"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 PrincesseD'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.
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," repliedMoretti frigidly, "I am bound to convey the whole of this matter to HisHoliness."
"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 theCardinal 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?" queriedMoretti, 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!"
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?" pursuedMoretti, 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. IfIdid 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! GrandDieu! Is it possible!" Then advancing, she extended both her hands toCyrillon, "Monsieur, accept my homage! You have a supreme genius,—andwith 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."