In deep, laboring gasps his breath came back. The blood coursed freely again in his veins. He lived—ah, that was everything—he still lived! He scrambled to his feet, bare headed, yellow skinned, dazed, and trembling. His eyes dwelt on Stampa with a new timidity. He found difficulty in straightening his limbs. He was quite insensible of his ridiculous aspect. His clothing, even his hair, was matted with soft snow. In a curiously servile way, he stooped to pick up his cap.
Stampa lurched toward the tiny patch of grass from which he had cleared the snow soon after daybreak. “Kneel here at her feet!” he said.
Bower approached, with a slow, dragging movement. Without a word of protest, he sank to his knees. The snow in his hair began to melt. He passed his hands over his face as though shutting out some horrific vision.
Stampa produced from his pocket a frayed and tattered prayer book—an Italian edition of the Paroissien Romain. He opened it at a marked page, and began to read the marriage ritual. Though the words were Latin, and he was no better educated than any other peasant in the district, he pronounced the sonorous phrases with extraordinary accuracy. Of course, he was an Italian, and Latin was not such an incomprehensible tongue to him as it would prove to a German or Englishman of his class. Moreover, the liturgy of the Church of Rome is familiar to its people, no matter what their race. Bower, stupefied and benumbed, though the sun was shining brilliantly, and a constant dripping from the pine branches gave proof of a rapid thaw, listened like one in a trance. He understood scattered sentences, brokenly, yet with sufficient comprehension.
“Confiteor Deo omnipotenti,” mumbled Stampa, and the bridegroom in this strange rite knew that he was making the profession of a faith he did not share. His mind cleared by degrees. He was still under the spell of bodily fear, but his brain triumphed over physical stress, and bade him disregard these worn out shibboleths. Nevertheless, the words had a tremendous significance.
“Pater noster qui es in cœlis, sanctificetur nomen tuum ... dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris....”
It was quite easy to follow their general drift. Anyone who had ever recited the Lord’s Prayer in any language would realize that he was asking the Deity to forgive him his trespasses as he forgave those who trespassed against him. And there came to the kneeling man a thrilling consciousness that Stampa was appealing for him in the name of the dead girl, the once blushing and timid maid whose bones were crumbling into dust beneath that coverlet of earth and herbage. There could be no doubting the grim earnestness of the reader. It mattered not a jot to Stampa that he was usurping the functions of the Church in an outlandish travesty of her ritual. He was sustained by a fixed belief that the daughter so heartlessly reft from him was present in spirit, nay, more, that she was profoundly grateful for this belated sanctifying of an unhallowed love. Bower’s feelings or convictions were not of the slightest consequence. He owed it to Etta to make reparation, and the duty must be fulfilled to the utmost letter.
Strong man as he was, Bower nearly fainted. He scarce had the faculty of speech when Stampa bade him make the necessary responses in Italian. But he obeyed. All the time the devilish conviction grew that if he persisted in this flummery he might emerge scatheless from a ghastly ordeal. The punishment of publicity was the one thing he dreaded, and that might be avoided—for Etta’s sake. So he obeyed, with cunning pretense of grief, trying to veil the malevolence in his heart.
At last, when the solemn “per omnia secula seculorum” and a peaceful “Amen” announced the close of this amazing marriage service, Stampa looked fixedly at his supposed son-in-law.