Bishop O'Neill sang solemn
high mass and the cardinal gave the final absolutions. Thornton Hancock,
Mrs. Lawrence, the British and Italian ambassadors, the papal delegate,
and a host of friends and priests were there--yet the inexorable shears
had cut through all these threads that Monsignor had gathered into his
hands. To Amory it was a haunting grief to see him lying in his coffin,
with closed hands upon his purple vestments. His face had not changed,
and, as he never knew he was dying, it showed no pain or fear. It was
Amory's dear old friend, his and the others'--for the church was full
of people with daft, staring faces, the most exalted seeming the most
stricken.
The cardinal, like an archangel in cope and mitre, sprinkled the holy
water; the organ broke into sound; the choir began to sing the Requiem
Eternam.
All these people grieved because they had to some extent depended upon
Monsignor. Their grief was more than sentiment for the "crack in his
voice or a certain break in his walk," as Wells put it. These people had
leaned on Monsignor's faith, his way of finding cheer, of making religion
a thing of lights and shadows, making all light and shadow merely aspects
of God.
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