"To-morrow I will see you again."

When he left her, the unhappy girl flung herself on her knees. "O most holy Virgin," she prayed, "thou to whom I have so often recommended myself, and who hast so often comforted me! Bring me out of this danger, bring me safely to my mother, and I vow unto thee to continue a virgin!

I renounce for ever my unfortunate betrothed, that I may belong only to thee!"

The Unnamed retired for the night, but not to sleep. "G.o.d pardons so many sins for one deed of mercy!" kept ringing in his ears. Suppose there was a G.o.d, after all? He had so many sins in need of pardon.

About daybreak a confused murmur reached his ear from the valley below; a distant chiming of bells began to make itself heard; nearer bells took up the peal, until the whole air rang with the sound. He demanded the cause of all this rejoicing, and was informed that Cardinal Boromeo had arrived, and that the festival was in his honour.

He went to Lucia's apartment, and found her still huddled up in a corner, but sleeping. The hag explained that she could not be prevailed upon to go to bed.

"Then let her sleep. When she wakes, tell her that I will do all she wishes."

Leaving the castle with rapid steps, the Unnamed hastened to the village where the cardinal had rested the previous night.

"Oh," cried Federigo Boromeo, "what a welcome visit is this. You have good news for me, I am sure."

"Good news! What good news can you expect from such as I?"

"That G.o.d has touched your heart, and would make you His own."

"G.o.d! G.o.d! If I could but see Him! If He be such as they say, what do you suppose that He can do with me?"

"The world has long cried out against you," replied Federigo in a solemn voice. "He can acquire through you a glory such as others cannot give Him. How must He love you, Who has bid and enabled me to regard you with a charity that consumes me!" So saying, he extended his hand.

"No!" cried the penitent. "Defile not your hand! You know not all that the one you would grasp has committed."

"Suffer me to press the hand which will repair so many wrongs, comfort so many afflicted, be extended peacefully and humbly to so many enemies."

"Unhappy man that I am," exclaimed the signor, "one thing, at least, I can quickly arrest and repair."

Federigo listened attentively to the relation of Lucia's abduction. "Ah, let us lose no time!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "This is an earnest of G.o.d's forgiveness, to make you an instrument of safety to one whom you would have ruined."

_IV.--In a Lazzeretto_

Thanks to his cousin, Renzo was enabled to earn very good wages, and would have been quite content to remain had it not been for his desire to rejoin Lucia. A terrible outbreak of plague in Milan spread to Bergamo, and our friend was among the first to be stricken down, his recovery being due more to his excellent const.i.tution than to any medical skill. Thereafter, he lost no more time, and after many inquiries he succeeded in tracing Lucia to an address in Milan.

Secure in an _alias_, he set out to the plague-stricken city, which he found in the most deplorable condition. Having found the house of which he was in search, he knocked loudly at the door and inquired if Lucia still lived there. To his horror, he found that she had been taken to the Lazzeretto!

Let the reader imagine the enclosure of the Lazzeretto, peopled with 16,000 persons ill of the plague; the whole area enc.u.mbered, here with tents and cabins, there with carts, and elsewhere with people; crowded with dead or dying, stretched on mattresses, or on bare straw; and throughout the whole a commotion like the swell of the sea.

"Lucia, I've found you! You're living!" exclaimed Renzo, all in a tremble.

"Oh, blessed Lord!" cried she, trembling far more violently. "You?"

"How pale you are! You've recovered, though?"

"The Lord has pleased to leave me here a little longer. Ah, Renzo, why are you here?"

"Why? Need I say why? Am I no longer Renzo? Are you no longer Lucia?"

"Ah, what are you saying? Didn't my mother write to you?"

"Ay, that indeed she did. Fine things to offer to an unfortunate, afflicted, fugitive wretch who had never done you wrong."

"But, Renzo, Renzo, you don't think what you're saying! A promise to the Madonna--a vow!"

"And I think better of the Madonna than you do, for I believe she doesn't wish for promises that injure one's fellow-creatures. Promise her that our first daughter shall be called Maria, for that I'm willing to promise, too. That is a devotion that may have some use, and does no harm to anyone."

"You don't know what it is to make a vow. Leave me, for heaven's sake, and think no more about me--except in your prayers!"

"Listen, Lucia! Fra Cristoforo is here. I spoke with him but a short while ago, while I was searching for you, and he told me that I did right to come and look for you; and that the Lord would approve my acting so, and would surely help me to find you, which has come to pa.s.s."

"But if he said so, he didn't know------"

"How should he know of things you've done out of your own head, and without the advice of a priest? A good man, as he is, would never think of things of this kind. And he spoke, too, like a saint. He said that perhaps G.o.d designed to show mercy to that poor fellow, for so I must now call him, Don Rodrigo, who is now in this place, and waits to take him at the right moment, but wishes that we should pray for him together. Together! You hear? He told me to go back and tell him whether I'd found you. I'm going. We'll hear what he says."

After a while, Renzo returned with Fra Cristoforo. "My daughter," said the father, "did you recollect, when you made that vow, that you were bound by another promise?"

"When it related to the Madonna?"

"My daughter, the Lord approves of offerings when we make them of our own. It is the heart, the will that He desires. But you could not offer Him the will of another, to Whom you had pledged yourself."

"Have I done wrong?"

"No, my poor child. But tell me, have you no other motive that hinders you from fulfilling your promise to Renzo?"

Lucia blushed crimson. "Nothing else," she whispered.

"Then, my child, you know that the Church has power to absolve you from your vow?"

"But, father, is it not a sin to turn back and repent of a promise made to the Madonna? I made it at the time with my whole heart----" said Lucia, violently agitated by so unexpected a hope.

"A sin? A sin to have recourse to the Church, and to ask her minister to make use of the authority which he has received, through her, from G.o.d?

And if you request me to declare you absolved from this vow, I shall not hesitate to do it; nay, I wish that you may request me."

"Then--then--I do request it!"

In an explicit voice the father then said, "By the authority I have received from the Church, I declare you absolved from the vow of virginity, and free you from every obligation you may thereby have contracted. Beseech the Lord again for those graces you once besought to make you a holy wife; and rely on it, He will bestow them upon you after so many sorrows."

"Has Renzo told you," Fra Cristoforo continued, "whom he has seen here?"

"Oh, yes, father, he has!"

"You will pray for him. Don't be weary of doing so. And pray also for me."

Some weeks later, Don Abbondio received a visit, as unexpected as it was gratifying, from the marquis who, on Rodrigo's death from the plague, succeeded to his estates.