'Madame, you see a man broken hearted—'
He stopped, staring desolately at the ground. Eleanor threw in a few gentle words and phrases, and presently he again mustered courage to speak:
'You remember, Madame, that my letter was sent to the Osservatore Romano after a pledge had been given to me that only the bare fact of my submission, the mere formula that attends the withdrawal of any book that has been placed upon the Index, should be given to the public. Then my letter appeared. And suddenly it all became clear to me. I cannot explain it. It was with me as it was with St. Paul: "Placuit Domino ut revelaret filium suum in me!" My heart rose up and said: "Thou hast betrayed the truth"—"Tradidisti Sanctum et Justum!" After I left you that day I wrote withdrawing my letter and my submission. And I sent a copy to one of the Liberal papers. Then my heart smote me. One of the Cardinals of the Holy Office had treated me with much kindness. I wrote to him—I tried to explain what I had done. I wrote to several other persons at the Vatican, complaining of the manner in which I had been dealt with. No answer—not one. All were silent—as though I were already a dead man. Then I tried to see one or two of my old friends. But no one would receive me; one and all turned me from their doors. So then I left Rome. But I could not make up my mind to go home till I knew the worst. You understand, Madame, that I have been a Professor of Theology; that my Faculty can remove me—that my Faculty obeys the Bishops, and the Bishops obey the Holy See. I remembered this place—I left my address in Rome—and I came down here to wait. Ah! it was not long!'
He drew himself up, smiling bitterly.
'Two days after I arrived here I received two letters simultaneously—one from my Bishop, the other from the Council of my Faculty—suspending me both from my priestly and my academical functions. By the next post arrived a communication from the Bishop of this diocese, forbidding me the Sacraments.'
He paused. The mere recital of his case had brought him again into the bewilderment of that mental anguish he had gone through. Eleanor made a murmur of sympathy. He faced her with a sudden ardour.
'I had expected it, Madame; but when it came I was stunned—I was bowed to the earth. A few days later, I received an anonymous letter—from Orvieto, I think—reminding me that a priest suspended a divinis has no right to the soutane. "Let the traitor," it said, "give up the uniform he has disgraced—let him at least have the decency to do that." In my trouble I had not thought of it. So I wrote to a friend in Rome to send me clothes.'
Eleanor's eyes filled with tears. She thought of the old man staggering alone up the dusty hill under his unwelcome burden.
He himself was looking down at his new clothes in a kind of confusion. Suddenly he said under his breath, 'And for what?—because I said what every educated man in Europe knows to be true?'
'Father,' said Eleanor, longing to express some poor word of comfort and respect, 'you have suffered greatly—you will suffer—but it is not for yourself.'