If anyone can help us

Meggie stared at them silently as she put the phone down. This was Drogheda, all that was left. A little cluster of old men and old women, sterile and broken. "Dane's lost," she said. "No one can find him; he's been buried somewhere on Crete. It's so far away! How could he rest so far from Drogheda? I'm going to Rome, to Ralph de Bricassart. If anyone can help us, he can." Cardinal de Bricassart's secretary entered his room. "Your Eminence, I'm sorry to disturb you, but a lady wishes to see you. I explained that there is a congress, that you are very busy and cannot see anyone, but she says she will sit in the vestibule until you have time for her." "Is she in trouble, Father?" "Great trouble, Your Eminence, that much is easy to see. She said I was to tell you her name is Meggie O'neill." He gave it a lilting foreign pronunciation, so that it came out sounding like Meghee Onill. " Cardinal Ralph came to his feet, the color draining from his face to leave it as white as his hair. "Your Eminence! Are you ill?" "No, Father, I'm perfectly all right, thank you. Cancel my appointments until I notify you otherwise, and bring Mrs. O'neill to me at once. We are not to be disturbed unless it is the Holy Father." The priest bowed, departed. O'neill. Of course! It was young Dane's name, he should have remembered. Save that in the Cardinal's palace everyone just said Dane. Ah, he had made a grave mistake, keeping her waiting. If Dane was His Eminence's dearly loved nephew then Mrs. O'neill was his dearly loved sister. When Meggie came into the room Cardinal Ralph hardly knew her. It was thirteen years since he had last seen her; she was fifty-three and he was seventy-one. Both of them aged now, instead of only him. Her face hadn't changed so much as settled, and into a mold unlike the one he had given her in his imagination. Substitute a trenchant incisiveness for sweetness, a touch of iron for softness; she resembled a vigorous, aging, willful martyr rather than the resigned, contemplative saint of his dreams. Her beauty was as striking as ever, her eyes still that clear silvery grey, but both had hardened, and the once vivid hair had faded to a drab beige, like Dane's without the life. Most disconcerting of all, she wouldn't look at him for long enough to satisfy his eager and loving curiosity. Unable to greet this Meggie naturally, he stiffly indicated a chair. "Please sit down."