The latter took it and glanced at its contents; one phrase therein caused a dark frown to appear on his brow, and a flash of anger to rush to his cheeks. It related to the misconduct of Rose Marie, the daughter of one Armand Legros, master tailor of Paris, in consequence of which His Holiness did grant dispensation to Rupert Kestyon, Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, to contract a marriage with another woman, his former marriage being null and void.
For a brief moment good Papa Legros hated the young reprobate before him with all the strength of which his kind heart was capable; for a moment he longed to throw that lying parchment back into the teeth of the miscreant who had dared to put an insult on record against the purest saint that had ever adorned her sex. The good man's hands shook as they held the paper, and during that brief moment Rupert experienced a hideous sensation of fear. If Rose Marie rejected him now, would Michael withdraw from the sacrifice which he was prepared to make?
But that anxiety was short-lived. With a deep sigh of resignation, and a firm compression of the lips, Master Legros looked the young man straight in the face.
"What is past, is past," he said, as if in answer to the other's thought, "and I am satisfied."
But he did not tear the parchment up, as Rupert had at first thought that he meant to do. He folded it up with hands still slightly shaking from the inward struggle which had just taken place within his simple soul, and then slipped it into the breast pocket of his coat.
CHAPTER XL
So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,