The White Sister Part 26

'And you will never allow her to ask for her freedom!' cried Giovanni angrily. 'That settles it, I suppose! Oh, the tyranny of the Church!'

Monsignor Saracinesca's calm was not in the least disturbed by this outbreak, and he answered with unruffled dignity.

'That is easily said, Captain. You have just been speaking with Sister Giovanna and I daresay you talked of this. What was her answer?'

'She is under the influence of her surroundings, of course! What could I expect?'

But the churchman had a right to a more direct reply.

'Did she refuse to listen to your suggestion that she should leave her order?' he asked.

Giovanni did not like to admit the fact, and paused a moment before answering; but he was too truthful to quibble.

'Yes, she did.'

'What reason did she give for refusing?'

'None!'

'Did she merely say, "No, I will not"?'

'You are cross-examining me!' Giovanni fancied that he had a right to be offended.

'No,' protested Monsignor Saracinesca, 'or at least not with the intention of catching you in your own words. You made an unfair a.s.sertion; I have a right to ask a fair question. If I were not a priest, but simply Ippolito Saracinesca, and if you accused me or my family of unjust dealings, you would be glad to give me an opportunity of defending my position, as man to man. But because I am a priest you deny me that right. Are you just?'

'I did not accuse you personally,' argued the younger man. 'I meant that the Church would never allow Sister Giovanna to ask for her freedom.'

'The greater includes the less,' replied the other. 'The Church is my family, it includes myself, and I claim the right to defend it against an unjust accusation. Sister Giovanna is as free to ask for a dispensation as you were to resign from the army when you were ordered to join an expedition in which you nearly lost your life.'

'You say so!' Severi was incredulous.

'It is the truth. Sister Giovanna has devoted herself to a cause in which she too may risk her life.'

'The risk a nurse runs nowadays is not great!'

'You are mistaken. If she carries out her intention, she will be exposed to a great danger.'

'What intention?' asked Giovanni, instantly filled with anxiety.

'She has asked permission to join the other Sisters of the order who are going out to Rangoon to nurse the lepers there.'

'Lepers!' Severi's features were convulsed with horror. 'She, nurse lepers! It is not possible! It is certain death.'

'No, it is not certain death, by any means, but you will admit the risk.'

Giovanni was beside himself in an instant.

'She shall not go!' he cried furiously. 'You shall not make her kill herself, make her commit suicide, for your glorification--that what you call your Church may add another martyr to its death-roll! You shall not, I say! Do you hear me?' He grasped the prelate's arm roughly. 'If you must have martyrs, go yourselves! Risk your own lives for your own glory, instead of sacrificing women on your altars--women who should live to be wives and mothers, an honour to mankind!'

'You are utterly unjust----'

'No, I am human, and I will not tolerate your human sacrifice! I am a man, and I will not let the woman I love be sent to a horrible death, to delight your Moloch of a G.o.d!'

'Captain Severi, you are raving.'

Giovanni's fiery rage leapt from invective to sarcasm.

'Raving! That is your answer, that is the sum of your churchman's argument! A man who will not let you make a martyr of the woman he adores is raving! Do you find that in Saint Thomas Aquinas, or in Saint Augustine, or in Saint Jerome?' He dropped his voice and suddenly spoke with cold deliberation. 'She shall not go. I swear that I will make it impossible.'

Monsignor Saracinesca shook his head.

'If that is an oath,' he said, 'it is a foolish one. If it is a threat, it is unworthy of you.'

'Take it how you will. It is my last word.'

'May you never regret it,' answered the prelate, lifting his three-cornered hat; for Giovanni was saluting, with the evident intention of leaving him at once.

So they parted.

CHAPTER XV

A carriage came early for Sister Giovanna that evening, and the footman sent in a message by the portress. The patient was worse, he said, and the doctor hoped that the nurse would come as soon as she conveniently could. She came down in less than five minutes, in her wide black cloak, carrying her little black bag in her hand. It was raining heavily and she drew the hood up over her head before she left the threshold, though the servant was holding up a large umbrella.

The portress had asked the usual questions of him as soon as he presented himself, but Sister Giovanna repeated them. Was the carriage from the Villino Barini? It was. To take the nurse who was wanted for Baroness Barini? Yes; the Signora Baronessa was worse, and that was why the carriage had come half-an-hour earlier. The door of the brougham was shut with a sharp snap, the footman sprang to the box with more than an average flunkey's agility, and the nun was driven rapidly away. Knowing that the house she was going to was one of those little modern villas on the slope of the Janiculum which have no arched entrance and often have no particular shelter at the front door, she did not take the trouble to push her hood back, as she would need it again so soon.

In about ten minutes the carriage stopped, the footman jumped down with his open umbrella in his hand, and let her into the house. Before she could ask whether she had better leave her cloak in the hall, the man was leading the way upstairs; it was rather dark, but she felt that the carpet under her feet was thick and soft. She followed lightly, and a moment later she was admitted to a well-lighted room that looked like a man's library; the footman disappeared and shut the door, and the latch made a noise as if the key were being turned; as she supposed such a thing to be out of the question, however, she was ashamed to go and try the lock.

She thought she was in the study of the master of the house and that some one would come for her at once, and she stood still in the middle of the room; setting down her bag on a chair, she pushed the hood back from her head carefully, as nuns do, in order not to discompose the rather complicated arrangement of the veil and head-band.

She had scarcely done this when, as she expected, a door at the end of the room was opened. But it was not a stranger that entered; to her unspeakable amazement, it was Giovanni Severi. In a flash she understood that by some trick she had been brought to his brother's dwelling. She was alone with him and the door was locked on the outside.

She laid one hand on the back of the nearest chair, to steady herself, wondering whether she were not really lying ill in her bed and dreaming in the delirium of a fever. But it was no dream; he was standing before her, looking into her face, and his own was stern and dark as an Arab's. When he spoke at last, his voice was low and determined.

'Yes. You are in my house.'

Her tongue was loosed, with a cry of indignation.

'If you are not a madman, let me go!'

'I am not mad.'

His eyes terrified her, and she backed away from him towards the locked door. She almost shrieked for fear.

'If you have a spark of human feeling, let me out!'