Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/748

708 lose, I wished to administer the Extreme Unction by means of one single anointing on the forehead, as is done in urgent cases; but Lady Burton said that death was not so imminent; therefore she begged me to carry out fully the prescribed ceremony of Extreme Unction.

"This completed, together with the other customary prayers for the dying, I took my departure. I returned to the house of the Provost, Dr. Sũst, and laid everything before him, and he said I had done quite right.

"In a certificate of death drawn up by the Visitatore dei Morti, Inspector Corani, in the register, under the head of religion, is written 'Catholic.' The funeral also was conducted according to the rites of the Catholic Church. I am convinced that Sir Richard Burton really became a Catholic, but that outwardly he did not wish this to be known, having regard to his position as a Consul to a Government of the Evangelical persuasion; and I have built up the hope that the innumerable prayers for her husband's conversion and good works of his pious wife Lady Burton will have been heeded by that Lord who said unto us, 'Pray, and your prayers shall be answered,' and that his soul will now have been received by the good God, together with that of the saintly lady his wife.

"One question I permit myself to ask of those who have now published the Life of Sir Richard Burton, which is this, 'Why did they not publish it during the lifetime of Lady Burton? Who better than she would