Before we remove the scene of our narrative to Brigland again, it will be necessary to let our readers into the secret of the ill-omened appearance of the priest, at whose aspect our friend Markham so instinctively shuddered.

If the slight and occasional notice which we have taken of Clara Rivolta’s character and circumstances have conveyed to the minds of our readers those impressions which we have designed that it should convey; they will see that the poor girl, from circumstances over which she had no control, and from a natural timidity and diffidence, had been painfully and severely tried. They will also readily imagine that she had experienced no slight inconvenience from the difference between the religion of her birthplace and the religion of her present home. They will easily imagine that her mind could not be so passionately and fervently devoted to the old religion as was the mind of her mother; and they will also be able to apprehend that she could not be very hostile to the faith which Markham professed. Now, though Signora Rivolta was a woman of good natural understanding, of great discernment, and of strong mind; and though she could reason well and talk liberally, yet she had by constitutional temperament a strong tincture of fanaticism. Her mind was naturally enthusiastic; and though fanaticism and enthusiasm may be managed with a better grace in minds of an exalted character than in those of inferior powers, yet where these feelings do exist in strong and superior minds they are exceedingly obstinate and unchangeable. It was therefore with no agreeable feelings that Signora Rivolta had contemplated the possibility, and indeed the great probability, that her daughter would give her hand to a Protestant.

A conversation which the mother of Clara once had with Lady Woodstock on this subject by no means reconciled her to the anticipation. The substance of the conversation was as follows: Lady Woodstock had prevailed with Clara for two or three successive Sundays to attend with her at Mr. Henderson’s chapel; and on their return from the chapel one morning, Lady Woodstock observing that Signora Rivolta looked unusually morose, addressed her as if her ill looks were from mere bodily indisposition.

“My dear Signora, I am afraid you are not well this morning.”

“Lady Woodstock, I am unwell; but it is the malady of mind. I am not pleased that my daughter should forsake the religion in which she was educated. I have not seen in this country sufficient proofs that the Protestant religion is so superior to the Catholic, as to make me wish that my daughter should renounce the faith of her native land.”

Lady Woodstock was not one of those good-humored people who are never out of humor except when they are displeased: her good-humor was perpetual; and it was by no means her habit to snatch eagerly at an opportunity of being affronted. With the greatest cheerfulness of manner, therefore, she replied to this pettish speech of Signora Rivolta.

“My very good lady, why should you imagine that I have any wish to withdraw your daughter from her own religion? But even suppose that such an event should take place, you are not so illiberally inclined as to believe that salvation is not attainable in the Protestant church; and as it is not impossible that your daughter may be married to a Protestant, it is well that she should at least learn to regard that religion with complacency.”

The mother of Clara was by no means softened by that reply, but with unabated asperity replied, “I must entreat you, my Lady Woodstock, not to speak so slightingly of religion. Would you have a woman renounce her religion for a husband?”

“I think seriously,” said Lady Woodstock, “that the religion of the wife should conform to that of the husband.”

“Abominable!” exclaimed Signora Rivolta.

“Nay, nay, my good friend, I see nothing so very abominable in the matter. No woman ought to marry a man whose religion will be his condemnation; and the religion which may be made effectual to the salvation of the husband is equally capable of saving the wife.”

“Sophistry, not worth refuting;” was the only answer which Signora Rivolta made to this last speech.

The cause of this ill-humor in the mother of Clara, and of this ebullition of bigotry, was the appearance in London of an Italian priest named Martini, whom Signora Rivolta had known in Italy, and from whose fanaticism her mind had received there a strong religious impulse. This Father Martini had, on the Sunday morning in question, officiated at the chapel where Signora Rivolta attended, and his discourse had been on the subject of religious indifference; and that part of religious indifference on which priests are most eloquent, and with which they are generally most angry, is an inattention to sectarian theories or peculiarities. By the eloquence of Father Martini the zeal of Signora Rivolta had been revived, and with that zeal there also arose a feeling of hostility and bitterness towards heretics.

This conversation took place just after the elopement of the Countess of Trimmerstone with Mr. Tippetson: and as after that event Horatio Markham, from circumstances already noticed, did not pay such constant attention as in former days he had paid to Clara, Signora Rivolta began to have hopes that the attachment on Markham’s part was dying away. With respect to Clara, it was evident that her mind was in a painfully unsettled state; and her mother thought that no better remedy could be applied, than removing her from those scenes and associations from whence her unhappiness arose; and as Father Martini was a man of some consideration in his own country, and a person in whom the Signora could confide, it entered into her mind that it might be desirable to send Clara back to her native land under his guardianship, till such time as in the revolution of events Colonel Rivolta and herself might be able to return to Italy.

It would indeed have been a gratification to her mother, could Clara have been easily induced to take the veil; but the Signora had more consideration for her daughter’s feelings than to use, or to suffer to be used, any urgent importunities on the subject. And here we are quite willing and most happy to render to Signora Rivolta the justice which acknowledges and commends the gentle and unimportunate mode in which her wishes on this subject were always expressed. Every body knows that there is a mode of importunity which wearies and worries into compliance, when the judgment and inclination are equally and strongly adverse to that compliance. And this importunity is so expressed, and with such jesuitical dexterity is it oftentimes managed, that when it has gained its object, its victim is thought and spoken of as acting from its own free will. Beautifully is this importunity pictured in that touching song called “Auld Robin Gray.”

