world--brooding like darkness around the dead. + + + + +XXIV. + +The next morning dawned with all the strange half mystical glow of +light and colour common to the Italian sky,--flushes of pink warmed +the gray clouds, and dazzling, opalescent lines of blue suggested +the sun without declaring it,--and Sylvie Hermenstein, who had +passed a restless and wakeful night, rose early to go on one of what +her society friends called her "eccentric" walks abroad, before the +full life of the city was up and stirring. She, who seemed by her +graceful mignonne fascinations and elegant toilettes, just a +butterfly of fashion and no more, was truly of a dreamy and poetic +nature,--she had read very deeply, and the griefs and joys of +humanity presented an ever-varying problem to her refined and +penetrative mind. She was just now interesting herself in subjects +which she had never studied so closely before,--and she was +gradually arriving at the real secret of the highest duty of life,-- +that of serving and working for others without consideration for +oneself. A great love was teaching her as only a great love can;--a +love which she scarcely dared to admit to herself, but which +nevertheless was beginning to lead her step by step, into that +mysterious land, half light, half shadow, which is the nearest road +to Heaven,--a land where we suffer gladly for another's sorrow, and +are joyous in our own griefs, because another is happy! To love ONE +greatly, means to love ALL more purely,--and to find heart-room and +sympathy for the many sorrows and perplexities of those who are not +as uplifted as ourselves. For the true mission of the divine passion +in its divinest form, is that it should elevate and inspire the +soul, bringing it to the noblest issues, and for this it must be +associated with respect, as well as passion. No true soul can love +what it does not sincerely feel to be worthy of love. And Sylvie-- +the brilliant little caressable Sylvie, whose warm heart had been so +long unsatisfied, was, if not yet crowned by the full benediction of +love, still gratefully aware of the wonderful colour and interest +which had suddenly come into her life with the friendship of Aubrey +Leigh. His conversation, so different to the "small talk" of the +ordinary man, not only charmed her mind, but strengthened and +tempered it,--his thoughtful and tender personal courtesy filled her +with that serenity which is always the result of perfect manner,-- +his high and pure ideas of life moved her to admiration and homage,- +-and when she managed to possess herself of every book he had +written, and had read page after page, sentence after sentence, of +the glowing, fervent, passionate language, in which he denounced +shams and glorified truth,--the firmness and fearlessness with which +he condemned religious hypocrisy, and lifted pure Christianity to +the topmost pinnacle of any faith ever known or accepted in the +world, her feelings for him, while gaining fresh warmth, grew deeper +and more serious, merging into reverence as well as submission. She +had a book of his with her as a companion to her walk this very +morning, and as she entered the Pamphili woods, where she had a +special "permesso" to go whenever she chose, and trod the mossy +paths, where the morning sun struck golden shafts between the dark +ilex-boughs, as though pointing to the thousands of violets that +blossomed in the grass beneath, she opened it at a page containing +these lines:-- + +"Who is it that dares assert that his life or his thoughts are his +own? No man's life is his own! It is given to him in charge to use +for the benefit of others,--and if he does not so use it, it is +often taken from him when he least expects it. 'THOU FOOL, THIS +NIGHT THY LIFE SHALL BE REQUIRED OF THEE!' No man's thoughts even, +are his own. They are the radiations of the Infinite Mind of God +which pass through every living atom. The beggar may have the same +thought as the Prime Minister,--he only lacks the power of +expression. The more helpless and inept the beggar, the greater the +responsibility of the Premier. For the Premier has received +education, culture, training, and the choice of the people, and to +him is given the privilege of voicing the beggar's thought. And not +only the beggar's thought, but the thoughts of all in the nation who +have neither the skill nor the force to speak. If he does not do +what he is thus elected to do, he is but an inefficient master of +affairs. And what shall we say of the ministers of Religion who are +'ordained' to voice the Message of Christ? To echo the Divine!--to +repeat the grand Ethics of Life,--the Law of Love and Charity and +Forbearance and Pity and Forgiveness! When one of these highly +destined servants of the Great King fails in his duty,--when he +cannot pardon the sinner,--when he looks churlishly upon a child, or +condemns the innocent amusements of the young and happy,--when he +makes the sweet Sabbath a day of penance instead of praise--of +tyranny instead of rest,--when he has no charity for backsliders, no +sympathy for the sorrowful, no toleration for the contradictors of +his own particular theory--do we not feel that his very existence is +a blasphemy, and his preaching a presumption!" + +Here Sylvie raised her eyes from the book. She was near an ancient +cedar-tree whose dark spreading boughs, glistening with the early +morning dew, sparkled like a jewelled canopy in the sun,--at her +feet the turf was brown and bare, but a little beyond at the turn of +the pathway, a cluster of white narcissi waved their graceful stems +to the light wind. There was a rustic bench close by, and she sat +down to rest and think. Very sweet thoughts were hers,--such +thoughts as sweet women cherish when they dream of Love. Often the +dream vanishes before realisation, but this does not make the time +of dreaming less precious or less fair. Lost in a reverie which in +its pleasantness brought a smile to her lips, she did not hear a +stealthy footstep on the grass behind her, or feel a pair of dark +eyes watching her furtively from between the cedar-boughs,--and she +started with surprise, and something of offence also, as Monsigner +Gherardi suddenly appeared and addressed her,-- + +"Buon giorno, Contessa!" + +She rose from her seat and saluted him in silence, instinctively +grasping the book she held a little closer. But Gherardi's quick +glance had already perceived the title and the name of its author. + +"You improve the time!" he said, sarcastically, pacing slowly beside +her. "To one of your faith and devotion that book should be +accursed!" + +She raised her clear eyes and looked at him straightly, + +"Is the sunlight accursed?" she said, "The grass or the +flowers? The thoughts in this book are as pure and beautiful +as they!" + +Gherardi smiled. The enthusiasm of a woman's unspoilt nature was +always a source of amusement to him. + +"Your sentiments are very pretty and poetic!" he said, "But they are +exaggerated. That book is on the 'Index'!" + +"Yes, of course it would be!" answered Sylvie quietly, "I have often +wondered why so much fine literature is condemned by the Church,-- +and do you know, it occurred to me the other day that if our Lord +had WRITTEN what He said in the form of a book, it might be placed +on the 'Index' also?" + +Gherardi lifted his eyes from their scrutiny of the ground, and +fixed them upon her with a look of amazement that was almost a +menace. But she was not in the least intimidated,--and her face, +though pale as the narcissi she had just seen in blossom, was very +tranquil. + +"Are you the Comtesse Hermenstein?" said Gherardi then, after an +impressive pause, "The faithful, gentle daughter of Holy Church? or +are you some perverted spirit wearing her semblance?" + +Sylvie laughed. + +"If I am a perverted spirit you ought to be able to exorcise me, +Monsignor!" she said,--"With the incense of early Mass clinging to +you, and the holy water still fresh on your hands, you have only to +say, 'Retro me Sathanas!' and if I am NOT Sylvie Hermenstein I shall +melt into thin air, leaving nothing but the odour of sulphur behind +me! But if I AM Sylvie Hermenstein, I shall remain invincible and +immovable,--both in myself and in my opinions!" + +Gherardi controlled his rising irritation, and was silent for some +minutes, reflecting within himself that if the fair Countess had +suddenly turned restive and wayward, it was probably because she was +falling in love with the author whose works she defended, and taking +this into consideration, he judged it would be wisest to temporise. + +"Invincible you always are!" he said in softer tones, "As many +unhappy men in Europe can testify!" + +"Are you among them?" queried Sylvie mischievously, the light of +laughter beginning to twinkle and flash in her pretty eyes. + +"Of course!" answered Gherardi suavely, though his heart beat +thickly, and the secret admiration he had always felt for the +delicate beauty of this woman who was so utterly out of his reach, +made his blood burn with mingled rage and passion. "Even a poor +priest is not exempt from temptation!" + +Sylvie hummed a little tune under her breath, and looked up at the +sky. + +"It will be a lovely day!" she said--"There will be no rain!" + +"Is that the most interesting thing you can say to me?" queried +Gherardi. + +"The weather is always interesting," she replied, "And it is such a +safe subject of conversation!" + +"Then you are afraid of dangerous subjects?" + +"Oh no, not at all! But I dislike quarrelling,--and I am afraid I +should get very angry if you were to say anything more against the +book I am reading"--here she paused a moment, and then added +steadily, "or its author!" + +"I am aware that he is a great friend of yours," said Gherardi +gently, "And I assure you, Contessa--seriously I assure you, I +should be the last person in the world to say anything against him. +Indeed, there is nothing to say, beyond the fact that he is, +according to our religion, a heretic--but he is a brilliant and +intellectual heretic,--WELL WORTH REDEEMING!" He emphasised the +words, and shot a meaning glance at her; but she did not appear to +take his hint or fathom his intention. She walked on steadily, her +eyes downcast,--her tiny feet, shod in charming little French +walking shoes, peeping in and out with a flash of steel on their +embroidered points, from under the mysterious gleam of silk flounces +that gave a soft "swish," as she moved,--her golden hair escaping in +one or two silky waves from under a picturesque black hat, fastened +on by velvet ribbons, which were tied in a captivating knot under +the sweetest of little white chins, a chin whose firm contour almost +contradicted the sensitive lines of the kissable mouth above it. A +curious, dull sense of anger teased the astute brain of Domenico +Gherardi, as with all the dignified deportment of the stately +churchman, he walked on by her side. What was all his scheming +worth, he began to think, if this slight feminine creature proved +herself more than a match for him? The utmost he could do with his +life and ambitions was to sway the ignorant, cram his coffers with +gold, and purchase a change of mistresses for his villa at Frascati. +But love,--real love, from any human creature alive he never had +won, and knew he never should win. Sylvie Hermenstein was richer far +than he,--she had not only wealth and a great position, but the joys +of a natural existence, and of a perfect home-life were not denied +to her. Presently, seeing that they were approaching the gates of +exit from the Pamphili, he said,-- + +"Contessa, will you give me the favour of an hour's conversation +with you one afternoon this week? I have something of the very +greatest importance to say to you." + +"Can you not say it now?" asked Sylvie. + +"No, it would take too long,--besides, if walls have ears, it is +possible that gardens have tongues! I should not presume to trouble +you, were it not for the fact that my business concerns the welfare +of your friend, Mr. Aubrey Leigh, in whose career I think you are +interested,--and not only Mr. Leigh, but also Cardinal Bonpre. You +will be wise to give me the interview I seek,--unwise if you refuse +it!" + +"Monsignor, you have already been well received at my house, and +will be well received again,"--said Sylvie with a pretty dignity, +"Provided you do not abuse my hospitality by calumniating my +FRIENDS, whatever you may think of myself,--you will be welcome! +What day, and at what hour shall I expect you?" + +Gherardi considered a moment. + +"I will write," he said at last, "I cannot at this moment fix the +time, but I will not fail to give you notice. A riverderci! +Benedicite!" + +And he left her abruptly at the gates, walking rapidly in the +direction of the Vatican. Full of vague perplexities to which she +could give no name, Sylvie went homewards slowly, and as she entered +her rooms, and responded to the affectionate morning greetings of +Madame Bozier, she was conscious of a sudden depression that stole +over her bright soul like a dark cloud on a sunny day, and made her +feel chilled and sad. Turning over the numerous letters that waited +her perusal, she recognised the handwriting of the Marquis +Fontenelle on one, and took it up with a strange uneasy dread and +beating of the heart. She read it twice through, before entirely +grasping its meaning, and then--as she realised that the man who had +caused her so much pain and shame by his lawless and reckless +pursuit of her in the character of a libertine, was now, with a +frank confession of his total unworthiness, asking her to be his +wife,--the tears rushed to her eyes, and a faint cry broke from her +lips. + +"Oh, I cannot . . . I cannot!" she murmured, "Not now--not now!" + +Madame Bozier looked at her in distress and amazement. + +"What is the matter, dear?" she asked, "Some bad news?" + +Silently Sylvie handed her Fontenelle's letter. + +"Dear me! He is actually in Rome!" said the old lady, "And he asks +you to be his wife! Well, dear child, is not that what you had a +right to expect from him?" + +"Yes--perhaps--but I cannot--not now!--Oh no, not now!" murmured +Sylvie, and her eyes, wet with tears, were full of an infinite pain. + +"But--pardon me dear--do you not love him?" + +Sylvie stood silent--gazing blankly before her, with such perplexity +and sorrow in her face that her faithful gouvernante grew anxious +and troubled. + +"Child, do not look like that!" she exclaimed, "It cuts me to the +heart! You were not made for sorrow!" + +"Dear Katrine,--we were all made for sorrow," said Sylvie slowly, +"Sorrow is good for us. And perhaps I have not had sufficient of it +to make me strong. And this is real sorrow to me,--to refuse +Fontenelle!" + +"But why refuse him if you love him?" asked Madame Bozier +bewildered. + +Sylvie sat down beside her, and put one soft arm caressingly round +her neck. + +"Ah, Katrine,--that is just my trouble," she said, "I do not love +him now! When I first met him he attracted me greatly, I confess,-- +he seemed so gentle, so courteous, and above all, so true! But it +was 'seeming' only, Katrine!--and he was not anything of what he +seemed. His courtesy and gentleness were but a mask for +licentiousness,--his apparent truth was but a disguise for mere +reckless and inconstant passion. I had to find this bit by bit,--and +oh, how cruel was the disillusion! How I prayed for him, wept for +him, tried to think that if he loved me he might yet endeavour to be +nobler and truer for my sake. But his love was not great enough for +that. What he wanted was the body of me, not the soul. What _I_ +wanted of him was the soul, not the body! So we played at cross +purposes,--each with a different motive,--and gradually, as I came +to recognise how much baseness and brutality there is in mere +libertinism,--how poor and paltry an animal man becomes when he +serves himself and his passions only, my attraction for him +diminished,--I grew to realise that I could never raise him out of +the mud, because he had lived by choice too long in it,--I could +never persuade him to be true, even to himself, because he found the +ways of falsehood and deceit more amusing. He did unworthy things, +which I could not, with all my admiration for him, gloze over or +excuse;--in fact, I found that in his private life and code of +honour he was very little better than Miraudin,--and Miraudin, as +you know, one CANNOT receive!" + +"He is in Rome also," said Madame Bozier, "I saw his name placarded +in the streets only yesterday, and also outside one of the leading +theatres. He has brought all his Parisian company here to act their +repertoire for a few nights before proceeding to Naples." + +"How strange he should be here!" said Sylvie, "How very strange! He +is so like the Marquis Fontenelle, Katrine! So very like! I used to +go to the theatre and frighten myself with studying the different +points of resemblance! be the rough copy of Fontenelle's,--and I +always saw in the actor what the gentleman would be if he continued +to live as he was doing. Miraudin, whose amours are a disgrace, EVEN +to the stage!--Miraudin, who in his position of actor-manager, takes +despicable advantage of all the poor ignorant, struggling creatures +who try to get into his company, and whose vain little heads are +turned by a stray compliment,--and to think that the Marquis +Fontenelle should be merely the better-born copy of so mean a +villain! Ah, what useless tears I have shed about it,--how I have +grieved and worried myself all in vain!--and now . . ." + +"Now he asks you to marry him," said Madame Bozier gently, "And you +think it would be no use? You could not perhaps make him a better +man?" + +"Neither I nor any woman could!" said Sylvie, "I do not believe very +much in 'reforming' men, Katrine. If they need to reform, they must +reform themselves. We make our own lives what they are." + +"Dear little philosopher!" said Madame Bozier tenderly, taking +Sylvie's small white hand as it hung down from her shoulder and +kissing it, "You are very depressed to-day! You must not take things +so seriously! If you do not love the Marquis as you once did--" + +"As I once did--ah, yes!" said Sylvie, "I did love him. I thought he +could not be otherwise than great and true and noble-hearted--but--" + +She broke off with a sigh. + +"Well, and now that you know he is not the hero you imagined him, +all you have to do is to tell him so," said the practical Bozier +cheerfully, "Or if you do not want to pain him by such absolute +candour, give him his refusal as gently and kindly as you can." + +Sylvie sighed again. + +"I am very sorry," she said, "If I could have foreseen this-- +perhaps--" + +"But did you not foresee it?" asked Madame Bozier persistently, "Did +you not realize that men always want what they cannot have--and that +the very fact of your leaving Paris increased his ardour and sent +him on here in pursuit?" + +Sylvie Hermenstein was of a very truthful nature, and she had not +attempted to deny this suggestion. + +"Yes--I confess I did think that if I separated myself altogether +from him it might induce him to put himself in a more honourable +position with me--but I did not know then--" she paused, and a deep +flush crimsoned her cheeks. + +"Did not know what?" queried Madame Bozier softly. + +Sylvie hesitated a moment, then spoke out bravely. + +"I did not know then that I should meet another man whose existence +would become ten times more interesting and valuable to me than his! +Yes, Katrine, I confess it! There is no shame in honesty! And so, to +be true to myself, however much the Marquis might love me now, I +could never be his wife." + +Madame Bozier was silent. She guessed her beloved pupil's heart's +secret,--but she was too tactful to dwell upon the subject, and +before the brief, half-embarrassed pause between them had ended, a +servant entered, asking, + +"Will the Signora Contessa receive the Capitano Ruspardi?" + +Sylvie rose from her seat with a look of surprise. + +"Ruspardi?--I do not know the name." + +"The business is urgent;--the Capitano is the bearer of a letter to +the Signora Contessa." + +"Remain with me, Katrine," said Sylvie after a pause,--then to the +servant--"Show Captain Ruspardi in here." + +Another moment, and a young officer in the Italian uniform entered +hurriedly,--his face was very pale,--and as the Comtesse Hermenstein +received him in her own serene sweet manner which, for all its high- +bred air had something wonderfully winning and childlike about it, +his self-control gave way, and when after a profound salute he +raised his eyes, she saw they were full of tears. Her heart began to +beat violently. + +"You bring some bad news?" she asked faintly. + +"Madama, I beg you not to distress yourself--this letter--" and he +held out a sealed envelope,--"was given to me specially marked, +among others, by my friend, the Marquis Fontenelle--last right +before--before he went to his death!" + +"His death!" echoed Sylvie, her eyes dilating with horror--"His +death! What do you mean?" + +Madame Bozier came quickly to her side, and put a hand gently on her +arm. But she did not seem to feel the sympathetic touch. + +"His death!" she murmured. And with trembling fingers she opened and +read the last lines ever penned by her too passionate admirer. + +"SWEETEST SYLVIE! Dearest and purest of women! If you ever receive +this letter I shall be gone beyond the reach of your praise or your +blame. For it will not be given to you at all unless I am dead. +Dead, dear Sylvie! That will be strange, will it not? To be lying +quite still, cold and stiff, out of the reach of your pretty warm +white arms,--deprived for ever and ever of any kiss from your rose- +red lips,--ah, Sylvie, it will be very cold and lonely! But perhaps +better so! To-night I saw you, up in your balcony, with someone who +is a brave and famous man, and who no doubt loves you. For he cannot +fail to love you, if he knows you. God grant you may be happy when I +am gone! But I want you to feel that to-night--to-night _I_ love +you!--love you as I have never loved you or any woman before-- +without an evil thought,--without a selfish wish!--to the very +height and breadth of love, I love you, my queen, my rose, my saving +grace of sweetness!--whose name I shall say to God as my best prayer +for pardon, if I die to-night! + +FONTENELLE." + +Sylvie shuddered as with icy cold . . . a darkness seemed to overwhelm +her . . . she staggered a little, and Ruspardi caught her, wondering--at +the lightness and delicacy and beauty of her, as he assisted Madame +Bozier to lead her to a deep fauteuil where she sank down, trembling +in every nerve. + +"And--he is dead?" she asked mechanically. + +Ruspardi bowed a grave assent. She paused a moment--then forced +herself to speak again. + +"How did it happen?" + +In brief, concise words Ruspardi gave the account of the quarrel +with Miraudin,--and Sylvie shrank back as though she had received a +blow when she heard that her name had been the cause of the dispute. + +"And this morning, hearing no news," continued Ruspardi, "I made +enquiries at the theatre. There I found everything in confusion; +Miraudin and a soubrette named Jeanne Richaud, had left Rome the +previous evening so the box-keeper said, and there was no news of +either of them beyond a note from the girl saying she had returned +alone to Paris by the first morning train. Nothing had been heard of +Miraudin himself;--I therefore, knowing all the circumstances, drove +out to the Campagna by the Porte Pia, the way that Miraudin had +gone, and the way I bade the Marquis follow;--but on the Ponte +Nomentano I met some of the Miserecordia carrying two corpses on the +same bier,--two corpses so strangely alike that they might almost +have been brothers!--they were the bodies of the Marquis Fontenelle +and,--Miraudin!" + +Sylvie uttered a low cry and covered her face with her hands. + +"Miraudin!" exclaimed Madame Bozier in horrified tones. "Miraudin! +Is he killed also?" + +"Yes, Madame! Both shots must have been fired with deadly aim. They +had no seconds. Miraudin had hired a common fiacre to escape in from +the city, and the police will offer a reward for the discovery of +the driver. My horse, which my unfortunate friend Fontenelle rode, +is gone, and if it could be discovered, its possessor might furnish +a clue;--but I imagine it will be difficult, if not impossible to +trace the witnesses of the combat. The woman Richaud is on her way +to Paris. But by this time all Rome knows of the death of Miraudin; +and in a few hours all the world will know!" + +"And what of the Marquis Fontenelle?" asked Madame Bozier. + +"Madama, I posted all the letters he entrusted to my charge. The one +I have brought to the Contessa was enclosed in an envelope to me and +marked 'To be personally delivered in case of my death.' But among +the letters for the post was one to the Marquis's only sister, the +Abbess of a convent in Paris--she will probably claim her brother's +remains." + +He was silent. After a pause Sylvie rose unsteadily, and detached a +cluster of violets she wore at her neck. + +"Will you--" her voice faltered. + +But Ruspardi understood, and taking the flowers, respectfully kissed +the little hand that gave them. + +"They shall be buried with him," he said. "His hand was clenched in +death on a small knot of lace--you perhaps might recognise it,-- +yes?--so!--it shall be left as it was found." + +And,--his melancholy errand being done,--he bowed profoundly once +more, and retired. + +Sylvie gazed around her vaguely,--the letter of her dead admirer +grasped in her hand,--and his former letter, proposing marriage, +lying still open on the table. Her old gouvernante watched her +anxiously, the tears rolling down her cheeks. + +"You are crying, Katrine!" she said, "And yet you knew him very +little,--he never loved you! I wish--I wish MY tears would come! But +they are all here--aching and hurting me--"and she pressed her hand +to her heart--"You see--when one is a woman and has been loved by a +man, one cannot but feel sorry--for such an end! You see he was not +altogether cruel!--he defended my name--and he has died for my sake! +For my sake!--Oh, Katrine! For MY sake! So he DID love me--at the +last! . . . and I--I--Oh, Katrine!--I wish--I wish the tears would +come!" + +And as she spoke she reeled--and uttering a little cry like that of +a wounded bird, dropped senseless. + + + + +XXV. + +The death of the famous actor Miraudin was a nine days' wonder, and +about a three weeks' regret. He had made no reputation beyond that +of the clever Mime,--he was not renowned for scholarship,--he had +made no mark in dramatic literature,--and his memory soon sank out +of sight in the whirling ocean of events as completely as though he +had never existed. There was no reality about him, and as a natural +consequence he went the way of all Shams. Had even his study of his +art been sincere and high--had he sought for the best, the greatest, +and most perfect work, and represented that only to the public, the +final judgment of the world might perhaps have given him a corner +beside Talma or Edmund Kean,--but the conceit of him, united to an +illiterate mind, was too great for the tolerance of the universal +Spirit of things which silently in the course of years pronounces +the last verdict on a man's work. Only a few of his own profession +remembered him as one who might have been great had he not been so +little;--and a few women laughed lightly, recalling the legion of +his "amours", and said, "Ce pauvre coquin, Miraudin!" That was all. +And for the mortal remains of Guy Beausire de Fontenelle, there came +a lady, grave and pale, clothed in deep black, with the nun's white +band crossing her severe and tranquil brows,--and she, placing a +great wreath of violets fresh gathered from the Pamphili woods, and +marked, "In sorrow, from Sylvie Hermenstein", on the closed coffin, +escorted her melancholy burden back to Paris, where in a stately +marble vault, to the solemn sound of singing, and amid the flare of +funeral tapers, with torn battle banners drooping around his bier, +and other decaying fragments of chivalry, the last scion of the once +great house of Fontenelle was laid to rest with his fathers. Little +did the austere Abbess, who was the chief mourner at these +obsequies, guess that the actor Miraudin, whose grave had been +hastily dug in Rome, had also a right to be laid in the same marble +vault;--proud and cold and stern as her heart had grown through long +years of pain and disappointment, it is possible that had she known +this, her sufferings might have been still more poignant. But the +secret had died with the dead so far as the world went;--there +remained but the Eternal Record on which the bond of brotherhood was +inscribed,--and in that Eternal Record some of us do our best not to +believe, notwithstanding the universal secret dread that we shall +all be confronted with it at last. + +Meanwhile, events were moving rapidly, and the net of difficult +circumstance was weaving itself round the good Cardinal Bonpre in a +manner that was strangely perplexing to his clear and just mind. He +had received a letter from Monsignor Moretti, worded in curtly civil +terms, to the effect that as the Cardinal's miracle of healing had +been performed in France, he, as on Vatican service in Paris, found +it his duty to enquire thoroughly into all the details. For this +cause, he, Monsignor Moretti, trusted it would suit the Cardinal's +convenience to remain in Rome till the return of Monsieur Claude +Cazeau, secretary to the Archbishop of Rouen, who had been +despatched back to that city on the business connected with this +affair. Thus Monsignor Moretti;--and Cardinal Bonpre, reading +between the lines of his letter, knew that the displeasure of Rome +had fallen upon him as heavily as it did upon the eloquent and +liberal-minded Padre Agostino when he made the mistake of asking a +blessing from Heaven on the King and Queen of Italy for their works +of charity among the poor. And he easily perceived where the real +trouble lay,--namely, in the fact of his having condoned the Abbe +Vergniaud's public confession. Out of the one thing there was an +effort being made to contrive mischief with the other,--and Bonpre, +being too frail and old to worry his brain with complex arguments as +to the how and why and wherefore of the machinations carried on at +the Vatican, resigned himself to God, and contenting his mind with +meditation and prayer, waited events patiently, caring little how +they ended for himself, provided they did not involve others in any +catastrophe. Moreover, there was a certain consolation contained in +his enforced waiting,--for his niece Angela had confided to him that +the work of her great picture had advanced more swiftly than she had +imagined possible, and that it was likely she would be able to show +it to her relatives and private friends in the course of a week or +so. + +"But Florian must see it first," she said, "Of course you know that! +Florian must always be first!" + +"Yes," and the Cardinal stroked her hair tenderly, while his eyes +rested on her with rather a troubled look--"Yes--of course--Florian +first. I suppose he will always be first with you, Angela?--after +God?" + +"Always!" she answered softly, "Always--after God!" + +And Felix Bonpre sighed--he knew not why--except that he was always +sorry for women who loved men with any very great exaltation or +devotion. That curiously tender adoration of a true woman's heart +which is so often wasted on an unworthy object, seemed to him like +lifting a cup of gold to a swine's snout. He found no actual fault +with Florian Varillo,--he was just a man as men go, with nothing +very pronounced about him, except a genius for fine mosaic-like +painting. He was not a great creator, but he was a delicate and +careful artist,--a man against whom nothing particular could be +said, except perhaps that his manner was often artificial, and that +his conduct was not always sincere. But he had a power of +fascinating the opposite sex,--and Angela had fallen a willing +victim to his candid smile, clear eyes, charming voice, and +courteous ways,--and with that strange inconsistency so common to +gifted women, she was so full of "soul" and "over-soul" herself, +that she could not imagine "soul" lacking in others;--and never +dreamed of making herself sure that it elevated the character or +temperament of the man she loved. + + "Alas, the love of women! it is known + To be a lovely and a fearful thing; + For all of theirs upon that die is thrown + And, if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring!" + [Footnote: Byron] + +During the time that matters were thus pending in Rome, Claude +Cazeau, well satisfied with himself, and the importance of being +entrusted with a special message from the Vatican to the Archbishop +of Rouen, returned to the Normandy capital with many ambitious +speculations rife in his brain, and schemes for improving the +position of confidence with which he had, by the merest chance, and +the fluctuations of the Pope's hunxour, been suddenly thrust. He +took the Patoux family by surprise on the evening of his arrival in +Rouen, and much to his secret satisfaction found Martine Doucet in +their company. The children were gone to bed, and the appearance of +Cazeau in Papa Patoux's kitchen was evidently not altogether the +most agreeable circumstance that could have happened at the Hotel +Poitiers. He was civilly received, however, and when he expressed +his pleasure at seeing Madame Doucet present, that worthy female +lifted her eyes from her knitting and gave him a suspicious glance +of exceeding disfavour. + +"I do not see what pleasure my company can give you, Monsieur," she +said curtly, "I am only a poor marketwoman!" + +"But you have been singularly favoured by the protection and +confidence of a great Cardinal,--" began Cazeau. + +"Protection--confidence--!" echoed Martine snappishly, "Nom de +Jesus! What is the man talking about! I never set eyes on the +Cardinal in my life. But that he cured my Fabien is enough to make +me think of him as a saint for ever,--though it seems there are some +that would almost make him out to be a devil for having done a good +deed! And ever since my boy was cured I have lived a life of torture +and trouble--yes, truly!--torn between two things, our Blessed Lord +and the Church! But I am trying my best to keep fast hold of our +Lord, whatever the Church may do to me!" + +"Dear me!" said Cazeau blandly, turning with a smile and +propitiatory air to Patoux who sat silently smoking, "Madame Doucet +seems a little--what shall we say?--unduly excited? Yet surely the +recovery of her child should fill her with thanksgiving and make her +a faithful and devout servant--" "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted +Madame Patoux, "Believe me, Martine is thankful enough, and devout +enough,--but truly it has been very hard for her to suffer the +things that have been said to her of late,--how that the child could +never have been really crippled at all, but simply shamming,--how +that it was all a trick got up between herself and the priests for +the purpose of bringing visitors and their money to Rouen,--for of +course since the miracle was noised abroad there have been many +pilgrimages to Notre Dame, it having got about that there was some +mysterious spirit or angel in one of the shrines,--for look you, our +Archbishop, when he came to visit the Cardinal here in this very +hotel, distinctly remembers that His Eminence assured him he had +heard strange music in the Cathedral, when truly there was no organ +unlocked, and no organist on duty,--and then there was something +about the boy that His Eminence found lost that night . . ." + +"Stop! Stop!" said Cazeau, growing impatient, "Your eloquence is so +impressive, Madame, and you say so much that is excellent in one +breath, that you must pardon my inferior capacity in not being able +to follow you quite coherently! There are conflicting statements, +you say--" + +"No, there are none," said Patoux himself, drawing his pipe out of +his mouth slowly, and looking intently at its well-sucked stem--"It +is all the same sort of thing. A child is sick--a child is cured-- +and it is either God or the Devil who has done it. Some people +prefer to think it is the Devil,--some give the praise to God. It +was exactly like that whenever our Lord did a good deed. Half the +folks said he was God,--the other half that he had a devil. +Jerusalem was like Rouen, Rouen is like Jerusalem. Jerusalem was +ancient and wicked; Rouen is modern and wickeder,--that's all! As +for music in the church, we have only the Archbishop's warrant that +the Cardinal ever said anything about hearing music." + +"'ONLY' the Archbishop's warrant!" echoed Cazeau meaningly. + +"I said 'ONLY', Monsieur!--Make the best of it!" answered Patoux, +sticking his pipe into his mouth again, and resuming his smoke with +undisturbed tranquillity. + +Cazeau hummed and hawed,--he was irritated yet vaguely amused too at +the singular self-assertion of these common folk who presumed to +take their moral measurement of an Archbishop! It is a strange fact, +but these same common folk always DO take these sorts of +measurements. + +"The inconsistencies--(if there are any--) in the story will soon be +cleared up," he said, with a benevolent assumption of authority, "At +least, I hope so! I am glad to say that I am entrusted with a +message to the Archbishop from our Holy Father, the Pope,--and I +have also His Holiness's instructions to request you, Madame Doucet, +together with your son Fabien, to accompany me back to Rome!" + +Martine Doucet bounced up from her chair, and let fall her knitting. + +"Me--me!" she cried, "ME go to Rome! Never! Wild horses will not +drag me there, nor shall you take my Fabien either! What should I do +in Rome?" + +"Testify personally to the truth of the Cardinal's miracle," +answered Cazeau, gazing coldly at her excited face as though he saw +something altogether strange and removed from human semblance. "And +bring your child into the Holy Presence and relate his history. It +will be nothing but an advantage to you,--for you will obtain a +patient hearing, and the priceless boon of the Papal benediction!" + +"Grand merci!" said Martine, "But I have lived more than half my +time without the Papal benediction, and I can work out the rest of +my days in the same way! Look you!