Chapter XXI

NORAH ENDEAVOURS TO SHOW THAT IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO REPENT.

When Mr. Chandos and his daughter went, by Dr. Mangello’s request, down to the Duke’s room, they found him almost insensible. He had been raving wildly a few minutes before in Spanish, which the doctor did not understand; and he hoped that perhaps the others might be able to make out his meaning. He now lay with his eyes closed, but his brow was contracted, and his pale features expressed extreme agony.

“Speak to him, if you can, in Spanish, as it may induce him to express the trouble of his mind,” whispered Dr. Mangello to Mr. Chandos. But the Duke seemed to have heard his words, for he opened his eyes, and when he saw Norah standing near, he said in English,

“It is of no use--I am lost for ever. There is no hope. I am grateful--most grateful,” he added, after a pause, “for your kindness; but if you knew all, you----”

“I do know all,” interrupted Norah. And then she endeavoured to show him that he should hope for pardon of whatever sins he might have committed, if he would now pray for mercy.

“Of what avail are such prayers as mine? No, I have no faith.”

“But you believe that the prayers of others can avail, and others wish and pray for your salvation?”

“Ah! how can you tell that? I know they do not--I am nothing to those angels.”

“They pray for you night and day.”

“What--what can you know?”

“I know that those whom you have most wronged are praying for you. The Countess Donati told me so.”

“Ha! and can they forgive? And can they still care what becomes of me?”

“Certainly they do; as the Saviour, to whose service they have devoted their lives, cares for you--the Saviour who died to save sinners; the same who declared that He came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

“Where did you hear that? Is it in our Scriptures?”

“Yes; and in ours.”

Then Norah repeated several texts which came into her head at the moment, as being most comforting and hope-inspiring; and she explained that they were exactly the same as in the Douai Bible, which was used by his Church; for, during a visit she made to her cousins in Ireland, she made exact notes of the difference between them.

“And do you think I can be saved? For you hold a different faith from the one I once believed.”

“I do; and I think that there is less difference than you suppose. But surely you ought to see a priest.”

“No. I have no faith in priests. I have learnt to despise my Church, and never sought any better.”

“You must not despise it. I, as a Protestant, advise you most urgently to send at once for a priest, and confess--scrupulously confess to him all you have done wrong at any time.”

“And receive the last sacraments,” said the Duke, “and then die.”

“Whether you live or die, you may still find peace and obtain forgiveness; you may be happy in this world and the next, only confess all in real humility and penitence. Let me now send, I implore you.”

He gave a reluctant assent, and the overjoyed doctor, who was a conscientious man, ran himself for Father Anselmo.

Norah saw the fearful struggle in the Duke’s mind--a positive revival of old hallowed associations of ideas contending against the acquired scepticism and proud contempt of all religion which a long intercourse with the world, among some of the worst of mankind, had developed to a fearful degree. Norah waited and prayed by the side of his sofa in silence, till Father Anselmo came.

She then took his hand for a moment, and looked back on him with a beaming and hopeful smile as she accompanied her father from the room.