“According to his promise, the cardinal ordered the palace to be searched, but, in less than a quarter of an hour, the major-domo received orders to stop, and the only reason for these new instructions must be this: 

“I am told by the major-domo that at nine o’clock exactly a very handsome, young abbe, whom he immediately judged to be a girl in disguise, asked him to deliver a note to his eminence, and that the cardinal, after reading it, had desired the said abbe be brought to his apartment, which he has not left since.  As the order to stop searching the palace was given immediately after the introduction of the abbe to the cardinal, it is easy enough to suppose that this ecclesiastic is no other than the young girl missed by the police, who took refuge in the palace in which she must have passed the whole night.”

“I suppose,” said I, “that his eminence will give her up to-day, if not to the bargello, at least to the Vicar-General.”

“No, not even to the Pope himself,” answered Gama.  “You have not yet a right idea of the protection of our cardinal, and that protection is evidently granted to her, since the young person is not only in the palace of his eminence, but also in his own apartment and under his own guardianship.”

The whole affair being in itself very interesting, my attention could not appear extraordinary to Gama, however suspicious he might be naturally, and I was certain that he would not have told me anything if he had guessed the share I had taken in the adventure, and the interest I must have felt in it.

The next day, Gama came to my room with a radiant countenance, and informed me that the Cardinal-Vicar was aware of the ravisher being my friend, and supposed that I was likewise the friend of the girl, as she was the daughter of my French teacher.  “Everybody,” he added, “is satisfied that you knew the whole affair, and it is natural to suspect that the poor girl spent the night in your room.  I admire your prudent reserve during our conversation of yesterday.  You kept so well on your guard that I would have sworn you knew nothing whatever of the affair.”

“And it is the truth,” I answered, very seriously; “I have only learned all the circumstances from you this moment.  I know the girl, but I have not seen her for six weeks, since I gave up my French lessons; I am much better acquainted with the young man, but he never confided his project to me.  However, people may believe whatever they please.  You say that it is natural for the girl to have passed the night in my room, but you will not mind my laughing in the face of those who accept their own suppositions as realities.”

“That, my dear friend,” said the abbe, “is one of the vices of the Romans; happy those who can afford to laugh at it; but this slander may do you harm, even in the mind of our cardinal.”

As there was no performance at the Opera that night, I went to the cardinal’s reception; I found no difference towards me either in the cardinal’s manners, or in those of any other person, and the marchioness was even more gracious than usual.