--there is a great English Duke I +am told, who has an only son sorely afflicted, and he has taken this +son to every place in the world where the Church is supposed to work +miracles for the healing of the sick and the helpless,--all to no +use, for the poor boy is as sick and helpless as ever. How is that? +What has the Papal benediction done for him?" + +"Woman, your tongue overrules your senses!" said Cazeau, with rising +temper, "You rail against the Church like an ungrateful heathen, +even though you owe your son's recovery to the Church! For what is +Cardinal Bonpre but a Prince of the Church?" + +Martine stuck her arms akimbo, and surveyed him disdainfully. + +"OH--HE!" she cried, "My tongue overrules my senses, Monsieur Clause +Cazeau! Take care that your cunning does not overrule yourself! Did +I ever deny the worth and the goodness of Cardinal Bonpre? Though if +I were to speak the whole truth, and if I were to believe the +nonsense-talk of a child, I should perhaps give the credit of the +miracle to the stray boy whom the Cardinal found outside the +Cathedral door--"Cazeau started--"For Fabien says that he began to +feel strong the moment that little lad touched him!" + +"The boy!" exclaimed Cazeau--"The boy!" + +A curious silence ensued. Jean Patoux lifting his drowsy eyes gazed +fixedly at the whitewashed ceiling,--Madame, his wife, stood beside +him watching the changes on Cazeau's yellow face--and Martine sat +down to take breath after her voluble outburst. + +"The boy!" muttered Cazeau again--then he broke into a harsh laugh. + +"What folly!" he exclaimed, "As if a little tramp of the streets +could have anything to do with a Church miracle! Martine Doucet, if +you were to say such a thing at the Vatican--" + +"_I_ have not said it," said Martine angrily, "I only told you what +my Fabien says. I am not answerable for the thoughts of the child! +That he is well and strong--that he has the look and the soul of an +angel, is enough for me to praise God all my life. But I shall never +say the Laus Deo at the Vatican,--you will have no chance to trap me +in that way!" + +Cazeau stared at her haughtily. + +"You must be mad!" he said, "No one wishes to 'trap' you, as you +express it! The miracle of healing performed on your child is a very +remarkable one,--it should not be any surprise to you that the Head +of the Church seeks to know all the details of it thoroughly, in +order to ratify and confirm it, and perhaps bestow new honour on the +eminent Cardinal--" + +"I rather doubt that!" interposed Patoux slowly, "For I gather from +our Archbishop that the Holy Father was suspicious of some trick +rather than an excess of sanctity!" + +Cazeau reddened through his pallid skin. + +"I know nothing of that!" he said curtly, "But my orders are +imperative, and I shall seek the assistance of the Archbishop to +enforce and carry them out! For the moment I have the honour to wish +you good-night, Monsieur Patoux!--and you also, Mesdames!" + +And he departed abruptly, in an anger which he was at no pains to +disguise. Personally he cared nothing about the miracle or how it +had been accomplished, but he cared very much for his own +advancement,--and he saw, or thought he saw, a chance of very +greatly improving his position among the ecclesiastical authorities +if he only kept a cool head and a clear mind. He recognised that +there was a desire on the part of the Pope to place Cardinal Bonpre +under close observance and restraint on account of his having +condoned the Abbe Vergniaud's confession to his congregation in +Paris; and he rightly judged that anything he could do to aid the +accomplishment of that end would not be without its reward. And the +few words which Martine Doucet had let drop concerning the stray boy +who now lived under the Cardinal's protection, had given him a new +idea which he resolved to act upon when he returned to Rome. For it +was surely very strange that an eminent Prince of the Church should +allow himself to be constantly attended by a little tramp rescued +from the street! There was something in it more than common,--and +Cazeau decided that he would suggest a close enquiry being made on +this point. + +Crossing the square opposite the Hotel Poitiers, he hesitated before +turning the corner of the street which led towards the avenue where +the Archbishop's house was situated. The night was fine and calm-- +the air singularly balmy,--and he suddenly decided to take a stroll +by the river before finally returning to his rooms for the night. +There is one very quiet bit of the Seine in Rouen where the water +flows between unspoilt grassy banks, which in summer are a frequent +resort for lovers to dream the dreams which so often come to +nothing,--and here Cazeau betook himself to smoke and meditate on +the brilliancy of his future prospects. The river had been high in +flood during the week, and the grass which sloped towards the water +was still wet, and heavy to the tread. But Cazeau limited his walk +to the broad summit of the bank, being aware that the river just +below flowed over a muddy quicksand, into which, should a man chance +to fall, it would be death and fast burial at one and the same +moment. And Cazeau set a rather exorbitant value on his own life, as +most men do whose lives are of no sort of consequence to the world. +So he was careful to walk where there was the least danger of +slipping,--and as he lit an excellent cigar, and puffed the faint +blue rings of smoke out into the clear moonlit atmosphere, he was in +a very agreeable frame of mind. He was crafty and clever in his +way,--one of those to whom the Yankee term "cute" would apply in its +fullest sense,--and he had the happy knack of forgetting his own +mistakes and follies, and excusing his own sins with as much ease as +though he were one of the "blood-royal" of nations. Vices he had in +plenty in common with most men,--except that his particular form of +licentiousness was distinguished by a callousness and cruelty in +which there was no touch of redeeming quality. As a child he had +loved to tear the wings off flies and other insects, and one of his +keenest delights in boyhood had been to watch the writhings of frogs +into whose soft bodies he would stick long pins,--the frogs would +live under this treatment four and five hours--sometimes longer, and +while observing their agonies he enjoyed "that contented mind which +is a perpetual feast." Now that he was a man, he delighted in +torturing human beings after the same methods applied mentally, +whenever he could find a vulnerable part through which to thrust a +sharp spear of pain. + +"The eminent Cardinal Bonpre!" he mused now; "What is he to me! If I +could force the Archbishop of Rouen into high favour at the Vatican +instead of this foolish old Saint Felix, it would be a better thing +for my future. After all, it was at Rouen that the miracle was +performed--the city should have some credit! And Bonpre has condoned +a heretic . . . he is growing old and feeble--possibly he is losing his +wits. And then there is that boy . . ." + +He started violently as a fantastic shadow suddenly crossed his +path, in the moonlight, and a peal of violent laughter assailed his +ears. + +"Enfin! Toi, mon Claude!--enfin!--Grace a Dieu! Enfin!" + +And the crazed creature, known as Marguerite, "La Folle", stood +before him, her long black hair streaming over her bare chest and +gaunt arms, her eyes dilated, and glowing with the mingled light of +madness and despair. + +Cazeau turned a livid white in the moon-rays;--his blood grew icy +cold. What! After two years of dodging about the streets of Rouen to +avoid meeting this wretched woman whom he had tricked and betrayed, +had she found him at last! + +"When did you come back from the fair?" cried the girl shrilly, "I +lost you there, you know-and you man-aged to lose ME--but I have +waited!--waited patiently for news of you! . . . and when none came, I +still waited, making myself beautiful! . . . see!--" And she thrust her +fingers through her long hair, throwing it about in wilder disorder +than ever. "You thought you had killed me--and you were glad!--it +makes all men glad to kill women when they can! But I--I was not +killed so easily,--I have lived!--for this night--just for this +night! Listen!" and she sprang forward and threw herself violently +against his breast, "Do you love me now? Tell me again--as you told +me at the fair--you love me?" + +He staggered under her weight--and tried for a moment to thrust her +back, but she held him in a grip of iron, looking up at him with her +great feverish dark eyes, and grasping his shoulders with thin +burning hands. He trembled;--he was beginning to grow horribly +afraid. What devil had sent this woman whom he had ruined so long as +two years ago, across his path to-night? Would it be possible to +soothe her? + +"Marguerite--" he began. + +"Yes, yes, Marguerite! Say it again!" she cried wildly, "Marguerite! +Say it again! Sweet--sweet and tenderly as you said it then! Poor +Marguerite! Your pale ugly face seemed the face of a god to her +once, because she thought you loved her--we all find men so +beautiful when we think they love us! Yes--your cold eyes and cruel +lips and hard brow!--it was quite a different face at the fair! So +was mine a different face--but you!--YOU have made mine what it is +now!--look at it! What!--you thought you could murder a woman and +never be found out! You thought you could kill poor Marguerite, and +that no one would ever know--" + +"Hush, hush!" said Cazeau, his teeth chattering with the cold of his +inward terror, "I never killed you, Marguerite!--I loved you--yes, +listen!" For she was looking up at him with an attentive, almost +sane expression in her eyes. "I meant to write to you after the +fair,--and come to you . . ." + +"Hush, hush!" said the girl, "Let me hear this!--this is strange +news! He meant to write to me--yet he let me die by inches in an +agony of waiting!--till I dropped into the darkness where I am now! +He meant to come to me--oh, it was very easy to come if he had +chosen to come,--before I wandered away into all this strangeness-- +this shadow--this confusion and fire! But you see, it is too late +now," and she began to laugh again, "Too late! I have a strange idea +that I am dead, though I seem alive--I am in my grave; and so you +must die also and be buried with me! Yes, you must certainly die!-- +when one is cruel and false and treacherous one is not wanted in the +world!--better to go out of it--and it is quite easy,--see!--this +way!--" + +And before he realised her intention she sprang back a step--then +drew a knife from her bosom, and with a sort of exultant shriek, +stabbed him furiously once--twice--thrice . . . crying out--"This for +your lie! This for my sorrow!--This for your love!--" + +Reeling back with the agony of her murderous blows he made a fierce +effort to tear the knife from her hands, but she suddenly threw it a +long way from her towards the river, where it fell with a light +splash, and rushing at him twined her arms close about his neck, +while her mad laughter, piercing and terrible, rang out through the +quiet air. + +"Together!" she said, "That day at the fair we were together, and +now--we shall be together again! Come!--Come! I have waited long +enough!--your promised letter never came--you have kept me waiting a +long long while--but now I will wait no longer! I have found you!--I +will never let you go!" + +Furiously, despite his wounds, he fought with her,--tried to thrust +her away from him,--and beat her backwards and downwards,--but she +had the strength of ten women in her maddened frame, and she clung +to him with the tenacity of some savage beast. All around them was +perfectly quiet,--there was not a soul in sight,--there was no place +near where a shout for help could have been heard. Struggling still, +dizzy, blind and breathless, he did not see that they were nearing +the edge of the slippery bank--all his efforts were concentrated in +an endeavour to shake off the infuriated creature, made more +powerful in her very madness by the just sense of her burning wrong +and his callous treachery--when all at once his foot slipped and he +fell to the ground. She pounced on him like a tigress, and fastened +her fingers on his throat,--clutching his flesh and breathlessly +muttering, "Never!--never! Never can you hide away from me any more! +Together--together! I will never let you go!--" till, as his eyes +rolled up in agony and his jaw relaxed, she uttered a shout of +ecstasy to see him die! He sank heavily under her fierce grasp which +she never relaxed for an instant, and his dead weight dragged her +unconsciously down--down!--she not heeding or knowing whither she +was moving,--down--still down!--till, as she clung to his inert +body, madly determining not to let it go, she fell,--fast grappling +her betrayer's corpse,--into the ominous stillness of the river. The +flood opened, as it were, to receive the two,--the dead and the +living--there was a slight ripple as though a mouth in the water +smiled--then the usual calm surface reflected the moon once more, +and there was no sign of trouble. Nothing struggled,--nothing +floated,--all was perfectly tranquil. The bells chimed from all the +churches in the city a quarter to midnight, and their pretty echoes +were wafted across the water,--no other sound disturbed the +silence,--not a trace of the struggle was left, save just one +smeared track of grass and slime, which, if examined carefully, +might have been found sprinkled with blood. But with the morning the +earth would have swallowed those drops of human life as silently as +the river-quicksand had sucked down the bodies of the betrayed and +the betrayer;--in neither case would Nature have any hint to give of +the tragedy enacted. Nature is a dumb witness to many dramas,--and +it may be that she has eyes and ears and her own way of keeping +records. Sometimes she gives up long-buried secrets, sometimes she +holds them fast;--biding her time until the Judgment Day, when not +only the crime shall be disclosed but the Cause of the crime's +committal. And it may chance in certain cases, such as those of men +who have deliberately ruined the lives of trusting and loving women, +that the Cause may be proved a more criminal thing than the crime! + +That night Martine Doucet slept badly, and had horrible dreams of +being dragged by force to Rome, and there taken before the Pope who +at once deprived her of her son Fabien, and ordered her to be shot +in one of the public squares for neglecting to attend Mass +regularly. And Jean Patoux and his wife, reposing on their virtuous +marital couch, conversed a long time about the unexpected and +unwelcome visit of Claude Cazeau, and the mission he had declared +himself entrusted with from the Vatican,--"And you may depend upon +it," said Madame sententiously, "that he will get his way by fair +means or foul! I am thankful that neither of OUR children were +subjects for a Church-miracle!--the trouble of the remedy seems more +troublesome than the sickness!" + +"No, no," said her husband, "Thou dost not judge these things +rightly, my little one! God worked the remedy, as He works all good +things,--and there would be no trouble about it if it were not for +the men's strange way of taking it. Did ever our Lord do a good or a +kind deed without being calumniated for it? Did not all those men- +fools in Jerusalem go about 'secretly seeking how they might betray +him'? That is a lesson for us all,--and never forget, petite, that +for showing them the straight way to Heaven He was crucified!" + +The next day a telegram was despatched from the Archbishop of Rouen +to Monsignor Moretti at the Vatican:-- + +"Claude Cazeau visited Hotel Poitiers last night, but has since +mysteriously disappeared. Every search and enquiry being made. +Strongly suspect foul play." + + + + +XXVI. + +November was now drawing to a close, and St. Cecilia's Day dawned in +a misty sunrise, half cloud, half light, like smoke and flame +intermingled. Aubrey Leigh, on waking that morning, had almost +decided to leave Rome before the end of the month. He had learned +all that was necessary for him to know;--he had not come to study +the antiquities, or the dark memories of dead empires, for he would +have needed to live at least ten years in the city to gain even a +surface knowledge of all the Romes, built one upon another, in the +Rome of to-day. His main object had been to discover whether the +Holy See existed as a grand and pure institution for the uplifting +and the saving of the souls of men; or whether it had degenerated +into an unscrupulous scheme for drawing the money out of their +pockets. He had searched this problem and solved it. He had +perceived the trickery, the dissimulation and hypocrisy of Roman +priestcraft. He had seen the Pope officiate at High Mass in the +Sistine Chapel, having procured the "introduction from very high +quarters" which, even according to ordinary guide-books, is +absolutely necessary,--the "high quarters" in this instance being +Monsignor Gherardi. Apart from this absurdity,--this impious idea of +needing an "introduction" to a sacred service professedly held for +the worship of the Divine, by the Representative of Christ on earth, +he had watched with sickening soul all the tawdry ceremonial so far +removed from the simplicity of Christ's commands,--he had stared +dully, till his brows ached, at the poor, feeble, scraggy old man +with the pale, withered face and dark eyes, who was chosen to +represent a "Manifestation of the Deity" to his idolatrous +followers;--and as he thought of all the poverty, sorrow, pain, +perplexity, and bewilderment of the "lost sheep" who were wandering +to and fro in the world, scarcely able to fight the difficulties of +their daily lot, and unable to believe in God because they were +never allowed to understand or to experience any of His goodness, +such a passion of protest arose in him, that he could have sprung on +the very steps of the altar and cried aloud to the aged Manager of +the Stage-scene there, "Away with this sham of Christianity! Give us +the true message of Christ, undefiled! Sell these useless broidered +silks,--these flaunting banners;--take the silver, gold, and bank- +notes which hysterical pilgrims cast at your feet!--this Peter's +Pence, amounting to millions, whose exact total you alone know,--and +come out into the highways and byways of the cities of all lands,-- +call to you the lame, the halt, the blind, the sickly, and +diseased,--give comfort where comfort is needed,--defend the +innocent--protect the just, and silence the Voce de la Verita which +published under your authority, callously advocates murder!" + +And though he felt all this, he could only remain a dumb spectator +of the Show in which not the faintest shadow of Christianity +according to Christ, appeared--and when the theatrical pageant was +over, he hurried out into the fresh air half stupefied with the +heavy sense of shame that such things could be, and no man found +true enough to the commands of the Divine Master to shake the world +with strong condemnation. + +"Twelve fishermen were enough to preach the Gospel," he thought, +"Yet now there cannot be found twelve faithful souls who will +protest against its falsification!" + +And on St. Cecilia's morning he was in sad and sober mood,--too +vexed with himself to contemplate his future work without a sense of +pain and disappointment and loneliness. He loved Sylvie Hermenstein, +and admitted his passion for her frankly to his own soul, but at the +same time felt that a union with her would be impossible. He had +seen her nearly every day since their first introduction to each +other, and had realised to the height of soul-intoxication the +subtle charm of her delicate beauty, and the sweetness of her +disposition. But--(there was a but in it,--there always is!) he was +not sure of her constancy. The duel between the Marquis Fontenelle +and the actor Miraudin had furnished food for gossip at all the +social gatherings in Rome, and Sylvie's name, freely mentioned as +the cause of the dispute, had been thus given an unpleasant +notoriety. And though Aubrey Leigh was far too chivalrous and noble- +natured to judge and condemn a woman without seeking for the truth +from her own lips, he was indescribably annoyed to hear her spoken +of in any connection with the late Marquis. He had a strong desire +to ask Angela Sovrani a few questions concerning the affair, but +hesitated, lest his keen personal anxiety should betray the depth of +his feelings. Then, too, he was troubled by the fact that the +Hermenstein family had been from time immemorial devout Romanists, +and he felt that Sylvie must perforce be a firm adherent to that +faith. + +"Better to leave Rome!" he said to himself, "Better to shake off the +witchery of her presence, and get back to England and to work. And +if I cannot kill or quell this love in me, at any rate it shall +serve me to good purpose,--it shall make me a better and a braver +man!" + +He had promised to meet the Princesse D'Agramont that morning at the +Catacombs of St. Callistus, to see the illumination of the tomb of +St. Cecilia, which takes place there annually on the Saint's Feast- +Day, and he knew that Angela Sovrani and the Comtesse Hermenstein +were to be of the Princesse's party. He was somewhat late in +starting, and hired a fiacre to drive him along the Via Appia to his +destination, but when he arrived there Mass had already commenced. A +Trappist monk, tall and grim and forbidding of aspect, met him at +the entrance to the Catacombs with a lighted taper, and escorted him +in silence through the gloomy "Oratorium" and passage of tombs,--the +torch he carried flinging ghastly reflections on the mural paintings +and inscriptions, till, on reaching the tomb of St. Cecilia where +the murdered saint once lay, though her remains are now enshrined in +the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, the Trappist suddenly left +him at a corner to attend to other incoming visitors, and +disappeared. Aubrey looked around him, vaguely touched and awed by +the solemnity of the scene;--the damp walls on which old Byzantine +paintings of the seventh century were still visible, though +crumbling fast away,--the glimmering lights,--the little crowd of +people pressed together,--the brilliantly illuminated altar,--the +droning accents of the officiating priests;--and presently the sound +of a boy's exquisite young voice rose high and pure, singing the +Agnus Dei. St. Cecilia herself might have been enraptured by such +sweet harmony,--and Aubrey Leigh instinctively bent his head, moved +strongly by the holy and tender fervour of the anthem. Growing +accustomed to the flickering lights, he presently perceived the +Princesse D'Agramont a little in front of him,--and beside her were +her two friends, Angela Sovrani and Sylvie Hermenstein. Sylvie was +kneeling, and her face was hidden. Angela was seated,--and her eyes, +full of the radiance of thought and dreaming genius, were fixed on +the altar. Gradually he moved up till he reached the rough bench +where they were all together--the Princesse D'Agramont saw him at +once, and signed to him to take a vacant place next to Sylvie. He +sat down very gently--afraid to disturb the graceful figure kneeling +within touch of his hand--how devout she seemed, he thought! But as +the Agnus Dei ceased, she stirred, and rose quietly,--as quietly as +a bent flower might lift itself in the grass after the rush of the +wind,--and gave him a gentle salute, then sat down beside him, +drooping her soft eyes over her prayer-book, but not before he had +seen that they were wet with tears. Was she unhappy he wondered? It +seemed impossible! Such a woman could never be unhappy! With beauty, +health, and a sunny temperament,--wealth and independence, what +could she know of sorrow! It is strange how seldom a man can enter +into the true comprehension of a woman's grief, though he may often +be the cause of the trouble. A woman, if endowed with beauty and +charm, ought never, in a man's opinion, to LOOK sad, whatever she +may FEEL. It is her business to smile, and shine like a sunbeam on a +spring morning for his delectation always. And Aubrey Leigh, though +he could thoroughly appreciate and enter into the sordid woes of +hard-worked and poverty-stricken womankind, was not without the same +delusion that seems to possess all his sex,--namely, that if a woman +is brilliantly endowed, and has sufficient of this world's goods to +ensure her plenty of friends and pretty toilettes, she need never be +unhappy. Sylvie's tears were therefore a mystery to him, except when +a jealous pang contracted his generally liberal and tender soul, and +he thought, "Perhaps she is grieving for the Marquis Fontenelle!" He +glanced at her every now and again dubiously,--while the service +went on, and the exquisite music beat rhythmic waves against the +ancient walls and roof of the murdered Saint's tomb,--but her face, +fair and childlike, was a puzzle to his mind,--he could never make +out from its expression whether she were thoughtful or frivolous. +Strange mistakes are often made in physiognomy. Often the so-called +"intellectual" face,--the "touch-me-not" dignity--the "stalking- +tragedy" manner, covers a total lack of brain,--and often a large- +featured, seemingly "noble" face, has served as a mask for untold +depths of villainy. The delicate, small face of Nelson suggested +nothing of the giant heroism in his nature, and many a pretty, and +apparently frivolous woman's face, which suggests nothing but the +most thoughtless gaiety, is a disguise for a strong nature capable +of lofty and self-sacrificing deeds. There is nothing likely to be +so deceptive as a human countenance,--for with the exception of a +few uncomfortably sincere persons, we all try to make it disguise +our feelings as much as we can. + +The service concluded, and St. Cecilia solemnly commended once more +to her eternal rest, the people all rose and wandered like black +ghosts, through the darkness of the Catacombs, following the flicker +of the torches carried by the Trappist monks, who always perform the +duty of guides on this occasion,--and, once out in the open air, in +the full blaze of the sunshine which had now broken brilliantly +through the mist of the previously threatening rain-clouds, Aubrey +Leigh saw with pain that Sylvie looked very pale and ill. He +ventured to say something solicitous concerning this to the +Princesse D'Agramont, whose bright dark eyes flashed over him with +an enigmatical look, half wonder, half scorn. + +"What strange creatures men are!" she said satirically, "Even you, +clever, and gifted with an insight into human nature, seem to be +actually surprised that our poor, pretty little Sylvie looks ill! +With half Rome declaring that she WAS the mistress of Fontenelle, +and the other half swearing itself black in the face that she IS the +mistress of Gherardi, she certainly ought to be very happy, ought +she not? Indeed, almost dancing with the joy and consolation of +knowing how pleasant her 'Society' friends are making her life for +her!" + +Aubrey's heart beat violently. + +"Princesse," he said, in a low tone of vibrating earnestness, "If I +thought--if I could think such abominable lies were told of her . . ." + +"Chut!" And the Princesse smiled rather sadly,--"It is not like you +to 'pretend,' Mr. Leigh--You DO know,--you MUST know--that a coarse +discussion over her name was the cause of the duel between the +Marquis Fontenelle and that miserable vaurien of the stage, +Miraudin,--gossip generously lays the two deaths at her door--and +the poor child is as innocent of harm as the lilies we have just +seen left to die in the darkness of St. Cecilia's tomb. The fact is, +she came to Rome to escape the libertinage and amorous persecution +of Fontenelle; and she never knew till the day she heard of his +death, that he had followed her. Nor did I. In fact, I asked him to +be my escort to Rome, and he refused. Naturally I imagined he was +still in Paris. So we were all in the dark,--and as often happens in +such cases, when the world does not know whom to blame for a +disaster, it generally elects to punish the innocent. All the Saints +we have heard about this morning, bear witness to THAT truth!" + +Aubrey lifted his eyes and looked yearningly at the sylph-like +figure of Sylvie walking a little ahead of him with her friend +Angela. + +"I thought," he said hesitatingly,--"I confess, I thought there +might have been something between her and the late Marquis . . ." + +"Of course there was something!" answered the Princesse impatiently, +"Oh, mon Dieu! Plus de sottises! There always IS something where +Sylvie is, Mr. Leigh! She cannot smile or sing, or turn her head, or +raise her eyes, or smell a bunch of violets, without some one of +your audacious sex conceiving the idea of making himself agreeable +and indispensable to her. And when she will not compromise herself-- +(is that not your convenient little phrase?)--she is judged much +more severely than if she had done so! And do you know why? Because +you men can never endure defeat in love-matters! You would rather +spread abroad the rumour that you had conquered, than confess that +your libertinism had been perceived and repulsed with indignation +and scorn! And I will tell you another thing if you do not know it. +In the frequent destruction of an innocent woman's reputation. it is +a rejected suitor who generally starts the first rumour and hands +the lie over to debased women, knowing that THEY may be trusted to +keep it up!" + +Aubrey flushed, and winced under the lash of her cutting words. "You +are very cruel, Princesse!" he said, "Surely unnecessarily bitterly +cruel!" + +"Cher philosophe, I have loved!" she replied, "And that is why I am +cruel. I have loved and have been deceived in love,--and that kind +of thing often turns the most patient Griselda into an exceptionally +fierce tiger-cat! I am not quite a tiger-cat,--but I confess I do +not like one-sidedness in anything, Nature's tendency being to +equalise--equalise--till we are all flattened down into one level,-- +the grave! At the present moment we are treading on a mixture of +kings and saints and heroes,--all one soil you see, and rather +marshy,--badly in need of draining at all times!" She laughed a +little. "Frankly, I assure you, it is to me the most deplorable +arrangement that a true woman should be destined to give all the +passion and love of her life to one man, while the same man scatters +his worthless affections about like halfpence among dozens of drabs! +My dear Mr. Leigh, do not frown at me in that tragic way! I am not +blaming YOU! I am not in the least inclined to put you in the +general category,--at least not at present. You do not look like the +ordinary man, though you may be for all that! Expression is very +deceptive!" She laughed again, then added, "Think of our sweet +Angela, for instance! Unless a merciful Providence intervenes, she +will marry Florian Varillo,--and no doubt he will make her invite +Mademoiselle Pon-Pon to her house to dine and sleep!" + +"She loves him!" said Aubrey simply. + +"Yes, she loves him, because she deludes herself with the idea that +he is worthy of love. But if she were to find him out her whole soul +would indignantly repulse him. If she knew all _I_ know of him, she +would rather embrace the mildewy skeleton of San Carlo Borromeo, +with the great jewels glistening in his ghastly eye-sockets, than +the well-fed, fresh coloured Florian Varillo!" + +"If you fear for her happiness, why not warn her?" asked Aubrey. + +"Warn her against the one creature she loves in the world?" said the +Princesse, "Thanks very much! I would rather not. She would never +speak to me again, and I should lose every chance of comforting or +helping her when affliction comes--as of course it is bound to come! +Each individual man or woman makes his or her own life,--we poor +'friends' can only stand and look on, waiting till they get into the +muddle that we have always foreseen, and then doing our best to drag +them out of it; but God Himself I think, could not save them from +falling into the muddle in the first place. As for Sylvie, I have +advised her to leave Rome and go back to Budapest at once." + +Aubrey started. + +"Why?" + +"Why? Can you ask? Because she is misjudged here on account of +Fontenelle's death, and calumniated and wronged; because the women +hate her for her beauty and wealth, and the men hate her too because +she will not flatter them by accepting their ridiculous attentions. +She will be much happier in her own home,--such a grand old castle +it is!--a cluster of towers and broad battlements, with purple +mountains in the background, and tall pine-trees everywhere . . ." + +"It must be lonely for her!" said Aubrey quickly, "She is so +mignonne--so caressable--so made for love and care and tenderness--" +Here he broke off, vexed with himself for having said so much,--and +his face flushed warmly. The Princesse stopped in her walk and +looked at him straightly. + +"Mr. Leigh," she said, "I think--I hope you are an honest man! And +do you know the best advice I can give you?" + +He answered no word, but his eyes questioned her meaning. + +"Remain honest!" she said, smiling an answer to his look, "Be true +to your own instincts and highest impulses. Do not allow yourself to +be swayed by opinion or rumour; stand clear of both,--and treat even +a woman as you would treat a man!--squarely--candidly--faithfully!" + +She moved on and rejoined her companions, and Aubrey followed. The +Comtesse Hermenstein's carriage was waiting for her, and the +Comtesse herself was just entering it with Angela Sovrani as he came +up. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Leigh," she said gently, extending her hand, "I may +not see you again perhaps. I am going home to Buda this week." + +"Must you go?" he asked, looking earnestly into the lovely eyes, +lovelier than ever in their present sorrowful languor. + +"I think so," she answered, "I may wait to see Angela's great +picture, but--" + +"Do not hurry your departure," said Aubrey, speaking in a softer +tone--"Tell me--may I come and see you this evening,--just for a few +moments?" + +His eyes rested on her tenderly, and at the passion of his glance +her own fell. + +"If you like--yes," she murmured. And just then the Princesse +D'Agramont approached. + +"May I drive you home, Mr. Leigh?" she asked. + +"Thank you!" And Aubrey smiled as he accepted the invitation. + +And presently the carriages started, Sylvie's light victoria +leading, and the Princesse D'Agramont's landeau following. Half way +back to Rome a picturesque little beggar, whose motley-coloured rags +scarcely clothed his smooth brown limbs, suddenly sprang out of a +corner where he had been in hiding with a great basket of violets, +and threw the whole fragrant heap dexterously into Sylvie's +carriage, crying out, + +"Bellissima Signora! Bellissima! Bellissima! Un soldo! Un soldo!" + +Laughingly Sylvie threw out four or five francs, but Aubrey, carried +beyond all prudence by catching a glimpse of Sylvie's pretty head +gleaming above the great purple cluster of violets she had caught +and held, tossed a twenty-franc piece to the clever little rascal +who had by "suiting the action to the word, and the word to the +action" as Italians so often do, gained a week's earnings in one +successful morning. + +And the evening came, misty but mild, with the moon peering +doubtfully through a fleecy veil of fine floating vapour, which, +gathering flashes of luminance from the silver orb, turned to the +witch-lights of an opal,--and Aubrey made his way to the Casa +D'Angeli, which in his own mind he called the "Palais D'lffry," in +memory of the old Breton song Sylvie had sung. On giving his name he +was at once shown up into the great salon, now made beautiful by the +picturesque and precious things accumulated there, and arranged with +the individuality and taste of the presiding spirit. She was quite +alone, seated in a deep easy chair near the fire,--and her dress, of +some faint shell-pink hue, clung about her in trailing soft folds +which fell in a glistening heap of crushed rose-tints at her feet, +making a soft rest for her tiny dog who was luxuriously curled +therein. The firelight shed a warm glow around her,--flickering +brightly on her fair hair, on her white arms, and small hands where +one or two diamonds flashed like drops of dew,--and Aubrey, as he +entered, was conscious of an overpowering sense of weakness, poverty +of soul, narrowness of mind, incompetency of attainment,--for the +tranquillity and sweet perfection of the picture his eyes rested +upon--a picture lovelier than even the Gretchen which tempted +Goethe's Faust to Hell,--made him doubtful of his own powers-- +mistrustful of his own worth. In his life of self-renunciation among +the poorer classes, he had grown accustomed to pity women,--to look +upon them more or less as frail, broken creatures needing help and +support,--sometimes to be loved, but far more often to be despised +and neglected. But Sylvie, Comtesse Hermenstein, was not of these,-- +he knew, or thought he knew that she needed nothing. Beauty was +hers, wealth was hers, independence of position was hers; and if she +had given a smile or nod of encouragement, lovers were hers to +command. What was he that he should count himself at all valuable in +her sight, even as the merest friend? These despondent thoughts were +doubly embittered by the immense scorn he now entertained for +himself that he should have been such a fool as to listen for a +moment to the silly and malignant gossip circulated among the +envious concerning a woman who was admittedly the superior of those +who calumniated her. For clearest logic shows that wherever +superiority exists, inferiority rises up in opposition, and the +lower endeavours to drag the higher down. Such vague reflections, +coursing rapidly through his, brain, gave him an air of +embarrassment and awkwardness not by any means common to him, as he +advanced, and Sylvie, half rising from her chair, greeted him in her +turn with a little touch of shyness which sent a wave of soft colour +over her face, and made her look ten times prettier than ever. + +"I am glad to find you alone--" he began. + +"Yes? I am generally alone," answered Sylvie with a little smile-- +"except for Katrine--she would be here to welcome you this evening, +but she has a very bad neuralgic headache--" + +"I am very sorry," murmured Aubrey, with hypocritical earnestness, +all the while devoutly blessing Madame Bozier's timely +indisposition. "She is a great sufferer from neuralgia, I believe?" + +"Yes . . ." and Sylvie, to divert the cloud of embarrassment that +seemed to be deepening rather than dispersing for them both, rang +the bell with a pretty imperativeness that was rather startling to +Aubrey's nerves. + +"What is that for?" he enquired irrelevantly. + +"Only for coffee!" + +Their eyes met,--the mutual glance was irresistible, and they both +laughed. Sylvia's Arab page entered in response to her summons, a +pretty dusky-skinned lad of some twelve years old, picturesquely +arrayed in scarlet, and bearing a quaintly embossed gilt salver with +coffee prepared in the Arabian fashion. + +"Do you like coffee made in this way?" asked Sylvie, as she handed +Aubrey his cup. + +Aubrey's eyes were fixed on the small white hand that looked so +dainty, curled over the trifle of Sevres china that was called a +coffee-cup,--and he answered vaguely, + +"This way? Oh, yes--of course--any way!" + +A faint smile lifted the rosy corners of Sylvie's mouth as she heard +this incoherent reply--and the Arab page rolled his dark eyes up at +his fair mistress with a look of dog-like affectionate enquiry, as +to whether perhaps some fault in his serving had caused that little +playful enigmatical expression on the face which he, in common with +many others of his sex, thought the fairest in the world. The coffee +dispensed and the page gone, there followed a spell of silence. The +fire burned cheerily in the deep chimney, and the great logs cracked +and spluttered as much as to say, "If these two curious people can +find nothing to talk about, we can!" And then, just as luck would +have it, a burning ember suddenly detached itself from the rest and +fell out blazing on the hearth--Sylvie sprang up to push it back, +and Aubrey to assist her,--and then, strange to relate--only the +occult influences of attraction know how it happened--the little +difficulty of the burning ember brought those two other burning +embers of humanity together--for Aubrey, hardly conscious of what he +did, caught Sylvie's swaying, graceful figure as she rose from +bending over the fire, closely in his arms, with a passion which +mounted like a wave to tempest height, and knew no further +hesitation or obstacle. + +"Sylvie! Sylvie! I love you!