The Baron bowed, the young King was restless, and there was a moment's silence. Then the Pope said:

"Putting aside the extreme unlikelihood that the lady knows more than she has said, and we have already communicated, what possible inducement do you expect us to offer her that she should sacrifice her husband?"

"Her husband's life," said the Baron.

"His life?"

"Your Holiness may not know that the Governments of Europe, having ascertained the existence of a widespread plot against civil society, have joined in measures of repression. One of these is the extension to all countries of what is called the Belgian clause in treaties, whereby persons guilty of regicide or of plots directed against the lives of sovereigns are made liable to extradition."

"Well?"

"The Deputy Rossi is now in Berlin. If he were denounced with the conditions required by law as conspiring against the life of the King, we might have him arrested to-night and brought back as a common murderer."

"Well?"

"Your Holiness may not have heard that since the late unhappy riots the Parliament, in spite of the protests of his Majesty, has re-established capital punishment for all forms of high treason."

"Therefore," said the Pope, "if the wife were to denounce her husband for participation in this conspiracy he would be sentenced to death."

"For this conspiracy--yes," said the Baron. "But the present is not the only conspiracy the man Rossi has engaged in. Eighteen years ago he was condemned in contumacy for conspiracy against the life of the late King.

He has not yet suffered for his crime, because of the difficulty of bringing it home. In that case, as in this, there is only one person known to the authorities who can fulfil the conditions required by law.

That person is the informant of your Holiness."

"Well?"

"If your Holiness can prevail upon the lady to identify her lover as the man condemned for the former conspiracy, you will be helping her to save her husband's life from the penalty due for the present one."

"How so?"

"His Majesty is willing to promise your Holiness that, whatever the result of a new trial in assize to follow the old one in contumacy, he will grant a complete pardon."

"And then?"

"Then the Deputy Rossi will be banished, the threatened conspiracy will be crushed, the public peace will be preserved, and the King's life will be saved."

The Pope leaned forward on the arms of his chair, but he did not speak, and there was silence for some moments.

"Thus your Holiness must see," said the Baron suavely, "that, in asking you to obtain the denunciation of the man Rossi, the Government is only looking to your Holiness to fulfil the mission of mercy to which your venerated position has destined you."

"And if I refused to exercise this mission of mercy?"

The Baron bowed gravely. "Your Holiness will not refuse," he said.

"But if I do--what then?"

"Then ... your Holiness.... I was about to say something."

"I am listening."

"The man we speak of is the bitterest enemy of the Church. Whatever his hypocrisies, he is at once an atheist and a freemason, sworn to allow no private interests or feelings, no bonds of patriotism or blood, to turn him aside from his purpose, which is to overthrow Society and the Church."

"Well?"

"He is also a bitter personal enemy of the Holy Father, and knows no object so dear as that of tearing him from his place and shaking the throne of St. Peter."

"Well, sir?"

"The police and the army of the Government are the only forces by which the Holy Father can be protected, and without them the bad elements which lurk in every community would break out, the Holy Father would be driven from Rome, and his priests assaulted in the streets."

"But what will happen if I refuse to outrage the sanctity of an immortal soul in spite of all this danger?"

"Your Holiness asks me what will happen if you refuse to obtain the denunciation of a man whom your Holiness knows to be conspiring against public order?"

"I do."

"What will happen will be ... your Holiness, I am speaking...."

"Go on."

"That, if the crime is committed and the King is killed, I, the Minister of his Majesty, will be in a position to say--and to call upon this friar to witness--that the Pope knew of it beforehand, and under the most noble sentiments about the sanctity of an immortal soul gave a supreme encouragement of regicide."

"And then, sir?"

"The world draws no nice distinctions, your Holiness, and the Vatican is now at war with nearly all the powers and peoples of Europe. In the presence of a monstrous crime against the most innocent and the most highly placed, the world would say that what the Pope did not prevent the Pope desired, what the Pope desired the Pope designed, and that the Vicar of the Prince of Peace attempted to rebuild his temporal power by means of the plots of conspirators and the daggers of assassins."

The sandals of the Capuchin were scraping the floor again, and once more the Pope put up his hand.

"You come to me, sir, when you have exhausted all other means of obtaining your end?"

"Naturally the Government wishes if possible to spare your Holiness an unusual and painful ordeal."

"The lady has resisted all other influences?"

"She has resisted all influences which can be brought to bear upon her by the proper authorities."

"I have heard of it, sir. I have heard what your 'authorities' have done to humble a helpless woman. She had been the victim of a heartless man, and by knowledge of that fact your 'authorities' have tempted and tried her. They tried her with poverty, with humiliation, with jealousy and the shadow of shame. But the blessed God upheld her in the love which had awakened her soul, and she withstood them to the last."

The Baron, for the first time, looked confused.

"I have also heard that in order to achieve the same end one of your gaols has been the scene of a scandal which has outraged every divine and human law."

"Your Holiness must not accept for truth all that is printed in the halfpenny papers."

"Is it true that in the cell where a helpless unfortunate was paying the penalty of his crime your 'authorities' introduced a police agent in disguise to draw him into a denunciation of his accomplice?"

"These are matters of state, your Holiness. I do not assert them and I do not deny."

"In the name of humanity I ask you are such 'authorities' punished, or do they sit in the cabinets of your Ministers of the Interior?"