"And I shall. But what about the public? Accident has told the Government that this is not a case of the confessional, and the Government will tell the world. What follows? If I refuse to do anything the enemies of the Church will give it out that the Holy Father is an accomplice of a regicide, ready and willing to intrigue with the agents of rebellion to regain the temporal power."

"Then you will receive the Prime Minister?"

"No! Or if so, only in the company of his superior."

"The King?"

"Yes."

The Capuchin removed his skull-cap with an uneasy hand, and walked some paces without speaking.

"Will he come, your Holiness?"

"If he thinks I hold the secret on which his life depends, assuredly he will come."

"But you are sovereign as well as Pope--is it possible for you to receive him?"

"I will receive him as the King of Sardinia, the King of Italy, if you will, but not as the King of Rome."

The Capuchin took his coloured handkerchief from his sleeve and rolled it in his palms, which were hot and perspiring.

"But, Holy Father," he said, "what will be the good? Say that all difficulties of etiquette can be removed, and you can meet as man to man, as David Leone and Albert Charles--why will the King come? Only to ask you to put pressure upon your informant to give more information."

The Pope drew himself up on the gravel path and smote his breast with indignation. "Never! It would be an insult to the Church," he said. "It is one thing to expect the Holy Father to do his duty as a Christian even to his enemy, it is another thing to ask him to invade the sanctity of a private confidence."

The Capuchin did not reply, and the two old men walked on in silence. As the light softened the swallows increased their clamour, and song-birds began to call from neighbouring trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was picking its way at his heels.

"Ah, Meesh, Meesh! I've got you safely this time.... It was the poor mother-bird again, I suppose. Where is her nest, I wonder?"

They found it in the old sarcophagus, which was now almost lost in leaves. The eggs had been hatched, and the fledglings, with eyes not yet opened, stretched their featherless necks and opened their beaks when the Pope put down his hand to touch them.

"Monsignor," said the Pope over his shoulder, "remind me to-morrow to ask the gardener for some worms."

The cat, from his prison under the Pope's arm, was watching the squirming nest with hungry eyes.

"Naughty Meesh! Naughty!" said the Pope, shaking one finger in the cat's face. "But Meesh is only following the ways of his kind, and perhaps I was wrong to let him see the quarry."

The Pope and the Capuchin walked back to the Vatican for joy of the sweet spring evening with its scent of flowers and song of birds.

"You are sad to-day, Father Pifferi," said the Pope.

"I'm still thinking of that poor lady," said the Capuchin.

At the first hour of night the Pope attended the recitation of the rosary in his private chapel, and then returning to his private study, a room furnished with a table and two chairs, he took a light supper, served by Cortis in the evening dress of a civilian. His only other company was the cat, which sat on a chair on the opposite side of the table. After supper he wrote a letter. It ran:

"SIRE,--Your Minister informs us that through official channels he has received warning of a plot against your life, and believing that we can give information that will help him to defeat so vile a conspiracy, he asks us for a special audience. It is not within our power to promise more assistance than we have already given; but this is to say that if your Majesty yourself should wish to see us, we shall be pleased to receive you, with or without your Minister, if you will come in private and otherwise unattended, at the hour of 21-1/2 on Holy Thursday, to the door of the Canons'

House of St. Peter's, where the bearer of this message will be waiting to conduct you to the Sacristy.

"Nil timendum nisi a Deo.

Pius P.P.X."

XII

The ceremonies in St. Peter's on Maundy Thursday exceeded in pomp and magnificence anything that could be remembered in Rome.

It was a great triumph for the Church. In the face of the anti-religious Governments of Europe she had proved that the mightiest sentiment of the people was the sentiment of religion.

The Papal Court was proud of itself. Some of its members made no effort to conceal their delight at the blow they had struck at the ruling classes. But there was one man in Rome who felt no joy in his triumph.

It was the Pope.

At nine o'clock at night he visited the "urn" called the "Sepulchre."

Borne amid the light of torches on his _sedia_ with his _flabelli_ waving on either hand, under a white canopy upheld by prelates, he passed through the glittering rooms of his own palace, along the dark corridors of the Vatican and down the marble stairs, accompanied by his guards in helmets and preceded by the papal cross covered with a violet veil, into the great Basilica, lit only by large candles in iron stands, and looking plain and barn-like and full of shadows in the gloom and the smoky air. But after he had visited the Sepulchre, gorgeously illuminated, while the cantors sang the _Verbum Caro_, after he had knelt in silence and had risen, and the torches of his procession had been put out, and he had returned to his chair to be borne into the Sacristy, and the poor people, lifted to a height of emotion not often reached by the human soul, had broken again into a last delirious shout of affection, he dropped his head and wept.

At that moment the Sacristy was empty save for the custodian in black cassock and biretta, who was warming his hands over a large bronze scaldino; but in the Archpriest's room adjoining, with its gilt arm-chair and stools of red plush, Father Pifferi in his ordinary brown habit was waiting for the Pope. The bearers put down the chair, knelt and kissed the Pope's feet in spite of his protest, backed themselves out with deep obeisance, and left the two old men together.

"Have they arrived?" asked the Pope.

"Not yet, your Holiness," said the Capuchin.

"Father, have you any faith in presentiments?"

"Sometimes, your Holiness. When they continue and are persistent..."

"I have had a presentiment which has been with me all my life--all my life as Pope, at all events. The blessed God who abases and lifts up has thought fit to raise my lowliness to the most sublime dignity that exists on earth, but I have always lived in the fear that some day I should be torn down from it, and the Church would suffer."

"God forbid, your Holiness!"

"That was why I refused every place and every honour. You know how I refused them, Father!"

"Yes, but God knew better, your Holiness, and He preserved you to be a blessing and a comfort to His people."

"His holy will be done! But the shadow which has been over me will not be lifted. Cause prayers to be said for me. Pray for me yourself, Father."

"Your Holiness is in low spirits. And to-day of all days! Ah, how happy is the Church which has seen the hand of God place in the chair of St.

Peter a soul capable of comprehending the necessities of His children and a heart desirous of satisfying them!"

"I hardly know what is to come of this interview, Father, but I must leave myself in the hands of the Holy Spirit."

"There is no help for it now, your Holiness."

"Perhaps I should not have gone so far but for this wave of anarchy which is sweeping over the world.... You believe the man Rossi is secretly an anarchist?"

"I am afraid he is, your Holiness, and one of the worst enemies of the Church and the Holy Father."

"They say he was an orphan from his infancy, and never knew father, or mother, or home."

"Pitiful, very pitiful!"