--my darling! I love you!--" + +No answer came, for there was none needed. Her face was hidden on +his breast--but he felt rather than saw the soft white arms and +dainty hands moving tremblingly upwards, till they closed round him +in the dear embrace which meant for him from henceforth the faith +and love and devotion of one true heart through all the sorrows and +perplexities as well as the joys and triumphs of life. And when, +with his heart beating, and all his pulses thrilling with the new +ecstacy that possessed him, he whispered a word or two that caused +the pretty golden head to raise itself timidly--the beautiful dark +blue eyes to grow darker with the tenderness that overflowed the +soul behind them, and the sweet lips to meet his own in a kiss, as +soft and fragrant as though a rose had touched them, it was small +blame to him that for a moment he lost his self-possession, and +drawing her closer in his arms, showered upon her not only kisses, +but whispered words of all that tender endearment which is judged as +"foolish" by those who have never had the privilege of being made +the subject of such priceless and exquisite "fooling." And when they +were calmer, and began to think of the possibility of the worthy +Bozier suddenly recovering from her neuralgia and coming to look +after her pupil,--or the undesired but likely entrance of a servant +to attend to the lamps, or to put fresh wood on the fire, they +turned each from the other, with reluctance and half laughing +decorum,--Sylvie resuming her seat by the fire, and Aubrey flinging +himself with happy recklessness in a low fauteuil as near to her as +could be permitted for a gentleman visitor, who might be considered +as enthusiastically expounding literature or science to a +fascinating hostess. And somehow, as they talked, their conversation +did gradually drift from passionate personalities into graver themes +affecting wider interests, and Aubrey, warming into eloquence, gave +free vent to his thoughts and opinions, till noticing that Sylvie +sat very silent, looking into the fire somewhat gravely, he checked +himself abruptly, fancying that perhaps he was treading on what +might be forbidden ground with her whose pleasure was now his law. +As he came to this sudden pause, she turned her soft eyes towards +him tenderly, with a smile. + +"Well!" she said, in the pretty foreign accent which distinguished +her almost perfect English, "And why do you stop speaking? You must +not be afraid to trust me with your closest thoughts,--because how +can our love be perfect if you do not?" + +"Sweetheart!" he answered, catching the white hand that was so +temptingly near his own, "Our love IS perfect!--and so far as I am +concerned there shall never be a cloud on such a dazzling sky!" + +She smiled. + +"Ah, you talk romance just now!" she said, "But Aubrey, I want our +love to be something more than romance--I want it to be a grand and +helpful reality! If I am not worthy to be the companion of your very +soul, you will not, you cannot love me long. Now, no protestations!" +For he had possessed himself of the dear little hand again, and was +covering it with kisses--"You see, it is very sweet just now to sit +by the fire together, and look at each other, and feel how happy we +are--but life does not go on like that. And your life, my Aubrey, +belongs to the world . . ." + +"To you!--to you!" said Aubrey passionately, "I give it to you! You +know the song?--I set my life in your hand Mar it or make it sweet,--I +set my life in your hand, I lay my heart at your feet!" + +Sylvie rose impulsively, and leaning over his chair kissed his +forehead. + +"Yes, I know! And I know you mean what you say! I could not imagine +you telling an untruth,--not even in making love!" and she laughed, +"Though there are many of your sex who think any amount of lies +permissible under similar circumstances! And it is just because I +have found men such practised liars, that I have the reputation of +being heartless. Did you ever think me heartless?" + +Aubrey hesitated a moment. + +"Yes," he admitted at last, frankly, "I did till I knew better. I +was told--" + +"Stop! I know all you were told!" said Sylvie, drawing her slim +figure up with a pretty dignity as she moved back to her place by +the fire--"You were told that I was the cause of the death of the +Marquis Fontenelle. So I was, unhappily--but not through my own +fault. The actor Miraudin,--known to be one of the most coarse- +minded and brutal of men,--slandered me in public,--the Marquis +defended me. Hence the combat and its fatal end, which no one has +deplored more bitterly than I. Miraudin was never a gentleman,-- +Fontenelle could have been one had he chosen. And I confess I cared +very much for him at one time!" + +"You loved him," said Aubrey, trying to master a pang of jealousy. + +"Yes! I loved him!--till he proved himself unworthy of love." + +There was a silence. + +"I tell you all this," said Sylvie then slowly and emphatically, +"that you may know me at once as I am. I wish to hide nothing from +you. I have read all your books--I know your views of life--your +hatred of dissimulation--your contempt of a lie! In your love for +me, you must have complete knowledge of my nature, and confidence in +my truth. I would never give my life to any man unless he trusted me +absolutely,--unless I was sure he felt I was a real helpmate for +him. I love you--but I also love your work and your aims; and I go +with all your thoughts and wish to share all your responsibilities. +But I must feel that you will never misjudge me,--never set me down +on the level of mean and small-natured women, who cannot sacrifice +themselves or their personal vanities for another's sake. It is not +for me to say that the calumnies circulated concerning me are +untrue,--it is for my life to show and PROVE they are not! But I +must be trusted--not suspected; and if you give me your life as you +say, I will give mine to help make yours happier, asking from you in +return just your faith--your FAITH as well as your love!" + +Like a fair queen she stood, royal in her look, bearing and +attitude, and Aubrey bent his head low in reverence before her as he +once more kissed her hand. + +"My wife!" he said simply. + +And the silence that followed was as that of God's benediction on +that perfect marriage which is scarcely ever consummated in all the +world,--the marriage of two souls, which like twin flames, unite and +burn upward clear to Heaven, as One. + + + + +XXVII. + +Society soon learned the news of the Countess Hermenstein's +betrothal to the "eccentric Englishman," Aubrey Leigh,--and with its +million tongues discussed the affair in all tones,--most people +preferring to say, with the usual "society" kindness, that--"Leigh +was not quite such a self-sacrificing idealist as he seemed to be,-- +he was going to marry for money." Some few ventured to remark that +Sylvie Hermenstein was charming in herself and well worth winning,-- +but the more practical pooh-poohed this view of the case at once. +"Pretty women are to be had by the score," they said, "It is the +money that tells!" Aubrey Leigh caught these rumours, and was in a +manner stung by them,--he said very little however, and to all the +congratulations he received, merely gave coldly civil thanks. And so +the gossips went to work again in their own peculiar way, and said, +"Well! She will have an iceberg for a husband, that is one thing! A +stuck up, insolent sort of chap!--not a bit of go in him!" Which was +true,--Aubrey had no "go." "Go" means, in modern parlance, to drink +oneself stupid, to bet on the most trifling passing events, and to +talk slang that would disgrace a stable-boy, as well as to amuse +oneself with all sorts of mean and vulgar intrigues which are +carried on through the veriest skulk and caddishness;--thus Aubrey +was a sad failure in "tip-top" circles. But the "tip-top" circles +are not a desirable heaven to every man;--and Aubrey did not care +much as to what sort of comments were passed on himself, provided he +could see Sylvie always "queen it" over her inferiors in that +graceful, gracious way of conquest which was her special peculiarity +and charm. Among her friends no one perhaps was happier in Sylvie's +happiness than Angela Sovrani; her nature was of that rare quality +which vibrates like a harp to every touch, and the joy of others +swept over her with a gladness which made her more glad than if she +had received some priceless boon for her own benefit. Florian +Varillo was exceedingly angry at the whole affair,--and whenever +Sylvie's betrothal was spoken of he assumed an expression of pained +and personal offence which was almost grotesque. + +"Such a marriage is ridiculous!" he declared,--"Everyone can see how +utterly unsuited the two are in tastes, habits and opinions! They +will rue the day they ever met!" + +And not all the gentle remonstrances of his own fiancee Angela, +could soothe his ruffled humour, or make him accept the inevitable +with grace. Angela was exceedingly troubled and puzzled by his +almost childish waywardness,--she did not yet understand the nature +of a man who was to himself all in all, and who could not endure the +idea that any woman whom he personally condescended to admire should +become the possession of another, no matter how completely that +woman might be beyond his own reach. Poor Angela! She was very +simple--very foolish indeed;--she never imagined it could be +possible for a man to carry on five or six love-affairs at once, and +never be found out. Yet this was the kind of life her "ideal" found +the most suitable to his habit and temperament,--and he had made a +mental note of Sylvie Hermenstein as one whom he proposed to add to +his little list of conquests. So that her engagement of marriage to +one who, though reserved in manner and without "go," was yet every +inch a gentleman, and a determined opposer of sophistry and humbug, +had considerably disturbed his little plans, and the unsettlement of +anything he had set his heart upon greatly displeased him. He +generally had his own way in most things, and could not at all +comprehend why he was not to have it now. But among all the people +who discussed the intended marriage there were two who were so well +satisfied as to be almost jubilant, and these were the Monsignori +Moretti and Gherardi. These worthies met together in one of the +private chambers set apart for the use of the Papal court in the +Vatican, and heartily congratulated each other on the subjugation +and enthralment of Aubrey Leigh, which meant, as they considered, +the consequent removal of a fierce opponent to the Roman Catholic +movement in England. + +"Did I not tell you," said Moretti, as he untied some papers he had +been carrying, and sat down at a table to glance over them, "Did I +not tell you that when all other arguments fail, the unanswerable +one of woman can be brought in to clinch every business?" + +Gherardi, though in a way contented, was not altogether so sure of +his goal. He remembered, with an uncomfortable thrill of doubt, the +little skirmish of words he had had with the fair Sylvie in the +Pamphili woods. + +"You take your thoughts for deeds, and judge them as fully +accomplished while they are still in embryo!" he said, "It is true +that the engagement of marriage is settled,--but can you be certain +that in religious matters the wife may not go with her husband?" + +"What!" exclaimed Moretti, opening his dark eyes quickly, as a flash +of hell-fire illumined them at the very idea, "Do you suggest that +Sylvie Hermenstein,--the last of her race--a race which, back to its +earliest source, has been distinguished for its faithful allegiance +to Mother-Church, and has moreover added largely to the Papal +revenues--could be otherwise than our obedient and docile daughter? +Per la Santissima Madonna!--if I thought she could turn against us +her marriage should never take place!" + +And he brought his fist down with a fierce blow on the papers before +him. + +"The marriage should never take place!" echoed Gherardi, "How could +you prevent it?" + +"The Pope himself should intervene!" said Moretti, with increasing +fury, losing a little of his self-control, "Gran Dio! Conceive for a +moment the wealth of the Hermensteins being used to promulgate the +reformer Leigh's threadbare theories, and feed his rascal poor! Do +you know what Sylvie Hermenstein's fortune is? No, I suppose you do +not! But I do! She tries to keep it a secret, but I have made it my +business to find out! It is enormous!--and it is ever increasing. +With all the fanciful creature's clothes and jewels and unthinking +way of living her life, she spends not a quarter, nor half a quarter +of her income,--and yet you actually venture to suggest that her +power is so slight over the man who is now her promised husband, +that she would voluntarily allow him to use all that huge amount of +money as he pleased, OUTSIDE the Church?" + +Moretti spoke with such passionate insistence that Gherardi thought +it prudent not to irritate him further by argument. So he merely +said, + +"You expect her to persuade him to embrace our faith?" + +"Naturally!" answered Moretti, "And she can, and will do so. If she +cannot or will not, she must be MADE to do so!" + +He bent over his papers again and rustled them impatiently, but his +hand trembled. The pale December sunlight glittered through a +stained-glass window above him, and cast deep violet rays about his +chair,--Gherardi stood where the same luminance touched his pale +face with a crimson glow as of fire. + +"This is a busy morning with us," said Moretti, without looking up, +"The excommunication of Denis Vergniaud will be pronounced to-day,-- +and, what is even more important,--Cardinal Bonpre is summoned by +His Holiness's command to wait upon him this afternoon, bringing the +boy,--that boy who is always with him--" + +"Ah, there is a history there!" interrupted Gherardi, "It should be +remembered that this boy was a witness of the miracle in Rouen, and +he was also present at the Vergniaud scandal in Paris--he should +have been sent for ere now. He, more than anyone, must surely know +how the miracle was accomplished,--for the worthy Felix tells me he +is 'wise beyond his years'!" + +"So! His wisdom will be put to the test to-day!" said Moretti +coldly, "Do you not think it strange"--here he raised his eyes from +his papers, "and somewhat incriminating too--always supposing the +miracle is a case of conspiracy--that no trace has been discovered +of the man Claude Cazeau?" + +Gherardi had moved to a book-case, and was standing close to it, +turning over a vellum-bound manuscript. + +"Yes--the whole business looks as black as murder!" he said. + +Moretti looked at him sharply. + +"Murder? You suppose--" + +"That Claude Cazeau has been murdered? Certainly I suppose it! It is +more than a week now since we heard that he had mysteriously +disappeared, and still there is no news. What can it be but murder? +But I do not for a moment suppose that our good Saint Felix is +concerned in it!" + +And he smiled, turning over the vellum volume carelessly. + +Moretti knitted his dark brows. + +"No--no!" he said musingly, "That would not be possible! Cardinal +Bonpre is not that kind of man--he would rather bear the heaviest +weight of punishment for himself than allow another to suffer. That +I KNOW of him;--and though I do not admire his extreme views on this +point, and do not think them politic, I give him full credit for +this particular and uncommon form of--eccentricity!" + +"Or Christianity!" said Gherardi, still smiling. + +Moretti pushed aside his papers, and leaning his head on one hand +frowned meditatively at the amethyst light which streamed radiantly +through the jewel-like window above him. "Yes--or Christianity, if +you like!" he said, "For Christianity pur et simple, WOULD be +eccentricity. In its primitive simplicity it is an impossible creed. +Founded by the Divine it needs divine beings to comprehend and +follow it,--beings not of this world nor addicted to the things of +this world. And to exist in the world, made of the world's clay, and +the world's inherited associations, and yet not be of it, is to be +judged crazed! True, there have been saints and martyrs,--there are +saints and martyrs now, unknown and unheard of, but nevertheless +consumed by flames more cruel perhaps than those which physically +burn the flesh;--idealists, thinkers, dreamers, heralds of future +progress,--and how are they estimated? As madmen all! To be human, +and yet above humanity, is the supreme sin! For that very affront +the multitude cried out, 'Not this man, but Barabbas!' And to this +day we all prefer Barabbas to Christ. Hence the power of the +Church!" + +Gherardi put back the volume he had been glancing at, on its shelf, +and looked at his confrere with a certain amount of admiring +respect. He had been long an interested student of the various +psychological workings of Moretti's mind,--and he knew that +Moretti's scheming brain was ever hard at work designing bold and +almost martial plans for securing such conversions to the Church as +would seriously trouble the peace of two or three great nations. +Moretti was in close personal touch with every crowned head in +Europe; he was acquainted more closely than anyone alive with the +timidities, the nervous horrors, the sudden scruples, the sickening +qualms of conscience, and the overwhelming fears of death which +troubled the minds of certain powerful personages apparently +presenting a brave front to the world,--and he held such personages +in awe by the very secrets which they had, in weak moments, +entrusted to him. Gherardi even was not without his own fears,--he +instinctively felt that Moretti knew more about himself than was +either safe or convenient. + +"We all live for Barabbas," pursued Moretti, an ironical smile +playing on his thin lips, "Not for Christ! Barabbas, in the shape of +the unscrupulous millionaire, robs the world!--and we share the +spoils, pardon his robberies, and set him free. But whosoever lives +outside Dogma, serving God purely and preaching truth,--him we +crucify!--but our Robber,--our murderer of Truth, we set at liberty! +Hence, as I said before, the power of the Church!" + +Carried away by his thoughts, he rose, and pacing the room, talked +more to himself than to Gherardi. + +"The Church supports the robber, because he is always a coward and +cannot stand alone. The murderer of his fellow-men's good name is +naturally a liar, and fears lest his lies should find him out. Fear! +That is the keynote on which we of Rome play our invincible march of +triumph! The Church appeals to the ignorant, the base, the sensual, +the false, and the timorous; and knowing that they never repent, but +are only afraid, retains them by fear!--fear, not love! Christ +taught love--but hate is the more popular virtue! Hence again, the +power of the Church!" + +"Your argument is perfectly orthodox!" said Gherardi, with a smile. + +"Hate is a grand, a strong quality!" went on Moretti, "It makes +nations, it builds up creeds! If men loved one another what should +they need of a Church? But Hate!--the subtle sense which makes the +ultra-respectable thank God that he is not as other men are!--the +fierce emotion which almost touches ecstacy when the wronged +individual thinks his enemy will go to hell!--the fine fever which +sets father against son, creed against creed, nation against +nation!--hate is the chief mainspring of human motives! From hate +and envy spring emulation and conquest--and we of the Church +encourage the haters to hate on! They make Us!--they emulate each +other in the greed of their gifts to us, which give them notoriety +and advertise their generosity,--WE fan the flame and encourage the +fury! For the world must have a religion--it crucified Christ, but +the Church, built up in His name, takes just and daily revenge for +His murder! We do not save--we kill! We do not rescue--we trample +down! We humiliate,--we crush wherever we can, and it is well and +fitting we should do so! For Humanity is a brute beast, and serves +us best under the lash. Rome made many a blunder in the old days of +barbarity and ignorance--but now we have a thousand forces put into +our hands instead of one or two,--forces to terrorise--forces to +compel!--and the power of Rome wielded by the Popes of the days to +come, shall be indeed a power irresistible!" + +He stood enrapt,--his hand upraised, his eyes flashing, then +recalling himself, turned abruptly on Gherardi with an impatient +gesture. + +"You can repeat all this," he said sarcastically, "in your next +eloquent discourse with Aubrey Leigh! It will save you the trouble +of thinking! His influence with the English masses will be but a +brief phenomenon,--the blind and brutal stupidity of the people he +seeks to serve will soon dishearten and discourage him, and then he +will come to us through his wife, and his conversion will be a +triumph worth winning,--a step in the right direction. And now to +other matters. These papers," and he sat down at the table once +more, "are, I think, sufficiently in order to be placed before His +Holiness. But you may as well look through them with me first. Later +on, the affair of Cardinal Bonpre will occupy all our time . . ." + +"It is an 'affair' then?" asked Gherardi, "The 'saint' is in +trouble?" + +"All 'saints' get into trouble!" answered Moretti, "It is only +sinners who receive honour! Cardinal Bonpre has made the fatal +mistake of reading Jesus Christ's Gospel instead of Church Doctrine! +His creed is Love,--his duty, as I have just explained to you, if he +would be a faithful son of the Church, is Hate!" + +"Love forms no part of your nature then?" asked Gherardi, hardly +knowing why he put the question, yet curious as to the answer. + +"I am of the world!" replied Moretti coldly, "And I hate +accordingly. I hate, and in my hate, aspire to crush those who in +turn hate me! That is the human code, and one that must be strictly +practised by all who would rule mankind. Never do anything for those +who can do nothing for you! Firmly oppose those who oppose you! +Revenge yourself on those who despitefully use you! We do revenge +ourselves,--and we reward all who help us to our revenge! For +example, Denis Vergniaud has cast opprobrium on his calling, and +made a scandal and a shame of the Church before his congregation in +Paris;--we excommunicate him! It is no use, but we do it on +principle. And we are still unable to explain away, or offer any +excuse for Cardinal Bonpre's mistake in condoning and pardoning his +offence. Therefore it follows as you say, that the 'saint' is in +trouble!" + +"Notwithstanding the miracle?" + +"Notwithstanding the miracle!" echoed Moretti, "For the miracle is +doubtful. The Holy Father is not satisfied of its truth. Yes--there +is no doubt about it, Saint Felix is in trouble! It would be better +for him had he never come out of his long retirement. But perhaps he +was compelled to look after his Rouen foundling!" + +A smile flickered faintly over Gherardi's face, but he said not a +word in answer. Discovering an error in one of the documents he was +examining, he called Moretti's attention to it, and the conversation +drifted to everyday trivial subjects. But the thoughts of both men +were elsewhere, and not even the news received that morning of the +bequest of one hundred thousand pounds to the Shrine of Lourdes from +a deluded believer in the miraculous Virgin there, absorbed so much +of their reflective brain powers as the imminent trial--for it was +little else--of Cardinal Bonpre, in the presence of the boy to whom +he so openly gave his confidence and protection. + +Meanwhile, the good Felix himself was very sorely troubled. During +his sojourn in Rome, he had grown thinner and paler, and the fine, +spiritual delicacy of his features had become more intensified, +while his clear blue eyes shone from under their deeply arched brows +with a flashing luminance that was almost unearthly. Often, when +about to enter his room with unthinking haste, his brother-in-law, +Prince Pietro, would see him kneeling before his crucifix absorbed, +one might almost say entranced, in prayer. And he would softly move +away again with a deep sense of awe, and a feeling that some higher +power than any on earth, sustained the venerable prelate, and +inspired both his words and actions. But with all his patient, +sometimes passionate prayer, earnest meditations, and constant study +of the Gospels, the Cardinal himself was more or less heavy- +hearted,--and his Master's phrase--"My soul is exceeding sorrowful +even unto death!" was one which he often breathed in the solitude +and extremity of his own position. The news of the disappearance of +Claude Cazeau had materially added to his difficulties--and now he +had been commanded, with a certain peremptoriness in the summons, to +wait upon the Sovereign Pontiff in a private audience, bringing with +him the boy who could, or would give no further account of himself +than that of a world's waif and stray. Prepared for this visit and +arrayed in all the splendour befitting his rank in the Church, the +gentle old man looked paler and more fragile than ever, and the +vague trouble he felt at the express injunction laid upon him +concerning Manuel, showed itself in the deep furrows of anxiety +marked upon his brow, and the pain in his thoughtful eyes. Prince +Pietro's own man-servant had assisted him to dress for the impending +ceremonial, and just as the last folds of his regal attire were +being set in place a knock was heard at the door of his apartment, +and Prince Pietro himself entered. + +"A telegram for you, brother Felix," he said, "I have brought it +myself, thinking it may perhaps immediately concern your visit to +the Pope to-day." + +The Cardinal, with a gentle word of thanks, opened the envelope +handed to him. + +"Praise be to God!" he said simply, as he read its contents, +"Vergniaud has passed to the Higher tribunal!" + +And he crossed himself reverently on brow and breast. + +"Dead?" exclaimed Sovrani. + +"To this world, yes!" answered Bonpre, "He died peacefully last +night. This message is from his son." + +A faint ironical smile flickered over Sovrani's dark features. + +"The ban of excommunication has not been declared!" he said, "It +will be a somewhat belated announcement!" + +Cardinal Bonpre folded the telegram, ready to take with him to the +Vatican. + +"The Church can excommunicate even the dead!" he said sorrowfully, +"If such an extreme measure is judged politic it will doubtless be +carried out!" + +"Wonderful Christian charity," murmured Sovrani under his breath, +"to excommunicate a corpse! For that is all they can do. The Soul of +the man is God's affair!" + +Cardinal Bonpre answered nothing, for just then the young Manuel +entered the room, in readiness to accompany his venerable protector +and friend to the Vatican, and the old man's eyes rested upon him +with a wistful, wondering trouble and anxiety which he could not +conceal. Manuel smiled up at him--that rare and beautiful smile +which was like sunshine in darkness--but the Cardinal's sad +expression did not alter. + +"The Abbe Vergniaud is no more," he said gently, as the boy drew +near, "His sins and sufferings are ended!" + +"And his joys have begun!" answered Manuel, "For he set his life +right with the world before he left it!" + +"Child, you talk as a very wise man might!" said Prince Sovrani, his +rugged brows smoothing into a kindly smile. "But the unfortunate +Abbe is not likely to be judged in that way. It will be said of him +that he scandalized the world before he left it!" + +"When truth is made scandal, and right is made wrong," said Manuel, +"It will surely be a God-forgotten world!" + +"WILL be? I think it is already!" said Prince Pietro. "It is said +that the patience of the Almighty is unwearied,--but I do not feel +sure of that in my own mind. Science teaches us that many a world +has been destroyed before now,--and sometimes I feel as if our turn +were soon coming!" + +Here the man-servant having completely finished arranging the +Cardinal's attire, made respectful obeisance and left the room, and +the Cardinal himself proceeded into the adjoining salon, where he +found his niece Angela waiting to see him. + +"Dearest uncle," she said, making her pretty genuflection as he +approached her, "I must ask you to forgive me for coming to your +rooms just now when your time is so much taken up, and when I know +you have to go to the Vatican,--but I want to tell you one thing +that may perhaps please you,--my picture is finished!" + +"Finished!" echoed the Cardinal--then tenderly taking her hands, he +added, "I congratulate you, dear child, with all my heart!--and I +pray that the reward of your long and patient toil may be worthy of +you. And when are we to see your work?" + +"To-morrow!" answered Angela, and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes +sparkled, "I shall be busy all today arranging it for exhibition in +the best light. To-morrow morning Florian is to see it first,--then +my father will come, and you--and Manuel!" and she smiled as she met +the boy's gentle look,--"And Queen Margherita has promised to be +here at mid-day." + +"Florian first! And then your father!" said Prince Pietro, with a +touch of melancholy in his tone, "Ah well, Angela mia!--I suppose it +must always be so! The lover's love--the stranger's love,--is +greater than the love of years, the love of home! Yet sometimes, I +fancy that the lover's love often turns out to be a passing impulse +more than a real truth, and that the home-love reasserts itself +afterwards with the best and the holiest power!" + +And not trusting himself to say more, he abruptly left the room. +Angela looked after him, a little troubled. The Cardinal took her +hand. + +"He is your father, dear girl!" he said gently, "And he cannot but +feel it hard--at first--to be relegated to a second place in your +affections." + +Angela sighed. + +"I cannot help it!" she said, "Florian is my very life! I should +have no ambition--no joy in anything if he did not love me!" + +Over the Cardinal's fine open face there came an expression of great +pain. + +"That is idolatry, Angela!" he said gravely, "We make a grievous +mistake when we love human beings too deeply,--for they are not the +gods we would make of them. Like ourselves, they are subject to sin, +and their sins often create more unhappiness for us than our own!" + +"Ah! But we can save our beloved ones from sin!" answered Angela, +with a beautiful upward look of exaltation,--"That is love's +greatest mission!" + +"It is a mission that cannot always be fulfilled"--said the Cardinal +sorrowfully,--then, after a pause he added--"The Abbe Vergniaud is +dead." + +"Dead!" And Angela turned very pale. "His son--" + +"His son sends the message--" and he handed her the telegram he had +received. She read it, and returned it to him,--then made the sign +of the cross. + +"May he rest in peace!" He died true!" + +"Yes, he died true. But remember, child, neither Truth nor Love are +spared their crown of thorns. Love cannot save--would that it could! +It may warn--it may pray--it may watch--it may hope,--but if despite +its tenderness, the sinner sins, what can love do then?" + +"It can pardon!" said Angela softly. + +Deeply moved, the good Felix took her hand and patted it gently. + +"Dear child, God grant your powers of forgiveness may never be put +to the test!" he ejaculated fervently. "The one unforgivable sin +according to our Lord, is treachery;--may THAT never come your way!" + +"It can never come my way through Florian!" answered Angela +smiling,--"and for the rest--I do not care!" + +Manuel stood by silently, with thoughtful, downcast eyes--but at +these last words of hers he raised his head and looked full at her +with a touch of melancholy in his straight regard. + +"Ah, that is wrong!" he said, "You SHOULD care!