The Cloister and the Hearth Part 121

"Where is he? where? where?"

"What is that to thee?"

"Only to see him alive. To beg him on my knees forgive me. I swear to you I will never presume again to--How could I? He knows all. Oh, shame!

Father, _does_ he know?"

"All."

"Then never will I meet his eye; I should sink into the earth. But I would repair my crime. I would watch his life unseen. He shall rise in the world, whence I so nearly thrust him, poor soul; the Caesare, my family, are all-powerful in Rome; and I am near their head."

"My daughter," said Clement, coldly, "he you call Gerard needs nothing man can do for him. Saved by a miracle from double death, he has left the world, and taken refuge from sin and folly in the bosom of the Church."

"A priest?"

"A priest, and a friar."

"A friar? Then you are not his confessor? Yet you know all. That gentle voice!"

She raised her head slowly, and peered at him through her mask.

The next moment she uttered a faint shriek, and lay with her brow upon his bare feet.

CHAPTER LXXVII

CLEMENT sighed. He began to doubt whether he had taken the wisest course with a creature so pa.s.sionate.

But young as he was, he had already learned many lessons of ecclesiastical wisdom. For one thing he had been taught to pause: _i.

e._, in certain difficulties, neither to do nor say anything, until the matter should clear itself a little.

He therefore held his peace and prayed for wisdom.

All he did was gently to withdraw his foot.

But his penitent flung her arms round it with a piteous cry, and held convulsively, and wept over it.

And now the agony of shame, as well as penitence, she was in, showed itself by the bright red that crept over her very throat, as she lay quivering at his feet.

"My daughter," said Clement gently, "take courage. Torment thyself no more about this Gerard, who is not. As for me, I am brother Clement, whom Heaven hath sent to thee this day to comfort thee, and help thee save thy soul. Thou hast made me thy confessor. I claim, then, thine obedience."

"Oh, yes," sobbed the penitent.

"Leave this pilgrimage, and instant return to Rome. Penitence abroad is little worth. There where we live lie the temptations we must defeat, or perish; not fly in search of others more showy, but less lethal. Easy to wash the feet of strangers, masked ourselves. Hard to be merely meek and charitable with those about us."

"I'll never, never, lay finger on her again."

"Nay, I speak not of servants only, but of dependents, kinsmen, friends.

This be thy penance; the last thing at night, and the first thing after matins, call to mind thy sin, and G.o.d his goodness; and so be humble, and gentle to the faults of those around thee. The world it courts the rich; but seek thou the poor: not beggars; these for the most are neither honest nor truly poor. But rather find out those who blush to seek thee, yet need thee sore. Giving to them shalt lend to Heaven.

Marry a good son of the Church."

"Me? I will never marry."

"Thou wilt marry within the year. I do entreat and command thee to marry one that feareth G.o.d. For thou art very clay. Mated ill thou shalt be nought. But wedding a worthy husband thou mayest, Dei gratia, live a pious princess; ay, and die a saint."

"I?"

"Thou."

He then desired her to rise and go about the good work he had set her.

She rose to her knees, and, removing her mask, cast an eloquent look upon him, then lowered her eyes meekly.

"I will obey you as I would an angel. How happy I am, yet unhappy; for oh my heart tells me I shall never look on you again. I will not go till I have dried your feet."

"It needs not. I have excused thee this bootless penance."

"'Tis no penance to me. Ah! you do not forgive me, if you will not let me dry your poor feet."

"So be it then," said Clement, resignedly; and thought to himself "Levius quid fmina."

But these weak creatures, that gravitate towards the small, as heavenly bodies towards the great, have yet their own flashes of angelic intelligence.

When the princess had dried the friar's feet, she looked at him with tears in her beautiful eyes, and murmured with singular tenderness and goodness--

"I will have ma.s.ses said for her soul. May I?" she added timidly.

This brought a faint blush into the monk's cheek, and moistened his cold blue eye. It came so suddenly from one he was just rating so low.

"It is a gracious thought," he said. "Do as thou wilt: often such acts fall back on the doer like blessed dew. I am thy confessor; not hers; thine is the soul I must now do my all to save, or woe be to my own. My daughter, my dear daughter, I see good and ill angels fighting for thy soul this day, ay, this moment; oh, fight thou on thine own side. Doth thou remember all I bade thee?"

"Remember!" said the princess. "Sweet saint, each syllable of thine is graved in my heart."

"But one word more then. Pray much to Christ, and little to his saints."

"I will."

"And that is the best word I have light to say to thee. So part we on it. Thou to the place becomes thee best, thy father's house: I to my holy mother's work."

"Adieu," faltered the princess. "Adieu thou that I have loved too well, hated too ill, known and revered too late; forgiving angel adieu--for ever."

The monk caught her words, though but faltered in a sigh.

"FOR EVER?" he cried aloud with sudden ardour. "Christians live 'FOR EVER,' and love 'FOR EVER,' but they never part 'FOR EVER.' They part, as part the earth and sun, to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I part here for life. And what is our life? One line in the great story of the Church, whose son and daughter we are; one handful in the sand of time, one drop in the ocean of 'FOR EVER.' Adieu--for the little moment called 'a life!' We part in trouble, we shall meet in peace: we part creatures of clay, we shall meet immortal spirits: we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall meet where all is purity and love divine; where no ill pa.s.sions are, but Christ is, and his saints around him clad in white. There, in the turning of an hour-gla.s.s, in the breaking of a bubble, in the pa.s.sing of a cloud, she, and thou, and I, shall meet again; and sit at the feet of angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like them with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of G.o.d upon his throne, FOR EVER--AND EVER--AND EVER."