Her pen stopped again. The artifice was too trivial, too palpable, and he would certainly see through it. She tore up the sheet and began afresh.

"My last point, dearest, is that I fear you are forgetting me in your work. While thinking of the revolution you are making in Europe, you forget the revolution you have already made in this poor little heart.

Of course I love your glory more than I love myself, yet I am afraid it is taking you away from me, and will end by leading you up, up, up, out of a woman's reach. Why didn't I give you my portrait to put in your watch-case when you went away? Don't let this folly disgust you, dearest. A woman is a foolish thing, isn't she? But if you don't want me to make a torment of everything you will hasten back in time to...."

She threw down the pen and began to cry. Hadn't she promised him that, come what would, her love for him should never stand in his way? In the midst of her tears a little stab at her heart made her think of something else, and she took up the pen again.

"My last point, dearest, is that I am ill, and very, very anxious to see you soon. My health has been failing ever since you left Rome. Perhaps the anxieties I have gone through have been partly the cause of this, but I am sure that your absence is chiefly responsible, and that no doctor and no medicine would be so good for me as one rush into your arms. Therefore come and give me back all my health and happiness. Come, I beg of you. Leave it to others to do your work abroad. Come at once _before things have gone too far_; come, come, come!"

She hesitated, wanting to say, "Not that I am _very_ ill...." And then, "You mustn't come if there is any risk to yourself...." And again, "I would never forgive myself if...." But she crushed down her qualms, sealed her letter, and sent the Garibaldian to post it.

Then she gathered up the entire body of David Rossi's letters, and putting some light firewood into the stove she sat on the ground to burn them. It was necessary to remove all evidence that could be used against him in the event of a domiciliary visitation. One by one as the letters, were passed into the fire she read parts of them, and some of the passages seemed to stand out afresh in the flames. "Your friend must be a true woman, and it was very sweet of you to be so tender with her." ... "There is always a little twinge when I read between the lines of your letters. Are you not dissimulating?... to keep up my spirits?" ... "You shall smile and recover all your girlish spirits....

I shall hear your silvery laugh again as I did on that glorious day in the Campagna." ... "It shows how rightly I judged the moral elevation of your soul, your impeccability, your spirit of fire and your heart of gold."

While the letters were burning she felt herself to be under the influence of a kind of delirium. It was almost as though she were committing murder.

X

The Pope had begun the day with the long task of administering the sacrament to the lay members of his household, yet at eight o'clock he was back in his library in the midst of his morning receptions surrounded by a bevy of camerieri, monsignori, and messengers. First came a Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda to report the doings of his congregation; then an ambassador from Spain to tell of the suppression of religious orders; and finally the majordomo to recite the official programme for the public ceremonies which the Pope had ordered for Holy Thursday.

It was now ten o'clock, and Cortis, the valet, brought the usual plate of soup. Then came a large man with bold features and dark complexion, wearing a purple robe edged with red and a red biretta. It was the Cardinal Secretary of State.

"What news this morning, your Eminence?" said the Pope.

"The Government," said the Cardinal Secretary, "has just published a proclamation announcing a jubilee in honour of the King's accession. It is to begin on Monday next, and there are to be great feasts and rejoicings."

"A jubilee at a time like this! What a wild mockery of the people's woes! How many poor women and children must go hungry before this royal orgy has been paid for! God be with us! Such injustice and tyranny in the Satanic guise of clemency and indulgence is almost enough to explain the homicidal theories of the demagogues and to justify men like Rossi.... Any further news of him?"

"Yes. He is at present in Paris, in close intercourse with the leaders of every abominable sect."

"You have seen this man Rossi, your Eminence?"

"Once. I saw him on the morning of the jubilee of your Holiness, when he attempted to present a petition."

"What is he like to look upon--the typical demagogue; no?"

"No. I am bound to say no, your Holiness. And his conversation, though it is full of the jargon of modern Liberalism, has none of the obscenities of Voltaire."

"Some one said ... who was it, I wonder?... some one said he resembled the Holy Father."

"Now that you mention it, your Holiness, there is perhaps a remote resemblance."

"Ah! who knows what service for God and humanity even such a man might have done if in early life his lines had been cast in better places."

"They say he was an orphan from his infancy, your Holiness."

"Then he never knew a father's care and guidance! Unhappy son! Unhappy father!"

"Monsignor Mario," said the low voice of a chamberlain, and at the next moment the Pope's messenger to the Prime Minister was kneeling in the middle of the floor.

In nervous tones and broken sentences the Monsignor told his story. The Pope listened intently, the vertical lines on his forehead deepening and darkening every moment, until at length he burst out impatiently:

"But, my son, you do not say that you said all this in addition to your message?"

"I was drawn into doing so in defence of your Holiness."

"You told the Minister that my information came through the channel of a simple confidence?"

"He insinuated that the Holy Father was perhaps breaking the seal of the confessional...."

"That my informant was a non-Catholic and a woman?"

"He implied that your Holiness had only to command her to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, and therefore...."

"And you said she was here on Saturday morning?"

"He hinted that the Holy Father was an accomplice of criminals if he had known this without revealing it before, and that was why...."

"And she came in at that moment, you say?"

"At that very moment, your Holiness, and said she had met me on Saturday morning."

"Man, man, what have you done?" cried the Pope, rising from his seat and pacing the room.

The chamberlain continued to kneel in utter humility, until the Pope, recovering his composure, put both hands on his shoulders and raised him to his feet.

"Forgive me, my son. I was more to blame than you were. It was wrong to trust any one with a verbal message in the cabinet of a fox. The Holy Father should have no intercourse with such persons. But this is God's hand. Let us leave everything to the Holy Spirit."

At that moment the Papal Majordomo returned with a letter. It was the Baron's letter to the Pope. After the Pope had read it he stepped into a little adjoining room which contained nothing but a lounge and an easy-chair. There he lay on the lounge and turned his face to the wall.

XI

At four o'clock in the afternoon the Pope and Father Pifferi were again walking in the garden. The groves of Judas trees were shedding their crimson blossoms and the path had a covering of bloom; the atmosphere was full of the odour of honey-suckle and violet, and through the sunlit air the swallows were darting with shrill cries and the glitter of wings.

"And what does your Holiness intend to do?" asked the Capuchin.

"Providence will direct us," said the Pope with a sigh.

"But your Holiness will refuse the request of the Government?"

"How can I do so without exposing myself to misunderstanding? Suppose the King is assassinated, what then? The Government will tell the world that the Pope knew all and did nothing."

"Let them. It will not be an incident without parallel in the history of the Church. And the world will only honour your Holiness the more for standing firm on your sanctity of the human soul."

"Yes, if the confessional were in question. The world knows that the seal of the confessional is sacred, and must be observed at all costs.

But this is not a case of the confessional."

"Didn't your Holiness say you would observe it as such?"