--you MUST care for +the rest of the world. We must all learn to care for others more +than ourselves. And if we will not learn, God sometimes takes a hard +way of teaching us!" + +Angela's head drooped a little. Then she said, + +"I DO care for others,--I think perhaps my picture will prove that +for me. But the tenderness I have for the sorrows of the world is +impersonal; and perhaps if I analysed myself honestly, I feel even +that through my love for Florian. If he were not in the world, I am +afraid I should not love the world so much!" + +The Cardinal said no more, for just then a servant entered and +announced that His Eminence's carriage was in waiting. Angela +bending low once more before her uncle, kissed his apostolic ring, +and said softly--"To-morrow!" + +And Manuel echoed the word, "To-morrow!" as she bade them both a +smiling "addio" and left the apartment. When she had gone, and he +was left alone with his foundling, the Cardinal stood for a few +minutes absorbed in silent meditation, mechanically gathering his +robes about him. After a pause of evident hesitancy and trouble, he +approached the boy and gently laid a hand upon his shoulder. + +"Manuel," he said, "Do you understand whom it is that you are going +to see?" + +"Yes," replied Manuel quickly, "The Head of the Church. One who +holds an office constituted by man long after Christ. It was founded +upon the name and memory of the Apostle Peter, who publicly denied +all knowledge of His Master. That is how I understand the person I +am to see to-day!" + +Cardinal Bonpre's face was a study of varying expressions as he +heard these words. + +"My child, you must not say these things in the Pope's presence!" + +Manuel lifted his radiant eyes with a look of calm confidence. + +"Dear friend, you must trust me!" he said, "They have sent for me, +have they not, to this place you call the Vatican? They desire to +see me, and to question me. That being so, whatever God bids me say, +I will say; fearing nothing!" + +A strong tremour shook the Cardinal's nerves,--he essayed to find +words of wisdom and instruction, but somehow language failed him,-- +he felt blinded and strengthless, and warned by this impending sense +of feebleness, made an instant effort to brace himself up and master +the strange fainting that threatened to overwhelm him as it had +frequently done before. He succeeded, and without speaking again to +Manuel, but only bending one earnest look upon him, he quitted his +rooms and proceeded slowly down the great marble staircase of the +Palazzo Sovrani,--a staircase famous even in Rome for its +architectural beauty--Manuel stepping lightly at his side--and +reaching his carriage, entered it with his foundling, and was +rapidly driven away. + +Arrived at the Vatican, the largest palace in the world, which +contains, so historians agree in saying, no less than eleven +thousand different apartments with their courts and halls and +corridors, they descended at the Portone di Bronzo,--the Swiss Guard +on duty saluting as the Cardinal passed in. On they went into the +vestibule, chilly and comfortless, of the Scala Pia;--and so up the +stone stairs to the Cortile do San Damaso, and thence towards the +steps which lead to the Pope's private apartments. Another Guard met +them here and likewise saluted,--in fact, almost at every step of +the way, and on every landing, guards were on duty, either standing +motionless, or marching wearily up and down, the clank, clank of +their footsteps waking dismal echoes from the high vaulted roofs and +uncarpeted stone corridors. At last they reached the Sala +Clementina, a vast unfurnished hall, rich only with mural +decorations and gilding, and here another Guard met them who, +without words, escorted the Cardinal and his young companion through +a number of waiting-rooms, made more or less magnificent by glorious +paintings, wonderful Gobelin tapestries, and unique sculptures, till +they reached at last what is called the anti-camera segreto, where +none but Cardinals are permitted to enter and wait for an audience +with the Supreme Pontiff. At the door of this "Holy of Holies" stood +a Guarda Nobile on sentry duty,--but he might have been a figure of +painted marble for all the notice he took of their approach. As they +passed into the room, which was exceedingly high and narrow, +Monsignor Gherardi rose from a table near the window, and received +the Cardinal with a kind of stately gravity which suitably agreed +with the coldness and silence of the general surroundings. A small +lean man, habited in black, also came forward, exchanging a few low +whispered words with Gherardi as he did so, and this individual, +after saluting the Cardinal, mysteriously disappeared through a +little door to the right. He was the Pope's confidential valet,--a +personage who was perhaps more in the secrets of everybody and +everything than even Gherardi himself. + +"I am afraid we shall have to keep you waiting a little while," said +Gherardi, in his smooth rich voice, which despite its mellow ring +had something false about it, like the tone produced by an invisible +crack in a fine bell, "Your young friend," and here he swept a keen, +inquisitive glance over Manuel from face to feet, and from feet to +face again, "will perhaps be tired?" + +"I am never tired!" answered Manuel. + +"Nor impatient?" asked Gherardi with a patronising air. + +"Nor impatient!" + +"Wonderful boy! If you are never tired or impatient, you will be +eminently fitted for the priesthood," said Gherardi, his lip curling +with a faint touch of derision, "For even the best of us grow +sometimes weary in well-doing!" + +And turning from him with a movement which implied both hauteur and +indifference, he addressed himself to Bonpre, whose face was +clouded, and whose eyes were troubled. + +"The unfortunate affair of our friend Vergniaud will be settled to- +day," he began, when the Cardinal raised one hand with a gentle +solemnity. + +"It is settled!" he returned, "Not even the Church can intervene +between Vergniaud and his Maker now!" + +Gherardi uttered an exclamation of undisguised annoyance. + +"Dead!" he ejaculated, his forehead growing crimson with the anger +he inwardly repressed--"Since when?" + +"Last night he passed away," replied the Cardinal. "according to the +telegram I have just received from--his son. But he has been dying +for some time, and what he told me in Paris was no lie. I explained +his exact position to you quite recently, on the day you visited my +niece at her studio. He had a serious valvular disease of the +heart,--he might, as the doctors said, have lived, at the utmost, +two years--but the excitement of recent events has evidently proved +too much for him. As I told you, he felt that his death might occur +at any moment, and he did not wish to leave the world under a false +impression of his character. I trust that now the Holy Father may be +inclined to pardon him, in death, if not in life!" + +Gherardi walked up and down the narrow room impatiently. + +"I doubt it!" he said at last, "I very much doubt it! The man may be +dead, but the scandal he caused remains. And his death has made the +whole position very much more difficult for you, my lord Cardinal! +For as Vergniaud is not alive to endure the penalty of his offence, +it is probable YOU may have to suffer for having condoned it!" + +Felix Bonpre bent his head gently. + +"I shall be ready and willing to suffer whatever God commands!" he +answered, "For I most faithfully believe that nothing can injure my +soul while it rests, as I humbly place it, in His Holy keeping!" + +Gherardi paused in his pacing to and fro, and gazed at the frail +figure, and fine old face before him, with mingled compassion and +curiosity. + +"You should have lived in the early days of the Faith," he said, +"You are too literal--too exact in your following of Christian +ethics. That sort of thing does not work nowadays. Dogma must be +maintained!" + +"What is dogma?" asked Manuel suddenly. + +Gherardi gave him a careless glance. + +"Cardinal Bonpre must teach you that in extenso!" he replied, with a +little smile--"But briefly,--dogma is an opinion or theory derived +from the Gospels, and formulated as doctrine, by the Church." + +"An opinion or theory of man, founded on the words of Christ?" said +Manuel. + +"Just so!" + +"But if Christ was divine, should any man presume to formulate a +theory on what He Himself said?" asked Manuel. "Are not his own +plain words enough?" + +Gherardi stared at the young speaker half angrily. + +"His own plain words enough?" he repeated mechanically. "What do you +mean, boy?" + +"I mean," answered Manuel simply, "that if He were truly a +Manifestation of God in Himself, as the Church declares Him to be, +_I_ WONDER THAT MAN CAN DARE TO FORMULATE MERE DOGMA ON GOD'S OWN +UTTERANCE!" + +There was a dead pause. After a few minutes of chill silence +Gherardi addressed the Cardinal. + +"Your young friend has a dangerous tongue!" he said sternly, "You +had best warn or command him that he set a guard upon it in the Holy +Father's presence!" + +"There is no need to either warn or command me!" said Manuel, a +smile irradiating his fair face as he met the angry eyes of Gherardi +with the full calmness of his own--"I have been sent for, and I am +here. Had I not been sent for I should not have come. Now that I +have been called to answer for myself I will answer,--with truth and +without fear. For what can any man cause me to suffer if I am to +myself true?" + +Another heavy pause ensued. An invisible something was in the air,-- +a sense of that vast supernatural which is deeply centered at the +core of the natural universe,--a grave mystery which seemed to +envelop all visible things with a sudden shadow of premonitory fear. +The silence prevailing was painful--almost terrible. A great ormolu +clock in the room, one of the Holy Father's "Jubilee" gifts, ticked +the minutes slowly away with a jewel-studded pendulum, which in its +regular movements to and fro sounded insolently obtrusive in such a +stillness. Gherardi abstractedly raised his eyes to a great ivory +crucifix which was displayed upon the wall against a background of +rich purple velvet,--Manuel was standing immediately in front of it, +and the tortured head of the carven Christ drooped over him as +though in a sorrow-stricken benediction. A dull anger began to +irritate Gherardi's usually well-tempered nerves, and he was +searching in his mind for some scathing sentence wherewith to +overwhelm and reprove the confident ease of the boy, when the door +leading to the Pope's apartments was slowly pushed open to admit the +entrance of Monsignor Moretti. Cardinal Bonpre had not seen him +since the day of the Vergniaud scandal in Paris,--and a faint colour +came into his pale cheeks as he noted the air of overbearing +condescension and authority with which Moretti, here on his own +ground, as one of the favorites of the Pope, greeted him. + +"The Holy Father is ready to receive you," he said, "But I regret to +inform your Eminence that His Holiness can see no way to excuse or +condone the grave offence of the Abbe Vergniaud,--moreover, the fact +of the sin-begotten son being known to the world as Gys Grandit, +makes it more than ever necessary that the ban of excommunication +should be passed upon him. Especially, as those uninstructed in the +Faith, are under the delusion that the penalty of excommunication +has become more or less obsolete, and we have now an opportunity for +making publicly known the truth that it still exists, and may be +used by the Church in extreme situations, when judged politic and +fitting." + +"Then in this case the Church must excommunicate the dead!" said the +Cardinal quietly. + +Moretti's face turned livid. + +"Dead?" he exclaimed, "I do not believe it!" + +Silently Bonpre handed him the telegram received that morning. +Moretti read it, his eyes sparkling with rage. + +"How do I know this is not a trick?" he said, "The accursed atheist +of a son may have telegraphed a lie!" + +"I hardly think he would condescend to that!" returned the Cardinal +calmly, "It would not be worth his while. You must remember, that to +one of his particular views, Church excommunication, either for his +father or himself, would mean nothing. He makes himself responsible +for his conduct to God only. And whatever his faults he certainly +believes in God!" + +Moretti read through the telegram again. + +"We must place this before His Holiness," he said, "And it will very +seriously annoy him! I fear your Eminence," here he gave a quick +meaning look at Bonpre, "will be all the more severely censured for +having pardoned the Abbe's sins." + +"Is it wrong to forgive sinners?" asked Manuel, his clear young +voice breaking through the air like a silver bell rung suddenly,-- +"And when one cannot reach the guilty, should one punish the +innocent?" + +Moretti scowled fiercely at the fair candid face turned enquiringly +near his own. + +"You are too young to ask questions!" he said roughly--"Wait to be +questioned yourself--and think twice--aye three times before you +answer!" + +The bright expression of the boy's countenance seemed to become +intensified as he heard. + +"'Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given +you in that same hour what ye shall speak!'" he said softly--"'For +it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which +speaketh in you!'" + +Moretti flushed angrily, and his hand involuntarily clenched. + +"Those words were addressed by our Lord to His Apostles," he +retorted--"Apostles, of whom our Holy Father the Pope is the one +infallible representative. They were not spoken to an ignorant lad +who barely knows his catechism!" + +"Yet were not the Apostles themselves told," went on Manuel +steadily, "to be humble as ignorant children if they would enter the +Kingdom of Heaven? And did not Christ say, 'Whoso offendeth one of +these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a +millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in +the depths of the sea!' I am sure there are many such little ones +who believe in Christ,--perhaps too, without knowing any catechism,- +-and even Apostles must beware of offending them!" + +"Does this boy follow your teaching in the quoting of Scripture with +so glib a tongue?" asked Moretti, turning sharply round upon the +Cardinal. + +Bonpre returned his angry look with one of undisturbed serenity. + +"My son, I have taught him nothing!" he replied, "I have no time as +yet--and I may add--no inclination, to become his instructor. He +speaks from his own nature." + +"It is a nature that needs training!" said Gherardi, smiling +blandly, and silencing by a gesture Moretti's threatening outburst +of wrath, "To quote Scripture rashly, without due consideration for +the purpose to which it is to be applied, does not actually +constitute an offence, but it displays a reprehensible disregard and +ignorance of theology. However, theology," here he smiled still more +broadly, "is a hard word for the comprehension of the young! This +poor little lad cannot be expected to grasp its meaning." + +Manuel raised his bright eyes and fixed them steadily on the +priest's countenance. + +"Oh, yes!" he said quietly, "I understand it perfectly! Originally +it meant the Word or Discourse of God,--it has now come to mean the +words or discourses, or quarrels and differences of men on the +things of God! But God's Word remains God's Word--eternally, +invincibly! No man can alter it, and Christ preached it so plainly +that the most simple child cannot fail to understand it!" + +Moretti was about to speak when again Gherardi interrupted him. + +"Patience! Patience!" he said soothingly, "Perchance we must say"-- +this with a flash of derision from his dark crafty eyes, "that a +prophet hath arisen in Israel! Listen to me, boy! If Christ spoke as +plainly as you say, and if all He preached could be understood by +the people, why should He have founded a Church to teach His +doctrine?" + +"He did not found a Church," answered Manuel, "He tried to make a +Human Brotherhood. He trusted twelve men. They all forsook Him in +His hour of need, and one betrayed Him! When He died and arose again +from the dead, they sought to give themselves a Divine standing on +His Divinity. They preached His Word to the world--true!--but they +preached their own as well! Hence the Church!" + +Moretti's angry eyes rolled in his head with an excess of wrath and +amazement. + +"Surely some evil spirit possesses this boy!" he exclaimed irately, +"Retro me Sathanas! He is a rank heretic--a heathen! And yet he +lives in the companionship of Cardinal Felix Bonpre!" + +Both priests looked at the Cardinal in angry astonishment, but he +stood silent, one wrinkled hand holding up the trailing folds of his +scarlet robe,--his head slightly bent, and his whole attitude +expressive of profound patience and resignation. Manuel turned his +eyes upon him and smiled tenderly. + +"It is not the fault of Cardinal Bonpre that I think my own +thoughts," he said, "or that I speak as I have spoken from the +beginning. He found me lost and alone in the world,--and he +sheltered me, knowing not whom he sheltered! Let what blame there is +in me therefore be mine alone, and not his or another's!" + +His young voice, so full of sweetness, seemed to melt the cold and +heavy silence into vibrations of warm feeling, and a sudden sense of +confusion and shame swept over the callous and calculating minds of +the two men, miscalled priests, as they listened. But before they +could determine or contrive an answer, the door was thrown open, and +the lean man in black entered, and pausing on the threshold bowed +slightly,--then raising his hand with a gesture which invited all to +follow him, turned again and walked on in front,--then crossing a +small antechamber, he drew aside a long curtain of purple damask +heavily fringed with gold, and opened a farther door. Here he stood +back, and allowed Cardinal Bonpre to pass in first, attended by +Manuel,--Monsignori Gherardi and Moretti followed. And then the +valet, closing the door behind them, and pulling the rich curtain +across, sat down himself close outside it to be within call when the +Holy Father should summon his attendance by means of a bell which +hung immediately over his head. And to while away the time he pulled +from his pocket that day's issue of a well-known Republican paper,-- +one of the most anti-Papal tendency, thereby showing that his +constant humble attendance upon the Head of the Church had not made +him otherwise than purely human, or eradicated from his nature that +peculiar quality with which most of us are endowed, namely, the +perversity of spirit which leads us often to say and do things which +are least expected of us. The Pope's confidential valet was not +exempt from this failing. He like the Monsignori, enjoyed the +exciting rush and secret risk of money speculation,--he also had his +little schemes of self-advancement; and, as is natural to all who +are engaged in a certain kind of service, he took care to read +everything that could be said by outsiders against the person or +persons whom he served. Thus, despite the important capacity he +filled, he was not a grade higher than the ordinary butler, who +makes it his business to know all the peccadilloes and failings of +his master. "No man is a hero to his valet" is a very true axiom,-- +and even the Head of the Church, the Manifestation of the Divine, +the "Infallible in Council," was a mere Nothing to the little man in +black who had the power to insist on His Holiness changing a soiled +cassock for a clean one. + + + + +XXVIII. + +There are certain moments in life which seem weighted with the +history of ages--when all the past, present and future merge into +the one omnipresent Now,--moments, which if we are able to live +through them with courage, may decide a very eternity of after- +glory--but which, if we fail to comprehend their mission, pass, +taking with them the last opportunity of all good that shall ever be +granted to us in this life. Such a moment appeared, to the +reflective mind of Cardinal Bonpre, to have presented itself to him, +as for the second time in ten days, he found himself face to face +with the Sovereign Pontiff, the pale and aged man with the deep dark +eyes set in such cavernous sockets, that as they looked out on the +world through that depth of shadow, seemed more like great jewels in +the head of a galvanised skeleton than the eyes of a living human +being. On this occasion the Pope was enthroned in a kind of semi- +state, on a gilded chair covered with crimson velvet; and a rich +canopy of the same material, embroidered and fringed with gold, +drooped in heavy folds above him. Attired in the usual white,--white +cassock, white skull cap, and white sash ornamented with the +emblematic keys of St. Peter, embroidered in gold thread at the +ends,--his unhandsome features, pallid as marble, and seemingly as +cold,--bloodless everywhere, even to the lips,--suggested with +dreadful exactitude a corpse in burial clothes just lifted from its +coffin and placed stiffly upright in a sitting position. +Involuntarily Cardinal Bonpre, as he made the usual necessary +genuflections, thought, with a shrinking interior sense of horror at +the profanity of his own idea, that the Holy Father as he then +appeared, might have posed to a painter of allegories, as the frail +ghost of a dead Faith. For he looked so white and slender and +fragile and transparent,--he sat so rigidly, so coldly, without a +movement or a gesture, that it seemed as if the touch of a hand +might break him into atoms, so brittle and delicate a figure of clay +was he. When he spoke, his harsh voice, issuing from the long thin +lips which scarcely moved, even in utterance, was startling in its +unmelodious loudness, the more so when its intonation was querulous, +as now. + +"It is regrettable, my lord Cardinal," he said slowly, keeping his +dark eyes immovably fixed on the venerable Felix,--"that I should be +compelled to send for you so soon again on the same matters which, +since your arrival in Rome, have caused me so much anxiety. This +miracle,--of which you are declared to be the worker,--though for +some inscrutable reason, you persist in denying your own act,--is +not yet properly authenticated. And, to make the case worse, it +seems that the unfortunate man, Claude Cazeau, whom we entrusted +with our instructions to the Archbishop of Rouen, has suddenly +disappeared, leaving no trace. Naturally there are strong suspicions +that he has met with a violent death,--perhaps at the hands of the +Freemasons, who are ever at work conspiring against the Faith,--or +else through the intrigues of the so-called 'Christian Democrats,' +of whom 'Gys Grandit' is a leader. In any case, it is most +reprehensible that you, a Cardinal-prince of the Church, should have +permitted yourself to become involved in such a doubtful business. +The miracle may have taken place,--but if so, you should have no +cause to deny your share in it; and however much you may be gifted +with the power of healing, I cannot reconcile your duty to us with +the Vergniaud scandal! Since you were here last, I have investigated +that matter thoroughly,--I have read a full report of the +blasphemous address the Abbe preached from his pulpit in Paris, and +I cannot, no I cannot"--here the Pope raised his thin white hand +with a gesture of menace that was curiously powerful for one so +seemingly frail--"I cannot forgive or forget the part you have taken +in this deplorable affair!" + +The Cardinal looked up with a touch of pain and protest. + +"Holy Father, I strove to obey the command of Christ--'Forgive that +ye may be forgiven'!--I cannot be sorry that I did so obey it;--for +now the offender is beyond the reach of either punishment or +absolution. He must answer for his deeds to God alone!" + +The Pope turned his eyes slowly round in his waxenlike head to +Gherardi--then to Moretti--and seeing confirmation of the news in +their looks, fixed them again as immovably as before upon the +Cardinal. The faint shadow of a cold smile flickered on his long +slit-like mouth. + +"Dead!" he murmured, and he nodded slowly, and beat with one finger +on the back of the other hand, as though keeping time mechanically +to some funeral march in his brain. "Dead! A fortunate thing for +him! An escape from worse than death, so far as this life is +concerned! But what of the next?--'where the worm dieth not and the +fire is not quenched!'" And here the representative of St. Peter +smiled pallidly. "Dead!--but his works live after him; and his sin- +begotten son also lives, to spread his pernicious writings through +the world, and incite the already disobedient to further license. +Therefore the Church must still publicly condemn his memory, as a +warning to the faithful. And you, Cardinal Bonpre, must receive from +us a necessary measure of correction, for having pardoned one who in +his last discourse to humanity attacked the Church and slandered it. +To one of your eminence and reputation, the lesson may seem hard, +but a chastening reproof can but purify the spirit, and free it from +that pride which apes humility!" + +The Cardinal bent his head patiently and remained silent. + +Monsignor Moretti advanced a step towards the Papal throne. + +"The boy"--he began. + +A slight animation warmed the chill lifelessness of the Pope's +features. "True! I had almost forgotten!" he said. Then to the +Cardinal, "Where is the boy you rescued from the streets, who lives +with you, and who witnessed the miracle at Rouen?" + +Manuel had till now stood aside, half hidden in the shadow of the +crimson damask which, falling from ceiling to floor in rich +luxurious folds, draped the corners of the room, but at these words +he advanced at once. + +"I am here!" he said. + +Fronting the Pope, with his fair head thrown back, and his blue eyes +flashing with all the soul-light of a swift, unwarped intelligence, +he stood,--and the white shrunken figure of the old man in the +gilded chair raised itself as if by some interior electric force, +slowly, slowly--higher and higher--the deep-set old eyes staring +into the brilliant youthful ones--staring--staring till they seemed +to protrude and tremble under their shelving brows, like the last +sparks of a flame about to fall into extinction. Gherardi made a +quick step forward. + +"My lord Cardinal!" he said significantly, "Should not your waif and +stray have been taught how to comport himself before he came here? +He does not kneel to the Holy Father!" + +The Cardinal opened his lips to speak, but Manuel stayed him by a +slight gesture. + +"I may not kneel to any man!" he said, "But to God only! For it is +written,' Call no man your Father upon the earth, for One is your +Father which is in Heaven. Neither be ye called Masters, for One is +your Master, even Christ.' How then," and he came nearer to the +Pope's foot-stool, "can you be called 'Father'? or 'Holy'? For there +is none Holy but God!" + +The deep silence which had fallen like a spell upon them all in the +antechamber, fell now with redoubled impressiveness. The Pope, +gripping the arms of his gilded chair, forced himself fully upright, +and his lips trembled. + +"Whence came you, and of what parentage are you?" he asked slowly, +enunciating his words with even more than his usual harsh +distinctness. + +"That is my own secret!" answered the boy--"The Cardinal accepted me +without question!" + +"Which is but a fresh proof of the Cardinal's unwisdom," said the +Pope severely, "And we shall not follow his example in this or in +any other matter!" And turning to Moretti he enquired, "Does this +boy understand he is here as a witness to the miracle effected at +Rouen?" + +"As a witness to the Truth--yes! I understand!" said Manuel quickly, +before Moretti could answer. "The miracle was no miracle!" + +"No miracle!" exclaimed the Pope, moved at last from his usual +inflexibility, "Do you hear that, Domenico?" turning excitedly to +Gherardi, "No miracle!" + +"No miracle!" repeated Manuel, steadily--"Nothing but the law of +Nature working in response to the law of God, which is Love! The +child was healed of his infirmity by the power of unselfish prayer. +Are we not told 'Ask and ye shall receive'? But the asking must be +pure! The prayer must be untainted by self-interest! God does not +answer prayer that is paid for in this world's coin! No miracle was +ever wrought for a fee! Only when perfect love and perfect faith +exist between the creature and the Creator, are all things +possible!" + +A nervous twitching of the Pope's features showed his suppressed +irritation at this reply. + +"The boy jests with us!" he said angrily, "He defends his +benefactor, but he either does not understand, or else is regardless +of our authority!" + +"What, do you not also believe?" asked Manuel, placing one foot on +the first step of the Pope's throne, and looking him straightly in +the face, "Do you not even affirm that God answers prayers? Do YOU +not pray? Do you not assert that you yourself are benefited and +helped--nay, even kept alive by the prayers of the faithful? Then +why should you doubt that Cardinal Bonpre has, by his prayer, +rescued one life--the life of a little child? Is not your Church +built up for prayer? Do you not command it? Do you not even insist +upon the 'vain repetitions' which Christ forbade? Do you not summon +the people to pray in public?--though Christ bade all who truly +sought to follow Him to pray in secret? And amid all the false +prayers, the unthinking, selfish petitions, the blasphemous demands +for curses and confusion to fall upon enemies and contradictors, the +cowardly cryings for pardon from sinners who do not repent, that are +sent up to the throne of the Most High,--is it marvellous that one +prayer, pure of all self and sophistry, ascending to God, simply to +ask for the life of a child should be heard and granted?" + +His voice rang through the silence with a pure intonation, unlike +any human voice in the world--and as he spoke, the Pope slowly drew +back in his chair, further and further away from the young, +beautiful face that confronted his own so steadily. The dumb sense +of stupefaction that had before possessed Gherardi and Moretti in +the presence of this child, seized them again now,--and slow tears +welled up into the Cardinal's eyes, as, clasping his withered hands, +he waited in fear and awe, listening and wondering,--overwhelmed by +the strangeness of the scene. Like a shrunken white mummy set in a +gilded sarcophagus, the representative of St. Peter huddled himself +together, reflections of the daylight on the crimson hangings around +him casting occasional gleams of crimson athwart his bony hands and +cadaverous features;--while on the first step of his throne the +aerial form of the beautiful boy, with his fair face, full flashing +eyes, and radiant hair, stood like an Angel suddenly descended at +the portal of the mummy's tomb. + +"Faith must surely be weaker in these days than in the days of +Christ," continued Manuel, "The disciples were not always wise or +brave; but they believed in the power of their Master! You,--with so +many centuries of prayer behind you,--will surely not say as John +did--'Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he +followeth not us!' Because this miracle is unexpected and +exceptional, do you say of your good Cardinal, 'He followeth not +us'? Remember how Christ answered,--'Forbid him not, for there is no +man which shall do a miracle in my name that can speak evil of me!'" + +Still the same silence reigned. A shaft of sunlight falling through +the high oriel window, touched the boy's hair with a Pentecostal +flame of glory. + +"You sent for me," he went on, "and I have come! They say I must be +taught. Will you teach me? I would know many things! Tell me for +one, why are You here, shut away from the cities, and the people? +Should you not be among them? Why do you stay here all alone? You +must be very unhappy!" + +A sudden quivering light illumined the jewel-like dark eyes of the +seeming mummy in the chair--its lips moved--but no sound came from +them. + +"To be here all alone!" went on Manuel, "And a whole world outside +waiting to be comforted! To have vast wealth lying about you unused- +-with millions and millions of poor, starving, struggling, dying +creatures, near at hand, cursing the God whom they have never been +taught to know or to bless! To be safely sheltered while others are +in danger! To know that even kings and emperors are trembling on +their thrones because of the evil days that are drawing near in +punishment for evil deeds!--to feel the great pulsating ache of the +world's heart beating through every hour of time, and never to +stretch forth a hand of consolation! Surely this must make you very +sad! WILL YOU NOT COME OUT WITH ME?" + +With a strong effort the Pope raised himself and looked into the +pleading Angel-face. With his sudden movement, Gherardi and Moretti +also stirred from their frozen attitudes of speechless amazement, +and would have approached, but that the Pope signed them away with +so fierce and impatient a gesture that they shrank back appalled. +And still he gazed at Manuel as if his very soul were passing +through his eyes. + +"Come out with you!" he said, in a hoarse, faint whisper--"Come out +with you!" + +"Yes!--come out with me!" repeated Manuel, his accents vibrating +with a strange compelling sweetness, "Come out and see the poor +lying at the great gates of St. Peter's--the lame, the halt, the +blind--come and heal them by a touch, a prayer! You can, you must, +you shall heal them!--if you WILL! Pour money into the thin hands of +the starving!--come with me into the miserable places of the world,- +-come and give comfort! Come freely into the courts of kings, and +see how the brows ache under the crowns!--and the hearts break +beneath the folds of velvet and ermine! Why stand in the way of +happiness, or deny even emperors peace when they crave it? Your +mission is to comfort, not to condemn! You need no throne! You want +no kingdom!--no settled place--no temporal power! Enough for you to +work and live as the poorest of all Christ's ministers,--without +pomp, without ostentation or public ceremonial, but simply clothed +in pure holiness! So shall God love you more! So shall you pass +unscathed through the thick of battle, and command Brotherhood in +place of Murder! Go out and welcome Progress!--take Science by the +hand!--encourage Intellect!--for all these things are of God, and +are God's gifts divine! Live as Christ lived, teaching the people +personally and openly;--loving them, pitying them, sharing their +joys and sorrows, blessing their little children! Deny yourself to +no man;--and make of this cold temple in which you now dwell +selfimprisoned, a home and refuge for the friendless and the poor! +COME OUT WITH ME!" + +As he thus spoke, with a living, breathing enthusiasm of entreaty, +which might have moved even the dry bones in the valley of the +prophet's vision to rise up and become a great standing army, the +Pope's figure seemed to grow more and more attenuated,--his worn +white hands grasping the gilt arms of his chair, looked like the +claws of a dead bird--and his face, shrunken and withered, like a +Chinese ivory carving of some forgotten idol. + +"Come out with me and minister with your own hands to the aged and +dying!" pursued Manuel, "And so shall you grow young! Command that +the great pictures, the tapestries, the jewels, the world's trash of +St. Peter's, be sold to the rich, who can afford to set them in free +and open places where all the poorest may possess them! But do not +You retain them! You do not need them--your treasure must be +sympathy for all the world! Not ONE section of the world,--not ONE +form of creed,--but for all!--if you are truly the Dispenser of +Christ's Message to the earth! Come--unprotected, save by the Cross! +Come with no weapon of defence--'heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, +raise the dead, cast out devils! Freely ye have received, freely +give! Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purse,'-- +come, and by your patience--your gentleness--your pardon--your love +to all men, show that 'the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!' Walk +fearless in the thick of battles, and your very presence shall +engender peace! For the Holy Spirit shall surround and encompass +you; the fiercest warriors shall bend before you, as they never +would if you assumed a world's throne or a world's sovereignty! +Come, uncrowned, defenceless;--but strong in the Spirit of God! +Think of all the evil which has served as the foundation for this +palace in which you dwell! Can you not hear in the silence of the +night, the shrieks of the tortured and dying of the Inquisition? Do +you never think of those dark days, ten and twelve hundred years +after Christ, when no virtue seemed left upon the earth?--when the +way to this very throne was paved by poison and cold steel?--when +those who then reigned here, and occupied Your place, led such +infamous lives that the very dogs might have been ashamed to follow +in their footsteps!--when they professed to be able to sell the +Power of the Holy Ghost for so much gold and silver? Remember the +words, 'Whoso shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost it shall not be +forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come.' Look +back upon the Past--and look out upon the Present! Try to understand +the sufferings of the forsaken people!--the pain--the bewilderment-- +the groping for life in death!--and come out with me! Come and +preach Christ as He lived and died, and WAS, and IS! COME OUT WITH +ME!" + +The dreadful, dumb spell remained unbroken. The loom seemed invested +with a strange solemnity--the figures of the human beings in it were +like images frozen into rigidity--even Cardinal Bonpre appeared +stricken by this mental paralysis, and not a fold of his rich attire +stirred with so much as a pulsation of natural breath. Only Manuel +seemed truly alive--his slight boyish figure was instinct with +ardour--his face was radiant, and his eyes brilliant as stars. And +now, withdrawing himself a little from the motionless creature +seated stiffly on the Papal throne, with its deep, dark eyes alone +giving sign of life by their unwearied stare and feverish glitter, +he raised his head with a royal gesture of mingled appeal and +warning. + +"Come out with me!" he exclaimed, "For there are wonderful things in +the world to-day!--wonderful, beautiful, and terrible! Take your +share in them, and find God in every glory! For with all the wisdom +and the splendour,--with all the flashing light of Heaven poured out +upon the darkness of the Sorrowful Star, its people are weary,--they +are lost in the confusion and clamour of their own desires--they +would fain serve God, but know not where to find Him, because a +thousand, aye a million churches stand in the way!--churches, which +are like a forest of dark trees, blocking out the radiance of the +Sun! God, who manifests His power and tenderness in the making of +the simplest leaf, the smallest bird, is lost to the understanding +and affection of humanity in the multitude of Creeds! Come out with +me,--simple and pure, gentle and strong! Tell all the lost and the +wandering that there never was, and never will be but one God +supreme and perfect, whose name is Love, whose work is Love!--and +whose Messenger, Christ, pronounced the New Commandment Love instead +of Hate! Come out with me while it is yet day, for the night cometh +when no man can work! Come and lift up the world by your very +coming! Stretch out your hands in benediction over kings and beggars +alike!--there are other roses to give than Golden ones to Queens! +There are poor women who share half they earn with those still +poorer--there are obscure lives which in their very obscurity, are +forming the angel-nature, and weaving the angel's crown!--look for +these in the world--give THEM your Golden Roses! Leave rulers and +governments alone, for you should be above and beyond all rulers and +governments! You should be the Herald of peace,--the Pardoner of +sin, the Rescuer of the fallen, and the Refuge of the distressed! +Come out with me, and be all this to the world, so that when the +Master comes He may truly find you working in His vineyard!" + +Another dead pause ensued. Not a sound, not a breath disturbed the +heavy silence which seemed to have grown deeper than before. And +Manuel, looking eagerly again and closely into the Pope's face, went +on with increasing ardour and passion. + +"Come out with me!" he said, "Or if you will not come,--then beware +of the evil days which are at hand! The people are wandering to and +fro, crossing all lands, struggling one against the other, hoarding +up useless gold, and fighting for supremacy!--but 'the day of the +Lord shall come like a thief in the night, and blessed is he who +shall be found watching!' Watch! The hour is growing dark and full +of menace!--the nations are as frightened children, losing faith, +losing hope, losing strength! Put away,--put away from you the toys +of time!--quench in your soul the thirst for gold, for of this shall +come nothing but corruption! Why trifle with the Spirit of holy +things? Why let your servants use the Name of the Most High to cover +hypocrisy? Why crave for the power of temporal things which passes +away in the dust of destroyed kingdoms? For the Power of the Spirit +is greater than all! And so it shall be proved! The Spirit shall +work in ways where it has never been found before!--it shall depart +from the Churches which are unworthy of its Divine inspiration!--it +shall invest the oaths of Science!--it shall open the doors of the +locked stars! It shall display the worlds invisible;--the secrets of +men's hearts, and of closed graves!--there will be terror and loss +and confusion and shame to mankind,--and this world shall keep +nothing of all its treasures but the Cross of Christ! Rome, like +Babylon, shall fall!--and the Powers of the Church shall be judged +as the Powers of Darkness rather than of Light, because they have +rejected the Word of their Master, and 'teach for doctrine the +commandments of men!' Disaster shall follow swift upon disaster, and +the cup of trembling shall be drained again to its last dregs, as in +the olden days, unless,--unless perchance--you will come out with +me!" + +With the last words a sort of galvanic shock seemed to be imparted +to the rigid figure in the chair. Springing upright suddenly, his +voice rang out like a clarion, discordantly yet clearly. + +"In the name of God," he cried, "Who and what is this boy! How came +he with Cardinal Bonpre? And you, Domenico!