“You ask me who I am?” responded Tito, comprehending all this. “I scarcely know myself. I was your mortal enemy, but now I do not hate you. You have heard the voice of truth, the voice of death, and you have responded, God be praised! I came to this bed of sorrow to ask from you the happiness of my life; but now I can leave, content without it, for I believe I have brought about your redemption, that I have saved your soul. Heavenly Jesus! in that I have pardoned my injuries and done good to my enemy, I am satisfied; I am happy; I ask no more.”
“Who are you, mysterious and sublime boy? Who are you? so good and so beautiful, who come like an angel to my death-bed, to make my last moments so sweet?” asked the Countess, eagerly, taking Tito’s hand.
“I am the Friend of Death,” replied the youth; “do not be surprised then that I quiet your heart. I speak to you in his name, therefore you have believed me. I am delegated to come to you by that compassionate divinity who is the peace of the earth, the truth of the worlds, the redeemer of the spirit, the messenger of God; who is all but forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is in life, Countess, not in death. Remember, and you will know me.”
“Tito!” exclaimed the Countess, losing consciousness.
“She is dead?” the physician asked Death.
“No, there still remains a half an hour.”
“But will she speak again?”
“Tito,” sighed the dying woman.
“Finish,” added Death.
The youth bent over the Countess, o’er whose beautiful countenance there shone a new and divine beauty; and from those eyes where the fire of life melted in languishing and melancholy glances, from that gasping and half-opened mouth, flushed with fever, from those soft warm hands, and that white throat turned toward him in infinite anguish, he met such an eloquent expression of repentance and tenderness, such loving caresses and earnest entreaties, so infinite and solemn a promise, that without hesitating an instant he left the bed, called the Duke of Monteclaro, the Archbishop and three of the other nobles who were in the apartment, and said to them: “Listen to the public confession of a soul which returns to God.” Those persons approached the dying woman, induced more by his inspired face than by his words.