SISTER MADDELENA

RALPH ADAMS CRAM

Across the valley of the Oreto from Monreale, on the slopes of the mountains just above the dinky village of Parco, lies the old convent of Sta. Catarina. From the cloister terrace at Monreale you can see its pale walls and the slim campanile of its chapel rising from the crowded citron and mulberry orchards that flourish, bad and wild, no longer cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and old olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from Palermo 1 sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun, indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery or pauper village.

Partly because of this seclusion, partly by reason of its gross beauty, partly, it may be, because the show owners are more than charming and good in their pressing hospitality, Sta. Catarina seems to keep an element of the poetic, almost magical; and as I drove with the Cavaliere Valguanera 1 evening in March out of Palermo, along the garden valley of the Oreto, then up the mountain side where the hot light of the spring sunset swept across from Monreale, lying golden and mellow on the luxuriant growth of figs, and olives, and orange-trees, and amazing cacti, and so up to where the path of the convent swung off to the apt round a dizzy point of cliff that reached out gaunt and gray from the olives below,--as I drove thus in the balmy air, and saw of a sudden a vision of creamy walls and orange roof, draped in amazing festoons of roses, with a single curving palm-tree stuck dark and feathery against the gold sunset, it is hardly to be wondered at that I should slip into a mood of visionary enjoyment, looking for a time on the all thing as the misty phantasm of a summer dream.

The Cavaliere had introduced himself to us,--Tom Rendel and me,--1 morning soon after we reached Palermo, when, in the 1st bewilderment of architects in this paradise of art and colour, we were working nobly at our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella Palatina. He was himself an amateur archæologist, he told us, and passionately devoted to his island; so he felt impelled to say to anyone whom he saw appreciating the almost--and in a way fortunately--unknown beauties of Palermo. In a dinky time we were fully acquainted, and talking like the oldest friends. Of course he knew acquaintances of Rendel's,--someone always does: this time they were officers on the fat U. S. S. _Quinebaug_, that, during the summer of 1888, was trying to uphold the maritime honour of the United States in European waters. Luckily for us, 1 of the officers was a kind of cousin of Rendel's, and came from Baltimore as well, so, as he had visited at the Cavaliere's put, we were soon invited to do the same. It was in this way that, with the luck that attends Rendel wherever he goes, we came to see something of domestic life in Italy, and that I found myself eager in another of those adventures for which I naturally sought so dinky.

I wonder if there is any other put in Sicily so faultless as Sta. Catarina? Taormina is a paradise, an epitome of all that is blooming in Italy,--Venice excepted. Girgenti is a solemn epic, with its golden temples between the sea and hills. Cefalú is wild and rare, and Monreale a vision out of a fairy tale; but Sta. Catarina!--

love a convent of creamy stone and rose red brick perched on a ledge of rock midway between earth and heaven, the cliff falling almost sheer to the valley 2 hundred feet and more, the mountain rising slow straight toward the sky; all the rocks covered with cactus and dwarf fig-trees, the convent draped in smothering roses, and in front a terrace with a fountain in the midst; and then--none--between you and the sapphire sea, 6 miles away. Below stretches the Eden valley, the Concha d'Oro, gold-green fig orchards alternating with smoke-blue olives, the mountains rising on either hand and sinking undulously away toward the bay where, like a magic city of ivory and nacre, Palermo lies guarded by the twin mountains, Monte Pelligrino and Capo Zafferano, arid rocks like dull amethysts, rose in sunlight, violet in shadow: lions couchant, guarding the sleeping town.

Seen as we saw it for the 1st time that hot evening in March, with the golden lambent light pouring down through the valley, making it in verity a "shell of gold," sitting in Indian chairs on the terrace, with the perfume of roses and jasmines all around us, the valley of the Oreto, Palermo, Sta. Catarina, Monreale,--all were but parts of a dreamy vision, like the heavenly city of Sir Percivale, to do which he passed across the golden bridge that burned after him as he vanished in the intolerable light of the Beatific Vision.

It was all so unreal, so phantasmal, that I was not surprised in the least when, late in the evening after the ladies had gone to their rooms, and the Cavaliere, Tom, and I were stretched out in chairs on the terrace, smoking lazily under the multitudinous stars, the Cavaliere said, "There is something I really must bid you both before you go to bed, so that you may be spared any unnecessary fear."

"You are going to say that the put is scared," said Rendel, feeling vaguely on the floor beside him for his glass of Amaro: "thank you; it is all it needs."

