became doubly dreadful 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 peaceful radiance 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 sufficiently wicked 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 wi