"Taking her little one to the hospital," he thought.

But on turning into the little Borgo he saw that the woman went up to the Rota, knelt before it, kissed the child again and again, put it in the cradle, pulled the bell, and then, crying bitterly, hastened away.

Rossi remembered his own mother, and a great tide of simple human tenderness swept over him. What he had seen the woman do was what his mother had done thirty-five years before. He saw it all as by a mystic flash of light, which looked back into the past.

Suddenly it occurred to him that the Rota had been long since closed, and therefore it was physically impossible that anybody could have put a child into the cradle. Then he remembered that he had not heard the bell, or the woman's footsteps, or the sound of her voice when she wept.

He stopped and looked back. The woman was returning in the direction of the piazza of St. Peter's. By an impulse which he could not resist he followed her, overtook her, and looked into her face.

Again he thought he was looking at Roma. There was the same nobility in the beautiful features, the same sweetness in the tremulous mouth, the same grandeur in the great dark eyes. But he knew perfectly who it was.

It was his mother.

It did not seem strange that his mother should be there. From her home in heaven she had come down to watch over her son on earth. She had always been watching over him. And now that he too was betrayed and lost, now that he too was broken-hearted and alone....

He was utterly unmanned. "Mother! Mother! I am coming to you! Every door is closed against me, and I have nowhere to go to for refuge. I am coming!... I am coming!"

Then the spirit paused, and pointing to the bronze gate of the Vatican, said, with infinite tenderness:

"Go there!"

PART NINE--THE PEOPLE

I

The Pope awoke next morning in the dreary hour of cock-crow, and rang for his valet while he was still in bed. When the valet came he was greatly agitated.

"What's amiss, Gaetanino?" said the Pope.

"A madman, your Holiness," said the valet. "They wanted me to awaken your Holiness, and I wouldn't do it. A madman is down at the bronze gate, and insists on seeing you."

At this moment the Maestro di Camera came into the room. He also was greatly agitated.

"What is this about some poor madman at the bronze gate?" asked the Pope.

"I have come to tell your Holiness," said the master of the household.

"The man declares he is pursued, and demands sanctuary."

"Who is he?"

"He says he will give his name to the Holy Father only; but his face...."

"The man's mad," said the valet.

"Be quiet, Gaetanino."

"His face," continued the Maestro di Camera, "is known to the Swiss Guard, and when they sent up word...."

The Pope sat up and said, "Is it perhaps..."

"It is, your Holiness."

"Where is he now?"

"He has forced his way in as far as the Sala Clementina, and nothing but physical force...."

Sounds of voices raised in dispute could be heard in a distant room. The Pope listened and said:

"Let the man come up immediately."

"Here, your Holiness?"

"Here."

The Maestro di Camera had hardly gone from the Pope's bedroom when the Secretary of State entered it with hasty steps.

"Your Holiness," he said, "you will not allow yourself to receive this person? It is sufficiently clear that he must have escaped from the police during the night, probably by the help of confederates, and to shelter him will be to come into collision with the civil authorities."

"The young man demands sanctuary, your Eminence, and whatever the consequences we have no right to refuse it."

"But sanctuary is obsolete, your Holiness."

"Nothing can be obsolete that is of divine institution, your Eminence."

"But, your Holiness, it can only exist by virtue of concession from the State, and the present relation of the Church to the State of Italy..."

"Your Eminence, I will ask you to let the young man come in."

"Your Holiness, I beg, I pray, reflect..."

"Let the young man come in, your Em..."

The Pope had not finished when the words were struck out of his mouth by an apparition which appeared at his bedroom door. It was that of a young man, whose eyes were wild, whose nostrils were quivering, and whose clothes hung about him in rags as if they had been torn in a recent struggle. He had a look of despair and suffering, yet it was the same to the Pope at that moment as if he were looking at his own features in a glass.

The young man was surrounded by Swiss Guards, and the Maestro di Camera pushed in ahead of him. Coming face to face with the Pope propped up in his bed, the loud tones on which he was protesting died in his throat, and he stood in silence on the threshold of the room.

The Pope was the first to speak.

"What is it you wish to say to me, my son?"

The young man seemed to recover his self-possession, but without a genuflexion or even a bow of the head, and with a slightly defiant manner, he said, "My name is David Leone. They call me Rossi, because that was my mother's name, and they said I had no right to my father's.

I am a Roman, and I have been two months abroad. For ten years I have worked for the people, and now I am denounced and betrayed to the police. Three days ago I was arrested on returning to Italy, and to-night by the help of friends I have escaped from the Carabineers. But every gate is closed against me, and I cannot get out of Rome. This is the Vatican, and the Vatican is sanctuary. Will you take me in?"

The Pope looked at the Swiss Guard, and said in a tremulous voice, "Gentlemen, you will take this young man to your own quarters, and see that no Carabineer lays hand on him without my knowledge and consent."