XXI. A Secret Marriage - Page 2

city.

As he rose to his feet a weight lifted from his shoulders, and the buoyancy of youth drove away the depression that temporarily overcame him on hearing of the army threatening Frankfort. His plans were honest, his methods conciliatory, and the path now seemed clear before him. The monk in charge, who had been kneeling in a dark corner near the door, now came forward to intercept him.

"Will your Highness deny me in the chapel as you did upon the bridge?"

Roland stopped. In the gloom he had not recognized the ghostly Father.

"No, Father Ambrose, and I do now what I should have done then. I pray your blessing on the enterprise before me."

"My son, it is willingly given, the more willingly that I may atone in part my forgetting of the Holy Words: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' I grievously misjudged you, as I learn from both the Archbishop and my kinswoman. I ask your forgiveness."

"I shall forgive you, Father Ambrose, if you make full, not partial atonement. The consequences of your mistake have proved drastic and far-reaching. The least of these consequences is that it has cost me the Emperorship."

"Oh," moaned the good man, "mea culpa, mea culpa! No penance put upon me can compensate for that disaster."

"You blame yourself overmuch, good Father. The penance I have to impose will leave me deeply in your debt. Now, to come from the least to the greatest of these results, so far as I am concerned, my marriage with your kinswoman, whom I love devotedly, is in jeopardy. Through her conviction that I was a thief, she braved the Archbishop of Mayence, who imprisoned her, and now his Lordship has determined that the Grand Duke Karl of Hesse shall be Emperor. Thus we arrive at the most important outcome of your error. Between the overwhelming forces of Mayence and the insufficient troops of Cologne and Treves there may ensue a conflict causing the streets of Frankfort to flow with blood."

The pious man groaned dismally.

"I have a plan which will prevent this. The day after to-morrow I shall renounce all claim to the throne; but being selfish, like the rest, I refuse to renounce all claim to the woman the Archbishops themselves chose as my wife, neither shall I allow the case to be made further the plaything of circumstance. Your kinswoman, no later ago than this afternoon, confessed her love for me and her complete disregard of any position I may hold in this realm. Now, Father Ambrose, I ask you several questions. Is it in consonance with the rules of the Church that a marriage be solemnized in this chapel?"

"Yes."

"Are you entitled to perform the ceremony?"

"Yes."

"Is it possible this ceremony can be performed to-morrow?"

"Yes."

"Will you