“Only for the second time!” I exclaimed.
“You forget, Mr. Winterfield, that Romayne is a priest.
He was only consecrated on the customary condition of an absolute separation from his wife.
On her side—never let her know that I told you this—Stella signed a formal document, sent from Rome, asserting that she consented of her own free will to the separation.
She was relieved from the performance of another formality (which I need not mention more particularly) by a special dispensation.
Under these circumstances—communicated to me while Stella and I have been together in this house—the wife’s presence at the bedside of her dying husband is regarded by the other priests at the Embassy as a scandal and a profanation.
The kind-hearted Nuncio is blamed for having exceeded his powers in yielding (even under protest) to the last wishes of a dying man.
He is now in communication with Rome, waiting for the final instructions which are to guide him.”
“Has Romayne seen his child?” I asked.
“Stella has taken the child with her to-day.
It is doubtful in the last degree whether the poor little boy will be allowed to enter his father’s room.
That complication is even more serious than the other.
The dying Romayne persists in his resolution to see the child.
So completely has his way of thinking been altered by the approach of death, and by the closing of the brilliant prospect which was before him, that he even threatens to recant, with his last breath, if his wishes are not complied with.
How it will end I cannot even venture to guess.
“Unless the merciful course taken by the Nuncio is confirmed,” said Lord Loring, “it may end in a revival of the protest of the Catholic priests in Germany against the prohibition of marriage to the clergy.
The movement began in Silesia in 1826, and was followed by unions (or Leagues, as we should call them now) in Baden, Wurtemburg, Bavaria, and Rhenish Prussia.
Later still, the agitation spread to France and Austria.
It was only checked by a papal bull issued in 1847, reiterating the final decision of the famous Council of Trent in favor of the celibacy of the priesthood.
Few people are aware that this rule has been an institution of slow growth among the clergy of the Church of Rome.
Even as late as the twelfth century, there were still priests who set the prohibition of marriage at defiance.”
I listened, as one of the many ignorant persons alluded to by Lord Loring.
It was with difficulty that I fixed my attention on what he was saying.
My thoughts wandered to Stella and to the dying man.
I looked at the clock.
Lady Loring evidently shared the feeling of suspense that had got possession of me.
She rose and walked to the window.
“Here is the message!” she said, recognizing her traveling servant as he entered the hotel door.
The man appeared, with a line written on a card.
I was requested to present the card at the Embassy, without delay.
May 4.—I am only now able to continue my record of the events of yesterday.
A silent servant received me at the Embassy, looked at the card, and led the way to an upper floor of the house.
Arrived at the end of a long passage, he opened a door, and retired.
As I crossed the threshold Stella met me.
She took both my hands in hers and looked at me in silence.
All that was true and good and noble expressed itself in that look.
The interval passed, and she spoke—very sadly, very quietly.
“One more work of mercy, Bernard.
Help him to die with a heart at rest.”
She drew back—and I approached him.
He reclined, propped up with pillows, in a large easy-chair; it was the one position in which he could still breathe with freedom.
The ashy shades of death were on his wasted face.
In the eyes alone, as they slowly turned on me, there still glimmered the waning light of life.
One of his arms hung down over the chair; the other was clasped round his child, sitting on his knee.
The boy looked at me wonderingly, as I stood by his father.
Romayne signed to me to stoop, so that I might hear him.
“Penrose?” he asked, faintly whispering. “Dear Arthur! Not dying, like me?”
I quieted that anxiety.
For a moment there was even the shadow of a smile on his face, as I told him of the effort that Penrose had vainly made to be the companion of my journey.
He asked me, by another gesture, to bend my ear to him once more.