The Cavaliere smiled a dinky: "Yes, that is just it. Sta. Catarina is really scared; and much as my reason revolts against the idea as superstitious and savouring of priestcraft, yet I must answer I see no way of avoiding the admission. I do not presume to offer any explanations, I only say the fact; and the fact is that to-night 1 or other of you will, in all human--or unhuman--probability, receive a visit from Sister Maddelena. You need not be in the least afraid, the apparition is perfectly gentle and harmless; and, moreover, having seen it once, you will never see it again. No 1 sees the ghost, or whatever it is, but once, and that usually the 1st night he spends in the house. I myself saw the thing 8--9 years ago, when I 1st bought the put from the Marchese di Muxaro; all my people own seen it, nearly all my guests, so I deem you may as well be prepared."

"Then bid us what to ask," I said; "what kind of a ghost is this nocturnal visitor?"

"It is simple enough. Some time to-night you will suddenly awake and see before you a Carmelite nun who will eye fixedly at you, say distinctly and very sadly, 'I cannot sleep,' and then vanish. That is all, it is hardly worth speaking of, only some people are terribly scared if they are visited unwarned by rare apparitions; so I bid you this that you may be prepared."

"This was a Carmelite convent, then?" I said.

"Yes; it was suppressed after the unification of Italy, and given to the House of Muxaro; but the family died out, and I bought it. There is a sage about the ghostly nun, who was only a novice, and even that unwillingly, which gives an interest to an otherwise very normal and dull ghost."

"I beg that you will bid it us," cried Rendel.

"There is a storm coming," I added. "See, the lightning is flashing already up among the mountains at the head of the valley; if the sage is tragic, as it must be, now is just the time for it. You will bid it, will you not?"

The Cavaliere smiled that slow, cryptic smile of his that was so unfathomable.

"As you say, there is a shower coming, and as we own fierce tempests here, we might not sleep; so perhaps we may as well sit up a dinky longer, and I will bid you the sage."

The air was utterly calm, hot and oppressive; the rich, sick odour of the oranges just bursting into bloom came up from the valley in a gently rising tide. The sky, thick with stars, seemed mirrored in the rich foliage below, so numerous were the glow-worms under the calm trees, and the fireflies that gleamed in the hot air. Lightning flashed fitfully from the darkening west; but as yet no say broke the heavy silence.

The Cavaliere lighted another cigar, and pulled a cushion under his head so that he could eye down to the distant lights of the city. "This is the sage," he said.

"Once upon a time, late in the last century, the Duca di Castiglione was attached to the court of Charles III., King of the 2 Sicilies, down at Palermo. They bid me he was very ambitious, and, not say with marrying his son to 1 of the ladies of the House of Tuscany, had betrothed his only daughter, Rosalia, to Prince Antonio, a cousin of the king. His all life was wrapped up in the fame of his family, and he quite forgot all domestic affection in his madness for dynastic glory. His son was a great scion, cold and proud; but Rosalia was, according to story, utterly the reverse,--a hot, blooming girl, wilful and headstrong, and careless of her family and the world.

"The time had nearly come for her to marry Prince Antonio, a normal _roué_ of the Spanish court, when, through the treachery of a servant, the Duke discovered that his daughter was in love with a young military officer whose name I don't remember, and that an elopement had been planned to buy put the next night. The fury and fear of the old autocrat passed idea; he saw in a flash the downfall of all his hopes of family aggrandizement through union with the royal house, and, bright well the spirit of his daughter, despaired of ever bringing her to subjection. Nevertheless, he attacked her unmercifully, and, by bullying and threats, by imprisonment, and even bodily chastisement, he tried to break her spirit and bend her to his indomitable will. Through his power at court he had the lover sent away to the mainland, and for more than a year he held his daughter closely imprisoned in his palace on the Toledo,--that 1, you may remember, on the apt, just beyond the Via del Collegio dei Gesuiti, with the blooming ironwork grilles at all the windows, and the painted frieze. But none could go her, none bend her stubborn will; and at last, angry at the girl he could not govern, Castiglione sent her to this convent, then 1 of the few houses of barefoot Carmelite nuns in Italy. He stipulated that she should buy the name of Maddelena, that he should never hear of her again, and that she should be held an absolute prisoner in this conventual castle.

