The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874

by Various

Switzerland In 1873.

“Going to Lyons to-morrow! Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. C——, whom my friend and I accidentally met in the hall of the Berner Hof Hotel at Berne this autumn. “You cannot surely go without seeing the Lake of Lucerne! I should be quite ashamed to confess that I had been so long in Switzerland and was leaving without having been up the Rigi. In fact, if you persist in this resolution, you will have to come back again next summer expressly for that, and for nothing else. Think what trouble that may be! And all from want of a little energy now; for I feel quite certain you have no appointment to take you to Lyons in such a hurry. I know you cannot have,” she added smiling, and noticing some hesitation on our part, “so you must just change your plans again and come off to Lucerne with our party this afternoon! You may go to Lyons later, if you like, but there will be time enough to think about that!”

It was quite true. There was no special reason for our starting for Lyons that day, no pressing necessity for our leaving Switzerland just then. The Lake of Lucerne, moreover, had originally a prominent place in our itinerary, and the weather was so fine that there seemed fair hope of the prescribed sunrise from the Rigi. But, if the truth were told, we were weary—weary not in body but in soul; and had taken such an aversion to the country, from a spiritual point of view, that a strong antidote—such as Lyons with its Notre Dame de [pg 376] Fourvières and general Catholic life would afford—had become to us absolutely essential.

Six weeks previously we entered Switzerland—two ladies overflowing with enthusiasm. The picturesque was certainly a main object in our journey; for where else can it be equalled, or found in such variety? Still, we had no intention whatever of leaving religion and devotion behind us, and never doubted for a moment that we should succeed in finding means of satisfying our desires.

It was our first visit to this region, and our knowledge of it, we are bound to confess, was most superficial. But how little does one know of a foreign country until either long residence or some special circumstance excites the curiosity or rouses the attention! Catholics even, who as a rule interest themselves more than all others about the religious state of countries outside their own—instigated by that principle of universal brotherhood, that bond of spiritual union, which the church so effectually promotes—seldom know, notwithstanding, the details of current ecclesiastical foreign events, unless accident brings them to the spot. A great commotion like the warfare going on in Geneva, and the fact that the attitude of the Catholic community in that town was most noble, and those willing “to suffer persecution for justice' sake” neither few nor faint-hearted, had of course a large place in our view of the case. But except this, and the broad facts that Geneva, Berne, and Zurich were Protestant, Lucerne and its neighborhood Catholic, we are constrained to admit that our acquaintance with Swiss matters, geographical, historical, or ecclesiastical, was very limited. It is little wonder, therefore, that we lent a willing ear to the thoughtless assertions of fellow-travellers, who told us we should find Catholic churches scattered all over these districts. Without further questioning, then, we proceeded, commencing by a few days at Lausanne and along the shores of the lovely Lake of Geneva. Thence we made our way to Bellalp, Zermatt, the Eichhorn, and, finally, passing round to the northern side of the great mountains, wandered on from the Faulhorn, Scheideck, and Wengern Alps to Mürren, where we rested for several days, having “done” sunsets and sunrises, peaks and glaciers, until our minds were filled with the most magnificent images. Still, despite all these wonderful beauties of nature, which seemed every day to draw us more closely and more humbly towards the Creator, an irrepressible dreariness had crept over us, from the absence of all visible signs of union with him or of grateful worship on the part of man. Certain it is that the result our present wanderings had produced by the time we reached Berne was a longing for a Catholic land and Catholic churches, where we might pour forth our praises, and give utterance to our thanksgivings for the glorious sights we had seen; a longing that had grown stronger than the mere love of the sublime and beautiful, for its own sake, of which we were, nevertheless, most ardent votaries.

It may be said that, coming to Protestant cantons as we did, we ought not to have expected a profusion of Catholic churches; the Catholic population is small, especially in the highland districts, and labors under many disadvantages. True, and after the first disappointment was over, we were ready to [pg 377] study our excursions, and often to shorten them, in order to hear Mass on Sundays. Yet even so, more than once we could not even accomplish this; and the difficulty of approaching the sacraments under these circumstances is most distressing to travellers. Besides, to an outside observer, piety does not seem to flourish; or, where it does, the Catholic congregations have that subdued look peculiar to all persecuted communities, so extremely depressing to witness. Many believe that, for this and other reasons, the battle now raging in Geneva and elsewhere will be productive of great gain, and that Switzerland and Germany will emerge from a life resembling that of the early Christians in the Catacombs, only with tenfold power and vigor. At the present moment, one is chiefly led to reflect on the false interpretation of that freedom so much boasted of by the Swiss Protestants—if one may so style the advanced liberals and free-thinkers who come to the surface nowadays—and remember how easily an American Catholic could make them blush by his report of how differently these matters are treated across the Atlantic.

Our path had nowhere, as yet, it is true, touched on a Catholic canton; and there all might be different, though everything we could glean led us to a contrary expectation. An old German who had been coming to Switzerland for the last thirty years, and whom we met en route, told us it was all the same. “No religion anywhere. Nothing can be more uninteresting than the people,” he asserted. “Bent only on money-making and fighting about religion—religion, that is to say, in name, but not in deed; the disputes are purely party questions, and have no real, substantial foundation. Peaks and passes are alone worth a thought,” he added. On these he was inexhaustible, but always dismissed the other subject with contempt. Later, when our own observations in the Catholic cantons completely altered our opinions, we also ascertained that he, like so many of the summer tourists one encounters nowadays, was perfectly indifferent to all forms of worship, and blind to those signs and manifestations of the inner being which still abound in all that region. Meanwhile, however, his report, coming from one familiar with every part of Switzerland, carried conviction to our untutored minds, as, no doubt, happens in similar cases every day.

But it was not, perhaps, the difficulty about, and paucity of, Catholic service which so much roused our indignation, once we saw the small number of our co-religionists, as the universal aridity, tepidity, nay, coldness, of all the inhabitants of these favored regions. Nor could we gain much knowledge about them. The ordinary tourist never meets a Swiss above the class of guides and hotel-keepers; the former, in the Protestant cantons, are a stolid, uncommunicative race of men, with all their intellects apparently given to their horses and Trinkgeld; the latter too much engrossed in the feverish anxiety of drawing up large bills and providing for the passing crowd to give attention to any other matter during the summer season. Besides, the line of interest does not run in the direction of the “people”; if it did, these men would no doubt also labor to supply the demand; as it is, few have time, or, having time, inclination, for anything but [pg 378] scenery, and next to scenery—sometimes first—come food and lodging.

It was unreasonable, many observed, to aspire to more. “A thorough knowledge of a nation is not to be picked up in passing”; “One comes to Switzerland for the scenery only”; “The people cannot be judged by outward appearances,” were phrases which met us at every turn whenever we ventured to make a remark. “Doubtless the people may be excellent,” was our reply; “but outward appearances are an index to their minds. In the Tyrol, Bohemia, Brittany, and other Catholic lands, all who ‘run may read.’ ” Mountain chapels, wayside crosses, holy pictures inside and outside their dwellings, speak a language common to all Christian hearts; and the indifferentism and dryness of soul which their absence betokens in the Bernese Oberland, especially amidst its grandest scenes and greatest dangers, cannot fail to leave a most painful impression on every thoughtful traveller.

The only information we found it easy to gather related to everything connected with material subjects. In a surprisingly short space of time, we knew, from our guides, the names of all the peaks, and many, too, of the smaller summits, and, above all, could speak in an authoritative tone of the best hotels in different places, the price of pension in each, whether the Kellners were civil, the living better in one than another, Cook's tickets an advantage or not, where the carriage-roads ended and the riding or walking began—in fine, became very clever on all those points which form the staple of conversation at all Swiss hotels and halting-places. Yet we conscientiously employed our eyes and ears, so as to come to no wrong conclusion. The more one travels in Switzerland, the more necessary this precaution seems. Whatever efforts we made, however, brought about the same unfavorable result. The whole aspect of the country we traversed justified our German acquaintance's harsh criticisms. Even the Protestant churches, which, if only from a pure spirit of opposition, one might expect to show a flourishing exterior, are in Switzerland more than usually bald and cheerless. Unlike English churches of the present day, they are completely innocent of the slightest approach to decoration, and very often without sign of communion-table or anything even representing it. Sometimes a bare slab of marble, without altar-cloth or covering, stands in the middle; but often this is brought out only at stated periods for the administration of the Lord's Supper, and, as a rule, the seats are ranged round the pulpit—the only centre of attraction in these buildings. Of all nations, the English show the most tangible signs of life. They, at least, bring themselves more prominently forward; for the first paper that strikes the eye on entering every Swiss inn is the list of services and chaplains supplied to Switzerland for the season by the English Church Colonial Society. Churches they do not possess, except in a few favored spots; and many are the lamentations amongst the wandering Britons at being obliged to content themselves with the drawing-room or billiard-room of a large hotel, where probably the evening before they had assembled amidst gaiety and laughter. It is an arrangement, too, often complained of by the other inmates—one which led to a serious dispute in one place, where [pg 379] the German visitors claimed their right to the billiard-table at the hour appointed by the English chaplain for his service. Still, there they are, mindful, at least, of “Sabbath worship,” when the majority of their co-religionists see no necessity for remembering it.

Crowds of Anglican clergymen were also found travelling, on their own account, in the Protestant cantons. Five-and-twenty were together one day at Mürren, of all shades and hues, too; from my Lord Bishop, with his wife and daughters, to the young Ritualist curate, in his Roman collar and otherwise Catholic dress, the highest ambition of whose heart is to be taken—or rather mistaken—for a true Catholic priest. And very hard it is to distinguish him, at first sight, from the genuine character, so exact has he made the superficial copy. After a little conversation, however, it is easy to know that such unmitigated abuse of the Episcopal dignitary who sits at the other end of the room, and of the whole bench of bishops, cannot belong to the true church, which not only enjoins but practises submission to authority. Intellectual these High-Churchmen always are, and would make pleasant company but for the crookedness of their “opinions,” and their unconcealed exultation, too, at the assumed progress of the so-called “Old-Catholic” movement, which they represent as undermining the whole of Switzerland. Catholic Switzerland they always meant; for even they could not blind themselves to the fact that in the Protestant districts there is little left to take away. One could only wonder how, with their hankering after Catholic things, they could in any way feel drawn towards those cantons; and it more than ever strengthened our conviction (though nothing offends them more than such a suggestion) that the sole binding link between these English High-Churchmen and the miscellaneous companies which assemble at the “Old-Catholic” meetings is their common ground of rebellion to mother church—which, as daily experience infallibly proves, gathers together all grades of belief and unbelief outside the Catholic fold, and induces them to ignore all their important differences in the bond of a hatred which is truly preternatural to the spouse of Christ!

