"None, my son, none," answered the priest, shaking his head;
"nevertheless, I bid you be of good cheer. That young maiden is not
doomed to die a heretic. Who knows what the Blessed Virgin may at this
moment be doing for her soul! Perhaps, when you next behold her, she
will be clad in the shining white robe of the true faith."
This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort which the old
priest possibly intended by it; but he imparted it to the sculptor,
along with his blessing, as the two best things that he could bestow,
and said nothing further, except to bid him farewell.
When they had parted, however, the idea of Hilda's conversion to
Catholicism recurred to her lover's mind, bringing with it certain
reflections, that gave a new turn to his surmises about the mystery into
which she had vanished. Not that he seriously apprehended--although
the superabundance of her religious sentiment might mislead her for
a moment--that the New England girl would permanently succumb to the
scarlet superstitions which surrounded her in Italy. But the incident
of the confessional if known, as probably it was, to the eager
propagandists who prowl about for souls, as cats to catch a mouse--would
surely inspire the most confident expectations of bringing her over to
the faith. With so pious an end in view, would Jesuitical morality be
shocked at the thought of kidnapping the mortal body, for the sake of
the immortal spirit that might otherwise be lost forever? Would not the
kind old priest, himself, deem this to be infinitely the kindest service
that he could perform for the stray lamb, who had so strangely sought
his aid?
If these suppositions were well founded, Hilda was most likely a
prisoner in one of the religious establishments that are so numerous in
Rome. The idea, according to the aspect in which it was viewed, brought
now a degree of comfort, and now an additional perplexity. On the one
hand, Hilda was safe from any but spiritual assaults; on the other,
where was the possibility of breaking through all those barred portals,
and searching a thousand convent cells, to set her free?
Kenyon, however, as it happened, was prevented from endeavoring to
follow out this surmise, which only the state of hopeless uncertainty,
that almost bewildered his reason, could have led him for a moment
to entertain. A communication reached him by an unknown hand, in
consequence of which, and within an hour after receiving it, he took his
way through one of the gates of Rome.