"What a beautiful hand it is! I think I should know it among all the
hands in the world. How stupid! People have been afraid of me all my
life, Roma; even my mother was afraid of me when I was a child; but to
die without once having known what it was to have some one to love
you.... I believe I'm beginning to rave."
The mournful irony of the words was belied by the tremulous voice.
"My little comedy is played out, I suppose, and when the curtain is down
it is time to go home. Death is a solemn sort of homegoing, Roma, and if
those we've injured cannot forgive us before we go...."
But the battle of hate in Roma's heart was over. She had remembered
Rossi and that had swept away all her bitterness. As the Baron stood to
her, so she stood to her husband. They were two unforgiven ones, both
guilty and ashamed.
"Indeed, indeed I do forgive you, as I hope to be forgiven," she said,
whereupon he laughed again, but with a different note altogether.
Then he asked her to lift up his head. She placed a cushion under it,
but still he called on her to lift his head higher.
"Can you lift me in your arms, Roma?... Higher still. So!... Can you
hold me there?"
"How do you feel now?" she asked.
"It won't be long," he answered. His respirations came in whiffs.
Roma began to repeat as much as she could remember of the prayers for
the dying which she had heard at the deathbed of her aunt. The dying man
smiled an indulgent smile into the young woman's beautiful and mournful
face and allowed her to go on. As she prayed faster and faster, saying
the same words over and over again, she felt his breathing grow more
faint and irregular. At length it seemed to stop, and thinking it was
gone altogether, she made the sign of the cross and said:
"We commend to Thee, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant Gabriel, that being
dead to the world he may live to Thee, and those sins which through the
frailty of human life he has committed, Thou by the indulgence of Thy
most merciful loving-kindness may wipe out, through Christ our Lord.
Amen."
Then the glazed eyes opened wide and lighted up with a pitiful smile.
"I'm dying in your arms, Roma."
Then a long breath, and then: "Adieu!"
He had tried to subdue all men to his will, and there was one man he had
subdued above all others--himself. There is a greater man than the great
man--the man who is too great to be great.