"No!" whispered the Cardinal, suddenly forced, as it were in his own
despite, to contradict his former assertion--"No!" He paused, and
mechanically making his way towards the door of the Cathedral, he
dipped his fingers into the holy water that glistened dimly in its
marble basin near the black oak portal, and made the sign of the
cross on brow and breast;--"He will not find faith where faith
should be pre-eminent. It must be openly confessed--repentingly
admitted,--He will NOT find faith even in the Church He founded,--I
say it to our shame!"

His head drooped, as though his own words had wounded him, and with
an air of deep dejection he slowly passed out. The huge iron-bound
door swung noiselessly to and fro behind him,--the grave-toned bell
in the tower struck seven. Outside, a tender twilight mellowed the
atmosphere and gave brightness to approaching evening; inside, the
long shadows, gathering heavily in the aisles and richly sculptured
hollows of the side-chapels, brought night before its time. The last
votive candle at the Virgin's shrine flickered down and disappeared
like a firefly in dense blackness,--the last echo of the bell died
in a tremulous vibration up among the high-springing roof-arches,
and away into the solemn corners where the nameless dead reposed,--
the last impression of life and feeling vanished with the retreating
figure of the Cardinal--and the great Cathedral, the Sanctuary and
House of God, took upon itself the semblance of a funeral vault,--a
dark, Void, wherein but one red star, the lamp before the Altar,
burned.