--do you stand by and +permit this affront to me!--the living Head of the Church! From a +child!--a tramp of the streets!--who dares to speak to me!--who +dares to reproach, to prophesy--aye, to blaspheme! and teach Me,--" + +"As One having authority,--and not as the Scribes!" said Manuel, +with one swift flashing glance, which like a shaft of lightning +seemed to pierce through flesh and bone,--for, as he met that +radiant and commanding look, the jewel-like eyes of the Pope lost +their lustre and became fixed and glassy,--he put his hand to his +throat with a choking gasp for breath,--and like a dead body which +had only been kept in place by some secret mechanical action, he +fell back in his chair senseless, his limbs stretching themselves +out with a convulsive shudder into stark immovability. + +Gherardi started from his stupor, and rushed to his assistance, +ringing the bell violently which summoned the valet from the +antechamber,--and Moretti, with a fierce oath, pushing Manuel aside, +rushed to the chair in which the Pope's fainting figure lay,--all +was confusion;--and in the excitement and terror which had +overwhelmed Cardinal Bonpre at the unprecedented scene, Manuel +suddenly touched him on the arm. + +"Follow me!" he said, "We are no longer needed here! Come!--let us +go hence!" + +Hardly knowing what he did the old man obeyed, trembling in every +limb as Manuel, grasping him firmly by the hand, led him from the +apartment, and on through the winding corridors of the huge +building, out into the open air. No one questioned them,--no one +interfered with their progress. Benediction was being sung in one of +the many chapels of St. Peter's, and the solemn sound of the organ +reached them, softened and mellowed by distance, as they stood on +the steps of the Vatican, where the Cardinal, pausing to recover +breath and equanimity, gazed at his strange foundling in alarm and +bewilderment. + +"Manuel!" he murmured feebly, "Child!--what have you done!" + +"Only what I am bound to do!" replied Manuel simply, "I have said no +more than it is right to say, if Christ's words are true! Dear +friend, be at peace! You will not suffer misjudgment long!" + +The music stealing out from the distant chapel, floated round them +in large circles of solemn melody,--and the glow of sunset lit the +clear sky with a warm red radiance, flecked with golden clouds of +glory. + +"He would not come with me!" said Manuel, with a slight gesture +backward to the sombre portals they had just passed, "And he will +never come! But YOU will!" + +And smiling,--with his fair face turned to the radiant sky,--he +rested his hand lightly on the Cardinal's arm as they descended the +broad marble steps, and left the great Palace of the Popes together. + + + + +XXIX. + +While the foregoing scene was taking place at the Vatican, Angela +Sovrani, left to herself for some hours, took the opportunity to set +her great picture "on view" for the coming morrow. Locking both +doors of her studio, she began to arrange the room; her huge canvas +was already on a movable easel supplied with wheels, which ran +lightly and easily over the polished floor without making any sound. +At its summit a brass rod was attached, and on this a curtain of +golden-coloured silk was hung, the folds of which at present +concealed the painting from view. The top-light of the studio was +particularly good on this special afternoon, as the weather was +clear, and the Roman sky translucent and bright as an opal, and +Angela, as she wheeled her "great work" into position, sang for pure +lightness of heart and thankfulness that all was done. In her soul +she had the consciousness that what she had produced from her brain +and hand was not altogether unworthy. For, though to the true +artist, no actual result can ever attain to the beauty of the first +thought or ideal of the thing to be performed, there is always the +consolation that if one's best and truest feeling has been earnestly +put into the work, some touch, however slight, of that ideal beauty +must remain. The poet's poem is never so fine as the poet's thought. +The thought is from the immortal and invincible soul,--the poem has +to be conveyed through the grosser body, clothed in language which +must always be narrow and inadequate. Hence the artist's many and +grievous limitations. To the eyes of the spirit all things appear +transfigured, because lifted out of the sphere of material vision. +But when we try to put these "beautiful things made new, for the +delight of the sky-children" on paper or canvas, in motionless +marble or flexible rhyme,--we are weighted by grosser air and the +density of bodily feeling. So it was with Angela Sovrani, iwhose +compact little head were folded the splendid dreams of genius like +sleeping fairies in a magic cave;--and thoughtful and brilliant +though she was, she could not, in her great tenderness for her +affianced lover Florian Varillo, foresee that daily contact with his +weaker and smaller nature, would kill those dreams as surely as a +frost-wind kills the buds of the rose,--and that gradually, very +gradually, the coarser fibre of his intelligence mingling with hers, +would make a paltry and rough weaving of the web of life, instead of +a free and gracious pattern. She never thought of such +possibilities--she would have rejected the very idea of them with +scorn and indignation. She would have declared that her love for +Florian was the very root and source of her art,--that for him she +worked--for him she lived. So indeed she believed, in her finely- +fervent self-delusion,--but it was not ordained that this glamour +should last,--for hers was a nature too rare and valuable to be +sacrificed, and the Higher destinies had begun to approve her as +precious. Therefore, as is the case with all precious things, the +furnace was preparing for the shaping of the gold,--the appointed +Angel of her Fate was already hovering near, holding ready the cup +of bitterness which all must drain to the dregs, before knowing what +it is to drink of "the new wine in the Kingdom of God." + +"I wonder," thought the girl now, as she stepped lightly from one +corner of her studio to the other, rearranging a vase here--a bust +there--and imparting to the whole room that indefinable air of grace +and luxury which can only be bestowed by the trained hand of a +practised artist,--"I wonder if Florian will be proud? People will +certainly talk of my picture,--some will praise and some will +condemn; and this mixture of praise and condemnation is what is +called Fame. But will my beloved love me more? Will he be glad that +I am found worthy in the world's sight?--or will he think I am +usurping his place? Ah!" and she paused in her work, looking vaguely +before her with thoughtful, wondering eyes, "That is where we women +workers have to suffer! Men grudge us the laurel, but they forget +that we are trying to win it only that we may wear the rose more +fittingly! A woman tries to do a great and a noble thing, not that +she may vex of humiliate a man by superiority,--but that she may be +more worthy to be his mate and helper in the world,--and also, that +her children may reverence her for something more than the mere +animal duties of nursing and tenderness. How proud to-day would be +any man or woman who could point to Rosa Bonheur and say, 'She was +my mother!' And yet perhaps this idea of mine is too fantastic,--the +Brownings left a son--and he has nothing of their genius or their +enthusiasm." + +She moved to the grand piano and set it open; as she did so a +thought of Sylvie came across her mind, and she smiled. + +"Dear little rose-bud of a woman!" she mused, "How glad I am that +she is happy! And how delightful it is to see the pride she takes in +Aubrey Leigh!--how she studies his books, and pores over his +statistics and theories! I really believe she knows them all by +heart! And what wonderful schemes she is building up in her mind for +the people in whom he is so interested! What a sensation she will +make if she intends to work with her husband as thoroughly and +devotedly as her ideas imply! Her marriage will be an immense +disappointment to certain persons I could name!" and she smiled, +"Dear Sylvie! With all her goodness, and grace and beauty, her name +will sound more obnoxious at the Vatican than even the name of Gys +Grandit!" + +She had lifted a cluster of lilies from a vase to regroup them, and +as her thoughts turned in this direction she bent her eyes upon +their large white blooms meditatively, and a faint rose flush warmed +her cheeks. + +"Ce sont des fleurs etranges, Et traitresses, avec leurs airs de +sceptres d'anges, De thyrses lumineux pour doigts de seraphins, +Leurs parfums sont trop forts, tout ensemble, et trop fins." + +"It is strange," she thought, "that I should have corresponded so +many months with 'Gys Grandit' through my admiration for his books-- +and that he should turn out to be the son of poor Abbe Vergniaud! +Cyrillon! It is a pretty name! And since we met--since that terrible +scene in the church in Paris,--since he knew who I was, he has not +written. And, and for his poor father's death . . . I suppose he +thought it was sufficient to telegraph the news of the death to my +uncle. But I am sorry he does not write to me any more!--I valued +his letters--they were such brilliant essays on all the movements +and politics of the time. It was just a little secret of mine;--it +was pleasant to think I was in correspondence with such a genius. +However, he has had so much to think of since then . . ." She set the +lilies in their vase again, inhaling their delicious odour as she +did so. + +"The flowers of the saints and martyrs!" she said, "I do not wonder +that the artists chose them for that purpose; they are so white-and +pure-and passionless . . ." + +A slight crash disturbed her self-communion, and she hastened to see +what had fallen. It was a small clay figure of "Eros",--a copy of a +statuette found in the ruins of Pompeii. The nail supporting its +bracket had given way. Angela had been rather fond of this little +work of art, and as she knelt to pick up the fragments she was more +vexed at the accident than she cared to own. She looked wistfully at +the pretty moulded broken limbs of the little god as she put them +all in a heap together. + +"What a pity!" she murmured, "I am not at all superstitious, yet I +wish anything in the room had come to grief rather than this! It is +not a good omen!" + +She moved across the floor again and stood for a moment inert, one +hand resting lightly on the amber silk draperies which veiled her +picture. + +"There was no truth at all in that rumour about Florian's +'Phillida';--'Pon-Pon,' as they call her," she thought, "She serves +as a model to half the artists in Rome. Unfortunate creature. She is +one of the most depraved and reckless of her class, so I hear--and +Florian is far too refined and fastidious to even recognise such a +woman, outside his studio. The Marquis Fontenelle only wished to +defend himself by trying to include another man in the charge of +libertinage, when he himself was meditating the most perfidious +designs on Sylvie. Poor Fontenelle! One must try and think as kindly +as possible of him now--he is dead. But I cannot think it was right +of him to accuse my Florian!" + +Just then she heard a soft knocking. It came from the door at the +furthest end of the studio, one which communicated with a small +stone courtyard, which in its turn opened out to a narrow street +leading down to the Tiber. It was the entrance at which models +presented themselves whenever Angela needed them. + +"Angela!" called a melodious voice, which she recognised at once as +the dearest to her in the world. "Angela!" + +She hurried to the door but did not open it. + +"Florian!" she said softly, putting her lips close to the panel, +"Florian, caro mio! Why are you here?" + +"I want to come in," said Florian, "I have news, Angela! I must see +you!" + +She hesitated a moment longer, and then she undid the bolt, and +admitted him. He entered with a smiling and victorious air. + +"I am all alone here," she said at once, before he could speak, +"Father is at Frascati on some business--and my uncle the Cardinal +is at the Vatican. Will you not come back later?" + +For all answer, Florian took her in his arms with quite a reverent +tenderness, and kissed her softly on brow and lips. + +"No, I will stay!" he said, "I want to have you all to myself for a +few minutes. I came to tell you, sweetest, that if I am to be the +first to see your picture and pass judgment on it, I had better see +it now, for I am going away to-morrow!" + +"Going away!" echoed Angela, "Where?" + +"To Naples," he answered, "Only for a little while. They have +purchased my picture 'Phillida et les Roses' for one of the museums +there, and they want me to see if I approve of the position in which +it is to be placed. They also wish to honour me by a banquet or +something of the kind--an absurdly unnecessary affair, but still I +think it is perhaps advisable that I should go." + +He spoke with an affectation of indifference, but any observer of +him whose eyes were not blinded by affection, could have seen that +he exhaled from himself an atmosphere of self-congratulation at the +banquet proposition. Little honours impress little minds;--and a +faint thrill of pain moved Angela as she saw him thus delighted with +so poor and ordinary a compliment. In any other man it would have +moved her to contempt, but in Florian--well!--she was only just a +little sorry. + +"Yes, perhaps it might look churlish of you not to accept," she +said, putting away from her the insidious suggestion that perhaps if +Florian loved her as much as he professed, an invitation to a +banquet at Naples would have had no attraction for him as compared +with being present at the first view of her picture on the morning +she had herself appointed--"I think under the circumstances you had +better not see the picture till you come back!" + +"Now, Angela!" he exclaimed vexedly, "You know I will not consent to +that! You have promised me that I shall be the first to see it--and +here I am!" + +"It should be seen by the morning light," said Angela, a touch of +nervousness beginning to affect her equanimity,--"This light is pale +and waning, though the afternoon is so clear. You cannot see the +coloring to the best advantage!" + +"Am I not a painter also?" asked Varillo playfully, putting his arm +round her waist,--"And can I not guess the effect in the morning +light as well as if I saw it? Come, Angela mia! Unveil the great +prodigy!" and he laughed,--"You began it before we were affianced;-- +think what patience I have had for nearly two years!" + +Angela did not reply at once. Somehow, his light laugh jarred upon +her. + +"Florian," she said at last, raising her truthful, beautiful eyes +fully to his, "I do not think you quite understand! This picture has +absorbed a great deal of my heart and soul--I have as it were, +painted my own life blood into it--for I mean it to declare a truth +and convey a lesson. It will either cover me with obloquy, or crown +me with lasting fame. You speak jestingly, as if it were some toy +with which I had amused myself these three years. Do you not believe +that a woman's work may be as serious, as earnest, and strongly +purposeful as a man's?" + +Still clasping her round the waist, Florian drew her closer, and +pressing her head against his breast, he looked down on her smiling. + +"What sweet eyes you have!" he said, "The sweetest, the most +trusting, the most childlike eyes I have ever seen! It would be +impossible to paint such eyes, unless one's brushes were +Raffaelle's, dipped in holy water. Not that I believe very much in +holy water as a painter's medium! "He laughed,--he had a well-shaped +mouth and was fond of smiling, in order that he might show his even +pearly teeth, which contrasted becomingly with his dark moustache. +"Yes, my Angela has beautiful eyes,--and such soft, pretty hair!" +and he caressed it gently, "like little golden tendrils with a beam +of the sunlight caught in it! Is not that a pretty compliment? I +think I ought to have been a poet instead of a painter!" + +"You are both," said Angela fondly, with a little sigh of rest and +pleasure as she nestled in his arms--"You will be the greatest +artist of your time when you paint large subjects instead of small +ones." + +His tender hold of her relaxed a little. + +"You think 'Phillida et les Roses' a small subject?" he asked, with +a touch of petulance in his tone, "Surely if a small study is +perfect, it is better than a large one which is imperfect?" + +"Of course it is!" replied the girl quickly--"By smallness I did not +mean the size of the canvas,--I meant the character of the subject." + +"There is nothing small in the beauty of woman!" declared Varillo, +with an enthusiastic air--"Her form is divine! Her delicious flesh +tints--her delicate curves--her amorous dimples--her exquisite +seductiveness--combined with her touching weakness--these qualities +make of woman the one,--the only subject for a painter's brush, when +the painter is a man!" + +Involuntarily Angela thought of "Pon-Pon," who had posed for the +"Phillida," and a little shiver ran over her nerves like a sudden +wind playing on the chords of an AEolian harp. Gently she withdrew +herself from her lover's embrace. + +"And when the painter is a woman, should the only subject for her +brush be the physical beauty of man?" she asked. + +Varillo gave an airy gesture of remonstrance. + +"Carissima mia! You shock me! How can you suggest such a thing! The +two sexes differ in tastes and aspirations as absolutely as in form. +Man is an unfettered creature,--he must have his liberty, even if it +reaches license; woman is his dependent. That is Nature's law. Man +is the conqueror--woman is his conquest! We cannot alter these +things. That is one reason for the prejudice existing against +woman's work--if it excels that of man, we consider it a kind of +morbid growth--an unnatural protuberance on the face of the +universe. In fact, it is a wrong balance of the intellectual forces, +which in their action, should always remain on the side of man." + +"But if man abuses his power, may it not be taken from him +altogether?" suggested Angela tranquilly, "If man, knowing that a +life of self-indulgence destroys his intellectual capacity, still +persists in that career, and woman, studying patiently to perfect +herself, refuses to follow his example of vice, may it not happen +that the intellectual forces may range themselves on the side of +right rather than wrong, and invest woman with a certain supremacy +in the end? It is a problem worth thinking of!" + +Varillo looked sharply at her. Had she heard anything of his private +life in Rome?--a life he kept carefully concealed from everyone who +might be likely to report his little amusements at the Palazzo +Sovrani? A slight, very slight touch of shame pricked him, as he +noted the grace of her figure, the dainty poise of her head on her +slim white throat--the almost royal air of dignity and sweetness +which seemed to surround her,--there was no doubt whatever of her +superiority to the women he generally consorted with, and for a +moment he felt remorseful,--but he soon dismissed his brief +compunction with a laugh. + +"No, sweet Angela," he said gaily, "it is not worth thinking of! +Believe me! I will not enter into any such profound discussions with +you. My present time is too short, and your attractions too many! +Why did you slip out of my arms so unkindly just now? Surely you +were not offended? Comeback! Come, and we will go up to the great +picture as lovers should, together--entwined in each other's arms!-- +and you shall then draw the mysterious curtain,--or shall I?" + +She still hesitated. Then after a pause, she came towards him once +more, the soft colour alternately flushing and paling her cheeks, as +she laid her hand on his arm. + +"You did not answer me," she said, "when I asked you just now if you +believed that a woman's work could be as purposeful as a man's-- +sometimes indeed more so. You evaded the question. Why?" + +"Did I evade it?" and Varillo took her hand in his own and kissed +it,--"Dolcesza mia, I would not pain you for the world!" + +A slight shadow clouded her face. + +"You will not pain me," she answered, "except by not being true to +yourself and to me. You know how I have worked,--you know how high I +have set my ambition for your sake--to make myself more worthy of +you; but if you do honestly think that a woman's work in art must +always be inferior to a man's, no matter how ardently she studies-- +no matter even if she has so perfected herself in drawing, anatomy, +and colouring as to be admitted the equal of men in these studies-- +if the result must, in your mind, be nevertheless beneath that of +the masculine attainment, why say so,--because then--then--" + +"Then what, my sweet philosopher?" asked Florian lightly, again +kissing the hand he held. + +She fixed her eyes fully on him. "Then," she replied slowly, "I +should know you better--I should understand you more!" + +An unpleasant twinge affected his nerves, and his eyelids quivered +and blinked as though struck by a sudden shaft of the sun. This was +the only facial sign he ever gave of the difficulty he at times +experienced in meeting the straight, clear glance of his betrothed. + +"You would know me more, and love me less? Is that it?" he said +carelessly. "My dear girl, why do you press the point? If you will +have it, I tell you frankly, I think women are growing very clever, +much too clever in fact,--and that the encouragement and impetus +given to them in the Arts is a very great mistake. Because they are +not all geniuses like my Angela! You are one in a thousand--or +rather one in a million,--and for one Angela Sovrani we shall have a +world of female daubers calling themselves artists and entering into +competition with us, as if we had not already quite enough +competition among our own sex! I honestly believe that with very +rare exceptions woman's work is decidedly inferior and mediocre as +compared to man's." + +Quickly Angela disengaged herself from his hold, her lips trembling- +-her eyes were full of a strange fire and brilliancy,--her slight +figure seemed to grow taller as she stood for a moment like a queen, +regarding him steadfastly from under her fair, level brows. + +"Then come and see!" she said, "I am not proud--I make no boast at +all of what I have done--and no one perceives or deplores the faults +of my work more than I do--but I know I have not altogether failed!" + +She moved away from him and stood opposite her veiled canvas,--then +as Florian followed and joined her, with a swift action which had +something of defiance as well as grace in it, she swept aside the +concealing curtain. Florian recoiled with an involuntary cry,--and +then remained motionless and silent,--stricken dumb and stupid by +the magnificent creation which confronted him. This Angela's +masterpiece! A woman's work! This stupendous conception! This +perfect drawing! This wondrous colouring! Fully facing him, the +central glory of the whole picture, was a figure of Christ--unlike +any other Christ ever imagined by poet or painter--an etherealised +Form through which the very light of Heaven itself seemed to shine,- +-supreme, majestic, and austerely God-like;--the face was more +beautiful than any ever dreamed of by the hewers of the classic +marbles--it was the face of a great Archangel,--beardless and +youthful, yet kingly and commanding. Round the broad brows a Crown +of Thorns shone like a diadem, every prickly point tipped with pale +fire,--and from the light floating folds of intense white which, +cloud-like, clung about the divine Form, faint flashes of the +lightning gleamed. Above this grand Christ, the heavens were opened, +pouring out a rain of such translucent purity of colour and radiance +as never had been seen in any painted canvas before--but beneath, +the clouds were black as midnight--confused, chaotic, and drifting +darkly on a strong wind as it seemed into weird and witch-like +shapes, wherein there were seen the sun and moon revolving pallidly, +like globes of fire lost from their orbits and about to become +extinct. And among those shifting black films were a crowd of human +creatures, floating and falling into unknown depths of darkness, and +striking out wild arms of appeal and entreaty and despair,--the +faces of these were all familiar, and were the life-like portraits +of many of those pre-eminent in the history of the time. Chief +among them was the Sovereign Pontiff, waxen and wan and dark-eyed,-- +he was depicted as fastening fetters of iron round the body of a +beautiful youth, laurel-crowned, the leaves of the laurel bearing +faint gold letters which spelt the word "Science." Huddled beside +him was a well-known leader of the Jesuits, busily counting up heaps +of gold,--another remarkable figure was that of a well-known magnate +of the Church of England, who, leaning forward eagerly, sought to +grasp and hold the garment of the Pope, but was dragged back by the +hand of a woman crowned with an Imperial diadem. After these and +other principal personages came a confusion of faces--all +recognisable, yet needing study to discern;--creatures drifting +downwardly into the darkness,--one was the vivisectionist whose name +was celebrated through France, clutching at his bleeding victim and +borne relentlessly onwards by the whirlwind,--and forms and faces +belong to men of every description of Church-doctrine were seen +trampling underneath them other human creatures scarcely +discernible. And over all this blackness and chaos the supernal +figure of the Christ was aerially poised,--one hand was extended and +to this a woman clung--a woman with a beautiful face made piteous in +its beauty by long grief and patient endurance. In her other arm she +held a sleeping child--and mother and child were linked together by +a garland of flowers partially broken and faded. Her entreating +attitude,--the sleeping child's helplessness--her worn face,--the +perishing roses of earth's hope and joy,--all expressed their +meaning simply yet tragically, and as the Divine Hand supported and +drew her up out of the universal chaos below, the hope of a new +world, a better world, a wiser world, a holier world, seemed to be +distantly conveyed. But the eyes of the Christ were full of +reproach, and were bent on the Representative of St. Peter binding +the laurel-crowned youth, and dragging him into darkness,--and the +words written across the golden mount of the picture, in clear black +letters, seemed to be actually spoken aloud from the vivid color and +movement of the painting. "Many in that day will call upon Me and +say, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name +cast out devils, and done many wonderful works?" + +"Then will I say to them, I never knew you! Depart from me all ye +that work iniquity!" + +As an Allegory the picture was a daring yet sublime reproach to the +hypocrisy of the religious world,--as a picture it was consummate in +every detail, and would have been freely admitted as a masterpiece +of Raffaelle had Raffaelle been fortunate enough to paint it. Still +Varillo kept silence. Angela's heart beat so loudly that she could +almost hear it in the deep silence of the room. Every fine little +nerve in her body was strained--to the utmost height of suspense,-- +she was afraid to look at her lover, or disturb the poise of his +mental judgment by the lightest movement. And he? Thoughts, black as +the chaos of cloud she had so powerfully portrayed, were stirring in +his soul,--thoughts, base and mean and cowardly, which, gradually +gathering force as he dwelt upon them, began to grow and spring up +to a devilish height worked into life and being by a burning spark +of jealousy, which, long smouldering in his nature, now leaped into +a flame. No trace of the wicked inner workings of his mind, however, +darkened the equanimity of his features, or clouded the serene, soft +candour of his eyes, as he at last turned towards the loving, +shrinking woman, who stood waiting for his approval, as simply and +sweetly as a rose might wait for the touch of the morning sun. +Slowly, and like little pellets of ice, his first words fell from +his lips, + +"Did you do it all yourself?" + +The spell was disturbed--the charm broken. Angela turned very white- +-she drew a deep breath--and the tension on her nerves relaxed,--her +heart gave one indignant bound--and then resumed its usual quiet +beating, as with a strong effort she gathered all her dignity and +force together, and replied simply, + +"Can you ask?" + +He looked at her. What an embodied insult to the arrogance of man +she was! She!--a mere woman!--and the painter of the finest picture +ever seen since Raffaelle and Michael Angelo left the world to work +elsewhere. "Chaste as ice, pure as snow, thou shalt not escape +calumny!" In his imagination he saw the world crowning her with +imperishable bays--he heard the denunciation of the Vatican and the +condemnation of the Churches, thunder uselessly against the grand +lesson of her work, while crowds gathered adoringly before the most +perfect Christ ever painted!--and he saw her name written up in +letters of gold on the scroll of those whom history numbers as +immortal! It should not be! It should never be! And again he spoke, +enunciating his words with difficulty, for his lips were dry. + +"It is very fine! Quite marvellous, in fact!--almost unprecedented! +That is why I ask, 'did you do it all yourself?' You must not be +offended, Angela! I mean so well! You see the conception--the +breadth of treatment--the gradation and tone of colour--are all +absolutely masculine. Who first suggested the idea to you?" + +Still very pale, breathing quickly yet lightly, and maintaining an +air of calm which was almost matter of fact, she answered,-- + +"No one! Though perhaps, if it is traced to its source, it arose in +my mind from seeing the universal dissatisfaction which most +intelligent people feel with religion, as administered to them by +the Churches. That, and a constant close study of the New Testament, +set the thought in my brain,--a thought which gradually expressed +itself in this form. So far as any work belongs to the worker, it is +entirely my own creation. I am sorry you should have implied any +doubt of it!" + +Here her voice trembled a little, but she quickly steadied it. He +smiled--a little difficult smile--and slipping his right hand +between his coat and vest, felt for something he always carried +there. It should never be! + +"My dear Angela!" he said, with a gracious tranquillity that was +almost dignity, "I do not doubt you in the least!--I merely SUGGEST +what all the world will SAY! There is not an art-critic alive who +will accept this--this extraordinary production--as the work of a +woman! It is the kind of thing which might have been produced +hundreds of years ago by a great master setting his pupils to work +at different sections of the canvas,--but that one woman, painting +all alone for three years, should have designed and executed such a +masterpiece--yes!--I will admit it is a masterpiece!--is an unheard +of and altogether an extraordinary thing, and you must not wonder if +competent judges reject the statement with incredulity!" + +"It does not matter to me," said Angela, "what they reject or +accept. You admit it is a masterpiece--that is enough for me. It is +my own work, and you know it is!" + +"Dear little one!" he said, laughing forcedly, "How do I know? You +have never admitted me into the studio once while you were at work!" + +"Florian!" + +The exclamation broke from her lips like a cry of physical pain. + +"That was a mistake of yours!" he went on recklessly, his eyes +beginning to glitter with the fever raging in his mind, "You should +not have shut the doors against your lover, my beloved! Nor would +you admit your father either! That looks very strange!" + +White as a snowflake, yet with blazing eyes, Angela turned upon him. + +"Florian!" she said, "Do you--you of all people in the world--you to +whom I have given all my love and confidence--mean to suggest that +my work is not my own?" + +He looked at her, smiling easily. + +"Sweet Angela, not I! I know your genius--I worship it! See!" and +with a light grace he dropped on one knee, and snatching her hand, +kissed it--then springing up again, he said, "You are a great +creature, my Angela!--the greatest artist in the world,--IF WE CAN +ONLY MAKE THE WORLD BELIEVE IT!" + +Something in his voice, his manner, moved her to a vague touch of +dread. Earnestly she looked at him,--wonderingly, and with a +passionate reproach in her pure, true eyes. And still he smiled, +while the fiends of envy and malice made havoc in his soul. + +"My glorious Angela!" he said, "My bride, my beautiful one! A +veritable queen, to whom nations shall pay homage!" He threw one arm +round her waist and drew her somewhat roughly to him. "You must not +be vexed with me, sweetheart!--the world is a cruel world, and +always doubts great ability in woman! I only prepare you for what +most people will say. But _I_ do not doubt!--I know your power, and +triumph in it!" He paused a moment, breathing quickly,--his eyes +were fixed on the picture,--then he said, "If I may venture to +criticise--there is a shadow--there, at the left hand side of the +canvas--do you not see?" + +She disengaged herself from his clasp. + +"Where?" she asked, in a voice from which all spirit and hopefulness +had fled. + +"You are sad? My Angela, have I discouraged you? Forgive me! I do +not find fault,--this is a mere nothing,--you may not agree with +me,--but does not that dark cloud make somewhat too deep a line near +the faded roses? It may be only an effect of this waning light,--but +I do think that line is heavy and might be improved. Be patient with +me!--I only criticise to make perfection still more perfect!" + +Listlessly she moved closer to the picture, turning away from him as +she did so. + +"Just the slightest softening of the tone--the finishing touch!" he +murmured in caressing accents; while to himself he muttered--"It +shall not be! It shall never be!" Then with a swift movement his +hand snatched at the thing he always carried concealed near his +breast--a flash of pointed steel glittered in the light,--and with +one stealthy spring and pitiless blow, he stabbed her full and +furiously in the back as she stood looking at the fault he had +pretended to discover in her picture! One choking cry escaped her +lips-- + +"Florian--you! YOU--Florian!" Then reeling, she threw up her arms +and fell, face forwards on the floor, insensible. + +He stood above her, dagger in hand,--and studied the weapon with +strange curiosity. It was crimson and wet with blood. Then he stared +at the picture. A faint horror began to creep over him. The great +Christ in the centre of the painting seemed to live and move, and +float towards him on clouds of blinding glory. His breath came and +went in uneasy gasps. + +"Angela!" he muttered thickly,--"Angela!" She lay prone and horribly +still. He was afraid to touch her. What had he done? Murdered her? +Oh no!--he had done nothing--nothing at all,--she had merely +fainted--she would be well presently! He smiled foolishly at this, +still gazing straight at the picture, and holding the sharp blood- +stained blade in his hand. + +"My love!" he said aloud,--then listened--as though waiting for an +answer. And still he stared persistently at the glorious figure of +the Christ, till the Divine eyes seemed to flash the fire of an +everlasting wrath upon his treacherous soul. + +"To destroy the work? Or claim it?" he mused, "Either would be easy! +That is, if she were dead!--." he paused,--amazed at his own +thought. "If she were dead, it would be easy to swear _I_ had +painted the picture! If she were dead!" Again he listened. "Angela!" +he whispered. + +A door banging in the house startled him from his semi-stupor. His +eyes wandered from the picture to the inanimate form lying at his +feet. + +"Sweet Angela!" he said, a cold smile flickering on his lips, "You +were always unselfish! You wished me to be the greatest artist of my +time!--and perhaps I shall be!