Wet days at Swiss hotels are proverbially fruitful of talk and discussion; and nowadays these religious subjects are certain to be started by some new Ritualistic acquaintance, who evidently presumes on sympathy from English-speaking travellers. Above all, should he or she discover that you are a “Romanist,” as they choose to call us children of the true church, it is most curious to observe what an irresistible secret attraction impels them to follow you, from morning to night, with their arguments and spiritual “views.” Oh! what days of annoyance continued rain has cost us on those mountain-tops—days of true annoyance unmixed with good; for in no single instance did we find any permanent impression made on these Ritualists, who, of all Protestants, are the most hopelessly blinded and obstinate. And most fully do we agree with a high ecclesiastical authority who recently remarked to us that all other shades of churchmen, including the evangelical or Low Church, respond to the call of grace more readily than these men and women, whose stand-point is that pride [pg 380] which obscures their spiritual vision. After two or three such discussions, we foresaw the point exactly when they would dogmatically assert that they, “too, are Catholics,” and that an irreparable breach was to be the immediate consequence of the solemn protest which it became our duty to make on each similar occasion. Before we reached Mürren, therefore, we had learnt to avoid them. By that time, too, we found that all their information about “Old Catholics” was derived either from the English newspapers or those foreign ones which, in rainy, stay-at-home weather, are studied in those places with persevering assiduity.

We ourselves endeavored to gather from this source some of that information unattainable elsewhere, but very soon indignantly threw aside these tainted productions. Our German friend was right on this point, certainly; for anything more shameful and less religious than the attacks on the priesthood in general, the false statements put forward, and the undisguised rationalism—not to give it a worse name—of most of these foreign newspapers which flood the reading-rooms of Switzerland, it would be difficult to imagine. Not a single Catholic newspaper came under our eye in the pensions and hotels. If they were taken in, they were certainly hidden away; and the tone of the German press, in particular, perfectly justified the assertion which has been hazarded—namely, that it has altogether fallen into the hands of the once-despised Jews. Alas! alas! the “Israelites” of the present day may well exult and lift up their heads in the remarkable and daily-increasing manner so noticeable all over Europe, where the faith of Christians is so tepid and their sight so weak as no longer to distinguish the true from the false in these proud and “enlightened” days!

Disheartened by all we saw and heard, we frequently turned to the poor, in the hope of better feelings; and although no outward token of man's habitual remembrance of his Maker met our observation, we tried to lead the guides and peasants to speak, now and then, on these subjects. In vain, however. They appeared to have no thoughts to communicate, no familiarity with the supernatural, nor other answer but the dry, curt one to give: Wir sind alle Reformirten im Canton Berne—“We are all Reformed in the Canton of Berne.”

This hard, unsympathetic tone of mind jarred on our highest and tenderest feelings; and the grander the surrounding scenery, the more painful its impression. It had reached its climax a few days before we met Mrs. C—— at Berne.

Having slept one night at Lauterbrunnen, and the next morning proving lovely, we determined to go on at once to Grindelwald. There had been no service of any kind at the village of Mürren; but here a bell rang early, and we had thus begun the day by lamenting that it did not summon us to Mass before starting on our journey. But this being a strictly “Reformed” neighborhood, it was foolish to nourish any such hope. The sparkling rays of sunlight on the Staabbart, however, the drive through the magnificent valley, the rushing torrent, and opening views of our favorite mountains, free from the veil of mist that had covered them on the previous day, the exhilarating air, and general brightness of a grand nature, gradually restored us to more contented [pg 381] dispositions. The day was splendid. The Wetterhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Eiger, and Jungfrau stood erect before and above us, as we drove up to the hotel, in all their grandeur, sternness, and soft beauty withal; their spotless snows and blue glaciers running down amongst and fringing the green, placid pastures below, whilst Grindelwald itself, the pretty village of scattered châlets, lay bathed in sunshine at their feet. It was the beginning of September; yet the visitors were so few and imperceptible that we felt as if we alone had possession of this wonderful scene. Nor was there a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky, in an atmosphere of transparent brilliancy—one of those rare days which seem lent to us from Paradise, when one's only thought can be that of thankfulness; one's only sigh, “Lord! it is good for us to be here.” We had been sitting for some time on a grassy slope, drinking in all this ethereal beauty, and gazing silently on those “great apostles of nature, those church-towers of the mountains,” as Longfellow so beautifully calls them, when our thoughts wandered on to the perils peculiar to such a spot. Of the two glaciers right before us, one—the smaller one, it is true—had all but disappeared within the last four years. It had melted away gradually during an unusually hot summer, the guide had told us, though fortunately without causing any considerable damage in the valley underneath. Very different it would be if the larger one were to vanish; and we naturally reverted to a description we had recently read, by a well-known dignitary of the English Church, of the appalling catastrophe near Martigny, in 1818, when the whole district was made desolate and villages swept away, in consequence of the breaking-up of a similar glacier under the Lake of Mauvoisin. We had just said that if any people should “stand ready” it certainly was the Swiss, when suddenly, as if in response to our meditations, the silvery sound of a church-bell came wafted to us through the balmy air. The building itself was out of sight, hidden behind a small knoll; so we hastened at once on a voyage of discovery in search of it. The day and hour were so unusual that a faint hope arose of finding some out-of-the-way Catholic convent, forgotten, perhaps, by the old “Reformers.” It was only the small church of the village, however. The bell was still ringing, and the door open, but no one near; and, entering in, nothing was to be seen save an empty interior with whitewashed walls, where a few benches alone indicated that it served any purpose or ever emerged from its present forlorn and desolate condition. Perplexed for an explanation, we appealed to some villagers in the vicinity—old women who, had it been a Catholic church, were just the sort of bodies one would have found telling their beads in some corner of it at every hour of the day; but blank countenances were all we elicited by our first question of why the bell was ringing or what service was about to begin. “Service! What service?” they answered inquiringly. “Divine service”—Gottesdienst—we replied, making the question more explicit, the better to suit their capacities. “Divine service? Oh! that is only on Sundays, of course,” was their answer; and it never seemed to cross their minds that people ought also to pray on other days. In fact, no single person in the place could give any reason for [pg 382] the tolling of this bell (evidently the Vesper-bell of old Catholic times), except that it rung regularly on every afternoon at 3 o'clock. A poverty-stricken, unhealthy-looking population they were, too—just the class that stand much in need of spiritual comforts—of those aids from heaven which the poor need more palpably even than the possessors of material wealth, in order to bring them through the troubles of this weary world, and to sustain their courage at every step. Both here and at Lauterbrunnen, despite all police prohibitions, our carriage was followed by numbers of sickly and deformed children, whose monotonous drone was unenlivened by one bright look, by any petition “for the love of God,” or any of those touching variations of the Catholic beggar in every part of the world, which, no matter what one may say at the time, do appeal to a Christian heart more than any one is aware of until made sensible of their impression by the chilly effects of their absence on such occasions.

But our spirits revived, as we returned to Interlachen, at sight of the old Franciscan convent standing embosomed in its stately trees. Hitherto we had only passed through the place on our way to and from the mountain excursions; but to-morrow would be Sunday, and the Catholic service, we had ascertained, was in the convent church. Away, therefore, with our saddened hearts and dismal musings! The plain would evidently treat us more charitably than the highland country had hitherto done! Beautiful, lovely Interlachen! lying amidst its brown, flowery meadows, under its stately walnut-trees; the white-robed Jungfrau rising opposite in all her dignified beauty, unaccompanied by Monk or Eiger, or any of her snowy compeers. The sun was setting as we drove up to the hotel Victoria just in time to see its deep-red, crimson farewell, thrown across the brow of the grand mountain, melt gradually into the most tender violet, as if in mourning for his departure. And as we sat on the balcony all that evening in the stillness of the autumnal air, watching the full moon shining on the “pale Virgin,” making her glitter like silver, and stand out, in all her majesty, from the dark, enclosing line of intervening hills, we felt once more how glorious is God's creation in all its simple magnificence! How grand, how awful it can be! And again, at dawn, we beheld the same spotless peak receive with a tender, pink blush the first rays of the returning sun, to dazzle us henceforward during all that day by her transcendent loveliness through an ethereal veil of transparent delicacy, and to draw our thoughts heavenward, pointing upwards like a faithful angel guardian anxious to remind us that all this earthly beauty is as naught compared to the bright visions which await us beyond!

It was nine o'clock that morning before the church-bell sounded; but then we sallied forth with full hearts, and made our way along the beautiful avenue of walnut-trees towards the old convent. With elastic gait we ascended the ancient steps of the ivy-mantled church, rejoicing in the sign-post which boastfully pointed “à l'Eglise Catholique”! But vain were our illusions! How could we have been so sanguine! This fine old convent, as perfect as at the time of its suppression in 1527, is far too valuable, think the authorities, to be given up by an antagonistic government [pg 383] to the successors of its original owners. A large part of the dwelling portion, therefore, is used by the commune of Interlachen for its public offices, whilst the remainder is divided between the different foreign “persuasions” that visit Interlachen every summer. That high-sounding title, “l'Eglise Catholique,” belonged only to a small chapel constructed out of one end of the church—the smaller end—and floored, moreover, up to half its height. The other and larger portion was given up for the English Church service, whilst the Free Kirk of Scotland and “l'Eglise Evangélique de France,” were installed here and there amongst the cloisters. Most correctly, then, did an old man, who was found sweeping out the passages, describe himself as employed by tous les cultes.

