you and me.’
He heard a soft sound, and she was kneeling beside him, close to the bars. Then her ungloved hand, cold and trembling, went out and rested lightly on his own for a moment.
‘Is it forgiveness?’ he asked, very low.
‘It is forgiveness,’ she said.
He pressed his forehead against his folded hands that rested upon the bars. Then he understood that she was praying, and he rose very quietly and drew back a step, as from something he held in great reverence, but in which he had no part.
She did not heed him and remained kneeling a little while, a slight and rarely graceful figure in dark grey against the rich shadows within the chapel. If any one passed near, neither he nor she was aware of it, and there was nothing in the attitude of either to excite surprise in such a place, except that it is unusual to see any one praying just there.
Maria rose at last, stood a few seconds longer before the gate, and then turned to Baldassare. Her face had changed since he had last seen it clearly; it was still pale and full of suffering, but there was light in it now. She stood beside him and looked at him quietly when she spoke.
‘I have not given you all my answer yet,’ she said. ‘I will tell you why I came here, because I wish to be quite frank in all there is to be between us. I told you the other day that I would not go to my confessor for advice. At least, that is what I meant to say. Did I?’
‘Yes. That was what you said.’
‘I shall keep my word. But I am going for help to a friend who is a priest, because I have broken down. I thought I could trust my own conscience and my own sense of honour; I thought I could fancy my boy a man, and in imagination ask him what his mother should do. But I cannot. I am very tired, and my thoughts are all confused and blurred. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Castiglione; but in spite of himself his face betrayed his displeasure at the thought that an ecclesiastic should come between them.
‘I am going to see a priest whom I trust as a man,’ she went on. ‘I am going to Monsignor Saracinesca.’
‘Don Ippolito?’ Castiglione’s brow cleared, and he almost smiled.
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
‘I know him well. You could not go to a better man.’
‘I am glad to hear you say that. I may not follow his advice, after all, but I am sure he will help me to find myself again.’
‘Perhaps.’ Castiglione spoke thoughtfully, not doubtfully. Then his face hardened, but not unkindly, and the manly features set themselves in a look of brave resolution. ‘Before you go let me say something,’ he went on, after the short pause. ‘You have given me more to-day than I ever hoped to have from you, Maria. I will ask nothing else, since the mere thought of seeing me often has troubled you so much. I will leave Rome to-day, and I will not come back—never, unless you send for me. Put all the rest out of your mind and be yourself again, and remember only that you have forgiven me the worst deed of my life. I can live on that till the end. Good-bye. God bless you!’
She had been looking down, but now she raised her eyes to his, and there were tears in them that did not overflow. He held out his hand, but she would not take it.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are brave and kind, but I will not have it so. I may ask you to go away when your leave is over, but not to stay always, and after a time we shall meet again. Before going you must come and see me. I will write you a line to-night or to-morrow. Good-bye now, but only for to-day.’
She smiled faintly, bent her head a little, and turned from him to cross the nave on her way to the Sacristy. He stood by the pillar and watched her, sure that she would not look back. She moved lightly, but not fast, over the vast pavement. When she was opposite the Julian Chapel, which is the Chapel of the Sacrament, she turned towards it and bent her knee, but she rose again instantly and went on till she disappeared behind the great pilaster of the dome, at the corner of the south transept.
Then Castiglione went slowly and thoughtfully away, happier than he had been for a long time.
But Maria went on, and glanced at her watch, and hastened her steps. She left the church and traversed the long marble corridors, where all kinds of people come and go on all sorts of business whenever the Basilica is open. In the great central hall of the Sacristy, which is as big as an ordinary church, she asked the first acolyte she met for Monsignor Saracinesca.
He was close at hand, in the Chapter-House. ‘Would the lady give her revered name?’ ‘The Countess of Montalto.’ The young man in the violet cassock bowed low. ‘Monsignor Saracinesca would certainly see her Excellency.’ ‘Her Excellency’ thanked the young man and stood aside to wait, out of the way of the many canons and other ecclesiastics, and choirmen, and singing boys, and other acolytes who were all moving hither and thither as if they were very busy about doing nothing in a hurry. In less than half a minute Ippolito Saracinesca joined her.
The churchman was a man of forty or near that, but was already very grey, and thin almost to emaciation. He had the wan complexion of those who have lived long in feverish parts of Italy, and there were many lines of suffering in his refined features, which seemed to be modelled in wax. In his youth he had been said to be like his mother’s mother, and a resemblance to her portrait was still traceable, especially in his clear brown eyes. The chief characteristics of the man’s physical nature were an unconquerable and devoted energy that could defy sickness and pain, and a very markedly ascetic temperament. Spiritually, what was strongest in him was a charity that was active, unselfish, wise and just, and that was, above all, of that sort which inspires hope in those whom it helps, and helps all whom it finds in need.
It was said in the precincts of the Vatican that Monsignor Saracinesca was likely to be made a cardinal at an early age. But the poor people in the Maremma said he was a saint who would not long be allowed to suffer earthly ills, and whose soul was probably already in paradise while his body was left to do good in this world till it should wear itself out and melt away like a shadow.
Ippolito Saracinesca had known only one great temptation in his life. Unlike most people who accomplish much in this world, he was a good musician, and was often tempted to bestow upon a perfectly selfish pleasure some of that precious time which he truly believed had been given him only that he might use it for others. More than once he had bound himself not to touch an instrument nor go to a concert for a whole month, because he felt that the gift was absorbing him too much.
This was the friend to whom Maria Montalto had come for advice and help, and of whom Castiglione had said that she could not have chosen a better man.
‘There is no one in the Chapter-House,’ he said, after the first friendly greeting. ‘Will you come in and sit down? I was trying to decide about the placing of another picture which we have discovered amongst our possessions.’
He led the way and Maria followed, and sat down beside the table on one of the big chairs which were symmetrically ranged against the walls.
‘Please tell me how I can serve you,’ said Don Ippolito.
‘It is not easy to tell you,’ Maria answered. ‘I am in great perplexity and I need advice—the advice of a good man—of a friend—of some one who knows the world.’
‘Yes,’ said Monsignor Saracinesca, folding his
