"It particularly relates to England;" said he, "for that country must hereafter be yours. It is the only one I ever knew, where virtue is a man's best friend. You came innocent out of it; and it is to your own credit, and the influence of God alone, that you return unpolluted by the stains which have made my name one universal blot. Oh, Louis," cried he, wringing his hands; "you have taken from your father, the sting of death; you have brought him the true unction of heaven; and given him that peace, which the world and all its empires cannot give; and what do I bequeath thee in return. The memory of my infamy? But it will not reach you in England; or if it do, that people are too just, to condemn the blameless son, for the delinquency of his parent."
Louis's heart sprang to that country to which his father exhorted him to return. Since he left it, his pilgrimage had been one of anguish; an expedition of contest and sorrow; of defeat without error; and victory which could yield no triumph.
"But you will live, my father!" said he, observing that for the last few hours his pains had ceased; and his countenance bespoke, if not the serenity of innocence, the resignation of religion. "Your bodily sufferings are ameliorated; and we shall see England together."
Ripperda looked on him with a sudden brightness in his eye.
"That penance is spared me!" cried he, "while on earth, I should feel that memory and reproach are the worms that never die! I have indeed, no pain; neither in my spirit, nor in my body; and in the moment the latter ceased, your father felt the bond was taken off that fastened his frail being to this world!"
Louis now understood what another few hours would so soon demonstrate. "Here is the remnant of a sword," rejoined the Duke, putting the shattered remains of one into his son's hand. "It broke in the conflict on the breach of Ceuta, but it did not fail me. Its fractured blade slew the Biscayen who wounded you in my defence. Preserve it Louis; for it was my friend, when I believe I had hardly another friend left. It saved my life from assassins in the mountains of Genoa. Who wielded it, I know not; but remark its motto, J'ose! and should you ever meet its owner, remember that William de Ripperda's last injunction was, Gratitude!"
Louis kissed the shattered blade, and put it into his bosom. At the same instant he heard a stir in the vestibule; and with a melancholy haste, he rose, and opened the curtain, to welcome the prior of Saint Philip.
The Roman Catholic religion was the first Ripperda had exercised; and though he knew it by its ceremonials only, yet it was most grateful to him to die in its profession:—And as his soul now worshipped the only God and Saviour, in spirit and in truth; in his circumstances, every water was alike holy that baptized him to salvation.
"Father!" said he, when the priest entered; "you come to behold in me the end of all human vanity. What have I not been? What am I now? An example, and a beacon! What Ripperda was, is now forgotten; what he is, will be remembered by men, and reproached upon his posterity, when God has erased the record for ever!"
With his hands clasped in those of the prior, he made a short, but contrite confession of his transgressions and his faith. From those hallowed lips he received the sacred absolution; and as the consummation of his eternal peace, raised on his bed upon his knees, and supported on the breast of his son, for the first, and the last time, he received the pledge of his salvation, in tasting with a believer's heart, the last supper of our Lord.