e.

".... _What good can such a marriage do? No Catholic could marry you,
I am sure. It is no marriage. Your brother wrote you the truth. I do
not wonder that you will never read or speak an Italian word
again--you have disgraced Italy. But as he says, you are no true
Italian--your English mother and her Protestant blood has made this
horrible thing possible. Her death was a judgment on you._"

Oh, these cruel, gentle women! And on these breasts we long to lay our
heads!

".... _I do not wonder that all his countrymen are against him, and
that he must live alone all his days. Even in that wild land blasphemy
has its deserts, then. But I cannot help being glad for you that his
kinswoman will be your servant, for you are ill fitted to grow maize
with the painted savages, ma plus douce! But how strange that even a
distant relative of one so comme il faut should be of a sort to do
this!_

"_Alas, I talk as if I were again of the world! If Raoul had not died,
I should have been...._"

Here the letter was blotted beyond recognition for a whole, closely
written page. It must have been tender here, and one sees the poor
Maria fairly kissing it to pieces. I was grateful to the writer.

".... _That you should be a mother! And soon! I cannot comprehend it.
My head swims. Reverend Mother dreamed of you so, suckling it, with a
halo around your head, and she awoke in terror and told Sister
Lisabetta, who let it out. The devil put it into her dream, to tempt
her, Sister Lisabetta says, for she was always too fond of you. She
fasted three days and one heard her groaning in the night--she was as
white as paper. Oh, Maria, to feel it at one's breast, tugging there!
I think I am going mad. Never write again, for I shall never read it,
nor know if it is born._"

Truly God permits strange things. And yet celibacy is as old as
civilisation, and the Will to Live has denied itself since first It
was conscious. It cannot be pished and pshawed away, by you or me or
another.

"... _I will get this to the baker's daughter, and then when I am sure
it is gone, I will confess it all, and whatever penance Reverend
Mother puts upon me, I shall be only glad. It may be I shall be cut
off from Our Blessed Lord longer than I can bear, and then I shall
die, but I think I shall be forgiven finally, for something tells me
so, and until I gave you the letter, that day near the fountain, I
cannot think of any very great sin, can you, Maria? We we