The old Capuchin looked tenderly at Roma, whose wet eyes and burning

cheeks seemed to tell of sympathy with his story.

"In those days, my daughter, the nuns of Thecla served the Foundling of

Santo Spirito."

Roma began to look frightened and to feel faint.

"It was usual for a member of our house to live in the hospital in order

to baptize the children and to confess the sick and the dying. We took

it in turns to do so, staying one year, two years, three years, and then

going back to the monastery. I was myself at Santo Spirito for this

purpose at the time I speak about, and it was not until three or four

years afterwards that I became Superior of our House and returned to San

Lorenzo. There I found the young Noble Guard, and, wisely or unwisely, I

told him a new phase of his own story."

"There was a child?" said Roma, in a strange voice.

The Capuchin bent his head. "That much he knew already by the letter his

wife had left for him. She had intended that the child should die when

she died, and he supposed that it had been so. But pity for the little

one must have overtaken the poor mother at the last moment. She had put

the babe in the rota of the hospital, and thus saved the child's life

before carrying out her purpose upon her own."

The Capuchin crossed his knees, and one of his bare feet in its sandal

showed from under the edge of his habit.

"We had baptized the boy by a name which the mother had written on a

paper attached to his wrist, and the identity of that name with the name

of the Noble Guard led to my revelation. Nature is a mighty thing, and

on hearing what I told him the young brother became restless and

unhappy. The instincts of the man began to fight with the feelings of

the religious, and at last he left the friary in order to fulfil the

duty which he thought he owed to his child."

"He did not find him?"

"He was too late. According to custom, the boy had been put out to nurse

on the Campagna, by means of the little dower that was all his

inheritance from the State. His foster parents passed him over to other

hands, and thus by the abuse of a good practice the child was already

lost."

Roma tried to speak, but she could not utter a word.




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