Now there was no such species of tender worrying as this in Signora Rivolta’s conduct towards her daughter. The Signora was somewhat fanatical, but she was straightforward and honest.

The presence of Father Martini in London at this juncture certainly led the mother of Clara to thoughts concerning her daughter; and, knowing that Mr. Martindale was not very partial to the priests of her religion, she took occasion of his absence to hold frequent intercourse with this zealous supporter and advocate of that faith in which she had been educated. Father Martini had made frequent visits, and had held long consultations. In those consultations mention had been made of Markham and Tippetson; and when the priest made the last visit, he took it for granted that the person whom he met at the drawing-room door was Markham: for that reason he looked at him with such inquisitorial scrutiny.

It has been stated that Sir Andrew Featherstone had met this Father Martini, and had informed him of the dangerous state in which Mr. Martindale was, at Brigland. This information the priest of course conveyed to Signora Rivolta. But before he had well finished speaking, a letter came from Brigland, addressed to Colonel Rivolta, and by him it was immediately handed over to the Signora.

The suddenness of the information, and the unexpectedness of the event, gave a painful shock to her feelings. At the first meeting of father and daughter, as mentioned in an early part of our narrative, there was comparatively little emotion. They had not been acquainted with or accustomed to each other, and therefore all the emotion which was excited was merely by force of imagination, in which faculty neither of them much abounded. But when Signora Rivolta had resided for a year or two with her lately-discovered father, and had experienced from him so much more kindness, attention, and even homage, than the circumstances of her birth could have led her to anticipate; when she had observed in his mind those traits and features, which are really and substantially good; and when she had seemed to be essential to his happiness and comfort: then indeed it was painful to her that he had been thus suddenly snatched away from her, and that he had breathed his last at a distance from every relative; and that the only farewell had been the parting for a short journey.

When Signora Rivolta had read the letter, she gave it to her daughter, and covered her face, and wept bitterly, but not loudly. The contents of the letter were thus made known to Clara before she read it. There is sometimes a consolation springing from the suddenness of an afflictive announcement; for if the first shock is well sustained, the details and particulars frequently act as alleviations. But Clara’s nerves were not strong, and her susceptibility was acute; and as her mother was not ordinarily passionate in grief or profuse of tears, the deep sobbings which the poor girl now witnessed overcame her self-possession, and she uttered a slight scream and fainted. The usual restoratives were promptly applied, and the stern-looking Father Martini was deeply moved at the scene of distress before him.

Clara was presently removed to her own apartment; and when she was sufficiently recovered to be left alone, Signora Rivolta returned to the priest. Now though this man had a stern and forbidding aspect, and though he was most zealously and exclusively devoted to that form of Christianity which he professed, yet he had the kindly feelings of humanity about him; and even the sternness of his bigotry had mercy for its motive.

“Lady,” said the priest to Signora Rivolta, “I can pity you. I can make allowance for the frailty and weakness of human feeling; but you must, in the midst of your grief, remember and adore the hand which sends affliction. And you should consider whether there be not some peculiar spiritual good to be derived and drawn from temporal and worldly sorrow. You have lost a parent. Pray for his soul. His errors might have shaken the stability of your faith; and if he endeavoured, while living, to poison your soul with heresy, now return good for evil, and pray for him. Who can tell how much the prayers of the faithful may avail!”

Signora Rivolta listened calmly, and replied, “But, father, will my prayers be successful for a heretic?”

“Daughter,” replied the priest, “there are no heretics in the grave.”

There was a pause in the conversation; and Father Martini anxiously watched the countenance of Signora Rivolta to see when there might be an opportunity of speaking concerning the daughter, of the steadiness of whose faith there was some ground of doubt. As there appeared some symptoms of composure, the priest, after a short interval, said, “Daughter, when afflictions come upon us, it is for our own good, or for the good of the church, most frequently for both. You have a child who was brought up in the bosom of the holy church; the faith of that child has been endangered. It is now more than ever in your power to secure and establish it. Whereinsoever you doubt your own influence in this land of heresy, that defect may be supplied and that evil remedied by removal of your child into a country where heresy is unknown.”

There followed this address a much longer and more embarrassing interval of silence, which at length was slowly broken by Signora Rivolta in a subdued and almost whispering tone. “Father Martini, I reverence the faith in which I have been reared from my infancy, and I feel it to be a faith of holy and sustaining power; but I fear that it has no influence where it does not rule the will; and I cannot, dare not, use an importunity of persuasion to urge my child to the steps which you suggest. If the church receives her wholly, it shall receive her freely.”

At this speech there was a slight frown upon the brow of the holy man; but Signora Rivolta saw it not, nor was she aware of any unpleasant feeling in the mind of Father Martini, when in reply he said, “Lady, you, as a mother, have power to influence; and the influence which you can use is more than authority and weightier than command. A child cannot long resist a parent.”

With much quickness and promptitude, Signora Rivolta replied, “My child shall not resist me.”

Father Martini was pleased; and with an agreeable feeling he rose to take his leave, saying, “Now, lady, I leave you; and when you have performed your duty to the dead, you will not forget your duty also to the living.”

There was a meaning in the Signora’s last expression which the priest did not observe. To his ear it sounded as if it was intended to say that resistance would be hopeless and ineffectual. From the lips of Clara’s mother it was intended to say, that no importunity of persuasion should be used. It was a pleasant misunderstanding on both sides.