His brows wrinkled a little as he remembered his mother’s exclamation, “Please God”; then he smiled at the poor old thing and her pathetic childishness, and turned once more to his table, thinking in spite of himself of his wife’s hesitation as she had seen the splash of blood on her shoe.  Blood!  Yes; that was as much a fact as anything else.  How was it to be dealt with?  Why, by the glorious creed of Humanity—­that splendid God who died and rose again ten thousand times a day, who had died daily like the old cracked fanatic Saul of Tarsus, ever since the world began, and who rose again, not once like the Carpenter’s Son, but with every child that came into the world.  That was the answer; and was it not overwhelmingly sufficient?

Mr. Phillips came in an hour later with another bundle of papers.

“No more news from the East, sir,” he said.

CHAPTER II

I

Percy Franklin’s correspondence with the Cardinal-Protector of England occupied him directly for at least two hours every day, and for nearly eight hours indirectly.

For the past eight years the methods of the Holy See had once more been revised with a view to modern needs, and now every important province throughout the world possessed not only an administrative metropolitan but a representative in Rome whose business it was to be in touch with the Pope on the one side and the people he represented on the other.  In other words, centralisation had gone forward rapidly, in accordance with the laws of life; and, with centralisation, freedom of method and expansion of power.  England’s Cardinal-Protector was one Abbot Martin, a Benedictine, and it was Percy’s business, as of a dozen more bishops, priests and laymen (with whom, by the way, he was forbidden to hold any formal consultation), to write a long daily letter to him on affairs that came under his notice.

It was a curious life, therefore, that Percy led.  He had a couple of rooms assigned to him in Archbishop’s House at Westminster, and was attached loosely to the Cathedral staff, although with considerable liberty.  He rose early, and went to meditation for an hour, after which he said his mass.  He took his coffee soon after, said a little office, and then settled down to map out his letter.  At ten o’clock he was ready to receive callers, and till noon he was generally busy with both those who came to see him on their own responsibility and his staff of half-a-dozen reporters whose business it was to bring him marked paragraphs in the newspapers and their own comments.  He then breakfasted with the other priests in the house, and set out soon after to call on people whose opinion was necessary, returning for a cup of tea soon after sixteen o’clock.  Then he settled down, after the rest of his office and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, to compose his letter, which though short, needed a great deal of care and sifting.  After dinner he made a few notes for next day, received visitors again, and went to bed soon after twenty-two o’clock.  Twice a week it was his business to assist at Vespers in the afternoon, and he usually sang high mass on Saturdays.