“Very sudden!”

“He will not know what has happened to Angela—­”

“Oh he will be sure to hear that!” said the Prince—­“To-night it will be in all the newspapers both of Rome and Naples.  Angela’s light cannot be hidden under a bushel!”

“True.  Then of course he will return at once.”

“Naturally.  If he hears the news on his way, he will probably be back to-night—­” said Sovrani, but his fuzzy brows were still puckered.  Some uncomfortable thought seemed to trouble him,—­and presently, as if moved by a sudden inexplicable instinct, he took the basket of lilies away from where he had set it in front of his daughter’s picture, and transferred it to a side-table.  Cardinal Bonpre, always observant, noticed his action.

“You will not leave the flowers there?” he queried.

“No.  The picture is a sacred thing!—­it is an almost living Christ!- -in whom Varillo does not believe!”

The Cardinal lifted his eyes protestingly.

“Yet you let the child marry him?”

Sovrani passed one hand wearily across his brows.

“Let us not talk of marriage,” he said—­“Death is nearer to us to-day than life!  I am opposed to the match—­I always have been,—­and who knows—­who knows what may not yet prevent it—­” He paused, thinking,—­then turning a solicitous glance on his brother-in-law’s frail figure he said—­“Felix, you look weary,—­let me attend you to your own rooms, that you may rest.  We need you with us,—­it may be that we shall need you more than we have ever done!  Pray for us, brother!—­Pray for my Angela, that she may be spared—­”

His harsh voice broke,—­and tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks.

“See you!” he said, pointing in a kind of despair to the magnificent “Coming of Christ”—­“If Raffaelle or Angelo had dared to paint this in their day, the world would be taking a lesson from it now!  If it were a modern man’s work, that man would be a centre for hero-worship!  But that a woman should create such a masterpiece!—­and that woman my Angela!  Do you know what it means, Felix?—­what Fame always means, what it always must mean—­for a woman?  Just what has already happened,—­the murderous dagger-thrust—­the coward stab in the back—­and the little child’s cry of the tender broken heart we heard just now—­’Stay with me!—­I am so tired!’”

The Cardinal pressed his hand sympathetically, too profoundly moved himself to speak.

“This picture will bring down the thunders of the Vatican!—­” went on Sovrani—­“And those thunders will awaken a responsive echo from the world!  But not from the Old World—­the New!  The New World!—­yes--my Angela’s work is for the living present, the coming future—­not for the decayed Past!”

As he spoke, he dropped the silken curtain before the picture and hid it from view.

“We will raise it again when the painter lives—­or dies!” he said brokenly.