There was a moment's silence after his departure. Then Aubrey Leigh
spoke.
"My dear Grandit! You are a marvellous man! How came you to know
Gherardi's secrets?"
"Through a section of the Christian-Democratic party here"--replied
Cyrillon--"You must not forget that I, like you, have my disciples!
They keep me informed of all that goes on in Rome, and they have
watched Domenico Gherardi for years. We all know much--but we have
little chance to speak! If England knew of Rome what France knows,
what Spain knows,--what Italy knows, she would pray to be given a
second Cromwell! For the time is coming when she will need him!"
XXXVII.
A few days later the fashionable world of Europe was startled by the
announcement of two things. One was the marriage of Sylvie, Countess
Hermenstein, to the "would-be reformer of the clergy," Aubrey Leigh,
coupled with her renunciation of the Church of her fathers. There
was no time for that Church to pronounce excommunication, inasmuch
as she renounced it herself, of her own free will and choice, and
made no secret of having done so. Some of her Hungarian friends
were, or appeared to be, scandalized at this action on her part, but
the majority of them treated it with considerable leniency, and in
some cases with approval, on the ground that a wife's religion ought
to be the same as that of her husband.
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