--now YOU are dead! My love!" + +A sudden clatter of horses' hoofs and rolling wheels wakened hollow +echoes from the great stone courtyard below. It was the Cardinal +returning from the Vatican. A panic seized him--his teeth chattered +as with icy cold. He sprang swiftly to the door by which Angela had +admitted him, and opened it cautiously,--then slinking out, locked +it carefully behind him, took the key,--and fled. Once in the +street, he never paused till he reached the corner of a dark +projecting wall over-looking the Tiber, and here, glancing nervously +round lest he should be observed, he flung his murderer's dagger and +the key of the studio both into the water. Again he paused and +listened--looking up at the frowning windows of the Palazzo Sovrani +which could be dimly seen from where he stood. He had not meant to +kill Angela. Oh no! He had come to the studio, full of love, +prepared to chide her tenderly for the faults in her work,--till he +saw that it was faultless; to make a jest of her ambition,--till he +realized her triumph! And then,--then the devil had seized him-- +then--! A scarlet slit in the western horizon showed where the sun +had sunk,--a soft and beautiful after-glow trembled over the sky in +token of its farewell. A boy came strolling lazily down the street +eating a slice of melon, and paused to fling the rind over the wall. +The innocent, unconscious glance of the stripling's eyes was +sufficient to set up a cowardly trembling in his body,--and turning +round abruptly so that even this stray youth might not observe him +too closely, he hurried away. And the boy, never regarding him at +all, strolled on with the mellow taste of the fruit he had just +enjoyed in his mouth, and presently, as if inspired thereby, awoke +the slumbering echoes of the street with his high, fluting young +treble, singing, "Che faro senza Eurydice!" + + + + +XXX. + +Meanwhile Cardinal Bonpre had once more reached his own apartments, +thankful enough to be there after his difficult experience at the +Vatican. But he was neither fatigued nor depressed by what had +occurred,--on the contrary he was conscious of an extraordinary +vigour and lightness of heart, as though he had suddenly grown young +again. Changing his scarlet robes of office for his every-day +cassock, he seated himself restfully, and with a deep sigh of +relief, in his easy chair near the writing-table, and first of all +closing his eyes for a moment, while he silently prayed for guidance +to the Supreme Judge of all secret intentions, he called Manuel to +his side. + +"My child," he said gently, "I want you to listen to me very +attentively. I do not think you quite understand what you have done +to-day, do you?" + +Manuel raised his eyes with a clear look of confidence. + +"Yes. I have spoken to the Head of the Church of Rome," he +answered,--"That is all. I have said to him, as Christ once said to +the very Peter whom he represents, 'Thou savourest not the things +that be of God, but those that be of men.'" + +The Cardinal regarded him straightly. + +"True! But for you, a mere child, to say to the Head of the Church +what Christ said to St. Peter, will be judged as blasphemy. I have +never urged you, as you know, to tell me who you are, or where you +came from. I do not urge you now. For I feel that you have been sent +to me for some special purpose--that young as you are, you have been +entrusted by a Higher Power with some mission to me--for you possess +the spirit of inspiration, prophecy and truth. I dare not question +that spirit! Wherever I find it, in the young, in the old, in the +wise or the ignorant I give it welcome. For you have uttered not +only what I have myself thought, but what half the world is +thinking, though you are only one of those 'babes and sucklings out +of whose mouth the Lord hath ordained wisdom.' But what you have +said at the Vatican will be judged as heresy--and I shall be counted +heretic for having permitted you to speak thus boldly." + +"Your permission was not asked," said Manuel simply, "I was summoned +to the Vatican, but I was not told what to say to the Pope. I spoke +as I felt. No one interrupted me. The Pope listened to all my words. +And I said no more than is true." + +"Truth is judged as libel nowadays in the world," answered the +Cardinal, "And we have to confront the fact that we have incurred +the displeasure, and have also invited the vengeance of the +Sovereign Pontiff. Thus we must expect to suffer." + +"Then he who is called the visible Head of Christianity objects to +the truth, and is capable of vengeance!" said Manuel, "That is a +strange contradiction! But I will suffer whatever he pleases to +inflict upon me. You shall suffer nothing!" + +The Cardinal smiled gravely. + +"My child, I am old, and whatever trouble is in store for me cannot +last long. But I must guard you from harm with all the remaining +powers of my life. Having constituted myself your protector and +defender, I must continue to protect and defend. And so, Manuel, +tomorrow or the next day I shall take you away to England. So far, +at least, I will defy the powers of Rome!" + +His eyes flashed, and his whole person seemed to be invested with +sudden strength, dignity and command. He pointed to the crucifix on +the table before him. + +"He, the Holy One of the Heavens, was crucified for speaking the +truth,--I can do no better than follow His divine example! If my +soul is stretched on the crossbeams of injustice--if every tender +emotion of my heart is tortured and slain--if I am stripped of +honour and exposed to contempt, what matter! My glorious Master +suffered likewise." + +Manuel was silent. He stood near the great chimney where the wood +fire burned and crackled, casting a ruddy glow through the room. +After a few minutes he turned his fair head towards the Cardinal +with an earnest, scrutinising gaze in his expressive eyes. + +"Then, dear friend, you are not angry? You do not reproach me for +what I have done?" + +"Reproach you? I reproach no one!" said Bonpre,--"Least of all, a +child! For you speak unconsciously--as genius speaks;--you cannot +weigh the meaning of your words, or the effect of what you say on +the worldly or callous minds which have learned to balance motives +and meanings before coining them into more or less ambiguous +language. No!--I have nothing to reproach you with, Manuel,--I am +thankful to have you by my side!" + +His eyes rested again upon the crucifix for a moment, and he went +on, more to himself than to the boy,-- + +"In the early days of our Lord, He spoke to the wise men in the +Temple, and they were 'astonished at his understanding and answers.' +But they did not reprove Him,--not then,--on the contrary, they +listened. How often in our own days do young children ask us +questions to which we cannot reply, and which they themselves +perchance could easily answer if they but knew how to clothe their +thoughts with speech! For the Spirit of God is made manifest in many +ways, and through many methods;--sometimes it whispers a hint or a +warning to us in the petals of the rose, sometimes in the radiance +of the sunset on the sea, sometimes in the simple talk of a child +younger even than you are,--'Except ye become as little children--!" + +He paused in his dreamy utterance, and turned in his chair +listening. "What is that?" There was a noise of hurrying footsteps +and murmuring voices,--that sort of half-muffled confusion in a +household which bodes something wrong,--and all at once Prince +Sovrani threw open the door of the Cardinal's apartments without +ceremony, crying out as he entered,-- + +"Where is Angela?" + +The Cardinal rose out of his chair, startled and alarmed. + +"Angela?" he echoed, "She is not here!" + +"Not here!" Prince Sovrani drew a sharp breath, and his face visibly +paled,--"It is very strange! Her studio is locked at both entrances- +-yet the servants swear she has not passed out of the house! Besides +she never goes out without leaving word as to where she has gone and +when she is coming back!" + +"Her studio is locked on both sides!" repeated the Cardinal, "But +that is quite easy to understand--her picture is unveiled, and no +one is to be permitted to see it until to-morrow." + +"Yes--yes--" said the Prince Pietro impatiently, "I know all that,-- +but where is Angela herself? There is no sign of her anywhere! She +cannot have gone out. Her maid tells me she was not dressed to go +out. She was in her white working gown when last seen. Santissima +Madonna!"--and old Sovrani gave a wild gesture of despair--"If any +harm has happened to the child . . ." + +"Harm? Why what harm could happen? What harm could happen?" said the +Cardinal soothingly,--"My dear brother, do not alarm yourself +needlessly--" + +"Let us go to the studio," interposed Manuel suddenly--"She may not +have heard you call her." + +He moved in his gentle light way out of the room, and without +another word they followed. Outside the studio door they paused, and +Prince Sovrani tried again and again to open it, calling "Angela!" +now loudly, now softly, now entreatingly, now commandingly, all to +no purpose. The servants had gathered on the landing, afraid of they +knew not what, and one old man, the Prince's valet, shook his head +dolefully at the continued silence. + +"Why not break open the door, Eccellenza?" he asked anxiously, "I +know the trick of those old locks--if the Eccellenza will permit I +can push back the catch with a strong chisel." + +"Do so then," replied his master, "I cannot wait--there is something +horrible in the atmosphere!--something that chokes me! Quick! This +suspense will kill me!" + +The old valet hurried away, and in two or three minutes, during +which time both Prince Sovrani and the Cardinal knocked and called +again outside the door quite uselessly, he returned with a strong +iron chisel which he forced against the lock. For some time it +resisted all efforts--then with appalling suddenness gave way and +flew back, the door bursting wide open with the shock. For one +instant the falling shadows of evening made the interior of the room +too dim to see distinctly--there was a confused blur of objects,-- +the carved summit of a great easel,--a gold picture-frame shining +round a wonderful mass of colouring on canvas--then gradually they +discerned the outline of a small figure lying prone at the foot of +the easel, stiff and motionless. With a dreadful cry of despair +Sovrani dashed into the room. + +"Angela! Angela!" + +Falling on his knees he raised the delicate figure in his arms,--the +little head drooped inanimate on his shoulder, and with the movement +a coil of golden hair became unbound, and fell in soft waves over +his trembling hands--the fair face was calm and tranquil--the eyes +were closed,--but as the distracted man clasped that inert, beloved +form closer, he saw what caused him to spring erect with a terrible +oath, and cry for vengeance. + +"Murdered!" he exclaimed hoarsely--"Murdered! Brother, come close!-- +see here! Will you talk to me of God NOW! My last comfort in life-- +the last gift of my Gita, murdered!" + +The affrighted Cardinal tottered forward, and looking, saw that a +deep stain of blood oozed over the soft white garments of the +lifeless girl, and he wrung his hands in despair. + +"My God! My God!" he moaned, "In what have we offended Thee that +Thou shouldst visit us with such heavy affliction? Angela, my +child!--my little girl!--Angela!" + +The servants had by this time clustered round, a pale and terrified +group, sobbing and crying loudly,--only the old valet retained +sufficient presence of mind to light two or three of the lamps in +the studio. As this was done, and the sudden luminance dispersed +some of the darker shadows in the room, the grand picture on the +easel was thrown into full prominence,--and the magnificent Christ, +descending in clouds of glory, seemed to start from the painted +canvas and move towards them all. And even while he wrung his hands +and wept, the Cardinal's glance was suddenly caught and transfixed +by this splendour,--he staggered back amazed, and murmured feebly-- +"Angela! THIS is her work!--this her great picture, and she--she is +dead!" + +Sovrani suddenly clutched him by the arm, and drew him close to the +couch where he had just laid the body of his daughter down. + +"Now, where was this God you serve, think you, when this happened?" +he demanded, in a hoarse whisper, while his aged eyes glittered +feverishly, and his stern dark face under the tossed white hair was +as a frowning mask of vengeance,--"Is the world so rich in sweet +women that SHE should be slain?" + +Half paralysed with grief, the unhappy Cardinal sank on his knees +beside the murdered girl,--taking the passive hand he kissed it, the +tears flowing down his furrowed cheeks. Her magnificent picture +shone forth, a living presence in the room, but the thoughts of all +were for the dead only, and the distracted Sovrani saw nothing but +his child's pale, set face, closed eyes, and delicate figure, lying +still with the red stain of blood spreading through the whiteness of +her garments. None of them thought of Manuel--and it was with a +shock of surprise that the Cardinal became aware of him, and saw him +approaching the couch, raising his hand as he came, warningly. + +"Hush, hush!" he said, very gently, "It may be that she is not dead! +She will be frightened when she wakes if she sees you weeping!" + +Prince Sovrani caught the words. + +"When she wakes!" he cried, "Poor boy, you do not know what you say! +She will never wake! She is dead!" + +But Manuel was bending closely over the couch, and looking earnestly +into Angela's quiet face. Cardinal Bonpre watched him wonderingly. +And the old Prince stood, arrested as it were in the very midst of +his wrath and sorrow by some force more potent than even the spirit +of vengeance. The sobbing servants held their breath--and all stared +as if fascinated at the young boy, as after a pause, he took +Angela's hand that hung so inertly down, in one of his own, and with +the other felt her heart. Then he spoke. + +"She is not dead!" he said simply,--"She has only swooned. Let +someone fetch a physician to attend her--see!--she breathes!" + +With a wild, half-smothered cry Prince Sovrani sprang forward to see +for himself if this blessed news was true. He and the Cardinal both, +seized with a passionate anxiety, gazed and gazed at the fair +beloved face in hope, in fear and longing,--and still Manuel stood +beside the couch, stroking the small hand he held with thoughtful +care and tenderness. All at once a faint sigh parted the sweet +lips,--the bosom heaved with a struggle for breath. Her father fell +on his knees, overcome, and hiding his face in his hands sobbed +aloud in the intensity of his relief and joy, while the Cardinal +murmured a devout 'Thank God!' A few minutes passed, and still the +fluttering uncertain breathings came and went, and still Manuel +stood by the couch, quietly watchful. Presently the closed eyelids +quivered and lifted,--and the beautiful true eyes shone star-like +out upon the world again! She stirred, and tried to raise herself, +but sank back exhausted in the effort. Then seeing the Cardinal, she +smiled,--and her gaze wandered slowly to the bent, white-haired +figure crouching beside her, whose whole frame was shaken by sobs. + +"Father!" she murmured--"Dearest father! What is it?" + +He lifted his tear-stained, agonised face, and seeing that the +tender eyes regarding him were full of fear and wonder as well as +love, he instantly controlled himself, and rising from his knees, +kissed her gently. + +"I thought you were dead, my darling!" he said softly--"Hush now--do +not speak! Lie quite still! You are hurt a little,--you must rest!-- +you will be better,--much better presently!" + +But Angela's looks had again wandered, and now they were fixed on +Manuel. Over her whole face there came a sudden life and radiance. + +"Manuel!" she said eagerly--"Manuel, stay with me! Do not leave me!" + +Manuel smiled in answer to her appealing eyes, and came nearer. + +"Do not fear!" he said--"I will stay!" + +She closed her eyes again restfully, and her breathing grew lighter +and easier. Just then one of the servants entered with the physician +who was accustomed to attend the Sovrani household. His arrival +roused Angela completely,--she became quite conscious, and evidently +began to remember something of what had happened. The doctor raised +her to see where she was injured, and quickly cutting away her +blood-stained vesture, tenderly and carefully examined the wound. + +"I cannot understand how it is that she is not dead!" he said at +last--"It is a miracle! This is a stab inflicted with some sharply +pointed instrument,--probably a dagger--and was no doubt intended to +be mortal. As it is, it is dangerous--but there is a chance of +life." Then he addressed himself to Angela, who was looking at him +with wide-open eyes and a most piteous expression. "Do you know me, +my child?" + +"Oh, yes, doctor!" she murmured faintly. + +"Do you suffer much pain?" + +"No." + +"Then can you tell me how this happened? Who stabbed you?" + +She shuddered and sighed. + +"No one!--that I can remember!" + +Her eyes closed--she moved her hands about restlessly as though +seeking for something she had lost. + +"Manuel!" + +"I am here!" answered the boy gently. + +"Stay with me! I am so tired!" + +Again a convulsive trembling shook her fragile body from head to +foot, and again she sighed as though her heart were breaking,--then +she lay passively still, though one or two tears crept down her +cheeks as they carried her tenderly up to her own room and laid her +down on her simple little white bed, softly curtained, and guarded +by a statue of the Virgin bending over it. There, when her cruel +wound was dressed and bandaged, and the physician had given her a +composing draught, she fell into a deep, refreshing slumber, and +only Manuel stayed beside her as she slept. + +Meanwhile, down in the studio, Prince Sovrani and the Cardinal +stayed together, talking softly, and gazing in fascinated wonder, +bewilderment, admiration and awe at Angela's work unveiled. All the +lamps in the room were now lit, and the great picture--a sublime +Dream resolved into sublime Reality--shone out as much as the +artificial light would permit,--a jewel of art that seemed to +contain within itself all the colour and radiance of a heaven +unknown, unseen yet surely near at hand. The figure and face of the +approaching Saviour, instinct with life, expressed almost in +positive speech the words, "Then shall ye see the Son of Man coming +in the clouds with great power and glory"!--and if Cardinal Bonpre +had given way to the innermost emotions of his soul, he could have +knelt before the exalted purity of such a conception of the Christ,- +-a god-like ideal, brought into realization by the exalted +imagination, the holy thoughts, and the faithful patient work of a +mere woman! + +"This--" he said, in hushed accents--"This must be the cause of the +dastardly attempt made to murder the child! Some one who knew her +secret,--some one who was aware of the wonderful power and +magnificence of her work,--perhaps the very man who made the frame +for it,--who can tell?" + +Prince Pietro meditated deeply, a frown puckering his brows,--his +countenance was still pale and drawn with the stress of the mingled +agony and relief he had just passed through, and the anxiety he felt +concerning Angela's immediate critical condition. + +"I cannot hold the position yet!--" he said, at last--"That is to +say, I am too numb and stricken with fear to realize what has +happened! See you! That picture is marvellous!--a wonder of the +world!--it will crown my girl with all the laurels of a lasting +fame,--but what matter is it to me,--this shouting of the public,-- +if she dies? Will it console me for her loss, to call her a +Raffaelle?" + +"Nay, but we must not give up hope!"--said the Cardinal soothingly-- +"Please God, you will not lose her! Be glad that she is not dead,-- +and remember that it is almost by a miracle that she lives!" + +"That is true--that is true!" murmured old Sovrani, ruffling his +white hair with one hand, while he still stared abstractedly at his +daughter's picture--"You are very patient with me, brother!--you +have all the kindness as well as all the faithfulness of your +sister,--the sweetest woman the sun was ever privileged to shine on! +Well, well! What did you say to me? That this picture must have been +the cause of the attempted murder? Maybe,--but the poor hard-working +fellow who made the frame for it, could not have done such a deed,-- +he has been a pensioner of Angela's for many a long day, and she has +given him employment when he could not obtain it from others. +Besides, he never saw the picture. Angela gave him her measurements, +and when the frame was finished he brought it to her here. But he +had nothing whatever to do with setting the canvas in it,--that I +know, for Angela herself told me. No, no!--let us not blame the +innocent; rather let us try to find the guilty." + +At that moment a servant entered with a large and exquisitely +arranged basket of lilies-of-the-valley, and a letter. + +"For Donna Sovrani," he said, as he handed both to his master. + +The Prince took the basket of lilies, and moved by a sudden fancy, +set it gently in front of Angela's great work. Glancing at the +superscription of the letter, he said,-- + +"From Varillo. I had better open it and see what he says." + +He broke the seal and read the following: + +"SWEETEST ANGELA,--I am summoned to Naples on business, and +therefore, to my infinite regret, shall not be able to see the great +picture to-morrow. You know,--you can feel how sorry I am to +disappoint both you and myself in a pleasure which we have so long +lovingly anticipated, but as the Queen has promised to make her +visit of inspection, I dare not ask you to put off the exhibition of +your work till my return. But I know I shall come back to find my +Angela crowned with glory, and it will be reserved for me to add the +last laurel leaf to the immortal wreath! I am grieved that I have no +time to come and press my 'addio' on your sweet lips,--but in two or +three days at most, I shall be again at your feet. Un bacio di + +FLORIAN." + +"Then he has left for Naples?" said Bonpre, to whom Prince Pietro +had read this letter--"A sudden departure, is it not?" + +"Very sudden!" + +"He will not know what has happened to Angela--" + +"Oh he will be sure to hear that!" said the Prince--"To-night it +will be in all the newspapers both of Rome and Naples. Angela's +light cannot be hidden under a bushel!" + +"True. Then of course he will return at once." + +"Naturally. If he hears the news on his way, he will probably be +back to-night--" said Sovrani, but his fuzzy brows were still +puckered. Some uncomfortable thought seemed to trouble him,--and +presently, as if moved by a sudden inexplicable instinct, he took +the basket of lilies away from where he had set it in front of his +daughter's picture, and transferred it to a side-table. Cardinal +Bonpre, always observant, noticed his action. + +"You will not leave the flowers there?" he queried. + +"No. The picture is a sacred thing!--it is an almost living Christ!- +-in whom Varillo does not believe!" + +The Cardinal lifted his eyes protestingly. + +"Yet you let the child marry him?" + +Sovrani passed one hand wearily across his brows. + +"Let us not talk of marriage," he said--"Death is nearer to us to- +day than life! I am opposed to the match--I always have been,--and +who knows--who knows what may not yet prevent it--" He paused, +thinking,--then turning a solicitous glance on his brother-in-law's +frail figure he said--"Felix, you look weary,--let me attend you to +your own rooms, that you may rest. We need you with us,--it may be +that we shall need you more than we have ever done! Pray for us, +brother!--Pray for my Angela, that she may be spared--" + +His harsh voice broke,--and tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks. + +"See you!" he said, pointing in a kind of despair to the magnificent +"Coming of Christ"--"If Raffaelle or Angelo had dared to paint this +in their day, the world would be taking a lesson from it now! If it +were a modern man's work, that man would be a centre for hero- +worship! But that a WOMAN should create such a masterpiece!--and +that woman my Angela! Do you know what it means, Felix?--what Fame +always means, what it always must mean--for a woman? Just what has +already happened,--the murderous dagger-thrust--the coward stab in +the back--and the little child's cry of the tender broken heart we +heard just now--'Stay with me!--I am so tired!'" + +The Cardinal pressed his hand sympathetically, too profoundly moved +himself to speak. + +"This picture will bring down the thunders of the Vatican!--" went +on Sovrani--"And those thunders will awaken a responsive echo from +the world! But not from the Old World--the New! The New World!--yes- +-my Angela's work is for the living present, the coming future--not +for the decayed Past!" + +As he spoke, he dropped the silken curtain before the picture and +hid it from view. + +"We will raise it again when the painter lives--or dies!" he said +brokenly. + +They left the studio, Prince Pietro extinguishing the lights, and +giving orders to his servant to put a strong bar across the door +they had forced open,--and the Cardinal, feeling more lonely than he +had done for many days, owing to the temporary absence of Manuel who +was keeping watch over Angela, returned to his own apartments full +of grave thoughts and anxious trouble. He had meant to leave Rome at +once,--but now, such a course seemed more than impossible. Yet he +knew that the scene which had, through himself indirectly, occurred +at the Vatican, would have its speedy results in some decisive and +vengeful action, if not on the part of the Supreme Pontiff, then +through his ministers and advisers, and Bonpre was sufficiently +acquainted with the secret ways of the Church he served, to be well +aware of its relentlessness in all cases where its authority was +called into question. The first step taken, so he instinctively +felt, would be to deprive him of Manuel's companionship,--the next +perhaps, to threaten him with the loss of his own diocese. He sighed +heavily,--yet in his own tranquil and pious mind he could not say +that he resented the position his affairs had taken. Accustomed as +he was always, to submit the whole daily course of his life to the +ruling of a Higher Power, he was framed and braced as temperately +for adversity as for joy,--and nothing seemed to him either +fortunate or disastrous except as concerned the attitude in which +the soul received the announcement of God's will. To resent +affliction was, in his opinion, sinful; to accept it reverently and +humbly as a means of grace, and endeavour to make sweetness out of +the seeming bitterness of the divine dispensation, appeared to him +the only right and natural way of duty,--hence his clear simplicity +of thought, his patience, plain faith, and purity of aim. And even +now, perplexed and pained as he was, much more for the sorrow which +had befallen his brother-in-law, than for any trouble likely to +occur personally to himself, he was still able to disentangle his +thoughts from all earthly cares--to lift up his heart, unsullied by +complaint, to the Ruler of all destinies--and to resign himself with +that Christian philosophy, which when truly practised, is so much +more powerful than all the splendid stoicism of the heroic pagans, +to those + + "Glorious God-influences, + Which we, unseeing, feel and grope for blindly, + Like children in the dark, knowing that Love is near!" + +Meanwhile Prince Pietro, moved by conflicting sentiments and +forebodings which he was unable to explain to himself, and only +strongly conscious of the desire to be avenged on his daughter's +cowardly assailant, whoever it might be, muffled himself in a well- +worn "Almaviva" cloak, his favourite out-door garment, pulled his +hat down over his eyes, and so, looking like a fierce old brigand of +the mountains, went out, not quite knowing why he went, but partly +impelled by a sense of curiosity. He wanted to hear something,--to +find something,--and yet he could not agree with himself as to the +nature of the circumstance he sought to discover. There was a +lurking suspicion in his mind to which he would not give a name,--a +dark thought that made him tremble with mingled rage and horror,-- +but he put it away from him as a hint offered by the Evil One--an +insidious suggestion as hideous as it was unnatural. The afternoon +had now closed into night, and many stars were glistening bravely in +the purple depths of the clear sky,--the air was mild and balmy,-- +and as he crossed the road to turn down the little side street +leading to the Tiber, where Florian Varillo had stood but a few +hours previously, a flower-girl met him with a large basket of white +hyacinths and held them up to his eyes. + +"Ecco la primavera, Signor!" she said, with a smile. + +He shook his head, and turned abruptly away,--as he did so, his foot +struck against some slight obstacle. Stooping to examine it, he saw +it was the empty leathern sheath of a dagger. He picked it up, and +studied it intently. It was elaborately adorned with old rococco +work, and was evidently the ornamental covering of one of those +small but deadly weapons which Italians, both men and women, so +often wear concealed about their persons, for the purpose of taking +vengeance, when deemed necessary, on an unsuspecting enemy. Slipping +the thing into his pocket, the Prince looked about him, and soon +recognised his bearings,--he was standing about six yards away from +the private back-entrance to his daughter's studio. He walked up to +the door and tried it,--it was fast locked. + +"Yes--I remember!--the servants told me--both doors were locked,-- +and from this they said the key was gone,--" he muttered, then +paused. + +Presently, actuated by a sudden impulse, he turned and walked +swiftly with long impatient strides through the more populated +quarters of Rome towards the Corso, and he had not proceeded very +far in this direction before he heard a frenzied and discordant +shouting which, though he knew it did not yet bear the truth in its +harsh refrain, yet staggered him and made his heart almost stand +still with an agony of premonitory fear. + + "Morte di Angela Sovrani!" + "Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!" + "Morte subito di Angela Sovrani!" + "Assassinamento crudele della bella Sovrani!" + +Prince Pietro held his breath in sharp pain, listening. How horrible +was the persistent cry of the newsvendors!--hoarse and shrill--now +near--now far!-- + + "Morte di Angela Sovrani!" + +How horrible!--how horrible! He put his hands to his ears to try and +shut out the din. He had not expected any public outcry--not so +soon--but ill news travels fast, and no doubt the very servants of +his own household were responsible for having, in the extremity of +their terror, given away the report of Angela's death. The terrible +shouts were like so many cruel blows on his brain,--yet--half- +reeling with the shock of them, he still went on his way,--straight +on to the house and studio of Florian Varillo. There, he rang the +bell loudly and impatiently. A servant opened the door in haste, and +stared aghast at the tall old man with the white hair and blazing +eyes, who was wrapped in a dark cloak, the very folds of which +seemed to tremble with the suppressed rage of the form it enveloped. + +"Il Principe Souvrani!" he stammered feebly, falling back a little +from the threshold. + +"Where is your master?" demanded Sovrani. + +"Eccellenza, he has gone to Naples!" + +"When did he leave?" + +"But two hours ago, Eccellenza!" + +Prince Pietro held up the dagger-sheath he had just found. + +"This--belongs--to--him--does it not?" he asked slowly, detaching +his words with careful directness. + +The man answered readily and at once. + +"Yes, Eccellenza!" + +Sovrani uttered a terrible oath. + +"Let me pass!" + +The servant made a gesture of protest. + +"But--Eccellenza--my master is not here! . . ." + +Prince Pietro paying no heed to him, strode into the house, and +brusquely threw open the door of a room which he knew to be +Varillo's own specially private retreat. A woman with a mass of +bright orange-gold hair, half-dressed in a tawdry blue peignoir +trimmed with cheap lace, was sprawling lazily on a sofa smoking a +cigarette. She sprang up surprised and indignant,--but shrank back +visibly as she recognised the intruder, and met the steady tigerish +glare of the old man's eyes. + +"Where is your lover?" he asked. + +"Eccellensa! You amaze--you insult me--!" + +"Basta!" and Sovrani came a step nearer to her, his wrath seeming to +literally encompass him like a thunder-cloud--"Play me no tricks! +This is not the time for lying! I repeat my question--where is he? +You, the companion of his closest thoughts,--you, his 'model'--you, +Mademoiselle Pon-Pon, his mistress--you must know all his movements. +Tell me then, where he is--or by heaven, if you do not, I will have +you arrested for complicity in murder!" + +She fell back from him trembling, her full red mouth half open,--and +her face paling with terror. + +"Murder!" she whispered--"Dio mio! Dio mio!" + +"Yes--murder!" and the Prince thrust before her wide-opened eyes the +dagger-sheath he held--"What! Have you not heard? Not yet? Not +though the whole city rings with the news? What news? That Angela +Sovrani is dead! That she--my daughter--the sweetest, purest, most +innocent and loving of women as well as the greatest and most +gifted--has been mortally stabbed in her own studio this very day by +some cowardly fiend unknown! Unknown did I say? Not so--known! This +sheath belongs to Florian Varillo. Where is he? Tell me at once--if +only to save YOURSELF trouble!" + +Overcome by fear, and to do her justice, horror as well, the +miserable Pon-Pon threw herself on her knees. + +"I swear he has gone to Naples!" she cried--"On my word!--as I +live!--I swear it!--he has gone! He seemed as usual,--he was not in +any haste--he left no message--he said he would be back in two or +three days--he sent flowers to la Donna Sovrani--he wrote to her + . . . O Santissima Virgine! . . . I swear to you I know nothing!" + +The Prince eyed her with grim attention. + +"They are shouting it in the streets--" he said--"Listen!" He held +up one hand,--she cowered on the floor--she could hear nothing, and +she stared at him in fascinated terror--"They are telling all Rome +of the death of my child! First Rome--and then--the world! The world +shall hear of it! For there is only one Angela Sovrani,--and earth +and heaven cry out for justice in her name! Tell this to the devil +who has bought you for his pleasure! I leave the message with you,-- +tell him that when the world clamours for vengeance upon her +murderer, I KNOW WHERE TO FIND HIM!" + +With that, he put the dagger-sheath back in his breastpocket with +jealous care, and left her where she crouched, shivering and +moaning. Walking as in a dream he brushed past the astonished and +frightened servant unseeingly, and went out of the house into the +street once more. There he paused dizzily,--the stars appeared to +rock in the sky, and the houses seemed moving slowly round him in a +sort of circular procession. The shouting of the newsvendors which +had ceased for a while, began again with even louder persistency. + +"Morte di Angela Sovrani!" + +"La bella Sovrani!--Assassinamento crudele!" + +The old man's heart beat in strong hammer-strokes,--he listened +vaguely,--his tall figure shaking a little with the storm pent-up +within him, till all at once as if the full realization of the +position had only just burst upon him, he uttered a sharp cry-- + +"Her lover! Her promised husband! One whom she trusted and loved +more than her own father! The hope of her life!--the man whose +praise was sweeter to her than the plaudits of the whole world!--he- +-even he--her MURDERER! For even if she lives in body, he has +murdered her soul!" + +He looked up at the deep starlit heavens, his dark face growing +livid in the intensity of his wrath and pain. + +"May God curse him!" he whispered thickly--"May all evil track his +footsteps, and the terrors of a cursed conscience hound him to his +death! May he never know peace by day or night!--may the devils in +his own soul destroy him! God curse him!" + +He clenched his fist and raised it threateningly,--and gathering his +cloak about him tried to walk on,--but there was a black mist before +his eyes . . . he could not see--he stumbled forward blindly, and would +have fallen, had not a strong arm caught him and held him upright. +He turned a dazed and wondering look on the man whose friendly grasp +supported him,--then, with an exclamation, made a trembling attempt +to raise his hat. + +"Il Re!" he murmured feebly--"Il Re!" + +King Humbert--for it was he--held him still more closely. + +"Courage, amico!" he said kindly--"Courage!--yes--yes!--I know--I +have heard the news! All Italy will give you vengeance for your +child! We will spare no pains to discover her murderer. But now--you +are ill--you are weary--do not try to speak--come with me! Let me +take you home--come!" + +A great sob broke from the old man's breast as he yielded to his +Sovereign's imperative yet gentle guidance, and before he could +realize the situation, he was in the King's own carriage, with the +King beside him, being rapidly driven back to his own house. Arrived +at the Palazzo Sovrani, a strange sight greeted them. The great +porte-cochere was wide open, and, pressing through it, and +surrounding the stately building at every point was a vast crowd,-- +densely packed and almost absolutely silent. Quite up to the inner +portico these waiting thousands pressed,--though, as they recognised +the Royal liveries, they did their best to make immediate way, and a +low murmur arose "Evviva il Re!" But there was no loud shouting, and +the continued hush was more distinctly recognisable than the murmur. +Prince Sovrani gazed bewilderedly at the great throng as the +carriage moved slowly through, and putting his hand to his head +murmured-- + +"What--what is this! I do not understand--why are these people +here?" + +The King pressed his hand. + +"All the world honours and loves your daughter, my friend!" he said, +"And Rome, the Mother of Nations, mourns the loss of her youngest +child of genius." + +"No--no, not loss!--she is not dead--" began Sovrani stammeringly,-- +"I should have told your Majesty--she is grievously wounded--but not +dead . . ." + +At that moment the carriage stopped. The door of the Sovrani palace +was open, and in the centre of a group of people that had gathered +within, among whom were Aubrey Leigh, Sylvie Hermenstein, and the +Princesse D'Agramont, stood Cardinal Bonpre and Manuel. Manuel was a +little in advance of the rest, and as the King and Prince Sovrani +alighted, he came fully forward, his eyes shining, and a smile upon +his lips. + +"She will recover!" he said, "She is sleeping peacefully,--and all +is well!" His voice rang clear and sweet, and was heard by everyone +on the outskirts of the crowd. The good news ran from mouth to +mouth, till all the people caught it up and responded with one +brief, subdued, but hearty cheer. Then, without bidding, they began +to disperse, and the King, baring his head in the presence of +Cardinal Bonpre, gave up his self-imposed charge of old Sovrani, +who, faint and feeble, grasped Aubrey Leigh's quickly proffered arm, +and leaned heavily upon it. + +"He needs care," said Humbert gently,--"The shock has moved him +greatly!" + +"Your Majesty is ever considerate of the sorrows of others," said +the venerable Felix with emotion, "And God will bless you as He +blesses all good men!" + +The King bowed reverently to the benediction. Then he looked up with +a slight smile. + +"It is not wise of your Eminence to say so,--in Rome!" he observed,- +-"But I thank you, and am grateful!" + +His keen eyes rested for a moment on Manuel,--and the fair aspect of +the boy seemed to move him to a sense of wonder--but he did not +speak. With a light salute to all present he re-entered his carriage +and was driven away--and Aubrey Leigh led Prince Sovrani into his +own library where, when he was seated, they all waited upon him +eagerly, the fair Sylvie chafing his cold hands, and the Princesse +D'Agramont practically making him drink a glass of good wine. +Gradually, warmth and colour and animation came back to his pale +features,--his fears were soothed,--his heart relieved, and a smile +crossed his lips as he met Sylvie's earnest, anxious eyes. + +"What a pretty rosebud it is!" he said softly,--"Full of sunshine-- +and love!" + +With returning strength he gathered up the forces of his native +pride and independence and rose from his chair. + +"I am well--quite well again now!" he said, "Where is the boy, +Manuel?" + +"Gone back to Angela," replied the Cardinal, "He said he would watch +her until she wakes." + +"An angel watching an angel!" then said the Prince musingly, "That +is as it should be!" He paused a moment, "The King was very kind. +And you, Princesse--and you, bella Contessina!" and he courteously +bent over Sylvie's little hand and kissed it,--"You are all much too +good to an old man like me! I am strong again--I shall be ready to +speak--when Angela bids. But I must wait. I must wait!" He ruffled +his white hair with one hand and looked at them all very strangely. +"That was a great crowd outside--all waiting to hear news of my +girl! If--if they knew who it was that stabbed her--" + +"Do you know?" cried Aubrey quickly. + +"Per Dio!" And Sovrani smiled, "I thought Englishmen were +phlegmatic, and here is one ablaze, and ready to burst like a bomb! +No!