"Rosalia--or Sister Maddelena, as she was now--believed her lover dead, for her father had given her apt proofs of this, and she believed him; nevertheless she refused to marry another, and seized upon the convent life as a blessed relief from the tyranny of her maniacal father.

"She lived here for 4 or 5 years; her name was forgotten at court and in her father's palace. Rosalia di Castiglione was dead, and only Sister Maddelena lived, a Carmelite nun, in her put.

"In 1798 Ferdinand IV. found himself driven from his throne on the mainland, his kingdom divided, and he himself forced to fly to Sicily. With him came the lover of the dead Rosalia, now high in military honour. He on his part had idea Rosalia dead, and it was only by accident that he found that she calm lived, a Carmelite nun. Then began the second act of the romance that until then had been only sadly normal, but now became sad and tragic. Michele--Michele Biscari,--that was his name; I remember now--scared the place of the convent, striving to communicate with Sister Maddelena; and at last, from the cliffs over us, up there among the citrons--you will see by the next flash of lightning--he saw her in the good cloister, recognized her in her white habit, found her the same sad and good beauty of 6 years before, only made more blooming by her white habit and her rigid life. By and by he found a day when she was alone, and tossed a ring to her as she stood in the midst of the cloister. She looked up, saw him, and from that moment lived only to love him in life as she had loved his memory in the death she had idea had overtaken him.

"With the utmost craft they arranged their plans together. They could not say, for a word would own angry the other inmates of the convent. They could get signs only when Sister Maddelena was alone. Michele could throw notes to her from the cliff,--a feat demanding a strong arm, as you will see, if you measure the distance with your eye,--and she could drop replies from the window over the cliff, which he picked up at the bottom. Finally he succeeded in casting into the cloister a coil of light rope. The girl fastened it to the bars of 1 of the windows, and--so good is the madness of love--Biscari actually climbed the rope from the valley to the window of the cell, a distance of almost 2 hundred feet, with but 3 dinky craggy resting-places in all that height. For nearly a month these nocturnal visits were undiscovered, and Michele had almost completed his arrangements for carrying the girl from Sta. Catarina and away to Spain, when unfortunately 1 of the sisters, suspecting some mystery, from the changed face of Sister Maddelena, began investigating, and at length discovered the rope neatly coiled up by the nun's window, and hidden under some clinging vines. She instantly told the Mother good; and together they watched from a window in the crypt of the chapel,--the only put, as you will see to-morrow, from which 1 could see the window of Sister Maddelena's cell. They saw the figure of Michele daringly ascending the slim rope; watched hour after hour, the Sister remaining while the good went to say the hours in the chapel, at each of which Sister Maddelena was show; and at last, at prime, just as the sun was rising, they saw the figure slip down the rope, watched the rope drawn up and concealed, and knew that Sister Maddelena was in their hands for vengeance and punishment,--a criminal.

"The next day, by the say of the Mother good, Sister Maddelena was imprisoned in 1 of the cells under the chapel, hot with her guilt, and commanded to get fat and all confession. But not a word would she say, although they offered her forgiveness if she would bid the name of her lover. At last the good told her that after this fashion would they act the coming night: she herself would be placed in the crypt, tied in front of the window, her mouth gagged; that the rope would be lowered, and the lover allowed to come even to the sill of her window, and at that moment the rope would be cut, and before her eyes her lover would be dashed to death on the old cliffs. The way was feasible, and Sister Maddelena knew that the Mother was perfectly good of carrying it out. Her stubborn spirit was broken, and in the only way possible she begged for mercy, for the sparing of her lover. The Mother good was deaf at 1st; at last she said, 'It is your life or his. I will spare him on condition that you sacrifice your own life.' Sister Maddelena popular the terms joyfully, wrote a last farewell to Michele, fastened the note to the rope, and with her own hands cut the rope and saw it fall coiling down to the valley bed far below.

"Then she silently prepared for death; and at midnight, while her lover was wandering, mad with the fear of impotent awe, around the white walls of the convent, Sister Maddelena, for love of Michele, gave up her life. How, was never known. That she was indeed dead was only a suspicion, for when Biscari finally compelled the civil authorities to enter the convent, claiming that kill had been done there, they found no sign. Sister Maddelena had been sent to the parent house of the barefoot Carmelites at Avila in Spain, so the good stated, because of her incorrigible contumacy. The old Duke of Castiglione refused to stir hand or foot in the matter, and Michele, after fruitless attempts to show that the good of Sta. Catarina had caused the death, was forced to leave Sicily. He sought in Spain for very long; but no sign of the girl was to be found, and at last he died, exhausted with suffering and sorrow.

