The Master-Christian eBook

Marie Corelli
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 863 pages of information about The Master-Christian.

The Master-Christian eBook

Marie Corelli
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 863 pages of information about The Master-Christian.
sinner,—­that was all.  And such deeds as these were commanded by Christ.  Yet—­the Head of the Church for these same things viewed him with wrath and suspicion!  Wearily he sat, turning over everything in his mind, and longing, with a weakness which he fully admitted to his own conscience, to leave Rome at once and return to his own home, there to die among his roses at peace.  But he saw it would never do to leave Rome just yet.  He was bound fast hand and foot.  He was “suspect”!  In his querulous fit the Pope had ordered Claude Cazeau to return to Rouen without delay, and there gather further evidence respecting the Cardinal’s stay at the Hotel Poitiers, and if possible, to bring the little Fabien Doucet and his mother back to Rome with him.  Pending the arrival of fresh proof, Bonpre, though he had received no actual command, knew he was expected to remain where he was.  Weary and sick at heart, the venerable prelate sighed as he reviewed all the entangling perplexities, which had, so unconsciously to himself, become woven like a web about his innocent and harmless personality, and so absorbed was he in thought that he did not hear the door of his room open, and so was sot aware that his foundling Manuel had stood for some time silently watching him.  Such love and compassion as were expressed in the boy’s deep blue eyes could not however radiate long through any space without some sympathetic response,—­and moved by instinctive emotion, Cardinal Felix looked up, and seeing his young companion smiled,—­albeit the smile was a somewhat sad one.

“Where have you been, my child?” he asked gently, “I have missed you for some hours.”

Manuel advanced a little, and stood between the pale afternoon light reflected through the window, and the warmer glow of the wood fire.

“I have been to the strangest place in all the world!” he answered, “The strangest,—­and surely one of the most wicked!”

The Cardinal raised himself in his chair, and bent an anxious wondering look upon the young speaker.

“One of the most wicked!” he echoed, “What place are you talking of?”

“St. Peter’s!” answered Manuel, with a thrill of passion in his voice as he uttered the name, “St. Peter’s,—­the huge Theatre misnamed a Church!  Oh, dear friend!—­do not look at me thus!  Surely you must feel that what I say is true?  Surely you know that there is nothing of the loving God in that vast Cruelty of a place, where wealth and ostentation vie with intolerant officialism, bigotry and superstition!—­where even the marble columns have been stolen from the temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the names of Isis and Jupiter wrought in the truthful stone;—­where theft, rapine and murder have helped to build the miscalled Christian fane!  You cannot in your heart of hearts feel it to be the abode of Christ; your soul, bared to the sight of God, repudiates it as a Lie!  Yes!”—­For, startled and carried away by the boy’s fervour,

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Project Gutenberg
The Master-Christian from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.