--I did not say I knew!--but I say, if the crowd had known, they +would have lynched him! Yes, they would have torn him to pieces! + . . . and he would have deserved it! He will deserve it!--If he is ever +found! Come--we will all sup here together this evening--sorrow +strengthens the bonds of friendship . . . and I will tell you . . ." + +He paused, and again the strange far-off look came into his eyes. + +"I will tell you--" he went on slowly--"how I found my Angela lying +dead, as I thought--dead at the feet of Christ!" + + + + +XXXI. + +Meanwhile Florian Varillo had not gone to Naples. He had been turned +back by a spectre evoked from his own conscience--coward fear. He +was on his way to the station when he suddenly discovered that he +had lost the sheath of his dagger. A cold perspiration broke out on +his forehead as this fact flashed upon him. What had he done with +it? Surely he had drawn the weapon out and left the sheath in his +breast pocket as usual--but no!--search as he would, he could not +find it. It must have dropped on the floor of Angela's studio! If +that were so, he would be traced!--most surely traced--as the sheath +was of curious and uncommon workmanship, and many of his friends had +seen it. He had told everybody he was going to Naples, and of course +he would be followed there. Then, he would not go! But he went to +the station as if bent on the journey, and took a ticket for Naples. +Then, setting down his portmanteau on a bench, he surreptitiously +tore off the label on which his name was written, and tearing it up +in small bits scattered the fragments on the line. After this, he +walked away leisurely, leaving the portmanteau behind him for there +was nothing in it by which he could be traced, and sauntered slowly +out of the station into the streets of Rome once more. Hailing the +first fiacre he saw, he told the driver to take him to Frascati. The +man was either lazy or sulky. + +"Why not take the train, Signor?" + +"Because I wish to drive!" replied Varillo. "What is your fare?" + +"Twenty-five francs for half the way!" said the man, showing his +white teeth in a mischievous grin. + +"Good!" + +The driver was surprised, as he had not thought his terms would be +accepted. But he made no further demur, and Varillo jumped into the +vehicle, his teeth chattering with an inward terror he could not +control. "Drive quickly!" he said. + +The man shouted an affirmative, and they clattered away through the +streets, Varillo shrinking back in the carriage overcome by panic. +What a fool he had been!--what a fool! He ought to have told Pon- +Pon. If the dagger-sheath were found and taken to his residence, it +would be recognised instantly! And all Rome would rise against +Angela Sovrani's murderer. Murderer! Yes,--that was what he had +chosen to make of himself! + +"It was all an impulse," he muttered,--"Just a hot impulse, nothing +more! Just a sudden hatred of her which made me stab her! It was +enough to make any man angry to see such a picture as that painted +by a woman! Her fame would have ruined mine! But I never meant to +kill her--no--no, I never meant to kill her!" + +Shuddering and whimpering, he huddled himself in a corner of the +carriage, and did not dare to look out of the window to see which +way he was being driven. He only rallied a little when the wheels +moved more quietly and smoothly, and he knew that he was on the open +road, and out of Rome. Suddenly, after jolting along a considerable +time, the vehicle stopped, and the driver shouted to him. Varillo +dashed down the window and put his head out, almost beside himself +with rage. + +"What are you stopping for! What are you stopping for!" he yelled. +"Go on--go on--we are not half way to Frascati yet! Go on, I tell +you!" + +"Ma-che! Eccellenza, I only stopped to ask a question!" + +"What question--what? Is this a time for asking questions?" cried +Varillo,--"The night is falling,--I want to get on!" + +"But we are going on as fast as we can!" expostulated the driver,-- +"It is only this--there is an albergo on the way--where we can get +food and wine. Would the Eccellenza like to stop there? It is as far +as I can go, for I am wanted to-night in Rome." + +"Very well--stop where you like--only get on now!" said Varillo, +pulling his head in with a jerk. And sinking back in his seat again +he wiped his hot face and cursed his miserable destiny. It would +have been all right if he had only remembered that sheath! No one +would have got on such a track of suspicion as that he, the lover +and affianced husband of Angela, was her brutal assassin! + +"I wrote a loving letter and sent her flowers," he argued with +himself, "when I knew she would be dead! But her father would have +got them, and he would have wired to me in Naples, and I should have +come back overcome with sorrow,--and then I should have told them +all how the picture was a secret between my Angela and myself,--how +_I_ had painted the greater part of it, and how she in her sweetness +had wished me to surprise the world,--the plan was perfect, but it +is all spoiled!--spoiled utterly through that stupid blunder of the +sheath!" + +Such a trifle! It seemed to him incredible--unjust--that so slight a +thing could intervene between him and the complete success of his +meditated treachery. For notwithstanding the fact that he had been a +great reader and student of books, he now, in this particular hour +of his own emergency, completely forgot what all the most astute and +learned writers have always expounded to an inattentive world-- +namely, the fact that crime holds within itself the seed of +punishment. Sometimes that seed ripens quickly,--sometimes it takes +years to grow,--but it is always there. And it generally takes root +in a mere, slight circumstance, so very commonplace and casual as to +entirely escape the notice of the criminal, till the network of +destiny is woven so closely about him that he can no longer avoid +it,--and then he is shown from what a trifling cause the whole +result has sprung. Varillo's present state of mind was one of +absolute torture, for he felt that whoever found the sheath of his +dagger would at once recognise it and declare the owner. If Angela +had only been wounded,--if SHE had found it--she would never have +given up the name of its possessor,--the miserable man knew her +straight, pure soul intimately enough for that! + +"If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her +own life!" he said--"She was always like that! SHE would never +listen to anything that was said against me,--and if she lived, she +would love me still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!" +and he actually smiled at the thought. "How strangely some women are +constituted!--especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted +standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it! They +are sublime fools!--and so useful to men! We can do anything we like +with them. We can ruin them--and they bear their shame in silence. +We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and +they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We +can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,--we +can murder them--" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they +die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them! Extraordinary!- +-angelic--superb!--and a wise Fate has ordained that we men shall +never sacrifice ourselves for SUCH women, or go mad for the love of +them! We love the virago better than the saint; we are afraid of the +woman who nags at us and gives us trouble--who screams vengeance +upon us if we neglect her in a trifle--who clamours for our money, +and insists on our gifts--and who keeps our lives in a perpetual +fever of excitement and terror. But the innocent woman we hate--very +naturally! Her looks are a reproach to us, and we like to kill her +when we can--and we often succeed morally,--but THAT is not called +murder. The other way of killing is judged as a crime--and--then-- +the punishment is death!" + +As this word passed his lips in a whisper, he trembled violently. +Death! It had a chill sound--yet he had not thought so when he +associated it with Angela. For of course Angela was dead. Was she +not? Surely she must be--he had driven the dagger straight home! + +"She could not possibly live," he muttered--"Not after such a well +directed blow. And that amazing picture! If I could but claim it as +my work, I should be the greatest artist in the world! It would be +quite easy to make out a proof--only that cursed dagger-sheath is in +the way!" + +He was startled out of his reverie by another stoppage of the +carriage, and this time the driver jumped down from his box and came +to the door. + +"This is as far as I can take you, Signor," he said, looking +curiously at his passenger,--"It is quite half way to Frascati. +There is the inn I told you of--where those lights are," and he +pointed towards the left,--"The carriage road does not go up to it. +It is a great place for artists!" + +"I am not an artist!" said Varillo brusquely. + +"No? But artists are merry company, Eccellenza!--" suggested the +driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess +of amiability--"And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting +place on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there +are good-natured!" + +"Ah! There are brigands, are there?" said Varillo, getting out of +the fiacre and beginning to recover something of his usual +composure,--"And I daresay you are one of them if the truth were +known! Here is your money." And he gave the man two gold pieces, one +of twenty francs, the other of ten. + +"Eccellenza, I have no change--" + +"I want none!" said Varillo airily,--"You asked twenty-five francs-- +there are thirty. And now--as you say you have business in Rome, be +off with you!" + +The man needed no second bidding; delighted with his thirty francs, +he called a gay "Buona notte, Signor!" and turning his horse's head +jogged down the road at a tolerably smart pace. The horse knew as +well as the driver, that the way now lay homeward, and lost no time. +Varillo, left to himself, paused a moment and looked about him. The +Campagna! How he hated it! Should he pass the night at that albergo, +or walk on? He hesitated a little--then made for the inn direct. It +was a bright, cosy little place enough, and the padrona, a cheery, +dark-eyed woman seated behind the counter, bade him smiling welcome. + +Lodging--oh yes! she said, there was a charming room at the Signor's +disposal, with a view from the windows which in the early morning +was superb! The Signor was an artist? + +"No!" said Varillo, almost fiercely--"I am a tourist--travelling for +pleasure!" + +Ah! Then the view would enchant the Signor, because it would be +quite new to him! The room should be prepared at once! Would the +Signor take supper? + +Yes,--the Signor would take supper. And the Signor went and sat in a +remote corner of the common-room, with a newspaper of a week old, +pretending to read its contents. And supper was soon served to him,- +-a tasty meal enough, flavoured with excellent wine,--and while he +was drinking his third glass of it, a man entered, tall and broad- +shouldered, wrapped in a heavy cloak, which he only partially +loosened as he leaned against the counter and asked for a cup of +coffee. But as he caught sight of the dark face, Varillo shrank back +into his corner, and put up his newspaper to shield himself from +view,--for he saw that the new-comer was no other than Monsignor +Gherardi. His appearance seemed to create a certain amount of +excitement and vague alarm in the little inn; the padrona evidently +knew him well, and hastened to serve him herself with the coffee he +asked for. + +"Will you not sit down, Eccellentissima?" she murmured +deferentially. + +"No, I am in haste!" replied Gherardi, glancing carelessly about +him--"My carriage waits outside. There is strange news in Rome to- +night! The famous artist, Angela Sovrani, has been found in her +studio, murdered!" + +The padrona uttered a little cry. + +"Murdered!" + +"So it seems! Here are the papers from which they cry the news. I +will leave them with you. It is perhaps the judgment of Heaven on +the Sovrani's uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!" + +The mistress of the inn crossed herself devoutly. + +"Guiosto cielo!--Would Heaven punish a Cardinal?" + +"Certainly! If a Cardinal is a heretic!" + +The stout padrona clasped her hands and shuddered. + +"Not possible!" + +"Quite possible!" And Gherardi drained his coffee-cup. "And when so +great a personage of the Church is a renegade, he incurs two +punishments--the punishment of God and the punishment of the Church! +The one comes first--the other comes--afterwards! Buena notte!" + +And throwing down the money for his refreshment, Gherardi cast +another glance around him, muffled himself up in his coat and went +out into the night. Florian Varillo breathed again. But he was not +left in peace for long. The padrona summoned her husband from the +kitchen where he performed the offices of cook, to read the +halfpenny sheets of news her visitor had left with her. + +"Look you!" she said in a low voice, "The wicked Monsignor who has +thee, my poor Paolo, in his clutches for debt, has just passed by +and left evil tidings!--that beautiful girl who painted the famous +pictures in Rome, has been murdered! Do you not remember seeing her +once with her father at Frascati?" + +Paolo, a round-faced, timid-looking little Piedmontese, nodded +emphatically. + +"That do I!" he answered--"Fair as an angel--kind-hearted too,--and +they told me she was a wonder of the world. Che, che! Murdered! And +who could have murdered her? Someone jealous of her fame! Poor +thing--she is engaged to be married too, to another artist named +Florian Varillo. Gran Dio! He will die of this misery!" And they +bent their heads over the paper together and read the brief +announcement headed "Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!" + +A sudden crash startled them. Varillo had sprung up from his table +in haste and overset his glass. It fell, shivering to atoms on the +floor. + +"Pardon!" he exclaimed, laughing forcedly,--"A thousand apologies! +My hand slipped--it was an accident--" + +"Do not trouble yourself, Signor," said the landlord, Paolo, +cautiously going down on his fat knees to pick up the fragments--"It +was an accident as you say. And truly one's nerves get shaken +nowadays by all the strange things one is always hearing! Myself, I +tremble to think of the murder of the Sovrani--the poor girl was so +innocent of evil--and see you!--we might all be murdered in our beds +with such villains about . . ." + +He broke off, surprised at the angry oath Varillo uttered. + +"Per Dio! Can you not talk of something else?" he said hoarsely,-- +"There is a murder nearly every day in Rome!" + +Without waiting for a reply he hastily strode out of the inn, +banging the door behind him. He had engaged his room there for the +night--true!--but--after all this foolish gabble he resolved he +would not go back. They would still talk of murder, if he did! +Murder was in the air! Murder seemed written in letters of fire +against the clear sky now luminous with the moon and stars! He was +in a fever and a fury--he walked on and on, little heeding where he +went. What the devil had brought Gherardi to that particular inn at +that particular time of night? He could not imagine. For though he +knew most scandals in Rome, the scandal of the priest's "villa +d'amour" at Frascati, was a secret too closely guarded for anyone +save the sharpest of professional detectives to discover, and he was +totally ignorant of it. He wondered restlessly whether the crafty +Vatican spy had seen him while pretending not to see? If that were +so, then he was lost! He could not satisfy himself as to whether he +had really escaped observation, and tormented by this reflection he +walked on and on, the burning impetus of his thoughts hastening his +footsteps. A cold wind began to rise,--a chill, damp breath of the +Campagna, bringing malaria with it. He felt heated and giddy, and +there was a curious sense of fulness in his veins which oppressed +him and made him uncertain of his movements. Presently he stopped, +and stood gazing vaguely from left to right. He was surely not on +the road to Frascati? There was a tall shadowy building not far from +him, surrounded with eucalyptus trees--he tried to locate it, but +somehow though, as a native of Rome and an artist, he was familiar +with most of the Campagna, he did not recognise this part of it. How +bright the stars were! Living points of fire flashing in dense +purple!--one could never paint them! The golden round of the moon +spreading wide reflections on the road, seemed to his excited mind +like a magic ring environing him, drawing him in, pointing him out +as the one criminal for whom all the world was seeking. He had no +idea of the time,--his watch had stopped. He began to count up +hours. He remembered that when he had gone to see Angela, it was +about four o'clock. He had known perfectly well that she was alone, +for he had seen the Cardinal drive past him in the streets on the +way to the Vatican, and he had heard at his "Cercolo" or club, that +Prince Sovrani had gone out of Rome for a few hours. And, thus +informed, he had timed his visit to Angela well. Then, had he meant +to kill her? No. He was quite certain that he never had had any such +intention. Then what had been his purpose? First, to see her +picture, and then to condemn it. Not harshly, but gently--with the +chill toleration and faint commiseration of the critic who pretends +to judge everything. He knew--none better--the glowing ardour and +enthusiasm of the genius which was as much a part of Angela as +colour is part of a rose,--his intention had been to freeze all that +warmth with a few apparently kind words. For he had never thought it +possible that she,--a mere woman,--could evolve from her own brain +and hand, such a poetic, spiritual and magnificent conception as +"The Coming of Christ." And when he saw what she had done, he +bitterly envied her her power,--he realized the weakness of his own +efforts as compared with her victorious achievement, and he hated +her accordingly, as all men hate the woman who is intellectually +superior to themselves. After all, there was no way out of it, but +the way he had chosen,--to kill her and make an end! To kill her and +make an end! He muttered these words over and over to himself, as he +stood irresolutely watching the broad patterns of the moonlight, and +thinking confusedly about the time. Yes,--it was four o'clock when +he went to Angela's studio,--it must have been five, or past that +hour when he left it,--when he slunk down the side-street which led +to the river, and threw the key and his dagger together into the +muddy tide. After that he had gone home,--and had superintended his +valet, while that individual packed his portmanteau for Naples--and +then--and then? Yes,--then he had written to Angela,--one of the +pretty gracious little notes she was accustomed to receive from +him,--how strange it was to write to a dead girl!--and he had gone +out to the nearest florist's shop, and chosen a basket of lilies to +send to her,--lilies were for dead maidens always,--and he had sent +the flowers and his love letter together. Then surely it must have +been about half-past six? He tried to fix the hour, but could not, +and again his thoughts went rambling on. After sending the lilies, +he had returned to his own house, and Pon-Pon had prepared a "petit +cafe" for him, and he had partaken of it, and had smoked a couple of +cigarettes with her, and then had said a leisurely good-bye, and had +started for the railway-station en route for Naples. What train had +he intended to go by? The eight o'clock express. He remembered that. +But on the way, he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath,-- +an unforeseen fatality that had turned him back, and brought him to +where he now stood meditating. How long did the driver of that +fiacre he hired, take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to +Frascati? This he could not determine,--but to his uncertain memory +it seemed to have been an unusually tedious and tiresome journey. +And now--here he was--with no habitation in sight save the solitary +building whose walls loomed darkly through the eucalyptus trees. He +went towards it after a while, walking slowly and almost +mechanically;--he was extremely tired, and an oppressive sense of +heat and weariness combined made him anxious to obtain a night's +lodging somewhere,--no matter in what sort of place. Anything would +be better than sleeping out on the Campagna, an easy prey to the +worst form of fever. As he approached more nearly to the house among +the trees, he saw that it was surrounded by a very high, closely +intertwisted iron railing,--and when he came within a few paces of +what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the sudden +heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air, +created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the +sound. He paused,--and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,-- +then as its echo died away another deep monotone, steadily +persistent, began to stir the silence with words,--words, which to +Florian Varillo in his nervous excitation of mind sounded hellish +and horrible. + + "Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!" + "In die ilia tremenda!" + "Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!" + "Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!" + +He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With that +strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the +artistic, and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was +excessively superstitious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm +of death seemed to him at the moment, of supernatural and +predetermined origin, devised on purpose to intensify the growing +terrors of his coward conscience. + + "Tremens factus sum ego!" + "Et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque venerit ira!" + +Once more the great bell tolled heavily, and its discordant tone +seemed to tear his brain. He uttered an involuntary cry,--every weak +impulse in his soul was aroused,--and in the excess of a miserable +self-pity he longed to excuse himself for his crime of treachery and +cruelty to the innocent woman who loved him,--to throw the blame on +someone else,--if he could only find that someone else! Anything +rather than own himself to be the mean wretch and traitor that he +was. For he was a cultured and clever man,--a scholar,--an artist,-- +a poet;--these things were not consistent with murder! A man who +painted beautiful pictures,--a man who wrote exquisite verses,--he +could never be suspected of stabbing a helpless trusting woman in +the back out of sheer jealousy, like a common hired assassin! No no! +He could never be suspected! Why had he not thought of his +intellectual gifts,--his position in the world of art, before? No +one in their senses could possibly accuse him in the way he had +imagined!--and even if the dagger-sheath were found, some +explanation might be given,--someone else might be found guilty . . . + + "Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra; + Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!" + +Again that horrible bell! Moved by a sudden desperate determination +to find out what this mysterious chanting was, and where it came +from, he braced himself up and walked resolutely and quickly on to a +great gateway, cross-barred and surmounted with tall spikes,--and +there seized by fresh panic, he clung to the grating for support and +stared through it affrightedly, his teeth chattering and his whole +frame shaking as with an ague fit. What were those dark terrible +figures he saw? Were they phantoms or men? Gaunt and black and tall, +they swayed to and fro, now bending, now rising, in the misty +splendour of the moonlight,--they were busy with the ground, digging +it and casting out shovels full of earth in heaps beside them. Each +ghostly figure stood by itself apart from its companions,--each one +worked at its task alone,--and only their voices mingled in harsh +dismal unison as, with the next stroke of the solemn bell, they +chanted + + "Dies ilia dies irae, + Calamitatis et miseriae!" + +"No!" shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an +infuriated madman--"What are you doing in there? Who told you to +sing my mass or prepare my grave? I am not ready, I tell you! Not +ready! I have done nothing to deserve death--nothing!--I have not +been tried!--you must wait--you must wait till you know all--you +must wait! . . ." + +His voice choked in utterance, and thrusting one hand through the +grating he made frantic gesticulations to the spectral figure +nearest him. It paused in its toil and lifted its head,--and from +the dark folds of a drooping cowl, two melancholy deep-set eyes +glittered out like the eyes of a famished beast. The other spectres +paused also, but only for a moment,--the bell boomed menacingly over +their heads once more, and again they dug and delved, and again they +chanted in dreary monotone-- + + "Dies magna et amara valde, + Dum veneris judicare! + Libera nos Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda!" + +Wild with terror Varillo shook the gate more furiously than before. + +"Stop I tell you!" he cried--"It is too soon! You are burying me +before my time. You have no proof against me--none! I am young,-- +full of life and strength--the world loves me--wants me!--and I--I +will not die!--no I will not!--not yet! Not yet--I am not ready! +Stop--stop! You do not know what you are doing--stop! You are +driving me mad with your horrible singing!" And he shrieked aloud. +"Mad, I tell you!--mad!" + +For one hazy moment he saw some of the dark figures begin to move +towards him--he clutched at them--fought with them--tore at their +garments,--he would have killed them all, he thought, if the +moonlight had not come in between him and them, and shut him up in a +cold silver circle of ice from which he could not escape,--yet he +went on struggling and talking and shrieking, contending sometimes, +as he fancied, with swords and daggers, and trying to find his way +through strange storms of mingled fire and snow--till all at once +some strong invisible force swooped down upon him, lifted him up and +carried him away--and he remembered no more. + + + + +XXXII. + +Away in Paris, a vast concourse of people were assembled round an +open grave in Pere-la-Chaise, wherein the plain coffin of the Abbe +Vergniaud had just been lowered. The day was misty and cold, and the +sun shone fitfully through the wreaths of thin vapour that hung over +the city, occasionally gleaming on the pale fine face of the famous +"Gys Grandit", who, standing at the edge of the grave spoke his +oration over the dead. + +"To this, to this," he cried, "oh people of Paris, we all must come! +Our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our grand reforms, our loves +and joys end here, so far as this world is concerned! He whom we +have just laid in the earth was skilled in many devious ways of +learning,--gifted with eloquence, great in scholarship, quick with +the tongue as with the pen, he was a man whom perchance all France +would have called famous had it not been for me! I am the blot on my +father's name! I am the sin for which he has made the last +expiation! People of Paris, for years he lived and worked among +you,--outwardly smiling, witty of speech and popular with you all,-- +but inwardly a misery to himself in his own conscience, because he +knew his life was not what he professed it to be. He knew that he +did not believe what he asked YOU to accept as true. He knew that he +had guilt upon his soul,--he knew that all the sins which none of +you could guess at, God saw. For there is a God! Not the God of the +priests, but the God of the Universe and of man's natural and +spiritual instinct. He from whom nothing escapes,--He who ordains +where every drop of dew shall fall,--He whose omnipresent vision +perceives the flight of every small bird in the air and +predetermines the building of its nest, and the manner of its end,-- +He is the God whom none can deceive. Those who dream they can play +false with Him are mistaken. This dead man, my father, living among +you for years, was contented for years to seem like you,--yes!--for +you all have something which you think you can cover up from the +searching eye of Fate; and many of you pretend to be what you are +not,--while many more wear the aspect of men over the souls of +beasts. My father who rests here to-day at our feet, was a priest of +the Roman Church. In that capacity he should have been clothed with +sanctity. Human, yet removed from common frailty. Yet reckless of +his order, heedless of his vows, he, priest as he was, turned +libertine, and betrayed an innocent woman. He destroyed her name-- +killed her honour--broke her heart! Libertines of all classes from +kings to commoners, do this kind of thing every day, and deem it but +a small fault of character. Nevertheless it is a crime!--and for a +crime there is always punishment! For everything that is false,--for +everything that is mean,--for everything that is contemptible and +cowardly, punishment comes,--if not soon, then late. In this case +vengeance was forestalled,--for the sinner, repenting in time, took +his vengeance on himself. He confessed his sin before you all! That +was brave! How many of you here to-day would have such courage! How +many of you would throw off your cloaks of virtue and admit your +vices?--or having admitted them, try to amend them? But this is what +my father did. And for this he should be honoured! He told you all +fully and frankly that his professions of faith were false and vain +and conventional; and that he had seemed to you what he was not. Now +the committal of a sin is one thing,--but the frankly repentant +confession of that sin is another. Some of you will say--Who am I +that I should judge my father? Why truly I am nothing!--and should +have been nothing but the avenger of my mother's life and broken- +hearted misery. For that I lived,--for that I was ready to die! What +a trivial object of existence it must seem to you Parisians +nowadays!--to avenge a mother's name! Much better to fight a duel +for some paltry dancer! Yes!--but I am not so constituted. From my +childhood I worked for two things--vengeance and ambition; I put +ambition second, for I would have sacrificed it all to the fiercer +passion. But when I sought to fulfil my vengeance, the man on whom I +would have taken it, himself changed it into respect, pity, +admiration, affection,--and I loved what I had so long hated! So +even I, bent on cruelty, learned to be kind. But not so the Church! +The Church of Rome cannot forgive the dead priest whom we have laid +in all-forgiving Mother Earth to-day! Had he lived, the sentence of +excommunication would have been pronounced against him,--now that he +is dead, it is quite possible it may still be pronounced against his +memory. But what of that? We who know, who feel, who think,--we are +not led by the Church of Rome, but by the Church of Christ! The two +things are as different as this grave differs from high Heaven! For +we believe that when Magdalen breaks a precious box of perfume at +the feet of Christ 'she hath wrought a good work'. We also believe +that when a man stands 'afar off', saying 'Lord, be merciful to me a +sinner!' he goes back to his house again justified more than he who +says 'Lord, I thank Thee I am not as other men!' We believe that +Right is right, and that nothing can make it wrong! And simply +speaking, we know it is right to tell the truth, and wrong to tell a +lie. For a lie is opposed to the working forces of Nature, and those +forces sooner or later will attack it and overcome it. They are +beginning now in our swiftly advancing day, to attack the Church of +Rome. And why? Because its doctrine is no longer that of Christ, but +of Mammon! This is what my father felt and knew, when he addressed +his congregation for the last time in Notre Dame de Lorette. He knew +that he was doomed by disease to a speedy death,--though he little +guessed how soon that death would be. But feeling the premonition of +his end, he resolved to speak out,--not to condone or excuse himself +for having preached what he could not believe all those years,--but +merely to tell you how things were with him, and to trust his memory +to you to be dealt with as you choose. He has left a book behind +him,--a book full of great and noble thoughts expressed with most +pathetic humility; hence I doubt not that when you see the better +soul of him unveiled in his expressed mind, you will yet give him +the fame he merits. His Church judges him a heretic and castaway for +having confessed his sin at last to the people whom he so long +deceived,--but I for this, judge him as an honest man! And I have +some little right to my opinion, for as Gys Grandit I have sought to +proclaim the thoughts of many--" + +He paused till the murmur of enthusiasm at mention of the name by +which he was known through France should have ceased. It rose on the +air in a sort of bee-like humming monotone, and then died away, +while many people stood on tip-toe and craned their necks eagerly +over each other's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the daring writer +whose works threatened to upset a greater power than any throne, the +Roman Church. + +"I have tried," he resumed quietly, "as I say, to proclaim the +thoughts of many! The people of France, like the peoples of many +other nations, are losing God in a cloud of priest-craft. Look up to +this broad canopy of heaven,--look up to yonder driving clouds heavy +with rain, through which the great sun gleams like a golden shield,- +-that is the temple of the real God! That sparkling roof of air +through which the planets roll in their tremendous orbits, bends +over the wise and the foolish, the just and the unjust; the sun +shines as kindly on the face of the street outcast as on that of the +great lady who is often more soiled in soul than her miserable +sister. The rich man can provide for himself no finer quality of +light than is vouchsafed to the poor. The flowers in the field +spring up as graciously under the feet of the beggar as the king. +The Church of the true God is Equality!--the altar, the sacrament, +the final resting-place of the dead, Equality! Your revolutionary +cry was and is still,--Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!--but when +you shout those words, you know not what you are calling for. Your +demand is instinctive,--the cry of a child for its parents. It is +not for temporal things that you clamouras the foolish imagine,--it +is for eternal things! Liberty of thought,--Equality in work-- +Fraternity in faith! But your political leaders, ever at work for +themselves, misread these words for you, even as your priests +misread Christ's Gospel. They make out for you that you want Liberty +of action--Equality of riches, Fraternity in position. These things +are by Nature's law, impossible. They are not wanted,--and +reasonable consideration will prove to you that you do not want +them,--otherwise you would be asking for a disordered universe, a +chaos instead of a world! The strong must always prevail,--but by +strong, I do not mean the strong liar or the strong evil-doer. No! +For a lie contains in itself the germ of rottenness which shall +kill--and the evil-doer is not strong but weak, because cowardly. +There is no strength in fear; no power in disease! Hence I repeat +again, the strong must prevail--and by the strong, I mean the Good! +Evil is always weak,--it flourishes for a day, a month, a year, or +if you will, a thousand years, for a thousand years are but a moment +in the sight of Heaven; but for ever and ever justice is done,--for +ever and ever Right comes uppermost, and the Strong which is God, +than whom is none stronger, and who is all Goodness--prevails! +Liberty of thought should be the privilege of every human creature, +but we must never mistake it for Liberty of action. Liberty of +action is restrained by law in the world of nature, and must be +equally restrained in the world of men. But insist on Equality in +work! What do I mean by Equality in work? I mean this,--that every +man's work is entitled to consideration and respect, in every phase +of life. The road-mender works well and makes a smooth way for men +and horses;--he deserves my honour for his skill,--he has it,--he +shall have it,--for I know he can teach me many things of which I am +ignorant. The chief of the State works well,--organizes;--puts grave +matters in order and establishes necessary government--he also shall +have my respect,--he has it,--he deserves his carriage and pair as +fully as the road-mender deserves his dinner. We should not grudge +or envy either man the reward due to their separate positions. The +nightingale has a sweet voice,--the peacock screams--the one is +plain in colour, the other gorgeous,--and there is no actual +equality; yet the one bird does not grudge the other its position, +inasmuch as though there is no Equality there is Compensation. So it +is with men. There is always Compensation in every lot. So it should +be; so it must be. Equality in work means simply, respect for every +kind of work done, and contempt for none except for him who does no +work at all! And lastly the word 'Fraternity.' Glorious word, +meaning so much!