"And he knew nothing of it--" interposed Sovrani grimly. "Of course--he knew nothing!"

"He knew nothing--how should he know!" responded Gherardi calmly--"The terrible shock threw him into a delirium and fever--he was found in a dead swoon and taken into the monastery for shelter. I saw him there only yesterday."

He paused. No one spoke.

"He was to have come to Rome to-day, and a full explanation of his absence would have been given. But last night the monastery was set on fire--"

"Thank G.o.d!" said Sovrani.

Gherardi looked at him with an air of admirably affected sorrowful reproach.

"I grieve for your injustice and cruelty, Prince!" he said--"Some natural regret there should surely be in your mind at the tragic end of one so highly gifted--one whom you had accepted as your future son-in-law. He met with a terrible death! The monastery was set on fire, as I have told you--but the doors had all been previously locked within, it is supposed by one of the monks named Ambrosio, who was subject to fits of insanity--with the tragic result that he and Varillo perished in the flames, there being no possibility of rescue."

"Then the guillotine is saved unnecessary soiling," said Sovrani fiercely. "And you, Monsignor Gherardi, should have a special 'Jubilate' sung for the world being well-rid of an exceptionally d.a.m.ned and d.a.m.nable villain!"

There was something terrific in the aspect of Sovrani's face and threatening att.i.tude, and for a moment Gherardi hesitated to go on with his prepared sequence of lies. Rallying his forces at last with an effort he made a very good a.s.sumption of his most authoritative manner.

"Prince, I must ask you to be good enough to hear me patiently," he said. "Your mind has been grossly abused, and you are not aware of the true position of affairs. You imagine with some few gossips in Rome, that Florian Varillo, your daughter's betrothed husband, was guilty of the murderous attack upon her life--you are mistaken!"

"Mistaken!" Prince Pietro laughed scornfully. "Prove my mistake!--prove it!"

"I give you my word!" said Gherardi. "And I also swear to you that the picture yonder, which, though offensive to the Church and blasphemous in its teaching, is nevertheless a great masterpiece of painting, is the work of the unfortunate dead man you so greatly wrong!"

"Liar!" And Cyrillon Vergniaud sprang forward, interposing himself between Sovrani and the priest. "Liar!"

Gherardi turned a livid white.

"Who is this ruffian?" he demanded, drawing his tall form up more haughtily than before. "A servant of yours?"

"Ay, a servant of his, and of all honest men!" returned Cyrillon. "I am one whom your Church has learned to fear, but who has no fear of you!--one whom you have heard of to your cost, and will still hear of,--Gys Grandit!"

Gherardi glanced him up and down, and then turned from him in disgust as from something infected by a loathly disease.

"Prince Sovrani!" he said. "I cannot condescend to converse with a street ranter, such as this misguided person, who has most regrettably obtained admission to your house and society! I came to see your brother-in-law Cardinal Bonpre,--who has left Rome, you tell me--therefore my business must be discussed with you alone. I must ask you for a private audience."

Sovrani looked at him steadily.

"And I must refuse it, Monsignor! If in private audience you wish to repeat the amazing falsehood you have just uttered respecting my daughter's work--I am afraid I should hardly keep my hands off you!

Believe me you are safest in company!"

Monsignor Gherardi paused a moment,--then turned towards Sylvie.

"Contessa," he said very deliberately. "You can perhaps arrange this matter better than I can. Florian Varillo is dead--as I have told you; and for stating what I believe to be the truth regarding him I have been subjected to insult in your presence. I have known you for many years and I knew your father before you,--I have no wish to either distress or offend you,--do you understand? I am in your hands!"

Sylvie looked him full in the face. "My husband will answer you, Monsignor," she said. "I am in his hands!" Gherardi turned as crimson as he had before been pale. "Your husband!" He strode forward with a threatening movement--then stopped short, as he confronted Aubrey Leigh. "Your husband! So! You are married then!"--and he laughed fiercely--"Married by the law, and excommunicated by the Church! A pleasant position for the last of the Hermensteins! Contessa, by your own act you have ruined the fortunes of your friends! I would have held my peace at your will,--but now all Rome shall know the truth!" "The truth according to the convenience of papal Rome?" queried Aubrey Leigh--"The truth, as expounded to the Comtesse Hermenstein in your interview with her yesterday?"

Gherardi looked him over with superb indifference.

"My interview with the Comtesse Hermenstein was a private one"--he said,--"And if a spy was present, he must prove himself a spy. And we of the Church do not accept a spy's testimony!"

White with indignation Aubrey sprang forward,--but Cyrillon Vergniaud restrained him. "Patience!" he said in a low tone--"Let him have his way for the moment--it will then be my turn!"

