“You are a visionary,” he said, addressing the count, who now stood beside them.  “I am sorry for you.  Such a consummation as you desire is impossible.  Your faith has no foundation.  It is a creation of the brain.  The Catholic Church stands upon a rock.  It permits no change, it accepts no compromise, it admits no errors.  The authority given to St. Peter by Jesus Christ himself, with the spiritual keys, can alone open the gates of heaven.  All without are damned.  Good intentions are nothing.  Private interpretation, believe me, is of the devil.  Obedience to the Holy Father, and the intercession of the saints, can alone save your soul.  Submit yourself to the teaching of our mother Church, my dear count.  Submit yourself—­you have my prayers.”  Trenta watched Marescotti with a fixed gaze of such solemn earnestness, it seemed as though he anticipated that the blessed San Frediano himself might appear, and then and there miraculously convert him.  “Submit yourself,” he repeated, raising his arm and pointing to the altar, “then you will be blessed.”

No miraculous interposition, however, was destined to crown the poor cavaliere’s strenuous efforts to convert the heretical count; but, long before he had finished, the sound of his voice had recalled Count Marescotti to himself.  He remembered that the old chamberlain belonged, in years at least, if not in belief, to the past.  He blamed himself for his thoughtlessness in having said a syllable that could give him pain.  The mystic disciple of Savonarola became in an instant the polished gentleman.

“A thousand pardons, my dear Trenta,” he said, passing his hand over his forehead, and putting back the dark, disordered hair that hung upon his brow—­“a thousand pardons!—­I am quite ashamed of myself.  We are here, as I now remember, to examine the tombs of your ancestors in the chapel of the Trenta.  I have delayed you too long.  Shall we proceed?”

Trenta, glad to escape from the possibility of any further discussion with the count, whose religious views were to him nothing but the ravings of a mischievous maniac, at once turned into the side-aisle, and, with ceremonious politeness, conducted Enrica toward the chapel of the Trenta.

The chapel, divided by gates of gilt bronze from the line of the other altars bordering the aisles, forms a deep recess near the high altar.  The walls are inlaid by what had once been brilliantly-colored marbles, in squares of red, green, and yellow; but time and damp had dulled them into a sombre hue.  Above, a heavy circular cornice joins a dome-shaped roof, clothed with frescoes, through which the light descends through a central lantern.  Painted figures of prophets stand erect within the four spandrils, and beneath, breaking the marble walls, four snow-white statues of the Evangelists fill lofty niches of gray-tinted stone.  Opposite the gilded gates of entrance which Trenta had unlocked, a black sarcophagus projects from