repeat the grand Ethics of Life,—­the Law of Love and Charity and Forbearance and Pity and Forgiveness!  When one of these highly destined servants of the Great King fails in his duty,—­when he cannot pardon the sinner,—­when he looks churlishly upon a child, or condemns the innocent amusements of the young and happy,—­when he makes the sweet Sabbath a day of penance instead of praise—­of tyranny instead of rest,—­when he has no charity for backsliders, no sympathy for the sorrowful, no toleration for the contradictors of his own particular theory—­do we not feel that his very existence is a blasphemy, and his preaching a presumption!”

Here Sylvie raised her eyes from the book.  She was near an ancient cedar-tree whose dark spreading boughs, glistening with the early morning dew, sparkled like a jewelled canopy in the sun,—­at her feet the turf was brown and bare, but a little beyond at the turn of the pathway, a cluster of white narcissi waved their graceful stems to the light wind.  There was a rustic bench close by, and she sat down to rest and think.  Very sweet thoughts were hers,—­such thoughts as sweet women cherish when they dream of Love.  Often the dream vanishes before realisation, but this does not make the time of dreaming less precious or less fair.  Lost in a reverie which in its pleasantness brought a smile to her lips, she did not hear a stealthy footstep on the grass behind her, or feel a pair of dark eyes watching her furtively from between the cedar-boughs,—­and she started with surprise, and something of offence also, as Monsigner Gherardi suddenly appeared and addressed her,—­

“Buon giorno, Contessa!”

She rose from her seat and saluted him in silence, instinctively grasping the book she held a little closer.  But Gherardi’s quick glance had already perceived the title and the name of its author.

“You improve the time!” he said, sarcastically, pacing slowly beside her.  “To one of your faith and devotion that book should be accursed!”

She raised her clear eyes and looked at him straightly,

“Is the sunlight accursed?” she said, “The grass or the flowers?  The thoughts in this book are as pure and beautiful as they!”

Gherardi smiled.  The enthusiasm of a woman’s unspoilt nature was always a source of amusement to him.

“Your sentiments are very pretty and poetic!” he said, “But they are exaggerated.  That book is on the ’Index’!”

“Yes, of course it would be!” answered Sylvie quietly, “I have often wondered why so much fine literature is condemned by the Church,—­ and do you know, it occurred to me the other day that if our Lord had written what He said in the form of a book, it might be placed on the ‘Index’ also?”

Gherardi lifted his eyes from their scrutiny of the ground, and fixed them upon her with a look of amazement that was almost a menace.  But she was not in the least intimidated,—­and her face, though pale as the narcissi she had just seen in blossom, was very tranquil.