Nor was the Catholic congregation more permanent than the others. It appeared to consist chiefly of strangers, and the priest, a Frenchman, who spoke in feeling accents of the persecution going on throughout the country, announced that although the following day would be a holiday, there could be no Mass; for he had to quit Interlachen on that same evening.

As we came out from the convent, sad and gloomy, a pretty sight awaited us: hundreds of boys and girls, of all sizes and ages, marching to the strains of a band towards a large meadow hard by, where gymnastic and other games were about to commence. Orderly and bright-looking they all were, accompanied by half the population of the town and neighborhood, chiefly attired in the picturesque Bernese costume, and including, evidently, the fathers and mothers of the young generation. It was a most brilliant yet soothing picture, as we beheld them passing on under the shade of the wide-spreading, lofty walnut-trees; the little maidens in their fresh summer dresses, embroidered muslin aprons, and hats crowned with masses of flowers, standing out against the green background of the nearer mountains, whilst the lovely Jungfrau beyond shone out resplendent beneath the rays of a dazzling sun. Long stood we watching them; for it was a scene to enjoy and treasure up in one's memory. What a pity that the recollection should be darkened by the after-knowledge that none of this merry crowd had begun the day by divine worship! And noteworthy was this fact, making all the difference between this and the Catholic practice in such matters. Nor shall we fail to remember, if ever again taunted by those Protestants who consider it a sin to be light-hearted on the Sabbath, that this mode of keeping Sunday is not sanctioned by a Catholic, but by one of their own cherished “Reformed” cantons. Catholic the proceedings truly were, in being orderly, innocent, healthful, and rational; but most uncatholic in not having even allowed the time necessary for religion. No Catholic ecclesiastical authority sanctions such amusements on Sundays without the whole population having had the opportunity of hearing Mass first—a matter that is not left optional, but made obligatory on every member of the church. Here, on the contrary, there is only one service in the Protestant church, and that at 10 o'clock a.m.; so that, even had they wished it, none of these merry-makers could have been present. Nor, during the whole of that day, did we hear any neighboring village-bells summoning [pg 384] their flocks to prayer. Indeed, many of the villages are without any churches. There is none, for instance, at Mürren, nor in many of the hamlets along the Lake of Brienz, nor in various other spots which might easily be named. One hears a vast deal about Swiss “pasteurs,” and pretty stories are written wherein they figure largely; but it is only natural to conclude that if there are numberless villages without churches, they are equally without “pasteurs”; and one cannot help wondering how the sick and poor fare in these distant parts in the ice-bound winter weather, nor avoid fearing that there is much truth in the dreary suggestions we often heard expressed, that they constantly die and are buried without any spiritual ministrations whatsoever.

And yet the Swiss, and especially the people of this neighborhood, did not always voluntarily abandon the ancient church, nor lapse of a sudden into the indifferentism now so general. But no doubt the present apathy is the inherited result of the mixed notions which actuated their forefathers, and the absence amongst them of that pure attachment to their faith and the unconquerable steadiness and manliness by which the adjoining cantons of Unterwalden and Uri have so eminently distinguished themselves up to the present hour.

Whilst meditating over all we had seen and heard, we accidentally opened Zschokke's History of Switzerland at the page where he speaks of those mixed feelings which were perceptible in all the religious divisions between 1527 and 1528. The writer is a Protestant, and therefore his version is all the more interesting, as admitting the coercion it was necessary to use for the introduction of the new doctrines—doubly interesting, too, as read here, at Interlachen, on the spot and by the light of the similar system—for there is nothing new under the sun—at present in full operation in so many of these same cantons.

After speaking of various disputes, he says: “For of those who raised their voices against the new creed, thousands upon thousands were actuated, not by piety or love of the good and true, but by interested motives under pretence of religion. Amongst the country people, many expected greater liberties and rights by the introduction of the recent doctrines; and when these were not granted to them, they returned to the Catholic faith. The moment the town council of Berne suppressed the convent at Interlachen, and appointed preachers of the reformed church, the peasants, highly pleased, thought and said: ‘No convent mesnes, no taxes, no feudal service.’ But when the town only transferred the taxes and service to itself, the peasants, through pure anger, became Catholic again, drove away the Protestant preachers, and marched in armed bodies to Thun. Berne hereupon appealed to its other subjects, offering to leave the matter to their arbitration; for the town desired peace, knowing well that neither quick nor efficient aid could be counted on by them from the neighboring cantons, which were all Catholic. These subjects of Berne, flattered by the confidence reposed in them by the authorities, decided in their favor, saying: ‘The worldly rights of the convent go to the worldly authorities, and are in no wise the property of the peasants.’ On hearing this, the rebellious country-folk [pg 385] of Grindelwald returned to their homes, but in no contented mood, although the town had relieved them from many burdens, in favor of their suffering poor.” And curious it was to note the tight hold still retained on these same worldly goods by the commune of Interlachen, and to see, after a lapse of three centuries, their bureaux administratifs still located in the cloisters; nor can it be supposed that the “suffering poor” of Grindelwald have reaped much benefit from their three centuries of secular masters, if we may judge by the numberless beggars who now over-run that whole district.

Having then related that much discontent at the state of affairs was felt by the monks of Interlachen, the abbot of Engelberg, and the inhabitants of Oberhasli—a district which, though under the protection of Berne, held many rights and privileges independent of that town—Zschokke proceeds: “When the commune of Oberhasli, encouraged by the monks of Engelberg and their neighbors of Unterwalden, likewise drove away the Protestant parsons, and sent to Uri and Unterwalden for Catholic priests, those of Grindelwald did the same; Aeschi, Frutigen, Obersimmel, and other villages followed their example, and the Unterwaldeners even sent them military assistance across the Brunig. But Berne flew to arms at once, and her army marched on rapidly, before the secession had time to increase. The timid and discontented peasants fled in a panic, and even the Unterwaldeners retreated over the mountain. Berne then punished Oberhasli severely—took away its public seal and many other privileges for a long period; for ever deprived the valley of the right to elect its own landamman; had the ringleaders of the movement executed, and forced the others to plead for pardon on their knees, surrounded by a circle of armed soldiers. Frutigen, the Simmenthal, and others were also brought back by main force to the Protestant faith”—if “faith” that can be called, we may add, which shows no sign of life in all these places.

In no happy frame of mind we pushed on next day to Berne, half inclined to abandon the remainder of our Swiss tour—an inclination which had ripened to a determination by the time we met our friend in the hall of the Berner Hof on the following morning.

In Berne, as in other of the large Swiss towns, Catholicity has made itself both seen and felt of late years, and a handsome church has recently been built there, in place of the one which was formerly shared with the Lutherans in that extraordinary manner still in operation in one or two Protestant parts of Germany. Some friends of ours, who had passed through Berne about fifteen years ago, had been at Mass early one Sunday morning, and, returning at a later hour, found the same church in possession of the Protestants, the only difference observable being the “communion-table,” then placed at the end opposite to the Catholic altar, and the chairs turned round in that direction. This anomalous state of things has now ceased, and the new Catholic church is both pretty and well served. But the week-day congregation is very small, and the half-past seven o'clock Mass we found but thinly attended. Still, there it is, even so, in striking contrast to the Protestant cathedral. In pleasing contrast, were more truly said; for [pg 386] this beautiful pre-Reformation cathedral, with its splendid porch of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, its elaborately-carved choir, and its old stained-glass History of the Blessed Eucharist, is lifeless and colorless in its present aspect. Though we went there at an early hour, every door was closed, except one at the side, jealously guarded by a cross old woman, who hindered all entrance until we had each paid thirty centimes. Then we were handed on to another woman—between them they had charge of the church—who ran from one party of sight-seers to another, showing off the different points in a loud voice, just as if it were a museum or any other secular building! Had it been an English cathedral church even, there would probably have been a daily service; but then such a pious practice seemed quite as unfamiliar as to the peasants of Grindelwald. The old guardian stared at us in blank surprise on our asking the question, and—seeming to imply that she detected we were “Papists”—proudly answered, “Certainly not! Only on Sundays, and then at nine o'clock.”

As usual, no communion-table stood in the place of the high altar, but here, as in many other Swiss churches, a large black marble table which serves for this purpose stands right in front of the choir and pulpit, and the stalls immediately near were assigned to the “Guardian of the Holy Supper” and one or two other of the church functionaries. In the cathedral square outside, the town has recently placed the beautiful statue of Rudolf von Erlach, the great hero of Laupen, one of the starting-points of its history, in 1339. It was impossible, as we passed it, not to remember that the most glorious victories of Berne were fought and won in those olden days of the true faith, when her sons knew how to unite the love of freedom with devotion to the church and obedience to her authority, and that one of the prominent causes of that great and victorious battle was their refusal to recognize the Emperor Louis of Germany, simply because the pope had recently excommunicated him. Those golden days of Bernese history! of which her Protestant historian, Zschokke, is constrained to say that “the town, which was threatened with entire destruction, became so victorious as henceforward to threaten destruction to all her enemies. Her citizens had fought with one thousand iron arms against ten thousand; all with one mind and one heart; no one for himself, but all for the good of the town. In this manner alone can wonders be effected.”

Full of sad thoughts on the degeneracy of her present children, who strive to use their powerful influence over the rest of their confederates for the persecution and suppression of their former faith, we turned to seek information at the railway station about the trains to Lyons or Mâcon, persuaded that a further stay on Swiss ground would only increase our discontent; and, truly, our wrath grew to fever heat when, passing by the book-stall, we found it filled with the most shocking caricatures—and worse—of everything Catholic, nay, everything religious. Illustrated Lives of the Saints, Of the Pious Helen, and such like titles, got up in the most attractive form, first caught our eyes and rejoiced our hearts with the hope of better things; but anything more scandalous than the scenes there depicted, the low, disgraceful ideas put forward, in the [pg 387] coarsest style, by both pen and pencil, we never before beheld exposed in any civilized community. In England the police would at once have interfered and seized the whole establishment. Here they covered the book-stall; and the woman who presided showed us undisguisedly that they were written and printed in Germany, and sent here for sale. What hope is there for populations who, in the name of religion, can countenance such wickedness?

