“Manuel!” he murmured feebly, “Child!—­what have you done!”

“Only what I am bound to do!” replied Manuel simply, “I have said no more than it is right to say, if Christ’s words are true!  Dear friend, be at peace!  You will not suffer misjudgment long!”

The music stealing out from the distant chapel, floated round them in large circles of solemn melody,—­and the glow of sunset lit the clear sky with a warm red radiance, flecked with golden clouds of glory.

“He would not come with me!” said Manuel, with a slight gesture backward to the sombre portals they had just passed, “And he will never come!  But you will!”

And smiling,—­with his fair face turned to the radiant sky,—­he rested his hand lightly on the Cardinal’s arm as they descended the broad marble steps, and left the great Palace of the Popes together.

XXIX.

While the foregoing scene was taking place at the Vatican, Angela Sovrani, left to herself for some hours, took the opportunity to set her great picture “on view” for the coming morrow.  Locking both doors of her studio, she began to arrange the room; her huge canvas was already on a movable easel supplied with wheels, which ran lightly and easily over the polished floor without making any sound.  At its summit a brass rod was attached, and on this a curtain of golden-coloured silk was hung, the folds of which at present concealed the painting from view.  The top-light of the studio was particularly good on this special afternoon, as the weather was clear, and the Roman sky translucent and bright as an opal, and Angela, as she wheeled her “great work” into position, sang for pure lightness of heart and thankfulness that all was done.  In her soul she had the consciousness that what she had produced from her brain and hand was not altogether unworthy.  For, though to the true artist, no actual result can ever attain to the beauty of the first thought or ideal of the thing to be performed, there is always the consolation that if one’s best and truest feeling has been earnestly put into the work, some touch, however slight, of that ideal beauty must remain.  The poet’s poem is never so fine as the poet’s thought.  The thought is from the immortal and invincible soul,—­the poem has to be conveyed through the grosser body, clothed in language which must always be narrow and inadequate.  Hence the artist’s many and grievous limitations.  To the eyes of the spirit all things appear transfigured, because lifted out of the sphere of material vision.  But when we try to put these “beautiful things made new, for the delight of the sky-children” on paper or canvas, in motionless marble or flexible rhyme,—­we are weighted by grosser air and the density of bodily feeling.  So it was with Angela Sovrani, iwhose compact little head were folded the splendid dreams of genius like sleeping fairies in a magic cave;—­and thoughtful and brilliant