“His feeble nature yielded, body and soul, to the blow, He was stricken down with fever. He revived only to rebel against Heaven. He said, 'There is no God.'”
“Poor, poor Gerard!”
“Poor Gerard? thou feeble, foolish woman! Nay, wicked, impious Gerard. He plunged into vice, and soiled his eternal jewel: those you met him with were his daily companions; but know, rash creature, that the seeming woman you took to be his leman was but a boy, dressed in woman's habits to flout the others, a fair boy called Andrea. What that Andrea said to thee I know not; but be sure neither he, nor any layman, knows thy folly, This Gerard, rebel against Heaven, was no traitor to thee, unworthy.”
The lady moaned like one in bodily agony, and the crucifix began to tremble in her trembling hands.
“Courage!” said Clement. “Comfort is at hand.”
“From crime he fell into despair, and bent on destroying his soul, he stood one night by Tiber, resolved on suicide. He saw one watching him. It was a bravo.”
“Holy saints!”
“He begged the bravo to despatch him; he offered him all his money, to slay him body and soul. The bravo would not. Then this desperate sinner, not softened even by that refusal, flung himself into Tiber.”
“Ah!”
“And the assassin saved his life. Thou hadst chosen for the task Lodovico, husband of Teresa, whom this Gerard had saved at sea, her and her infant child.”