It was at this stage of our perambulations and in this condition of mind that, on returning to the hotel, we had encountered Mrs. C——. She was no Catholic, but, entering into all our feelings, she protested that we should find everything quite different in the Catholic cantons, if we only would make the experiment. She had been there often, and knew that we should be delighted with them. To every objection we made she had a ready answer. Besides, what is more magical than the bright faces and kind looks of friends—above all, of old friends, when met abroad? As a natural consequence, therefore, it was not surprising to us to find ourselves, after all, seated with this pleasant party in the train which that afternoon was leaving for Lucerne. Our equanimity, it is true, was disturbed at the junction at Olten—by the sight of that manufacturing town full of the “free thought” and advanced liberals of modern society, the head-quarters of Old-Catholic meetings, and the only place where, at that date, the parish church had been given up to one of the few rebellious priests, whilst its true pastor was obliged to live in a small private house, where he still ministered to his old flock as in the days of early Christian persecution. But we soon reached Lucerne and a Catholic atmosphere, and what befell us in that quarter, what we saw and heard from its people, shall be related in the following chapters to our kind and indulgent readers.

Epigram on Abraham Lincoln.

Scivit in extremis statuum defendere fœdus:

Reddidit optatam collecto milite pacem.

Grapes And Thorns. Chapter XII. A Taper Lighted, And A Taper Blown Out.

By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”

Our two travellers did not know how far removed they were from the common ways of life till they were again on land. The strangeness of a sea-voyage had made their own strangeness less apparent; but when they saw homes, and all the daily interests of life moving on as once they had moved for them, familiar things assumed in their eyes a certain grotesque appearance, and they scarcely knew themselves or each other. How hollow sounded the careless laugh they heard, how terrible the jest! How impossible they found it to comprehend how business and pleasure could absorb men's souls! To them this gay and busy world was wandering recklessly on the brink of an unseen precipice which they alone could see.

Annette Gerald had adopted her husband's inner, as well as his outer, life—had, as it were, stepped inside his guilt, and wrapped it round her, and his world was henceforth her world. With his eyes she saw a leafless and flowerless England sweep behind her as they sped onward to London; and she shrank, even as he did, when the thick fog of the great city took them in and shut them as if in walls of stone.

“We cannot stay here,” her husband said. “I should lose my senses in twenty-four hours. This fog makes me feel like a smoky house. Are you too tired to go on? Do let us have sunshine, at least.”

No, she was never too tired to go on with him.

They had a compartment to themselves, and, weary as they were, started on again, a little relieved in mind. No one had accosted them in either of the great cities, and there seemed to be no immediate danger. Overcome with fatigue and loss of sleep, they both leaned back in the soft cushions, and slept soundly till some sound or a slackening of their speed awakened them.

The London fog was far away, and they found themselves passing slowly and smoothly through a cloud-world of blue and silver. There was no land in sight. The window at one side showed them a cliff that might be alabaster, and might be an illuminated cloud. At the other side, a deep-blue sea, foam-flecked, and a deep blue sky half-veiled in silvery mists, were so entangled with each other that only where the full moon rode could they be sure that it was sky, and only where the wave ran up and curled over in foam almost within their reach could they be sure that it was water.

“The fairies have taken possession of Dover,” Annette said. “I hope they have not whisked the steamer away. No; here it is. We will stay on deck, Lawrence. It is not cold.”

As they steamed out into the channel, another scene of enchantment [pg 389] took the place of the ordinary view. As they withdrew from the town, it showed only a crescent of lights; lights clustered all over the foamy water, and stars clustered in openings of the fleecy clouds above, so that they moved as if swimming through constellations.

“I hardly know which is up and which is down,” Lawrence said. “Is Europe made of clay and rock, like America?”

His wife was leaning on his arm, and they stood looking over the rail of the little steamer. “We might come this way a hundred times, and not see such a sight,” she replied. “But there is land beyond. That is France—that low, dark line. In a few hours we shall be in Paris. I shall be glad to rest when we get there.”

But when they reached it, Paris was as much too light as London had been too dark. In the one city a foe might stumble upon them at any moment; in the other, he might see them from afar. They went to a dingy little hotel in the old part of Paris, and stayed there one day, trying to find rest, but in vain. Every sound made their hearts beat more quickly; every glance and sudden step near them sent the blood to their faces. Besides, the quiet of the place afforded them no distraction from their thoughts. The noises in the narrow street on which the hotel was built were all shut out by the heavy portal, and the quadrangle was as still as a forest solitude. Ivy climbed about the windows, a tiny fountain overflowed and ran in a stream across the pavement, and the only persons who appeared were the clergymen who were the chief patrons of the house, and now and then the universal waiter and servant of servants, François, who shuffled across the view, a napkin over his arm, and his heavy head dropped forward, so that only a great ball of frowzy dark hair was visible.

“We cannot stay here,” Annette said, as they stood by the window the first evening after their arrival. “It is too much like a prison.” She felt her husband start, and made haste to add: “It is stupid, and I fancy the air is not good. Besides, Paris is too gay, if we go out into the city. We do not want gaiety, Lawrence. We want some earnest employment for our time.”

“We will go to Rome,” he said.

“Rome!” she hesitated. “One meets everybody there,” she said; “and there are so many idlers, too, who have nothing to do but talk of other people's affairs. Are you sure you wish to go to Rome, dear?”

“I must go! I have an object in going there,” he exclaimed, excited by the first show of even slight opposition. “I stake all on Rome. Whatever happens to me, let it happen there.”

“We will go, then,” she answered soothingly. “And we may as well set out to-night. Nothing is unpacked, and we have three hours before the train starts.”

He walked to and fro over the stone floor of their little sitting-room, which allowed only half a dozen paces, so narrow was it. “Three hours!” he muttered. “It is too much! Cannot we go out? There must be a church near.”

“Yes; in France and in Italy there is always a church near.”

They went into the fading sunset, and soon found themselves entering the old church of S. Etienne du Mont. Inside, the pale gloaming was changed to a richly-tinted gloom that grew every moment [pg 390] deeper. Here and there a lamp marked some picture or shrine held in special veneration, and far away in the apse of the church, where the shadows stretched off till they seemed reaching out to eternity, burned a single point of light, as small as a star.

Annette clasped her hands over her husband's arm, and leaned her cheek close to his shoulder, as they stood near the door and looked at this little beacon. “O Lawrence!” she whispered, “it is like the light the mother sets in the window to guide her children home at night. O me! O me!” she cried pitifully. “What is to become of us!”

A crown of tapers burned about the shrine where the body of S. Geneviève had once lain, and an old woman sat near by with her prayer-book, presiding over a table piled with tapers of different lengths, her white cap showing like a little heap of snow in the place.

“People buy tapers for a sou or two, and set them by the shrine to honor S. Geneviève and remind her of their needs,” Annette said softly as they approached this illuminated space. “Would you like to offer one?”

Lawrence Gerald had been wont to mock somewhat at such observances in the old time before life had been shattered about him and shown eternity between its gaps. Now he went eagerly forward, selected a taper, lighted it, and placed it, whispering a prayer while his fingers lingered on it. Annette followed his example, placing her offering beside his, and making her request also.

As they were turning away, a sacristan approached them from the next chapel, and asked if they had any article they would like to have touched to the inside of the shrine. Annette immediately gave him her rosary, which he laid an instant where the saint's body had lain.

“Ask him if I can put my hands in,” Lawrence whispered.

“Certainly you can!” she answered with dignity, seeing the man look rather curiously at him.

She held the lid open, and her husband put both his hands in, and instantly drew them back, his eyes dilating and his color rising, as if he had put them into fire.

They walked on past the grand altar, and knelt in a nook by a confessional. The daylight faded, and the smouldering fires of the windows went out in black and ashen gray. But when no outer brightness was left to enter and show the glories of that house of God, the lamps and tapers inside burned with a clearer flame. They shed a faint illumination through the vast twilight; they spread a soft gilding up the height of the clustered pillars, and made tender the gloom brooding in the roof that arched over their capitals; they sparkled on the crowns of the saints, and touched marble faces with such a holy radiance that a soul seemed to shine through them.

A slight stir in the confessional near them showed that a priest was there. “Lawrence,” said Annette suddenly, “may I go to confession?”

“Wait a minute,” he answered. “I will go first, and then you will only need to say that you are my wife.”

His tone revealed a bitter pain; for unconsciously her question had shown that there was no weight on her conscience save that which he had placed there, and that she was more in need of consolation than of forgiveness.

She sank on to her knees again. “O my God!” she murmured, “has it come to this, that I must enter thy house without being able to find comfort there?”

It was nearly half an hour before Lawrence joined her, and they went out together. “I have no wish to go now,” she said when he offered to wait while she went to confession. “Besides, there is no time, if we are to start to-night.”

“Do you know, Annette, what I prayed for when I put the taper up in honor of S. Geneviève?” her husband asked when they were again in the street. “I asked that my mother may die in peace before the month is out. That will be in less than two weeks.”

“My poor Lawrence!” she sighed.

“And can you guess the reason why I wish, above all things, to go to Rome, and don't much care what may happen after?” he went on. “Of course you cannot. Well, I want to receive absolution from the Pope. I go to confession, and pour out my story there, and I feel no better for it; or, if I feel better than I should without confession, I am still not at peace. I don't feel absolved. Yet I want to go to confession every hour of the day. I am like the Ancient Mariner, who had to tell his story to every one he met. I want to tell mine to every priest in the world.”

“But, dear Lawrence,” she said, “that will not be so easy to compass. Don't expect such a privilege too confidently. You know we cannot have an audience, because we cannot go to him under false names. If we could, his blessing would satisfy you, would it not? But I see no way, dear, though I would not discourage you.”

