Carrol did not answer, and Massoni, covering his face with his hands, seemed lost in deep thought; at last he said--
'What was your pretext to induce him to come back here?'
'To hear tidings of his family and kindred.'
'Did you intimate to him that they were of rank and station?'
'It was hard at first to convince him that they could be true. He had, besides, been so often tricked and deceived by false intelligence, and made the sport of craftier heads, that it was difficult to win his confidence; nor did I succeed until I told him certain facts about his early life, whose correctness he acknowledged.'
'I had imagined him most unlike what I see. If Charles Edward had left a daughter she might have resembled this.'
'Still that very resemblance is of great value.'
'What signifies that a thing may look like gold, when at the first touch of the chemist's test it blackens and betrays itself?'
'He may be more of a Stuart even than he looks. It is too rash to judge of him as we see him now.'
'Be it so,' said the Père, with a sort of resignation; 'but if I have not lost my skill in reading temperament, this youth is not to our purpose. At all events,' resumed he, more rapidly, 'his Eminence need not see him yet. Enough when I say that the fatigues of the road have brought on some fever, and that he is confined to bed. Within a week, or even less, I shall be able to pronounce if we may employ him. I have no mind to hear your news to-night; this disappointment has unmanned me; but to-morrow, Carrol, to-morrow the day will be all our own, and I all myself. And so good-night, and good rest.'
If the night which followed the interview of the Père Massoni with Carrol was one of deep anxiety, the morning did not bring any relief to his cares. His first duty was to ask after Fitzgerald. The youth had slept little, but lay tranquil and uncomplaining, and to all seeming indifferent either as to the strange place or the strange faces around him. The keen-eyed servant, Giacomo, himself an humble member of the order, quickly detected that he was suffering under some mental shock, and that the case was one where the mere physician could afford but little benefit.
'He lies there quiet as a child,' said he, 'never speaking nor moving, his eyelids half drooped over his eyes, and save that now and then, at long intervals, he breathes a low, faint sigh, you would scarce believe he was alive.'