"My word is law in Rome!"--went on Gherardi--"Whatsoever I choose to say will be confirmed and ratified by the greatest authority in the world--the Pope! I am ready to swear that Florian Varillo painted that picture,--and the Pope is ready to believe it! Who will admit such a masterpiece to be a woman's work? No one! Each member of the house of Sovrani can bear witness to the fact that no one ever saw Angela Sovrani painting it! But I know the whole story--I was the last to see Florian Varillo before his death--and he confessed the truth--that he had worked for his betrothed wife in order to give her the greater fame! So that he was not, and could not have been her a.s.sa.s.sin--"

"Then her a.s.sa.s.sin must be found!" said Prince Pietro suddenly. "And the owner of this sheath--the sheath of the dagger with which she was stabbed--must claim his property!" And holding up the sheath in question before Gherardi he continued--

"This _I_ found! This _I_ traced! Varillo's servant admitted it to be his master's--Varillo's mistress recognised it as her lover's--a slight thing, Monsignor!--but an uncomfortable witness! And if you dare to promulgate your lie against my daughter and her work, I will accuse you in the public courts of complicity in an attempted murder! And I doubt whether the Pope will judge it politic, or a part of national diplomacy, to support you then!"

For a moment Gherardi was baffled. His dark brows met in a frown of menace and his lips tightened with his repressed fury. Then,--still managing to speak with the utmost composure, he said,

"You will permit me to look at this dagger-sheath--this proof on which you place so much reliance?"

In the certainty of his triumph, old Sovrani was ready to place it in the priest's extended hand, when young Vergniaud interposed and prevented him.

"No! You can admire it from a distance, Monsignor! You are capable in your present humour of tearing it to atoms and so destroying evidence!

As the 'servant' of Prince Sovrani, it is my business to defend him from this possibility!"

Gherardi raised his dark eyes and fixed them, full of bitterest scorn, on the speaker.

"So YOU are Gys Grandit!" he said in accents which thrilled with an intensity of hatred. "You are the busy Socialist, the self-advertising atheist, who, like a yelping cur, barks impotently under the wheels of Rome! You--Vergniaud's b.a.s.t.a.r.d--"

"Give that name to your children at Frascati!" cried Cyrillon pa.s.sionately. "And own them as yours publicly, as my father owned me before he died!"

With a violent start, Gherardi reeled back as though he had been dealt a sudden blow, and over his face came a terrible change, like the grey pallor of creeping paralysis. White to the lips, he struggled for breath . . . he essayed to speak,--then failing, made a gesture with his hands as though pushing away some invisible foe. Slowly his head drooped on his breast, and he shivered like a man struck suddenly with ague. Startled and awed, everyone watched him in fascinated silence.

Presently words came slowly and with difficulty between his dry lips.

"You have disgraced me!" he said hoa.r.s.ely--"Are you satisfied?" He took a step or two close up to the young man. "I ask you--are you satisfied?

Or--do you mean to go on--do you want to ruin me?--" Here, moved by uncontrollable pa.s.sion he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.

"G.o.d! That it should come to this! That I should have to ask you--you, the enemy of the Church I serve, for mercy! Let it be enough I say!--and I--I also will be silent!"

Cyrillon looked at him straightly.

"Will you cease to persecute Cardinal Bonpre?" he demanded. "Will you admit Varillo's murderous treachery?"

Gherardi bent his head.

"I will!" he answered slowly, "because I must! Otherwise--" He clenched his fist and his eyes flashed fire-then he went on--"But beware of Lorenzo Moretti! He will depose the Cardinal from office, and separate him from that boy who has affronted the Pope. He is even now soliciting the Holy Father to intervene and stop the marriage of the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein with Aubrey Leigh,--and--they are married! No more--no more!--I cannot speak--let me go--let me go--you have won your way!--I give you my promise!"

"What is your promise worth?" said Vergniaud with disdain.

"Nothing!" replied Gherardi bitterly. "Only in this one special instance it is worth all my life!--all my position! You--even you, the accursed Gys Grandit!--you have me in your power!"

He raised his head as he said this,--his face expressed mingled agony and fury; but meeting Cyrillon's eyes he shrank again as if he were suddenly whipped by a lash, and with one quick stride, reached the door, and disappeared.

There was a moment's silence after his departure. Then Aubrey Leigh spoke.

"My dear Grandit! You are a marvellous man! How came you to know Gherardi's secrets?"

"Through a section of the Christian-Democratic party here"--replied Cyrillon--"You must not forget that I, like you, have my disciples!