--holding suggestions of peace, joy and purity in +its mere utterance! Not a Fraternity of possession--for then should +we become lower than the beasts, who have their own separate holes, +their separate mates, their separate young--but Fraternity of +Faith!--the one Faith that teaches us to cry 'Abba Father,'--that +makes us understand Christ as our Brother--and all of us the +children of one family,--one creation moving on in process of +evolvement to greater things! Let any priest tell me that I am not a +child of God, and I will retort that he, by such an utterance, has +proved himself a child of the devil. Ignorant, sinful, full of +miserable imperfections as I am, I am of God as the ant is, the +worm, the fly!--and if I have no more of God in me than such +insects, still I am thankful to have so much! What priest shall dare +to say how much or how little of God there was in the composition of +this man lying in the grave at our feet, who was my father? +Excommunication! Who can excommunicate the soul from its Creator? +Who can part the sunbeam from the sun? Excommunication! The human +being who, on what he calls Church authority, shall thrust his +brother away from any form of communion which he himself judges and +accepts as valuable, is one of those whom Christ declared to be 'in +danger of hell-fire.' For there is no man who can, if he be true to +himself, condemn his brother man, or say to him, 'Stand back! I am +holier than thou!' Therefore, for him whom we lay down to rest to- +day, let there be pardon and peace! Let us remember that for all his +sins he atoned, by full confession;--by publicly branding himself in +the sight of that society in whose estimation he had till then +seemed something superior,--by voluntarily resigning himself to the +wrath of the Church of which he was a professed servant. Cursed by +his Creed, he may now perchance be blessed by his Creator! For he +died, clean-souled and true--washed of hypocrisy,--with no secret +vice left unhidden for others to rake up and expose to criticism. +Whatsoever wrong he did, he openly admitted--whatever false things +he said, he retracted. I believe--and I am sure we all believe, that +his spirit thus purified, is acceptable to God. He has left no lies +behind him--no debts--no wrongs to be avenged. He told you all, +people of Paris, what he was before he left you,--and, looking down +into this dark grave, we know what he is. A senseless, sightless, +stiffening form of clay, from which the soul that animated it into +action has fled. Let the Church excommunicate this poor corpse of my +father,--let it muster its forces against his memory as it will, I +swear before you all, that memory shall live! Yes--for I, his son, +will guard it; I whom he so late acknowledged as his own flesh and +blood, will be a shield of defence for his name till I die! If +priests would attack him, they must attack him through me!--and I, +despite a thousand Churches, a thousand Creeds, a thousand +Sacraments, will firmly maintain that a man who frankly repents his +sins and is openly honest with the world before he leaves it, is a +better Christian than he, who for the sake of mere appearances and +conventionality, juggles with death and passes to his Maker's +presence in a black cloud of lies! Better to be crucified with +Christ, than live with the High Priests and Pharisees of the modern +Jerusalem of our social conditions! Truth may seem to perish on the +Cross of injustice--it may be buried in a sealed sepulchre, the +entrance to which may be closed up by a great stone of Mammon-bulk +and heaviness--but the moment must come when the Angel descends from +Heaven--when the stone is rolled away--and the eternal, living God +rises again and walks the world in the glory of a new dawn!" + +He ended--and for a moment there was a deep silence. There had been +no funeral service, for no priest would attend the burial of the +heretic Abbe. So, after a brief pause, Cyrillon knelt down by the +grave,--and carried away by the solemnity of the scene, as well as +by their own emotional excitement, more than half the crowd knelt +with him, as, bending his head reverently over his clasped hands, he +prayed aloud-- + +"Oh God of Love, whose tenderness and care for Thy creation is +everywhere disclosed to us, from the smallest atom of dust, to the +stupendous majesty of Thy million worlds in the air,--give we +beseech Thee, to this perished clay which once was man, the beauty +which transforms vile things to virtuous, and endows our seeming +death with life! Let Thy eternal Law of Resurrection so work upon +this senseless body that it may pass through Earth to Heaven, and +there find finer grades of being, higher forms of development, +greater opportunities of perfection. And for the Soul, which is +Thine own breath of fire, O God, receive it, purified from sin, and +make it worthy of the final purpose for which Thou hast destined it +from the beginning! And grant unto us, left here to still work out +our own salvation on this the planet Thou hast chosen for our trial, +the power to comprehend Thy laws, and faithfully to obey them,--to +forgive as we would be forgiven,--to love as we would be loved,--and +to lift our thoughts from the appearance of this grave to the +Reality of Thy beneficence, which hath ordained Light out of +Darkness, and out of Death, Life, as proved most gloriously to us by +Christ our Brother, our Teacher and our Master! Amen!" + +His prayer finished, the young man rose, and taking a wreath of ivy, +which he had travelled to Touraine himself to bring from the walls +of the simple cottage where his mother had lived and worked and +died, he dropped it gently on the coffin and signed to the grave- +diggers to fill in the earth. Then turning to the crowd, he said, + +"My friends, I thank you all for the sympathy which has brought you +here to-day. 'It is finished.' The dead man is at rest! And now as +you go,--as you return to your own homes,--homes happy or unhappy as +the case may be, I will only ask you to remember that there is no +permanence or virtue in falsehood whether it be falsehood religious +or falsehood political,--and he who dies truthfully dealing with his +fellow-men, lives again with God, and is not, as Scripture says +'dead in his sins,' but born again to a new and more hopeful +existence!" + +With the last words he gave the sign of dismissal. The people began +to disperse slowly and somewhat reluctantly, every member of the +crowd being curious to obtain a nearer view of the young orator who +not only spoke his thoughts fearlessly, but whose pen was as a +scythe mowing down a harvest of shams and hypocrisies, and whose +frank utterance from the heart was so honest as to be absolutely +convincing to the public. But he, after giving a few further +instructions to the men who were beginning to close in his father's +grave, walked away with one or two friends, and was soon lost to +sight in one of the many winding paths that led from the cemetery +out into the road, so that many who anxiously sought to study his +features more nearly, were disappointed. One person there was, who +had listened to his oration in wonder and open-mouthed admiration,-- +this was Jean Patoux. He had taken the opportunity offered him in a +"cheap excursion" from Rouen to Paris, to visit a cousin of his who +was a small florist owning a shop in the Rue St. Honore,--and by +chance, he and this same cousin, while quietly walking together down +one of the boulevards, had got entangled in the press of people who +were pouring into Pere-la-Chaise on this occasion, and had followed +them out of curiosity, not at all knowing what they were going to +see. But the florist, known as Pierre Midon, soon realised the +situation and explained it all to his provincial relative. + +"It is the Abbe Vergniaud they are burying," he said,--"He was a +wonderful preacher! All fashionable Paris used to go and hear him +till he made that pretty scandal of himself a month or so ago. He +was a popular and a social favourite; but one fine morning he +preached a sermon to his congregation all against the Church, and +for that matter against himself too, for he then and there confessed +before everybody that he was no true priest. And as he preached,-- +what think you?--a young man fired a pistol shot at him for his +rascality, as everyone supposed, and when the gendarmes would have +taken the assassin, this same Abbe stopped them, and refused to +punish HIS OWN SON! What do you think of that for a marvel? And +something still more marvellous followed, for that very son who +tried to kill him was no other than Gys Grandit, the man we have +just heard speaking, though nobody knew it till a week afterwards. +Such a scene you never saw in a church!--Paris was wild with +excitement for a dozen hours, which is about as long as its fevers +last,--and the two of them, father and son, went straight away to a +famous Cardinal then staying in Paris,--and he, by the way, was in +the church when the Abbe publicly confessed himself--Cardinal +Bonpre--" + +"Ah!" interrupted Patoux excitedly, "This interests me! For that +most eminent Cardinal stayed at my inn in Rouen before coming on +here!" + +"So!" And Cousin Pierre looked rather surprised. "Without offence to +thee, Jean, it was a poor place for a Cardinal, was it not?" + +"Poor, truly,--but sufficient for a man of his mind!" replied Patoux +tranquilly,--"For look you, he is trying to live as Christ lived,-- +and Christ cared naught for luxury." + +Pierre Midon laughed. + +"By my faith! If priests were to live as Christ lived, Paris might +learn to respect them!" he said,--"But we know that they will not,-- +and that few of them are better than the worst of us! But to finish +my story--this Abbe and the son whom he so suddenly and strangely +acknowledged, went to this Cardinal Bonpre for some reason--most +probably for pardon, though truly I cannot tell you what happened-- +for almost immediately, the Abbe went out of Paris to the Chateau +D'Agramont some miles away, and his son went with him, and there the +two stayed together till the old man died. And as for Cardinal +Bonpre, he went at once to Rome with his niece, the famous painter, +Angela Sovrani,--I imagine he may have interceded with the Pope, or +tried to do so for the Abbe, but whatever happened, there they are +now, for all I know to the contrary. And we heard that the Church +was about to excommunicate, or had already excommunicated Vergniaud, +though I suppose Cardinal Bonpre had nothing to do with that?" + +"Not he!" said Patoux firmly, "He would never excommunicate or do +any unkind thing to a living soul--that I am pretty sure of. He is +the very Cardinal who performed the miracle in my house that has +caused us no end of trouble,--and he is under the displeasure of the +Pope for it now, if all I hear be true." + +"That is strange!" said Pierre with a laugh,--"To be under the +displeasure of the Pope for doing a good deed!" + +"Truly, it seems so," agreed Patoux,--"But you must remember there +was no paying shrine concerned in it! Mark you that, my Pierre! Even +our Lady of Bon Secours, near to Rouen as she is, was not applied +to. The miracle took place in the poor habitation of an unknown +little inn-keeper,--that is myself,--and there was no solemnity at +all about it--no swinging of incense--no droning of prayers--no +lighting of candles--no anything, but just a good old man with a +crippled child on his knee, praying to the Christ whom he believed +was able to help him. And--and--" + +He broke off suddenly and crossed himself. Pierre Midon stared at +the action. + +"What ails thee, Jean?" he asked brusquely,--"Hast thou remembered a +dead sin, or a passing soul?" + +"Neither," replied Patoux slowly, "But only just the thought of +another child--a waif and stray whom the good Cardinal found in the +streets of Rouen, outside our great Cathedral door. A gentle lad!-- +my wife was greatly taken with him;--and he was present in my house +too, when the miracle of healing was performed." + +"And for that, is there any need to cross thyself like a mumbling +old woman afraid of the devil?" enquired his cousin. + +Patoux smiled a slow smile. + +"Gently, Pierre--gently!" he said. "Thou art of Paris,--I of the +provinces. That makes all the difference in the way we look at life. +There are very few holy things in great cities,--but there are many +in the country. Every day when I am at home I go out of the town to +work in my field,--and I feel the clean breath of the wind, the +scent of the earth and the colours of the sky and the flowers,--and +I know quite well there is a God, or these blessings could not be. +For if there were only Chance and a Man to manage the universe, a +pretty muddle we should have of it! And when I see or think of a +holy thing, I sign the cross out of old childhood's habit,--so just +now, when I remembered the boy whom the Cardinal rescued from the +streets, I knew I was thinking of a holy thing; and that explains my +action." + +"How dost thou prove a waif of the streets a holy thing?" enquired +Pierre curiously. + +Patoux shrugged his shoulders, and gave a wide deprecatory wave of +both hands. + +"Ah, that is more than I can tell you!" he said,--"It is a matter +beyond my skill. But the boy was a fair-faced boy,--I never saw him +myself--" + +Midon laughed outright. + +"Never saw him thyself!" he cried,--"And yet thou dost make the sign +of the cross at the thought of him! Diantre! Patoux, thou art +crazy!" + +"Maybe--maybe," said Patoux mildly,--they were walking together out +of the cemetery by this time in the wake of the rapidly dispersing +crowd,--"But I have always taken my wife's word,--and I take it now. +And she has said over and over again to me that the boy had a rare +sweet nature. And then--the child whom the Cardinal healed,--Fabien +Doucet,--will always insist upon it that it was the touch of that +same boy which truly cured him and not the Cardinal at all!" + +"Mere fancy!" said Pierre carelessly,--"And truly if it were not for +knowing thee to be honest, I should doubt the miracle altogether!" + +"And thou wouldst be of the majority!" said Patoux equably--"For our +house has been a very bee-hive of buzz and trouble ever since a bit +of good was done in it--and Martine Doucet, the mother of the cured +child, has led the life of the damned, thanks to the kindness of her +neighbours and friends! And will you believe me, the Archbishop of +Rouen himself took the trouble to walk into the market-place and +assure her she was a wicked woman,--that she had taught her boy to +play the cripple in order to excite pity,--and I believe he thinks +she is concerned in the strange disappearance of his clerk, Claude +Cazeau. For this same Cazeau came to our house one night when +Martine was there, and told her he had instructions to take her to +Rome to see the Pope, and her child with her, for the purpose of +explaining the miracle in her own words, and giving the full life- +history of herself and the little one. And she was angry,--ah, she +can be very angry, poor Martine!--she has a shrill tongue and a wild +eye, and she said out flatly that she would not go, and furthermore +that she would not be caught in a priest's trap, or words to that +effect. And this clerk, Cazeau,--a miserable little white-livered +rascal, crawled away from my door in a rage with us all, and was +never seen again. The police have hunted high and low for trace of +him, but can find none. But I have my suspicions--" + +"What are they?" enquired Midon,--"That he went out like Judas, and +hanged himself?" + +"Truly he might have done that without loss or trouble to anyone!" +said Patoux tranquilly,--"But he thought too well of himself to be +quite so ready for a meeting with le bon Dieu! No!--I will tell you +what I think. There was a poor girl who used to roam about the +streets of our town, called Marguerite, she was once a sensible, +bright creature enough, the only daughter of old Valmond the +saddler, who died from a kick from his favourite horse one day, and +left his child all alone in the world. She was a worker in a great +silk-factory, and was happy and contented, so it seemed, till--well! +It is the old story--a man with a woman, and the man is most often +the devil in it. Anyway, this Marguerite went mad on her love- +affair,--and we called her 'La Folle,'--not harshly--for all the +town was kind to her. I mentioned her name once in the presence of +this man Cazeau, and he started as if an adder had bitten him. And +now--he has disappeared--and strange to say, so has she!" + +"So has she!" echoed Midon, opening his eyes a little wider--"Then +what do you suppose?--" + +"Just this," said Patoux, emphasizing his words by marking them out +with a fat thumb on the palm of the other hand--"That Cazeau was the +villain of the piece as they say in the theatres, and that she has +punished him for his villainy. She used to swear in her mad speech +that if ever she met the man who had spoilt her life for her, she +would kill him; and that is just what I believe she has done!" + +"But would she kill herself also?" demanded Pierre--"And what has +become of one or both bodies?" + +"Ah! There thou dost ask more than I can answer!" said Patoux. "But +what is very certain is, that both bodies, living or dead, have +disappeared. And as I said to my wife when she put these things into +my head,--for look you, my head is but a dull one, and if my wife +did not put things into it, it would be but an emptiness +altogether,--I said to my wife that if she were right in her +suspicions--and she generally is right--this Marguerite had taken +but a just vengeance. For you will not prove to me that there is any +man living who has the right to take the joy out of a woman's soul +and destroy it." + +"It is done every day!" said Midon with a careless shrug,--"Women +give themselves too easily!" + +"And men take too greedily!" said Patoux obstinately--"What virtue +there is in the matter is on the woman's side. For she mostly gives +herself for love's sake,--but the man cares naught save for his own +selfish pleasure. As a man myself, I am on the side of the woman who +revenges herself on her betrayer." + +"For that matter so am I!" said Midon. "Women have a hard time of it +in this world, even under the best of circumstances,--and whatever +man makes it harder for them, should be horse-whipped within an inch +of his life, if I had my way. I have a wife--and a young daughter-- +and my old mother sits at home with us, as cheery and bright a body +as you would find in all France,--and so I know the worth of women. +If any rascal were to insult my girl by so much as a look, he would +find himself in the ditch with a sore back before he had time to cry +'Dieu merci!'" + +He laughed;--Patoux laughed with him, and then went on,-- + +"I told thee of the miracle in my house, and of the boy the Cardinal +found in the streets,--well!--these things have had their good +effect in my own family. My two children, Henri and Babette--ah! +What children! God be praised for them! As bright, as kind as the +sunlight,--and their love for me and their mother is a great thing-- +a good thing, look you!--one cannot be sufficiently grateful for it. +For nowadays, children too often despise their parents, which is bad +luck to them in their after days; but ours, wild as they were a +while ago, are all obedience and sweetness. I used often to wonder +what would become of them as they grew up--for they were wilful and +angry-tempered, and ofttimes cruel in speech--but I have no fear +now. Henri works well at his lessons, and Babette too,--and there is +something better than the learning of lessons about them,--something +new and bright in their dispositions which makes us all happy. And +this has come about since the Cardinal stayed with us; and also +since the pretty boy was found outside the Cathedral!" + +"That boy seems to have impressed thee more than the Cardinal +himself!" said Midon--"but now I remember well--on the day the Abbe +Vergniaud preached his last sermon, and was nearly shot dead by his +own son, there was a rumour that his life had been saved by some boy +who was an attendant on the Cardinal, and who interposed himself +between the Abbe and the flying bullet,--that must have been the one +you mean?" + +"No doubt--no doubt!" said Patoux, nodding gravely--"There was +something about him that seemed a sort of shield against evil--or at +least, so said my wife,--and so say my children. Only the other day, +my boy Henri--he is big and full of mischief as boys will be--was +playing with two or three younger lads, and one of them like a +little sneak, stole up behind him and gave him a blow with a stick, +which broke in two with the force of the way the young rascal went +to work with it. Now, thought I, there will be need for me to step +out and stop this quarrel, for Henri will beat that miserable little +wretch into a jelly! But nothing of the sort! My boy turned round +with a bright laugh--picked up the two pieces of the stick and gave +them back to the little coward with a civil bow "Hit in front next +time!" he said. And the little wretch turned tail and began to boo- +hoo in fine fashion--crying as if he had been hurt instead of Henri. +But they are the best friends in the world now. I asked Henri about +it afterwards, and he turned as red as an apple in the cheeks. 'I +wanted to kill him, father,' he said,--'but I knew that the boy who +was with Cardinal Bonpre would not have done it--and so I did not!' +Now look you, for a rough little fellow such as Henri, that was a +great victory over his passions--and there is no doubt the +Cardinal's little foundling was the cause of his so managing +himself." + +Pierre Midon had nothing to say in answer,--the subject was getting +beyond him, and he was a man who, when thought became difficult, +gave up thinking altogether. + +And while these two simple-minded worthies were thus talking and +strolling together home through the streets of Paris, Cyrillon +Vergniaud, having parted from the few friends who had paid him the +respect of their attendance at his father's grave, was making his +way towards the Champs Elysees in a meditative frame of mind, when +his attention was suddenly caught and riveted by a placard set up in +front of one of the newspaper kiosks at the corner of a boulevard, +on which in great black letters, was the name "Angela Sovrani." His +heart gave one great bound--then stood still--the streets of the +city reeled round him, and he grew cold and sick. "Meurtre de la +celebre Angela Sovrani!" + +Hardly knowing what he was about, he bought the paper. The news was +in a mere paragraph briefly stating that the celebrated artist had +been found stabbed in her studio, and that up to the present there +was no trace of the unknown assassin. + +Passionate and emotional as his warm nature was, the great tears +rushed to Cyrillon's eyes. In one moment he realized what he had +been almost unconsciously cherishing in his own mind ever since +Angela's beautiful smile had shone upon him. When in the few minutes +of speech he had had with her she admitted herself to be the +mysterious correspondent who had constantly written to him as "Gys +Grandit," fervently sympathising with his theories, and urging him +on to fresh and more courageous effort, he had been completely +overcome, not only with surprise, but also with admiration. It had +taken him some time to realize that she, the greatest artist of her +day, was actually his unknown friend of more than two years' +correspondence. He knew she was engaged to be married to her comrade +in art, Florian Varillo, but that fact did not prevent him from +feeling for her all the sudden tenderness, the instinctive intimacy +of spirit with spirit, which in the highest natures means the +highest love. Then,--they had all been brought together so +strangely!--his father, and himself, with Cardinal Bonpre,--and she- +-the Cardinal's fair niece, daughter of a proud Roman house,--she +had not turned away from the erring and repentant priest whom the +Church had cast out; she had given him her hand at parting, and had +been as sweetly considerate of his feelings as though she had been +his own daughter. And when he was ill and dying at the Chateau +D'Agramont, she had written to him two or three times in the kindest +and tenderest way, and her letters had not been answered, because +the Abbe was too ill to write, and he, Cyrillon, had been afraid-- +lest he should say too much! And now--she was dead?--murdered? No!-- +he would not believe it! + +"God is good!" said Cyrillon, crushing the paper in his hand and +raising his eyes to the cloudy heavens--"He does nothing that is +unnecessarily cruel. He would not take that brilliant creature away +till she had won the reward of her work--happiness! No!--something +tells me this news is false!--she cannot be dead! But I will start +for Rome to-night." + +He returned to the cheap pension where he had his room, and at once +packed his valise. With all his fame he was extremely poor; he had +for the most part refused to take payment for his books and +pamphlets which had been so freely spread through France, preferring +to work for his daily bread in the fields of an extensive farm near +his birthplace in Touraine. He had begun there as a little lad, +earning his livelihood by keeping the birds away from the crops--and +had steadily risen by degrees, through his honesty and diligence, to +the post of superintendent or bailiff of the whole concern. No one +was more trusted than he by his employers,--no one more worthy of +trust. But his wages were by no means considerable,--and though he +saved as much as he could, and lived on the coarsest fare, it was a +matter of some trouble for him to spare the money to take him from +Paris to Rome. What cash he had, he carried about him in a leathern +bag, and this he now emptied on the table to estimate the strength +of his finances. Any possibility of changing his mind and waiting +for further news from Rome did not occur to him. One of his chief +characteristics was the determined way he always carried through +anything he had set his mind upon. In one of his public speeches he +had once said--"Let all the powers of hell oppose me, I will storm +them through and pass on! For the powers of Heaven are on MY side!"- +-the audacity and daring of this utterance carrying away his +audience in a perfect whirlwind of enthusiasm. And though it is +related of a certain cynical philosopher, that when asked by one of +his scholars for a definition of hell, he dashed into the face of +his enquirer an empty purse for answer, the lack of funds was no +obstacle to Cyrillon's intended journey. + +"Because if I can go no other way, I will persuade the guard to let +me ride in the van, or travel in company with a horse or dog--quite +as good animals as myself in their way," he thought. + +With a characteristic indifference to all worldly matters he had +entirely forgotten that the father whom he had just buried had died +wealthy, and that his entire fortune had been left to the son whom +he had so lately and strangely acknowledged. And when,--while he was +still engaged in counting up his small stock of money,--a knock came +at the door, and a well-dressed man of business-like appearance +entered with a smiling and propitiatory air, addressing him as +"Monsieur Vergniaud," Cyrillon did not know at all what to make of +his visitor. Sweeping his coins together with one hand, he stood up, +his flashing eyes glancing the stranger over carelessly. + +"Your name, sir?" he demanded--"I am not acquainted with you." + +The smiling man unabashed, sought about for a place to put down his +shiny hat, and smiled still more broadly. + +"No!" he said--"No! You would not be likely to know me. I have not +the celebrity of Gys Grandit! I am only Andre Petitot--a lawyer, +residing in the Boulevard Malesherbes. I have just come from your +father's funeral." + +Cyrillon bowed gravely, and remained silent. + +"I have followed you," pursued Monsieur Petitot affably, "as soon as +I could, according to the instructions I received, to ask when it +will be convenient for you to hear me read your father's will?" + +The young man started. + +"His will!" he ejaculated. He had never given it a thought. "Yes. +May I take a chair? There are only two in the room, I perceive! +Thanks!" And the lawyer sat down and began drawing off his gloves,-- +"Your father had considerable means,--though he parted with much +that he might have kept, through his extraordinary liberality to the +poor--" + +"God bless him!" murmured Cyrillon. + +"Yes--yes--no doubt God will bless him!" said Monsieur Petitot +amicably--"According to your way of thinking, He ought to do so. But +personally, I always find the poor extremely ungrateful, and God +certainly does not bless ME whenever I encourage them in their +habits of idleness and vice! However, that is not a question for +discussion at present. The immediate point is this--your father made +his will about eighteen months ago, leaving everything to you. The +wording of the will is unusual, but he insisted obstinately on +having it thus set down--" + +Here the lawyer drew a paper out of his pocket, fixed a pair of +spectacles on his nose, and studied the document intently--"Yes!--it +reads in this way:--' Everything of which I die possessed to my son, +Cyrillon Vergniaud, born out of wedlock, but as truly my son in the +sight of God, as Ninette Bernadin was his mother, and my wife, +though never so legalised before the world, but fully acknowledged +by me before God, and before the Church which I have served and +disobeyed.' A curious wording!" said Petitot, nodding his head a +great many times--"Very curious! I told him so--but he would have it +his own way,--moreover, I am instructed to publish his will in any +Paris paper that will give it a place. Now this clause is to my mind +exceedingly disagreeable, and I wish I could set it aside." + +"Why?" asked Cyrillon quietly. + +"My dear young man! Can you ask? Why emphasise the fact of your +illegitimacy to the public!" + +"Why disguise it?" returned Cyrillon. "You must remember that I have +another public than the merely social,--the people! They all know +what I am, and who I am. They have honoured me. They shall not +despise me. And they would despise me if I sought to hold back from +them what my father bade me tell. Moreover, this will gives my +mother the honour of wifehood in the sight of God,--and I must tell +you, monsieur l'avocat, that I am one of those who care nothing what +the world says so long as I stand more or less clear with the +world's Creator!" + +His great dark eyes were brilliant,--his face warm with the fire of +his inward feeling. Monsieur Petitot folded up his document and +looked at him with an amiable tolerance. + +"Wonderful--wonderful!" he said--"But of course eccentricities WILL +appear in the world occasionally!--and you must pardon me if I +venture to think that you are certainly one of them. But I imagine +you have nograsped the whole position. The money--I should saythe +fortune--which your father has left to you, will make you a +gentleman--" + +He paused, affrighted. Drawing himself up to his full height, young +Vergniaud confronted him in haughty amazement. + +"Gentleman!" he cried--"What do you mean by the term? A loafer?--a +lounger in the streets?--a leerer at women? Or a man who works for +daily food from sunrise to sunset, and controls his lower passions +by hard and honest labour! Gentleman! What is that? Is it to live +lazily on the toil of others, or to be up and working one's self, +and to eat no bread that one has not earned? Will you answer me?" + +"My dear sir, you must really excuse me!" said Petitot nervously--" +I am quite unable to enter into any sort of discussion with you on +these things! Please recollect that my life as a lawyer, depends +entirely on men's stupidities and hypocrisies,--if they all +entertained your views I should have to beg in the streets, or seek +another profession. In my present business I should have nothing +whatever to do. You perceive the position? Yes, of course you do!" +For Cyrillon with one of the quick changes of mood habitual to him, +smiled, as his temporary irritation passed like a cloud, and his +eyes softened--"You see, I am a machine,--educated to be a machine; +and I am set down to do certain machine-like duties,--and one of +these duties is,--regardless of your fame, your eccentric theories, +your special work which you have chosen to make for yourself in the +world,--to put you in possession of the money your father left you-- +" + +"Can you now--at once--" said Cyrillon suddenly--"give me enough +money to go to Rome to-night?" + +Monsieur Petitot stared. + +"To go to Rome to-night?" he echoed--"Dear me, how very +extraordinary! I beg your pardon! . . . of course--most certainly! I can +advance you any sum you want--would ten thousand francs suffice?" + +"Ten thousand francs!" Cyrillon laughed. "I never had so much money +in all my life!" + +"No? Well, I have not the notes about me at the moment, but I will +send you up that sum in an hour if you wish it. Your father's will +entitles you to five million francs, so you see I am not in any way +endangering myself by advancing you ten thousand." + +Cyrillon was quite silent. The lawyer studied him curiously, but +could not determine whether he was pleased or sorry at the +announcement of his fortune. His handsome face was pale and grave,-- +and after a pause he said simply-- + +"Thank you! Then I can go to Rome. If you will send me the money you +speak of I shall be glad, as it will enable me to start to-night. +For the rest,--kindly publish my father's will as he instructed you +to do,--and I--when I return to Paris, will consult you on the best +way in which I can dispose of my father's millions." + +"Dispose of them!" began Petitot amazedly. Young Vergniaud +interrupted him by a slight gesture. + +"Pardon me, Monsieur, if I ask you to conclude this interview! For +the present, I want nothing else in the world but to get to Rome as +quickly as possible!--apres ca, le deluge!" + +He smiled--but his manner was that of some great French noble who +gently yet firmly dismisses the attentions of a too-officious +servant,--and Petitot, much to his own surprise, found himself +bowing low, and scrambling out of the poorly furnished room in as +much embarrassment as though he had accidentally stumbled into a +palace where his presence was not required. + +And Cyrillon, left to himself, gathered up all the coins he had been +counting out previous to the lawyer's arrival, and tied them again +together in the old leathern bag; then having closed and strapped +his little travelling valise, sat down and waited. Punctually to the +time indicated, that is to say, in one hour from the moment Petitot +had concluded his interview with the celebrated personage whom he +now mentally called "an impossible young man," a clerk arrived +bringing the ten thousand francs promised. He counted the notes out +carefully,--Cyrillon watching him quietly the while, and taking +sympathetic observation of his shabby appearance, his thread-bare +coat, and his general expression of pinched and anxious poverty. + +"You will perceive it is all right, Monsieur," he said humbly, as he +finished counting. + +"What are you, mon ami?" asked Cyrillon; scarcely glancing at the +notes but fixing a searching glance on the messenger who had brought +them. + +"I?" and the clerk coughed nervously and blushed,--"Oh, I am +nothing, Monsieur! I am Monsieur Petitot's clerk, that is all!" + +"And does he pay you well?" + +"Thirty francs a week, Monsieur. It is not bad,--only this--I was +young a few years ago, and I married--and two dear little ones came- +-so it is a pull at times to make everything go as it should--not +that I am sorry for myself at all, oh no! For I am well off as the +people go--" + +Cyrillon interrupted him. + +"Yes--as the people go! That is what you all say, you patient, brave +souls! See you, my friend, I do not want all this money--"and he +took up a note for five hundred francs--"Take this and make the wife +and little ones happy!" + +"Monsieur!" stammered the astonished clerk--"How can I dare--!" + +"Dare! Nay, there is no daring in freely taking what your brother +freely gives you! You must let me practise what I preach, my friend, +otherwise I am only a fraud and unfit to live. God keep you!" + +The clerk still stood trembling, afraid to take up the note, and +unable through emotion to speak a word, even of thanks. Upon which, +Cyrillon folded up the note and put it himself in the man's pocket. + +"There!--go and make happiness with that bit of paper!" he said-- +"Who can tell through what dirty usurer's hand it has been, carrying +curses with it perchance on its way! Use it now for the comfort of a +woman and her little children, and perhaps it will bring blessing to +a living man as well as to a departed soul!" + +And he literally put the poor stupefied fellow outside his door, +shutting it gently upon him. + +That night he left for Rome. And as the express tore its grinding +way along over the iron rails towards the south, he repeated to +himself over and over again as in a dream-- + +"No--Angela Sovrani is not dead! She cannot be dead! God is too good +for that. He will not let her die before she knows--before she knows +I love her!" + + + + +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!" + + + + +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!" + + + + +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. + + + + +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!" + + + + +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!" + + + + +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!" + + + + +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?" + + + + +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?" + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Master-Christian +by Marie Corelli + diff --git a/old/mchri10.zip b/old/mchri10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6525fee --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mchri10.zip |