Sovrani passed one hand wearily across his brows.
"Let us not talk of marriage," he said—"Death is nearer to us to-day than life! I am opposed to the match—I always have been,—and who knows—who knows what may not yet prevent it—" He paused, thinking,—then turning a solicitous glance on his brother-in-law's frail figure he said—"Felix, you look weary,—let me attend you to your own rooms, that you may rest. We need you with us,—it may be that we shall need you more than we have ever done! Pray for us, brother!—Pray for my Angela, that she may be spared—"
His harsh voice broke,—and tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks.
"See you!" he said, pointing in a kind of despair to the magnificent "Coming of Christ"—"If Raffaelle or Angelo had dared to paint this in their day, the world would be taking a lesson from it now! If it were a modern man's work, that man would be a centre for hero-worship! But that a WOMAN should create such a masterpiece!—and that woman my Angela! Do you know what it means, Felix?—what Fame always means, what it always must mean—for a woman? Just what has already happened,—the murderous dagger-thrust—the coward stab in the back—and the little child's cry of the tender broken heart we heard just now—'Stay with me!—I am so tired!'"
The Cardinal pressed his hand sympathetically, too profoundly moved himself to speak.
"This picture will bring down the thunders of the Vatican!—" went on Sovrani—"And those thunders will awaken a responsive echo from the world! But not from the Old World—the New! The New World!—yes—my Angela's work is for the living present, the coming future—not for the decayed Past!"
As he spoke, he dropped the silken curtain before the picture and hid it from view.
"We will raise it again when the painter lives—or dies!" he said brokenly.
They left the studio, Prince Pietro extinguishing the lights, and giving orders to his servant to put a strong bar across the door they had forced open,—and the Cardinal, feeling more lonely than he had done for many days, owing to the temporary absence of Manuel who was keeping watch over Angela, returned to his own apartments full of grave thoughts and anxious trouble. He had meant to leave Rome at once,—but now, such a course seemed more than impossible. Yet he knew that the scene which had, through himself indirectly, occurred at the Vatican, would have its speedy results in some decisive and vengeful action, if not on the part of the Supreme Pontiff, then through his ministers and advisers, and Bonpre was sufficiently acquainted with the secret ways of the Church he served, to be well aware of its relentlessness in all cases where its authority was called into question. The first step taken, so he instinctively felt, would be to deprive him of Manuel's companionship,—the next perhaps, to threaten him with the loss of his own diocese. He sighed heavily,—yet in his own tranquil and pious mind he could not say that he resented the position his affairs had taken. Accustomed as he was always, to submit the whole daily course of his life to the ruling of a Higher Power, he was framed and braced as temperately for adversity as for joy,—and nothing seemed to him either fortunate or disastrous except as concerned the attitude in which the soul received the announcement of God's will. To resent affliction was, in his opinion, sinful; to accept it reverently and humbly as a means of grace, and endeavour to make sweetness out of the seeming bitterness of the divine dispensation, appeared to him the only right and natural way of duty,—hence his clear simplicity of thought, his patience, plain faith, and purity of aim. And even now, perplexed and pained as he was, much more for the sorrow which had befallen his brother-in-law, than for any trouble likely to occur personally to himself, he was still able to disentangle his thoughts from all earthly cares—to lift up his heart, unsullied by complaint, to the Ruler of all destinies—and to resign himself with that Christian philosophy, which when truly practised, is so much more powerful than all the splendid stoicism of the heroic pagans, to those
"Glorious God-influences,
Which we, unseeing, feel and grope for blindly,
Like children in the dark, knowing that Love is near!"