"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 pa.s.sing 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 n.o.bler 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 att.i.tude of fatigue and sorrow.

Sylvie was perplexed, and somewhat embarra.s.sed. 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 p.r.o.nouncing them,--but this apparent abandonment of reserve, this almost touching a.s.sumption 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 surpa.s.s 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!"

x.x.xIV.

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 a.s.sist 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 superst.i.tious. 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 G.o.d is as my betrothed husband's faith in G.o.d,--my heart is his,--my life is his! From henceforth we are together; and together we are content to go, after death, wherever G.o.d shall ordain, be it h.e.l.l 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 att.i.tude expressive of a relentless malice--"Your marriage, without the blessing of the Church of your fathers, shall be declared illegal!--your children p.r.o.nounced b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 pa.s.sionately. "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 pa.s.sion 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 sanct.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sionately together and raised them in an att.i.tude 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 a.s.serting the truth and grandeur of some specially n.o.ble 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 pa.s.s 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 'G.o.d 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 ma.s.s, to oppose yourself to the mighty force of Rome, is as though one daisy out of the millions in the gra.s.s 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. .h.i.therto 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 G.o.d-in-Man, is a mere secular system of avarice and tyranny! You pretend to save souls for G.o.d! 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 h.e.l.l!--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 pa.s.sion 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.