“Alma Redemptoris Mater,” whispered Percy, his eyes wet with tears. “Gentle Mother of the Redeemer—­the open door of the sky, star of the sea—­have mercy on sinners. The Angel of the Lord announced it to Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Ghost_....  Pour, therefore, Lord, Thy grace into our hearts.  Let us, who know Christ’s incarnation, rise through passion and cross to the glory of Resurrection—­through the same Christ our Lord.”

Another bell clanged sharply close at hand, calling him down to earth, and wrong, and labour and grief; and he turned to see the motionless volor itself one blaze of brilliant internal light, and the two priests following the German Cardinal across the gangway.

It was the rear compartment that the men had taken; and when he had seen that the old man was comfortable, still without a word he passed out again into the central passage to see the last of Rome.

The exit-door had now been snapped, and as Percy stood at the opposite window looking out at the high wall that would presently sink beneath him, throughout the whole of the delicate frame began to run the vibration of the electric engine.  There was the murmur of talking somewhere, a heavy step shook the floor, a bell clanged again, twice, and a sweet wind-chord sounded.  Again it sounded; the vibration ceased, and the edge of the high wall against the tawny sky on which he had fixed his eyes sank suddenly like a dropped bar, and he staggered a little in his place.  A moment later the dome rose again, and itself sank, the city, a fringe of towers and a mass of dark roofs, pricked with light, span like a whirlpool; the jewelled stars themselves sprang this way and that; and with one more long cry the marvellous machine righted itself, beat with its wings, and settled down, with the note of the flying air passing through rising shrillness into vibrant silence, to its long voyage to the north.

Further and further sank the city behind; it was a patch now:  greyness on black.  The sky seemed to grow more huge and all-containing as the earth relapsed into darkness; it glowed like a vast dome of wonderful glass, darkening even as it glowed; and as Percy dropped his eyes once more round the extreme edge of the car the city was but a line and a bubble—­a line and a swelling—­a line, and nothingness.

He drew a long breath, and went back to his friends.

II

“Tell me again,” said the old Cardinal, when the two were settled down opposite to one another, and the chaplains were gone to another compartment.  “Who is this man?”

“This man?  He was secretary to Oliver Brand, one of our politicians.  He fetched me to old Mrs. Brand’s death bed, and lost his place in consequence.  He is in journalism now.  He is perfectly honest.  No, he is not a Catholic, though he longs to be one.  That is why they confided in him.”

“And they?”