after what the banker has told me. Stella's view of his character

is the right one. The man who has deserted her has no heart to be
touched by wife or child. They are separated forever.

March 3.--I have just seen the landlord of the hotel; he can help
me to answer one of Mrs. Eyrecourt's questions. A nephew of his

holds some employment at the Jesuit headquarters here, adjoining
their famous church _Il Gesu_. I have requested the young man to

ascertain if Father Benwell is still in Rome--without mentioning
me. It would be no small trial to my self-control if we met in

the street.
March 4.--Good news this time for Mrs. Eyrecourt, as far as it

goes. Father Benwell has long since left Rome, and has returned
to his regular duties in England. If he exercises any further

influence over Romayne, it must be done by letter.
March 5.--I have returned from Romayne's sermon. This double

renegade--has he not deserted his religion and his wife?--has
failed to convince my reason. But he has so completely upset my

nerves that I ordered a bottle of champagne (to the great
amusement of my friend the banker) the moment we got back to the

hotel.
We drove through the scantily lighted streets of Rome to a small

church in the neighborhood of the Piazza Navona. To a more
imaginative man than myself, the scene when we entered the

building would have been too impressive to be described in
words--though it might perhaps have been painted. The one light

in the place glimmered mysteriously from a great wax candle,
burning in front of a drapery of black cloth, and illuminating

dimly a sculptured representation, in white marble, of the
crucified Christ, wrought to the size of life. In front of this

ghastlyemblem a platform projected, also covered with black
cloth. We could penetrate no further than to the space just

inside the door of the church. Everywhere else the building was
filled with standing, sitting and kneeling figures, shadowy and

mysterious, fading away in far corners into impenetrable gloom.
The only sounds were the low, wailing notes of the organ,

accompanied at intervals by the muffled thump of fanatic
worshipers penitentially beating their breasts. On a sudden the

organ ceased; the self-inflicted blows of the penitents were
heard no more. In the breathless silence that followed, a man

robed in black mounted the black platform, and faced the
congregation. His hair had become prematurely gray; his face was

of the ghastly paleness of the great crucifix at his side. The
light of the candle, falling on him as he slowly turned his head,

cast shadows into the hollows of his cheeks, and glittered in his
gleaming eyes. In tones low and trembling at first, he stated the

subject of his address. A week since, two noteworthy persons had
died in Rome on the same day. One of them was a woman of

exemplary piety, whose funeral obsequies had been celebrated in
that church. The other was a criminal charged with homicide under

provocation, who had died in prison, refusing the services of the
priest--impenitent to the last. The sermon followed the spirit of

the absolved woman to its eternalreward in heaven, and described
the meeting with dear ones who had gone before, in terms so

devout and so touching that the women near us, and even some of
the men, burst into tears. Far different was the effect produced

when the preacher, filled with the same overpowering sincerity of
belief which had inspired his description of the joys of heaven,

traced the downward progress of the lost man, from his impenitent
death-bed to his doom in hell. The dreadfulsuperstition of

everlasting torment became doublydreadful in the priest's
fervent words. He described the retributive voices of the mother

and the brother of the murdered man ringing incessantly in the
ears of the homicide. "I, who speak to you, hear the voices," he

cried. "Assassin! assassin! where are you? I see him--I see the
assassin hurled into his place in the sleepless ranks of the

damned--I see him, dripping with the flames that burn forever,
writhing under the torments that are without respite and without

end." The climax of this terrible effort of imagination was
reached when he fell on his knees and prayed with sobs and cries

of entreaty--prayed, pointing to the crucifix at his side--that
he and all who heard him might die the death of penitent sinners,

absolved in the divinely atoning name of Christ. The hysterical
shrieks of women rang through the church. I could endure it no

longer. I hurried into the street, and breathed again freely,
when I looked up at the cloudless beauty of the night sky, bright

with the peacefulradiance of the stars.
And this man was Romayne! I had last met with him among his

delightful works of art; an enthusiast in literature; the
hospitable master of a house filled with comforts and luxuries to

its remotest corner. And now I had seen what Rome had made of
him.

"Yes," said my companion, "the Ancient Church not only finds out
the men who can best serve it, but develops qualities in those

men of which they have been themselves unconscious. The advance
which Roman Catholic Christianity has been, and is still, making

has its intelligible reason. Thanks to the great Reformation, the
papal scandals of past centuries have been atoned for by the

exemplary lives of servants of the Church, in high places and low
places alike. If a new Luther arose among us, where would he now

find abuses sufficientlywicked and widely spread to shock the
sense of decency in Christendom? He would find them nowhere--and

he would probably return to the respectable shelter of the Roman
sheepfold."

I listened, without making any remark. To tell the truth, I was
thinking of Stella.

March 6.--I have been to Civita Vecchia, to give a little
farewell entertainment to the officers and crew before they take

the yacht back to England.
In a few words I said at parting, I mentioned that it was my

purpose to make an offer for the purchase of the vessel, and that
my guests should hear from me again on the subject. This

announcement was received with enthusiasm. I really like my
crew--and I don't think it is vain in me to believe that they

return the feeling, from the sailing-master to the cabin-boy. My
future life, after all that has passed, is likely to be a roving

life, unless--No! I may think sometimes of that happier prospect,
but I had better not put my thoughts into w ords. I have a fine

vessel; I have plenty of money; and I like the sea. There are
three good reasons for buying the yacht.

Returning to Rome in the evening, I found waiting for me a letter
from Stella.

She writes (immediately on the receipt of my telegram) to make a
similar request to the request addressed to me by her mother. Now

that I am at Rome, she too wants to hear news of a Jesuit priest.
He is absent on a foreign mission, and his name is Penrose. "You

shall hear what obligations I owe to his kindness," she writes,
"when we meet. In the meantime, I will only say that he is the

exact opposite of Father Benwell, and that I should be the most
ungrateful of women if I did not feel the truest interest in his

welfare."
This is strange, and, to my mind, not satisfactory. Who is

Penrose? and what has he done to deserve such strong expressions
of gratitude? If anybody had told me that Stella could make a

friend of a Jesuit, I am afraid I should have returned a rude
answer. Well, I must wait for further enlightenment, and apply to

the landlord's nephew once more.
March 7.--There is small prospect, I fear, of my being able to

appreciate the merits of Mr. Penrose by personal experience. He
is thousands of miles away from Europe, and he is in a situation

of peril, which makes the chance of his safe return doubtful in
the last degree.

The Mission to which he is attached was originally destined to
find its field of work in Central America. Rumors of more

fighting to come, in that revolutionary part of the world,
reached Rome before the missionaries had sailed from the port of

Leghorn. Under these discouraging circumstances, the priestly
authorities changed the destination of the Mission to the

territory of Arizona, bordering on New Mexico, and recently