"And see," replied the man of God, "what would have been his end if God had not made you an instrument of reconciliation between him and his Maker. He led you near your enemy just at the moment when death struck the hardened sinner, to make him repent. The designs of the Almighty are impenetrable, but in their execution there is grace and pardon. Oh! let us pray, my son, and God will give both faith and hope, and will regenerate this poor heart, tortured by remorse."
The venerable priest and the young painter passed several hours in prayer, and the old man supplicated heaven with fervor for the conversion of one of his brothers to Christ.
Toward morning Gustave became conscious, and the persuasive and eloquent words of the priest moved the dying heart. He comprehended his sins, the greatness of his faults, and wept bitterly for his errors, and repented for the fatal passions that tempted him to commit so many crimes. He confessed, with heart-broken repentance, the many griefs he had caused his mother, and the name of Robert was spoken with hers, and his regrets at the sorrows he had given him. But when he commenced to avow all his follies of debauchery and infamous seductions, vanquished by shame, and the frightful remembrance of the hateful past, he cried out: "O God, do not pardon me, I am too guilty!"
"What do you say, my son?" said the priest? "You are guilty, it is true, but have confidence in God, and you will be pardoned. He has struck you down, to draw you more truly to himself."
Gustave listened attentively, and was much moved at the goodness of a God justly irritated against him, and he felt the deepest sorrow at having been for so long an offender against his word; but his soul, full of the most bitter vices and most detestable wickedness, is now baptized in the waters of repentance. The body dies, but the soul lives; the Lord has ratified in heaven the absolution that his minister pronounced on earth. Gustave's strength was fast failing, and he felt that he was dying. The recognition between Robert and himself was touching, and the priest wept with joy and regret, blessing the one who was to leave life, and also the one who remained, to practise on earth every Christian virtue.
"Do not let me die alone, kind father," said Gustave to the priest. "I have lived so badly that I have need of your pious assistance to finish life more worthily."
The end was almost come. The physician could not retract his fatal sentence, nor give any hope, for the wound was mortal. The blade of the poniard had penetrated near the heart, and it was a miracle that he had survived so long. He heard his sentence pronounced with resignation, and accepted death as a just expiation for his sins, praying God to make it such. He suffered some days longer, testifying by his patience and his pious prayers the sincerity of his repentance, expiring with sentiments of burning contrition and sorrow for his sins on his lips. Robert was grieved to lose him so soon after his conversion and his return to virtue; and his sad and premature end was a grave warning of the result of worldly passions and giving way to vice, though Robert hardly needed such an example, his chaste and pure soul had always turned with horror and aversion from the licentiousness which beats the imagination and sullies its purity. Yet he was always on his guard, for be knew the feebleness of human nature and the dangers to which it is exposed, and the more he avoided the corrupting vices of the world, the better could he resist them, for no one is so brave in danger but that he may perish; and Gustave's death convinced him that Christianity is the only basis on which we can build immortal happiness, to which we all look forward after terrestrial joys lose their power of satisfying the desire for happiness which agitates man from the cradle to the grave, and which makes him attach such glorious hopes to religion, the only vessel that is never wrecked and that takes us safely to the eternal kingdom of perfect peace.
After having rendered the last sad duties to the unfortunate Gustave, Robert left Venice, but with very different feelings from those be promised himself. He traversed rapidly the Venetian Lombardy kingdom, then Piedmont, and, stopping some days at Turin, went on to Susa at the foot of Mont Cenis. There were two other travellers crossing this mountain at the same time, a man of about sixty years of age, and a young woman, either his wife or daughter. Their carriage followed them at some distance, but from either fear or curiosity they preferred going on foot or on a mule. Robert had bowed respectfully and exchanged a few polite salutations with them, but after that all effort to renew the conversation had been in vain, and he had renounced the hope of making any further acquaintance with the stranger, whose face of manly and severe beauty, though expressive of much mental suffering, had not escaped the eye of the artist, habitually accustomed to read all the emotions on the face. His sad countenance moved Robert so much that he turned round several times, not simply from compassion, but from a sentiment of irresistible and strange interest.
A mysterious and sympathetic influence was felt by the two others, who had certainly never seen him before; for the gentleman followed him with a pleasure for which he could not account, and watched his light and easy step, urging his mule on to keep near him, when the animal gives a sudden spring and throws him into a deep ravine.