For once her objections did not irritate him. “I have been thinking of it ever since we left America,” he said; “and in one way or another I shall succeed. Yes, his blessing would be enough; and if there were no other way, I could tell him my real name. Now, we must make haste. We have just time to reach the station.”

How many hearts have quickened in their beating as they travelled that road, drawing near to Italy! How many eyes have gazed eagerly at that first cross, set aloft on the mountain side, at the first shrine of the Virgin Mother! And then come the armies of poplars and solemn cypresses.

“They look as if the dead warriors, and prelates, and poets had risen from their graves, and were staring out over Italy to see what their degenerate sons were doing,” Annette said. “See how tightly they hold their cold green robes about them!”

Our travellers slept a few hours at Turin, and, resuming their journey before daylight, reached Florence in the evening. And here, having some time to wait, they wandered out, hoping to find a church open; but all were closed at this hour. Presently they found themselves standing on the bridge of the Holy Trinity, listening to a burst of wild music from many bugles, played by some unseen band. So loud and piercing was the strain, the very stars appeared to tremble as it went up. Then, as suddenly as it rose, it dropped again, and all was silent. The city was quiet, and the Arno gleamed across it like a jewelled cestus across a sleeping breast. Its waters seemed to have crystallized into a purple enamel about the golden reflections of the lights along its banks, not a ripple showing [pg 392] which way they flowed. Not far away, another bridge spanned the tide, its soft and dreamlike arches set roundly over the answering arches in the deeps below. A small boat, faintly seen, shot underneath this bridge, and disappeared. It was a vision of Florence as one sees it in history and poetry.

The two strangers leaned on the balustrade of the bridge, and, as they gazed, felt the curse upon them grow less sharp, as though they were ghosts, and their crime some old, old story, touched with a sad splendor by poet and painter, and half washed away by the tears of pitying generations.

Standing there, silent and half comforted, they became aware of a low, murmurous sound of many feet and voices; and then a long line of white-robed figures appeared, carrying torches. A bier was borne aloft in their midst, what it held covered with an embroidered pall that glistened with gold. These men recited prayers together as they went, and the river and bridge were for a moment bright with the glare of their torches. Then they disappeared, and a star-lighted quiet reigned again over the city of flowers.

Annette touched her husband's arm, and they reluctantly turned away from that spot where first they had experienced a feeling of peace.

And then, all night they plunged deeper and deeper into Italy, till morning and the Eternal City met their faces, and dazzled them.

“Thank God! I am in Rome at last,” exclaimed Lawrence. “Now nothing but death shall tear me away from it.”

Yes, there it was! the crumbling, stately city of the past, looking as if it had just risen from the bottom of the sea, after having been submerged for centuries. It was all a faded gold color, like autumn leaves, and its narrow streets were chilly, as though death had breathed through them. But its heights were warm and sunny, and its dusky trees and hedges were steeped in warmth, and over its magnificent decay the sky was fresh and blue, and the morning sunshine flowed bountifully.

“Now,” said Mrs. Gerald, becoming business-like at once, “we must first engage an apartment, and get our luggage into it. I think I know Italian enough for that, thanks to the songs I have learned.”

“Do you propose singing an aria to call a cab?” her husband asked. “And will you engage an apartment to the tune of ‘Hear me, Norma’?”

He smiled, and for a breath looked like his old self. But the next instant his face changed. The thought of his mother was enough to banish the smile for ever.

That thought had taken full possession of him, filling him with a terror, sorrow, and longing that burned in his heart like consuming fire. His flight had been made with no feeling but fear for himself; but with the first breath of the air of the city of saints, he inhaled a penitence which was without taint of weakness.

While his wife, then, arranged their affairs, and attended to the preparation of their little ménage, he took in hand the one work possible for him—the study of his own soul. This anguish for his mother, whom he loved deeply, much as he had wronged her, was like a sword that cleft the selfish crust of his nature. His whole life [pg 393] came up before him with merciless distinctness—all its ingratitude, its pettishness, its littleness, its sinful waste, its many downward steps leading to the final plunge to ruin. He saw, as if it were before him, his mother's loving, patient face; he heard, as if she were speaking at his side, her sad and tremulous voice; and more pathetic even than her sorrow were the brief moments of happiness he had given her, her smile of pride in him, her delight when he showed her some mark of affection, her eager anticipation of his wishes. As he went back over this past, the self-pity, the blindness, the false shame, were stripped away from him, and he saw himself as he was.

“Nothing but utter ruin could have brought me to my senses,” he said to his wife one day, when he had been sitting for a long while silent, gazing out at a little fountain that sprang into air in a vain effort to reach the laden orange-tree that overshadowed it.

She made no reply, and he needed none. She had let him go his own ways, keeping watch, but never interfering. She had nothing to do for him now but wait and see what sort of call he would make on her.

He wandered from church to church, and knelt at every shrine in the city of shrines. Wherever the signal lamp told that there some troubled soul had found help, he sent up his petition. He glanced with indifferent eyes past the rich marbles and gilding; but when a face looked from marble or canvas with an expression that touched his heart, there he made his appeal. The luxuries of life grew loathsome to him; fashion and gaiety were to him like a taunt of the evil one, who had used them as lures for his destruction. He hated the fineness of his own clothes, the daintiness of his food. None of the people he saw seemed to him enviable, save the poor monks in their coarse brown robes, with their bare feet thrust into rough sandals. In his own house he lived like an ascetic.

Now and then he would rouse himself from this stern and prolonged examen to think of his wife. She had claims on him which, perhaps, he was forgetting.

“You poor child!” he said, “we are not in India, that you should immolate yourself over my dead hopes. What can I do for you. I would free you, if I could.”

“You are not to think of me,” she replied quietly. “It is God who now commands you to think of yourself.”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “I have made my own instruments of torture. Having thought of myself when it was a sin, I am forced to think of myself when it is a torment. And I escape that thought only to remember my victims. Annette, but one day is left of the four weeks. O my mother! if space could be annihilated, and I could be with you till it is over! If I could but know what has happened, what will happen, to her!”

He had spent the whole day in a church near by, sometimes praying before an altar, sometimes gazing at the pictures, in search of a divine meaning that might be hidden in them; but oftener, withdrawn to a dusky nook where only a single lamp burned before a head crowned with thorns, he gave himself up to grief.

“It is useless to wish and repine,” his wife replied sadly. “That is one of the weaknesses we must cure ourselves of. Since it is only a torment to imagine what [pg 394] may be taking place at home, let us try to banish the thought, leaving all in the hands of God. And now, Lawrence, do you know that you have eaten nothing to-day? When you stay so long again, I shall go after you. In Rome, at this season, it is dangerous to allow the strength to fail. You will soon be ill, if you go on fasting so.”

“And what matter if I should?” he asked.

The wife waited till the servant had placed the dinner on the table and gone out before she spoke, and the moment of consideration had made her resolve on a stern answer, however willingly she would have given a tender one. She had long since discovered that her husband was one of those whom the flatteries of affection enervate instead of stimulating, and she was not sure enough of a radical change having taken place in him to yield to her own impulse to soothe and persuade when reproof might be more effectual.

“Of all the gifts which God has bestowed on you,” she said, “you have cast away every one but life; but with that life you may yet atone, and become a blessing to the world. It is your duty to watch over the only means left you of making reparation.”

He did not show the slightest displeasure at her reproof. On the contrary, there seemed to be something in it almost pleasant to him. Perhaps the suggestion that he might yet be a blessing in the world, incredible as that appeared, inspired him with an undefined hope. He dwelt thoughtfully on her words in a way that was becoming habitual to him whenever she spoke with peculiar seriousness, and Annette, seeing his humility, was half sorry for having put it to the test. With a confused impulse to give him at least some pitiful and perilous comfort, she poured a glass of wine, and placed it by him, well aware that for weeks he had not drunk any.

He put it away decidedly. “I would as soon drink poison, Annette,” he said reproachfully. “I did not think that you would offer it to me.”

She withdrew the glass immediately, ashamed of her weakness, and making a hasty apology. “If I had known you had made any resolution on the subject, I would not have offered it,” she said. “Forgive me! I never will again.”

“Oh! there was no resolution needed,” he said. “If you had been burned almost to death once, would you need to resolve not to go into the fire again? I fancy the sight of it would be enough. But I think I may promise never again to take wine, unless I should be commanded to by some one who knows better than I.”

His wife did not reply. This was a degree of asceticism which she had not expected and was afraid to trust. She had expected him to refuse indulgences, but not consolations. Indeed, she did not now understand her husband, and her hope of his redemption was but a trembling one. This self-denial might be only another illustration of that instability which rushes from one extreme to the other, only to return to its first excess.

We all know how to rely on that natural firmness, which the sad experience of mankind has shown to be never so strong but it may fail at any hour; but the supernatural strength of the naturally weak who have cast themselves on God often finds no doubting. We miss the firm lips, the steady eyes, the undaunted [pg 395] brow—those signs of a resolute soul which the pagan shares with the Christian—and we forget that the tremulous mouth we distrust has sighed out its prayer to Him who is mighty, the shrinking eyes have looked upon the hills whence help cometh, the timid brow has been hidden beneath the wing of an angel guardian, and that, faltering though the soul may have been, and may be again, the shield of God is before it, and it can be conquered by no human strength.

This soul had made such an advance as to be conscious of some such fortitude infused into it. Lawrence Gerald had no fear of falling into his former sins. He might have the misery of seeing the destruction he had brought on others, might be himself destroyed by a sorrow and remorse too great to bear; but he had an immovable conviction that he could never again return to his old ways nor commit any grave transgression. It was this conviction which had made him say that nothing but destruction could have brought him to his senses.

“I like that church you took me to this morning,” he said, walking slowly up and down the room. “The others, many of them, seem to me fit only for the happy. They are all display and confusion and sight-seers, with scarcely a nook in them where a person in trouble can hide. They do not give me any impression of sacredness. But this one is so quiet and sober, and there are no people standing about with guide-books, talking aloud while you are praying or trying to pray. Then there is a little place, half chapel, half vestibule, between the church and the sacristy, where a side door enters the church, with an Ecce Homo in a little shrine; and there you can be quite private, without any one staring at you. I shall go to that church altogether.”