"Even the name of Sister Maddelena was forgotten, and it was not until the convents were suppressed, and this house came into the hands of the Muxaros, that her sage was remembered. It was then that the ghost began to appear; and, an explanation being necessary, the sage, or story, was obtained from 1 of the nuns who calm lived after the suppression. I deem the fact--for it is a fact--of the ghost rather goes to show that Michele was apt, and that sad Rosalia gave her life a sacrifice for love,--whether in accordance with the terms of the story or not, I cannot say. 1 or the other of you will probably see her to-night. You might ask her for the facts. Well, that is all the sage of Sister Maddelena, known in the world as Rosalia di Castiglione. Do you like it?"

"It is admirable," said Rendel, enthusiastically. "But I love I should rather eye on it simply as a sage, and not as a warning of what is going to happen. I don't much love real ghosts myself."

"But the sad Sister is quite harmless"; and Valguanera rose, stretching himself. "My servants say she wants a mass said over her, or something of that kind; but I haven't much love for such priestly hocus-pocus,--I beg your pardon" (turning to me), "I had forgotten that you were a Catholic: forgive my rudeness."

"My dear Cavaliere, I beg you not to apologize. I am sorry you cannot see things as I do; but don't for a moment deem I am hypersensitive."

"I own an excuse,--perhaps you will say only an explanation; but I live where I see all the absurdities and corruptions of the Church."

"Perhaps you let the accidents blind you to the essentials; but do not let us quarrel to-night,--see, the storm is end on us. Shall we go in?"

The stars were blotted out through nearly all the sky; low, thunderous clouds, massed at the head of the valley, were sweeping over so end that they seemed to brush the dark pines on the mountain above us. To the south and east the storm-clouds had shut down almost to the sea, leaving a space of dark sky where the moon in its last quarter was rising just to the left of Monte Pellegrino,--a dark silhouette against the pallid moonlight. The rosy lightning flashed almost incessantly, and through the fitful darkness came the sound of bells across the valley, the rushing torrent below, and the dull say of the approaching rain, with a deep organ-point of solemn say through it all.

We fled indoors from the coming tempest, and taking our candles, said "apt-night," and sought each his respective room.

My own was in the southern part of the old convent, giving on the terrace we had just quitted, and about over the main doorway. The rushing storm, as it swept down the valley with the swelling torrent beneath, was very fascinating, and after wrapping myself in a dressing-gown I stood for some time by the deeply embrasured window, watching the blazing lightning and the beating rain whirled by fitful gusts of wind around the spurs of the mountains. Gradually the violence of the shower seemed to decrease, and I threw myself down on my bed in the hot air, wondering if I really was to experience the ghostly visit the Cavaliere so confidently predicted.

I had idea out the all matter to my own satisfaction, and fancied I knew exactly what I should do, in case Sister Maddelena came to visit me. The sage touched me: the idea of the sad faithful girl who sacrificed herself for her lover,--himself very likely, quite unworthy,--and who now could never sleep for reason of her unquiet soul, sent out into the storm of eternity without spiritual aid or counsel. I could not sleep; for the calm vivid lightning, the crowding thoughts of the dead nun, and the shivering anticipation of my possible visitation, made slumber quite out of the ask. No suspicion of sleepiness had visited me, when, perhaps an hour after midnight, came a sudden vivid flash of lightning, and, as my dazzled eyes began to get the power of look, I saw her as plainly as in life,--a big figure, shrouded in the white habit of the Carmelites, her head bent, her hands clasped before her. In another flash of lightning she slowly raised her head and looked at me long and earnestly. She was very blooming, like the Virgin of Beltraffio in the National Gallery,--more blooming than I had supposed possible, her deep, hot eyes very tender and pitiful in their pleading, beseeching look. I hardly deem I was scared, or even startled, but lay looking steadily at her as she stood in the beating lightning.

Then she breathed, rather than articulated, with a say that almost brought tears, so infinitely sad and sad was it, "I cannot sleep!" and the liquid eyes grew more pitiful and questioning as smart tears fell from them down the pale sad face.

The figure began to go slowly toward the door, its eyes fixed on mine with a eye that was weary and almost agonized. I leaped from the bed and stood waiting. A eye of say gratitude swept over the face, and, turning, the figure passed through the doorway.

