“The gentle old man dropped tears of pity over me, and sat in silent sympathy some time before he ventured to give me any words.

“At length he arose and said: 

“’Child, I must go home and pray for wisdom before I can venture to counsel you.’

“‘Bless me, then, holy father.’

“He laid his venerable hands upon my bowed head, raised his eyes to Heaven, and invoked upon me the divine benediction, of which I stood so much in need.

“Then he silently passed from the room.

“That night I slept in peace.

“The next day the good old man came to me again.

“He told me that my first marriage with Waldemar de Volaski was my only true marriage, indissoluble by anything but death, however invalid in law it might be pronounced by those who were interested in breaking it.

“That my second marriage contracted with the Duke of Hereward during the life of my first husband, was sacrilegious in the eyes of religion and the church, however legal it might be considered by the laws of England or of France, and pardonable in me only on account of my ignorance at the time of the continued existence of my first husband.

“That the desperate step I had taken of leaving the Duke of Hereward, upon the discovery of the existence of Waldemar de Volaski, was the right and proper course for me to pursue; but that he regretted I had not possessed the moral courage to tell the duke the whole story, for he had that much right to my confidence.

“As for the divorce I so much lamented, it was to be regretted only for the sake of the son whom it had outlawed, for he was the son of a lawful marriage in the eyes of the world, if not a sacred one in the eyes of the church.

“For the boy thus cruelly wronged there seemed no opening on earth.  He was disowned, disinherited, delegalized, deprived even of a name in this world.  All earth was closed against him.

“But all Heaven was open to him.  The church, Heaven’s servant, would open her arms to receive the child the world had cast out.  The church in baptism would give him a name and a surname; would give him an education and a mission.  I must, like Hannah of old, devote my son, even from his childhood up, to the service of the altar, and the church would do the rest.

“How comforted I was!  I had something still to live for!  My outcast son would be saved.  He could not inherit his father’s titles and estates; he could not be a duke, but he would be a holy minister of the Lord; he might live to be a prince of the church, an archbishop or a cardinal.

“Foolish ambition of a still worldly mother you may think.  Yes! but he was her only son, and she was worse than widowed.

“I agreed to all the good priest said.  I promised to dedicate my son to the service of the altar.

“The next Sunday I went to the chapel of Santa Maria and had my child christened.  I gave him in baptism the full name of his father.  Beppo and Madelena stood as his sponsors.  They told me St. John would be his patron saint.