The church he spoke of was Santa Maria della Pace.

“It is Our Lady of Peace,” his wife said, “and was built to commemorate the peace of Christendom. I thought it would please you. Surely some special consolation and tranquillity should linger about a temple built and cemented with such an intention. I like it, too, better than most others we have visited, though it is not so splendid as many.”

She did not tell him that, after having left his side, when the early Mass was over, she had lingered in the church till it was closed at noon, not to watch him, but to be near him. Requesting the sacristan to withdraw the curtain covering the Four Sibyls of Raphael, she had seated herself before the chapel opposite, and divided her attention between that matchless vision and the unquiet figure that moved about the church. Once he had come near, but without seeming aware of her presence, and, standing at her side, had gazed with her. And while he gazed, she had seen the trouble in his face grow still for a moment. The noble serenity of that composition, so soothing to eyes wearied by the sprawling magnificence of Michael Angelo and the ever-present, dishevelled, wind-tossed figures of Bernini, lifted his soul to a higher plane. Even when he sighed and turned away, as if not willing to allow himself the pleasure of looking at so much beauty, he carried something of that spirit of harmony with him.

“Lawrence,” his wife said presently, when she had borne his restless promenade as long as she [pg 396] could, “I know that you did not sleep any last night. I wish that you would take a powder that I will give you, and try to sleep now. You look worn out. Lie down on the sofa here, and I will keep everything quiet.”

He shook his head. “I would rather not take anything to make me sleep, Ninon. And to-night I would not sleep, if I could. But I will lie down here a little while; for I am tired, now I think of it.”

He threw himself on the sofa, and she placed a screen before him, and closed the window near his head, so that even the soft plashing of the fountain was shut out, and the small notes of birds that twittered in the great pine-tree in the garden. And after a little while, finding him still restless, she went to the piano, and sang how God sent Elias to reassure and comfort a doubting and tempted soul. The notes flowed with a soothing murmur from under her fingers, and her voice, no longer the brilliant, ringing tones he had taken such pride in, was so low it might be a spirit singing:

“Tell him that his very longing

Is itself an answering cry;

That his prayer, ‘Come, gracious Alla!’

Is my answer, ‘Here am I!’

Every inmost aspiration

Is God's angel undefiled;

And in every 'O my Father!’

Slumbers deep a ‘Here, my child!’ ”

Ending, she listened a moment, then stole across the room, and looked behind the screen. Lawrence was sleeping, with his head thrown back, his beautiful profile and moist, dark curls thrown out strongly by the garnet cushions and pillow.

She went to the window, and seated herself on a footstool near it, wrapping the long red curtains about her, and leaning against the wall. The sculptured marble of that stately salon was cold against her cheek; a flock of doves wheeling about over the garden caught some last rays of the sun on their wings, and threw them down over her, so that little white wings seemed to be fluttering all around the room; the casement slipped open, and the sound of tossing waters and twittering birds again became audible; but the watcher there took no note of these things. She was looking at the figure stretched on the sofa, and thinking that in all Rome there was no ruin so mournful and so terrible. He was like some fair column stricken from out a temple and cast aside into the dust; not touched by the hand of time, that, with its slow to-and-fro of days and nights, and seasons and years, lulls all the pain of decay to sleep, but broken and scathed, as if by lightning.

While she looked, he stirred, and opened his eyes; and the sympathetic pain with which she saw how he came back to a consciousness of his position almost drew an outcry from her. The first tranquil, half-wondering glance which saw, instead of the familiar surroundings of his childhood and youth, that immense room, with its profuse hangings and painted ceiling, and the long windows opening like doors; then the brief flash of startled questioning; lastly, the anguish of full recollection.

“O my God! my God!” he exclaimed, and hid his face in the cushions again.

She was at his side in a moment.

“Let us go out for a long drive, Lawrence,” she said. “There will be a bright moonlight to-night, and we can see so many places by it. Come! I will send for a carriage at once. There is nothing else for either of us to do.”

Nothing could have shown more clearly the change in Lawrence Gerald than his manner of receiving this proposal. Instead of expressing at once his aversion, and reproaching his wife that she could believe it possible for him to go sight-seeing at such a time, he stopped to consider if what she thought best might not be best, however it should seem to him.

“You must think for me now, Annette,” he said with a sort of despair. “You know I do not wish to seek pleasure nor distraction; but I suppose I must live.”

She sent for a carriage at once, and they went out under the full moon that was beginning to replace, with its pearly southern lights and northern shadows, the fading cross-lights of the sun. They drove to the Colosseum, not yet despoiled of its sacred emblems, and, kneeling there in the dust, made the stations in their own way. Annette named each one as they reached it, then left her husband to make his meditation, or to utter the ejaculation that started up from his tormented heart, as sharp as a blade from its sheath.

At last they stood together by the crucifix, with the moonlight falling on them and through the great arches in a silvery rain.

Annette saw her husband wipe his forehead, though the night was cool. He breathed heavily, and looked at the earth beneath his feet, as if he saw through it, and beheld the martyr lying where he fell centuries before.

“O my dear!” she said, “I know that there is no lion like remorse. But is it no comfort to you that you are not alone?”

“It is both a comfort and a pain,” he answered gently. “I should be desolate without you, and I should have done something desperate, perhaps, if I had been alone. You must understand my gratitude and my regret without expecting me to express them. I cannot speak. I know I have wronged you bitterly, and that you are an angel of goodness to me; but I can say no more about it. If I were at my mother's feet this moment, I should be speechless. I cannot pray even. I acknowledge the justice of God, and will endure whatever he sends. That is all I can say.”

He had forced himself to speak, she perceived, with a great effort. The season of complaints and outcries had gone past, and he had entered on the way of silence.

They went out, and left the ruin to its solemn tenants—the gliding shadows, which might be the troubled ghosts of the slayers, and the floating lights, which might be the glorified souls of the slain, visiting the loved spot where they had seen the heavens open for them.

The streets were nearly deserted when the two returned to them, their horses walking. They stopped at the fountain of Trevi, leaned awhile on the stone rail, and watched the streams that burst in snowy foam all along the front.

“What a heap of coals and ashes Rome would be without her fountains!” Annette said. “It would be like a family of patriarchs where no children are seen. And yet the waters do not always seem to me so childish. Theirs is the youth and freshness of angels. See how triumphant they look! They have been a long while in the dark, till they may have despaired of ever seeing the sun again. It is the way of souls, Lawrence. They walk in darkness and pain, they cannot see their way, and they sometimes [pg 398] doubt if light any longer exists. And at last they burst from their prison, and find themselves in the city of God.”

“Yes,” he said, “but they have not sinned; they have only suffered. I have always thought, Annette, that the saints have the easier life. You know we are told that the way of the transgressor is hard.”

“But the saints did not choose that life because it was the easier,” she replied. “They gave no thought to such a reward, but it was bestowed on them; and probably, when they chose, the other way seemed the easier, in spite of what the preacher says. The person who chooses a good life because it is the easier will never persevere in it; for the devil will always persuade him that he has made a mistake, and, since he chose from a selfish motive, God will owe him no help. The saints took what was hard, and what seemed the hardest because it was right, and left the consequences with God; and they had their reward. The sinner takes what seems the easiest, and thinks only of himself; and he, too, has his reward. Do not the waters look lovely? They are so fresh and new! How beautiful an image it is to compare divine grace to a fountain!”

They drove on through the town, across the bridge of S. Angelo, and saw the angel sheathing his sword—or was he unsheathing it?—against the sky, and, leaving their carriage at the entrance of the piazza of S. Peter's, walked across it to that majestic temple, which, more than any other, and at that hour more than ever, seemed worthy of the Spouse of the Spirit. Golden and white, the mystical flood of moonlight veiled it, rippling along its colonnades, glittering in its fountains, setting a pavement of chalcedony across the piazza and up the wide ascent, and trembling round the dome that swelled upward like a breast full with the divine milk and honey with which the church nourishes her children.

Lawrence stopped near the obelisk.

“The first question the church asked of me when I was brought before her, an infant,” he said, “was what I had come to ask of her, and my sponsors answered for me, Faith. Now once again she asks the same question.”

He was silent a moment, looking up at the church, but with eyes that saw only the sacred Mother. Tears rolled down his face, and his lips trembled; but there was no sign of that desperate passion which had so worn him. “I ask for forgiveness and perseverance,” he said.

She observed that he did not ask for peace.

He went forward to the steps, and knelt there; and as he wept and prayed, his wife heard ever the same petition that God would have mercy on his mother, that in some way he would spare her the blow that threatened to fall upon her, and that she might know how he loved her and mourned his ingratitude.

Annette withdrew from her husband, and paced to and fro not far away. She, too, had a mother who was about to be stricken with grief on her account, and whom she might never again see in life.

She had almost forgotten her husband and how time was flying, when she heard his voice at her side.

“My poor Annette, I am killing you,” he said. “Come home. See! the day is breaking.”

The east was, indeed, growing pale with the early dawn, and the western colonnade was throwing long shadows as the moon declined. It was time for them to return. Chilled and exhausted, they entered their carriage, and were driven home.

The dawn of that same day, when in its course the sun rose from the Atlantic, and brightened the New England shore, saw Mrs. Gerald and Honora Pembroke go to early Mass together.

F. Chevreuse had visited them the morning before, and requested them to go to communion that day, and pray for themselves, their friends, and for his intention.

“I have a difficult duty to perform,” he said, “and I want all the help I can get. So make yourselves as saintly as possible, my dear friends. Confess and prepare yourselves for holy communion as if it were to be your last, and pray with all your strength, and do not allow a single smallest venial sin to touch you all day.”

F. Chevreuse often asked them to pray for his intention, and all they observed in this was his unusual earnestness. It had the effect of making them also unusually earnest in their devotion. Mrs. Gerald was, indeed, so absorbed that she failed to notice that when Honora came from the priest's house, where she had been just before evening, she did not look quite well. F. Chevreuse had requested her to come there from her school, before going home, and she had been with him nearly an hour.

