nd his bride the blessing of the archpriest
of Romanism, a cardinal in his ferocious scarlet. All his courage and
skill would be forever at the service of the new order. Who was to
blame? Was it not the rotten reed which he had leaned upon, the woman
Sonia, rather than these? True it is, true it always will be, that a
man's enemies are they of his own household.

* * * * *

A grand content filled the heart of Arthur. The bitterness of his fight
had passed. So long had he struggled that fighting had become a part of
his dreams, as necessary as daily bread. He had not laid aside his armor
even for his marriage. Yet there had been an armistice, quite
unperceived, from the day of the cathedral's dedication. He had lonely
possession of the battle-field. His enemies had fled. All was well with
his people. They had reached and passed the frontier, as it were, on
that day when the great temple opened its sanctuary to God and its
portals to the nation.

The building he regarded as a witness to the daring of Monsignor; for
Honora's sake he had given to it a third of his fortune; the day of the
dedication crowned Monsignor's triumph. When he had seen the spectacle,
he learned how little men have to do with the great things of history.
God alone makes history; man is the tide which rushes in and out at His
command, at the great hours set by Him, and knows only the fact, not the
reason. In the building that day gathered a multitude representing every
form of human activity and success. They stood for the triumph of a
whole race, which, starved out of its native seat, had clung desperately
to the land of Columbia in spite of persecution.

Soldiers sat in the assembly, witnesses for the dead of the southern
battle-fields, for all who had given life and love, who had sacrificed
their dearest, to the new land in its hour of calamity. Men rich in the
honors of commerce, of the professions, of the schools, artists,
journalists, leaders, bore witness to the native power of a people, who
had been written down in the books of the hour as idle, inferior,
incapable by their very nature. In the sanctuary sat priests and
prelate, a brilliant gathering, surrounding the delicate-featured
Cardinal, in gleaming red, high on his beautiful throne.

From the organ rolled the wonderful harmonies born of faith and genius;
from the pulpit came in sonorous English the interpretation of the scene
as a gifted mind perceive