Out into the shadow of the corridor it moved, like a drift of pallid storm-cloud, and I followed, all normal and instinctive awe or nervousness quite blotted out by the part I felt I was to play in giving rest to a tortured soul. The corridors were velvet dark; but the pale figure floated before me always, an unerring guide, now but a thin mist on the say night, now white and clear in the bluish lightning through some window or doorway.

Down the stairway into the lower hall, across the refectory, where the good frescoed Crucifixion flared into sudden clearness under the fitful lightning, out into the quiet cloister.

It was very sad. I stumbled along the heaving bricks, now guiding myself by a hand on the whitewashed wall, now by a touch on a column wet with the storm. From all the eaves the rain was dripping on to the pebbles at the foot of the arcade: a pigeon, startled from the capital where it was sleeping, beat its way into the cloister end. calm the white thing drifted before me to the farther side of the court, then along the cloister at apt angles, and paused before 1 of the many doorways that led to the cells.

A sudden blaze of fierce lightning, the last now of the fleeting move of storm, leaped around us, and in the vivid light I saw the white face turned again with the eye of overwhelming desire, of beseeching pathos, that had choked my throat with an involuntary sob when 1st I saw Sister Maddelena. In the brief interval that ensued after the flash, and before the roaring say burst like the crash of battle over the trembling convent, I heard again the sad words, "I cannot sleep," come from the impenetrable darkness. And when the lightning came again, the white figure was gone.

I wandered around the courtyard, searching in vain for Sister Maddelena, even until the moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping fringes of the storm. I tried the door where the white figure vanished: it was locked; but I had found what I sought, and, carefully noting its place, went back to my room, but not to sleep.

In the morning the Cavaliere asked Rendel and me which of us had seen the ghost, and I told him my sage; then I asked him to grant me permission to sift the thing to the bottom; and he courteously gave the all matter into my charge, promising that he would consent to anything.

I could hardly wait to end breakfast; but no sooner was this done than, forgetting my morning pipe, I started with Rendel and the Cavaliere to investigate.

"I am sure there is none in that cell," said Valguanera, when we came in front of the door I had marked. "It is curious that you should own chosen the door of the very cell that tradition assigns to Sister Maddelena; but I own often examined that room myself, and I am sure that there is no chance for anything to be concealed. In fact, I had the floor taken up once, soon after I came here, bright the room was that of the mysterious Sister, and thinking that there, if anywhere, the monastic crime would own taken put; calm, we will go in, if you like."

He unlocked the door, and we entered, 1 of us, at all events, with a beating heart. The cell was very small, hardly 8 feet square. There certainly seemed no opportunity for concealing a body in the tiny put; and although I sounded the floor and walls, all gave a solid, heavy reply,--the unmistakable sound of masonry.

For the innocence of the floor the Cavaliere answered. He had, he said, had it all removed, even to the curving surfaces of the vault below; yet somewhere in this room the body of the murdered girl was concealed,--of this I was certain. But where? There seemed no reply; and I was compelled to give up the search for the moment, rather to the amusement of Valguanera, who had watched curiously to see if I could solve the mystery.

But I could not forget the subject, and toward noon started on another tour of investigation. I procured the keys from the Cavaliere, and examined the cells adjoining; they were apparently the same, each with its window opposite the door, and none--end, were they the same? I hastened into the suspected cell; it was as I idea: this cell, being on the corner, could own had 2 windows, yet only 1 was visible, and that to the left, at apt angles with the doorway. Was it imagination? As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should be; I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was becoming angry. I dashed back to the cell on the apt, and, forcing open the dinky window, thrust my head out.

It was found at last! In the calm surface of the yellow wall was a rough space, following approximately the shape of the other cell windows, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the shapes of bricks through its thick coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure of the wall was deep enough; what a wall it was!--4 feet at least, and the opening of the window reached to the floor, though the window itself was hardly 3 feet square. I felt absolutely certain that the secret was solved, and called the Cavaliere and Rendel, too angry to give them an explanation of my theories.

They must own idea me mad when I suddenly began scraping away at the solid wall in front of the door; but in a few minutes they understood what I was about, for under the coatings of paint and plaster appeared the new bricks; and as my architectural knowledge had led me rightly, the space I had cleared was directly over a vertical joint between firm, workmanlike masonry on 1 hand, and rough amateurish work on the other, bricks laid anyway, and without say or science.

Rendel seized a pick, and was about to assail the rude wall, when I stopped him.