“So you have been to confession,” Mrs. Gerald said, arranging the tray for their tea. “I thought we would go there together this evening.”

She spoke in a very gentle, almost absent way; for she had been saying, as she went about, all the short prayers she could remember to the Blessed Virgin, and would resume them presently.

“So we will go together,” Miss Pembroke replied. “But I wanted to see F. Chevreuse this afternoon.”

She seated herself in a shady corner of the room, and opened her prayer-book; but it trembled so in her hand that she was forced to lay it aside, and pretend to be occupied with her rosary instead. Now and then she stole a glance at her companion, and saw with thankfulness that she was entirely occupied with her devotions. As she went about, preparing with dainty care their simple meal, her lips were moving; and sometimes she would pause a moment to bless herself, or to kiss the crucifix suspended from her neck, or to dwell on some sweet thought she had found hidden in a little prayer, like a blossom under a leaf.

And later in the evening, when the two returned from the priest's house, there was nothing to attract attention in Miss Pembroke's manner; for they sat reading and meditating till it was bed-time. It was their custom, since they lived alone, to prepare thus strictly for the reception of the Holy Eucharist.

Mrs. Gerald stood a minute before the embers of the dying fire, when they were ready to go up-stairs, the hand she had stretched for the bed-candle resting on the edge of the mantel-piece near it. “How peaceful we are here, Honora!” she said in her soft way, yet rather suddenly.

Miss Pembroke was bending to push the few remaining coals back, and her reply was indistinct, yet sounded like an affirmative.

“We have so much to be grateful for,” Mrs. Gerald went on. “I do not think that we could be more comfortable. I am sure that greater riches would disturb me. Indeed, I never wanted riches, except for Lawrence; and now he does not need them. I can truly say that I have all I desire.”

Miss Pembroke did not reply nor look up. She only stooped lower, and stretched her hands out over the coals, as if to warm them. Yet the two had always been so in harmony that her silence seemed to be assent.

“F. Chevreuse spoke beautifully to me to-night,” Mrs. Gerald continued, still lingering. “He kept me some time talking after I had made my confession; and, what is unusual with him, he spoke of himself. He said that all the favors he has to ask of God are for others; but that when he comes to pray for himself, he can only say, ‘Amen.’ Now and then, he said, he thinks to ask some special favor; but when he lifts his eyes to heaven, only one word comes: ‘Amen! amen!’ I did not understand, while he spoke, how much it meant; but I have been thinking it over since I came home, and I see that the word may include all that a Christian need say.”

A murmured “Yes!” came from Honora, who turned her head aside that the candle might not shine in her face. “And now, dear Mrs. Gerald, since we are to rise early, we had better go to bed. Can I do anything for you? Is there anything to do to-night?”

“Nothing, thank you, dear!”

They went up-stairs together, and, when they parted, Miss Pembroke embraced her friend with unusual tenderness. “May you have a good night's sleep!” she said; and, in the anguish of her heart, could almost have added, “And may you never wake!”

For F. Chevreuse had wisely judged it best to prepare her to sustain her friend when the hour of trial should come; and Honora, better than any other perhaps, understood what that shock would be.

“Go out in the morning and dismiss your school for the day,” the priest had said to her. “Then return home immediately, and make some excuse for it. You will easily be able to plead a headache, I fancy. Tell Mrs. Gerald that F. O'Donovan is coming to see her, so that she may not go out. And pray, my child, pray! What else is there for any of us to do in this terrible world but pray?”

Honora was obliged to make her excuses before going to school, for Mrs. Gerald at length noticed her altered looks, and almost insisted on dismissing the school for her. But she would not allow that.

“I shall feel better to go out than to sit in the house waiting,” she said, quite truly. “But I will come back at once. Pray do not be anxious about me. You know I am strong and healthy.”

When she returned, she found that Mrs. Gerald had, with motherly affection, made every preparation for her comfort. A deep sofa was pushed into a shady corner of the sitting-room, pillows and a shawl were laid ready, and, as she entered the room, she perceived the pleasant odor of pennyroyal, their favorite remedy for colds and headaches.

Mrs. Gerald set down the steaming cup she held, and began to remove her young friend's bonnet and shawl. “I thought you would rather lie down here than go up [pg 401] stairs by yourself,” she said. “I will keep everything quiet.”

Honora submitted to be made an invalid of, since this tender soul could have no greater pleasure than to relieve suffering; allowed herself to be assisted to the sofa; let Mrs. Gerald arrange the pillows under her head and cover her with the shawl; then drank obediently the remedy offered her. But all the while her heart was sinking with an agony of apprehension, and she listened breathlessly for a step which was to bring doom to this unconscious victim.

“Now what else can I do for you, dear?” her nurse asked, looking vainly to see what had not been done.

Honora answered, “Nothing”; but, recollecting that something might be needed, if not for her, added, “You might place a glass of water and the camphor-bottle here where I can reach them.”

Mrs. Gerald brought them, from the mere pleasure of serving. “But you must not drink the water, for you are to be kept warm,” she said. “Your hands are quite cold now. And, you know, camphor never does you any good.”

She was about turning away when Honora took her hand, and detained her. She dared not look up, but she held the hand close to her cheek on the pillow. “Dear friend,” she said in a stifled voice, “it sometimes almost hurts me to remember how good and kind you have always been to me. I hope I have never seemed ungrateful; I have never felt so. But in future I want to be more than ever to you. Let me be your daughter, and live with you always. I do not want to go away with any one else.”

“My daughter!” said Mrs. Gerald, full of loving surprise and pleasure; and stooped to leave a kiss on the girl's forehead.

“And now, dear mother,” said Honora, “do not fancy that I am very sick. In an hour, all will be over.”

Mrs. Gerald smiled at this promise of sudden cure.

“Then I will leave you quiet a little while, and go out to water my plants. The seeds have come up which I sowed in the tracks my other two children made; and in a day or two, when Lawrence and Annette come home, their footprints will be quite green.”

She spoke with a gentle gaiety, for she was happy. So much affection had been shown her, she seemed to be of such help and value to those she loved best, that life assumed for her an aspect of spring and; youth, and a gladness long unknown to her rose up in her heart.

As she left the room, Honora looked eagerly after her, raising herself on her elbow, as soon as she was out of sight, and listening toward the door. When she heard her step on the veranda, she started off the sofa, and ran to look out through a blind into the garden. Mrs. Gerald was on her knees by the precious tracks, which she had carefully enclosed with slender pegs of wood, and was sprinkling with water the tiny blades of green that grew thickly inside. A soft and tender smile played round her lips, and the wrinkles that pain and anxiety sometimes drew in her face were all smoothed away. The spring morning hung over her like a benediction, silent and bright, not a breath of wind stirring; and in that secluded street, with its cottages and embowering trees, she was as safe from public observation as she would have been in the country.

Honora glanced at the clock. It wanted five minutes of ten.

“Five minutes more of happiness!” she murmured, and, from faintness, sank on her knees before the window, looking out still with her eyes fixed on that quiet, bending figure.

Mrs. Gerald stretched her hand and slowly made the sign of the cross over each one of those precious footprints. “May all their steps be toward heaven!” she whispered. “May angels guard them now and for ever, and may the blessings of the poor and the suffering spring up wherever they go, like these flowers, in their path.”

She rose and stood looking off into distance, tears of earnest feeling glistening in her eyes.

“Two minutes longer!” murmured Honora, who felt as if the room were swimming around her, so that she had to grasp the window-ledge for support. She could not see, but she heard a step on the sidewalk, and, though it was more measured than usual, there was no possibility of mistaking it. Only one step would come in that way and stop at their gate this morning. She heard F. O'Donovan's voice, and presently the two came into the entry together.

“Perhaps you had better come into the parlor,” Mrs. Gerald was saying. “Honora is lying down in there. She has a bad headache this morning.”

“Nevertheless, we will go in and see her,” was the reply.

Miss Pembroke started up, frightened at her own weakness. It would never do to fail now, when all the strength she could show would be needed. She had only time to seat herself on the sofa when they entered the room.

“My dear child! why did you not lie still?” Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. “I am sure F. O'Donovan would excuse you.”

“I would rather sit up, if you will come and sit by me,” Honora answered; and, taking Mrs. Gerald's hands, drew her down to the sofa, and sat there holding her in a half embrace.

The lady noticed with surprise that no greeting passed between the priest and Honora, and that he had not uttered a word of sympathy for her illness, nor, indeed, scarcely glanced at her. He went to the window, and opened one of the blinds.

“Allow me to have a ray of sunshine in the room,” he said. “Why should we shut it out? It is like divine love in a sorrowful world.”

Mrs. Gerald had hardly time to notice this somewhat unusual freedom of manner on the part of F. O'Donovan, for, as he came and seated himself near her, she was struck by the paleness and gravity of his face.

“Are you ill? Has anything happened?” she asked hastily; but he saw that in her anxiety there was no thought of danger to herself. It was a friendly solicitude for him; and she instantly glanced at Honora, as if connecting her illness with his altered appearance. That her young friend might have some cause of trouble seemed to her quite possible; for she had never been able to disabuse her mind of the belief that Honora had become more interested in Mr. Schöninger than she would own, and that she had never recovered entirely from the shock of his disgrace.

“I have great news to tell you,” said F. O'Donovan. “Mr. Schöninger is proved innocent, and will immediately be set at liberty.”

“How glad I am!” exclaimed [pg 403] Mrs. Gerald, who immediately believed that she understood all. “But how is it known?”

