"So be it!" he said--"I will carry out all your commands to the letter! May I just say that your generosity to Giulio Rivardi seems almost unnecessary? To endow him with a fortune for life is surely too indulgent! Does he merit such bounty at your hands?"
She smiled.
"Dear Father Aloysius, Giulio has lost his heart to me!" she said--"Or what he calls his heart! He should have some recompense for the loss! He wants to restore his old Roman villa--and when I am gone he will have nothing to distract him from this artistic work,--I leave him the means to do it! I hope he will marry--it is the best thing for him!"
She turned to go.
"And your own Palazzo d'Oro?--"
"Will become the abode of self-sacrificing love," she replied--"It could not be put to better use! It was a fancy of mine;--I love it and its gardens--and I should have tried to live there had I not found out the secret of a large and longer life!" She paused--then added--"To-morrow morning you will come?"
He bent his head.
"To-morrow!"
With a salute of mingled reverence and affection she left him. He watched her go,--and hearing the bell begin to chime in the chapel for vespers, he lifted his eyes for a moment in silent prayer. A light flashed downward, playing on his hands like a golden ripple,--and he stood quietly expectant and listening. A Voice floated along the Ray--"You are doing well and rightly!" it said--"You will release her now from the strain of seeming to be what she is not. She is of the New Race, and her spirit is advanced too far to endure the grossness and materialism of the Old generation. She deserves all she has studied and worked for,--lasting life, lasting beauty, lasting love! Nothing must hinder her now!"
"Nothing shall!" he answered.
The Ray lessened in brilliancy and gradually diminished till it entirely vanished,--and Don Aloysius, with the rapt expression of a saint and visionary, entered the chapel where his brethren were already assembled, and chanted with them-"Magna opera Domini; exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus!"
The next morning, all radiant with sunshine, saw the strangest of nuptial ceremonies,--one that surely had seldom, if ever, been witnessed before in all the strange happenings of human chance. Manella Soriso, pale as a white arum lily, her rich dark hair adorned with a single spray of orange-blossom gathered from the garden, stood trembling beside the bed where lay stretched out the immobile form of the once active, world-defiant Roger Seaton. His eyes, wide open and staring into vacancy, were, like dull pebbles, fixed in his head,--his face was set and rigid as a mask of clay--only his regular breathing gave evidence of life. Manella's pitiful gazing on this ruin of the man to whom she had devoted her heart and soul, her tender sorrow, her yearning beauty, might have almost moved a stone image to a thrill of response,--but not a flicker of expression appeared on the frozen features of that terrible fallen pillar of human self-sufficiency. Standing beside the bed with Manella was Marco Ardini, intensely watchful and eager to note even a quiver of the flesh or the tremor of a muscle,--and near him was Lady Kingswood, terrified yet enthralled by the scene, and anxious on behalf of Morgana, who looked statuesque and pensive like a small attendant angel close to Don Aloysius. He, in his priestly robes, read the marriage service with soft and impressive intonation, himself speaking the responses for the bride-groom,--and taking Manella's hand he placed it on Seaton's, clasping the two together, the one so yielding and warm, the other stiff as marble, and setting the golden marriage ring which Morgana had given, on the bride's finger. As he made the sign of the cross and uttered the final blessing, Manella sank on her knees and covered her face. There followed a tense silence--Aloysius laid his hand on her bent head-"God help and bless you!" he said, solemnly--"Only the Divine Power can give you strength to bear the burden you have taken on yourself!"