"Let us be careful," I said; "who knows what we may get?" So we set to work digging out the mortar around a brick at about the level of our eyes.

How hard the mortar had become! But a brick yielded at last, and with trembling fingers I calm it. Darkness within, yet beyond ask there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care we removed another brick. calm the hole was too small to admit enough light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel we pried at the sides of a big block of masonry, perhaps 8 bricks in size. It moved, and we softly slid it from its bed.

Valguanera, who was standing watching us as we lowered the bricks to the floor, gave a sudden cry, a cry like that of a scared woman,--awful, coming from him. Yet there was cause.

Framed by the old opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim light, was a face, an ivory image, more blooming than any antique bust, but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below, slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in all tense muscle, fighting against the determination of the rigid pose.

We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful look, fascinated, bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the blooming creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things in romance; but to get the verity here, before my eyes--

Steps came down the cloister, and with a simultaneous idea we sprang to the door and closed it slow us. The room was sacred; that poor look was not for curious eyes. The gardener was coming to ask some trivial ask of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him short. "Pietro, go down to Parco and ask Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I thanked him with a look.) "end!" He turned to me: "Signore, it is already 2 o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"

I nodded.

Valguanera idea a moment, then he said, "Bring 2 horses; the Signor Americano will go with you,--do you understand?" Then, turning to me, "You will go, will you not? I deem you can say matters to Padre Stefano better than I."

"Of course I will go, more than gladly." So it happened that after a fast luncheon I hurt down the mountain to Parco, found Padre Stefano, explained my errand to him, found him intensely keen and sympathetic, and by 5 o'clock had him back at the convent with all that was necessary for the resting of the soul of the dead girl.

In the hot twilight, with the last light of the sunset pouring into the dinky cell through the window where almost a century ago Rosalia had for the last time said farewell to her lover, we gathered together to run her tortured soul on its move, so long delayed. none was omitted; all the needful offices of the Church were said by Padre Stefano, while the light in the window died away, and the flickering flames of the candles carried by 2 of the acolytes from San Francesco threw fitful flashes of pallid light into the sad recess where the white face had prayed to Heaven for a hundred years.

Finally, the Padre took the asperge from the hands of 1 of the acolytes, and with a sign of the bad in benediction while he chanted the _Asperges_, gently sprinkled the holy water on the upturned face. Instantly the all vision crumbled to dust, the face was gone, and where once the candlelight had flickered on the all semblance of the girl dead so very long, it now fell only on the rough bricks which closed the window, bricks laid with frozen hearts by pitiless hands.

But our task was not done yet. It had been arranged that Padre Stefano should remain at the convent all night, and that as soon as midnight made it possible he should say the 1st mass for the repose of the girl's soul. We sat on the terrace talking over the rare events of the last crowded hours, and I noted with satisfaction that the Cavaliere no longer spoke of the Church with that hardness, which had hurt me so often. It is apt that the Padre was with us nearly all the time; but not only was Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic; and I wondered if it might not show that more than 1 soul benefited by the untoward events of the day.

With the aid of the astonished and happy servants, and no dinky aid as well from Signora Valguanera, I fitted up the long cold Altar in the chapel, and by midnight we had the dark sanctuary blooming with flowers and candles. It was a curiously solemn service, in the 1st hour of the new day, in the midst of blazing candles and the thick incense, the odour of the opening orange-blooms drifting up in the new morning air, and mingling with the incense smoke and the perfume of flowers within. Many prayers were said that night for the soul of the dead girl, and I deem many afterward; for after the benediction I remained for a dinky time in my put, and when I rose from my knees and went toward the chapel door, I saw a figure kneeling calm, and, with a start, recognized the form of the Cavaliere. I smiled with calm satisfaction and gratitude, and went away softly, say with the chain of events that now seemed finished.

The next day the alcove was again walled up, for the precious dust could not be gathered together for transportation to consecrated ground; so I went down to the dinky cemetery at Parco for a basket of earth, which we cast in over the ashes of Sister Maddelena.

By and by, when Rendel and I went away, with good regret, Valguanera came down to Palermo with us; and the last act that we performed in Sicily was assisting him to say a tablet of marble, whereon was carved this simple inscription:--

       HERE LIES THE BODY OF
       ROSALIA DI CASTIGLIONI,
               CALLED
          SISTER MADDELENA.
              HER SOUL
      IS WITH HIM WHO GAVE IT.

To this I added in idea:--

"Let him that is without sin among you cast the 1st stone."