“The real criminal has confessed,” the priest went on; “and the confession and the circumstances are all of a sort to excite our deepest compassion. For it was not a deliberate crime, but only one of those steps which a man who has once consented to walk in the wrong path seems compelled to take. The poor fellow was deceived, and led on as all sinners are. He was in pecuniary difficulties, and yielded to a temptation to take F. Chevreuse's money, intending to repay it. The rest followed almost as a matter of course. Mother Chevreuse defended her son's property, and the poor sinner had to secure what he had risked so much to obtain, and escape the disgrace of detection. Others were approaching, and he was desperate. He gave an unlucky push, with no intention but to free himself, and the devil looked out for the result. But, if you could know how entirely that poor soul has repented, not only the fatal step in which his errors ended, but every smallest fault that led to it, you would have only pity for him. Mother Chevreuse died a good and holy woman, full of years and good works, and perhaps her death will be the cause of one man being a saint. He promises everything for the future, and that with a fervor which no one can doubt. He acknowledges the justice of any contumely and suffering and loss which may befall him. The only thought too hard for him to bear is that of the sorrow he has brought on his own family. If he could suffer alone, he would not complain; he would suffer tenfold, if it were possible, to spare those he loves.”

Mrs. Gerald had listened with intense interest to this story, and when it was ended she drew a long breath. “Poor man!” she sighed. “Has he a wife?”

“Yes; he has a wife who is all devotion to him, and who will follow him to the last. She will never be separated from him.”

“Will she go to prison with him? Will she be allowed to do that?” Mrs. Gerald asked in surprise.

“Oh! it is not a question of imprisonment,” the priest replied. “He has escaped, and will probably never be taken. His confession was written, sealed, and entrusted to a priest, to be opened at a certain time. It was opened this morning.”

The two watched Mrs. Gerald with trembling anxiety as she sat a moment with downcast eyes, musing over this strange story. Honora did not dare to breathe or stir, lest she should loosen the thunderbolt that hung suspended over their heads, ready to drop, and the priest was inwardly praying for wisdom to speak the right word.

“I hope he has no mother,” Mrs. Gerald said, without looking up.

“That is the hardest part of all,” said F. O'Donovan. “He has a mother. It is that which renders his remorse so terrible. But fortunately she is a Christian woman, who will know how to bend to the will of God, and leave her afflictions at his feet. She will be comforted by the thought that her son is a sincere penitent, and is by this awful lesson put for ever on his guard against sins which might otherwise have seemed to him trivial.”

“Oh! but think of her responsibility!” exclaimed Mrs. Gerald, [pg 404] raising her eyes quickly. “Think of her remorse and fear when she looks back on her training of that child, and thinks that all his faults and crimes may be laid at her door. I know a mother's heart, F. O'Donovan, and I tell you there will be no comfort for that mother. You cannot have seen her. Where is she? I would like to go to her.”

“She does not yet know,” replied the priest, almost in a whisper, and stopped there, though other words seemed about to follow.

She gazed at him in surprise, and her look began to grow strange. She only looked intently, but said nothing; and in that dreadful silence Honora Pembroke's arm closed tightly about her waist, and her breath trembled on the mother's paling cheek.

“Cast yourself into the arms of God!” exclaimed F. O'Donovan. “Do not think! Do not fear nor look abroad. Hide yourself in the bosom of God! Sin and sorrow are but passing clouds, but heaven and hope and peace are eternal!”

Those beautiful violet eyes that had wept so many tears, now dry and dilating, were fixed upon him, and the face changed slowly. One wave of deep red had flown over it and sunk, and from pale it had grown deathly white, and over that whiteness had stolen a faint gray shade.

“Mother! mother! speak!” cried Honora Pembroke, weeping; but the form she clasped was rigid, and the face was beginning to have a blank, unnatural expression.

“Live for your son's sake!” said F. O'Donovan, taking in his her cold hands—“live to see his repentance, to see him win the forgiveness of the world and of God.”

But that blankness overspread her face, and the light in her fixed eyes grew more dim.

The priest stood up, still holding strongly one of her hands, and with his other made the sign of the cross over her, giving with it the final absolution. Then he seated himself beside her, and, while Honora fell at her feet, put his arm around the rigid form, and touched the cheeks with his warm, magnetic hand, and pleaded tenderly and with tears, as if she had been his own mother, now a word of human love, now a word of divine hope; and suddenly he stopped, and Honora, with her face hidden in Mrs. Gerald's lap, heard him exclaim, “Depart, Christian soul, out of the body, in the name of the Father who created thee, in the name of the Son who redeemed thee, and in the name of the Holy Ghost who has sanctified thee.”

She started up with a faint cry, and saw that Mrs. Gerald's head had dropped sideways on to her shoulder, her eyes were half-closed, and her relaxing form was sinking backward, supported by F. O'Donovan.

How it happened she did not know, but almost at the same instant Mrs. Macon entered the room followed by a doctor, and to Honora's confused sense it seemed as though helpers were all about and she was separated from her friend. She heard F. O'Donovan's voice repeating the prayers for the dead, and presently the weeping responses of the servant, but she was powerless to join them.

She roused herself only when she heard the priest speak her name. “Did I make any mistake? Did I do well, do you think?” he asked anxiously. “I did not know any better way.”

Honora opened her eyes and looked about.

“There was no better way,” she said. “The result would have been the same in any case, and she suffered only a minute.”

Tears were swimming in his fine eyes.

“She has, indeed, hidden herself in the bosom of God, where no harm can reach her, and it is best so. We can see that it is most merciful for her. But for that unhappy son....”

“Do not name him!” exclaimed Miss Pembroke, shuddering. “I cannot think of him without abhorrence! See what ruin he has wrought wherever he has been. What has escaped him? Nothing! Do you, can you, believe there is hope for one whose soul is such an abyss of weakness and selfishness? He has stripped from me my dearest friends; he has smitten those who loved him best....”

She stopped, half from the bitter weeping that choked her words, half because the priest had laid his checking hand on her arm.

“The silence of death is in the house,” he said gently. “Do not disturb it by anger. Leave Lawrence Gerald to the lashes of his guilty conscience. Believe me, it will be punishment enough. Forgive him, and pray for him.”

“Not yet! I cannot yet!” she protested. “He has been forgiven too much. But I will say no more. I am sorry I should have spoken so in her home.”

“Come out into the air of the garden a little while; it will refresh you,” the priest urged. “I must go directly to F. Chevreuse, but I will return. He went to Mrs. Ferrier more than an hour ago, and was to wait there for me or come this way to learn the result. Poor F. Chevreuse! he is sorely tried. Everything rests on him. Don't sit here in the dark any longer. Come!”

“You had better go, Miss Pembroke. You can do nothing here,” Mrs. Macon said to her.

She went out and hid herself in a little arbor that had been a favorite retreat of Mrs. Gerald's on warm summer days, and sitting there, too stunned for weeping, now that the first burst of tears was dried, tried to recollect and realize what had happened.

As she sat there she heard presently the trampling of horses and the roll of a carriage, and mechanically leaned forward to see who was passing, but without in the least caring. The bright bays and the sparkling harness were very familiar to her eyes, and she saw that Mrs. Ferrier herself was in the carriage. The woman's face was red and swollen with weeping and excitement, and as she passed the cottage she put up her hand as if she would have shut it from her sight. Evidently her interview with F. Chevreuse had been a stormy one, and had left her in anything but a charitable frame of mind.

Miss Pembroke looked indifferently at first, but a moment after she rose and took a step forward to see better; for F. Chevreuse and F. O'Donovan had appeared in the street in front of the carriage and stopped it, and the elder priest was speaking sternly to Mrs. Ferrier.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“I am going to the prison to tell them to let Mr. Schöninger go free,” she answered defiantly. “I am going to take him to my house.”

“You are going to do nothing of the sort,” said the priest. “You have no right to, and will only do harm, and disgrace yourself.”

“I couldn't be more disgraced than I am already, with that ...” she began in a loud voice, but F. Chevreuse stopped her.

“Silence!” he said authoritatively. “You are insane.”

“John, drive on!” she called out of the window.

“John, you will not drive a step further,” said the priest in a low voice.

“You'd better do what he says, ma'am,” said John, leaning down from the box. “And you'd better not talk so loud. People are beginning to notice.”

“I should like to know what you think of yourself for a priest, making my own servants disobey me,” the poor woman cried, relapsing into tears. And then, instantly recovering her spirit, she added, “If I cannot go to the prison, I will know where my poor daughter is. I believe Mrs. Gerald could tell. She must know where they are hid. I will have Annette back again.”

“You had better come in and ask Mrs. Gerald,” F. Chevreuse said calmly. “Do not hesitate! It will, perhaps, be better for you to see her.”

She shrank a little, yet could not bear to remain inactive. To her mind, she had been hushed, and imposed on, and silenced by everybody, in order that this worthless criminal might ruin her daughter's happiness, and obtain possession of her money, and she was burning to pour her anger out on some one. F. Chevreuse's authoritative interference, while she yielded to it, only exasperated her more. “I will go in and find where Annette is,” she said resolutely, and stepped out of her carriage, too much excited to stumble.

Honora Pembroke came forward and stood between her and the door, looking in astonishment at the two priests who followed her.

“Let her go in!” F. O'Donovan said.

She was obliged to, indeed, for Mrs. Ferrier's strong hand set her aside as if she had been a feather.

The woman entered with a haughty step and a high head, her silks rustling about her through the solemn silence, and walked straight to the sitting-room. Mrs. Macon met her at the door, but she put her aside, and took a step into the room; only one step, and then she stopped short, and uttered a cry.

“See how that mother heard the news!” said F. Chevreuse in a low voice at her side. “Have you any questions to ask her?”

Mrs. Ferrier retreated a step, and leaned against the door-frame. They all drew back and left her a full view of the silent form stretched on the sofa, and only Honora Pembroke's weeping disturbed the silence.

“You don't say that it killed her!” she exclaimed in a low, frightened voice; then, before they could answer, she threw up her arms, and ran across the room. “You poor dear!” she sobbed. “You poor, broken-hearted dear!”

She flung herself on her knees beside the sofa, and embraced and wept over the motionless form there, all her anger, all thought of self, forgotten in a generous and loving pity and grief.

F. Chevreuse glanced at his brother priest with a faint, sad smile. “Her heart is right,” he said. “It is always right.”

To Be Continued.