Rodin answered by a hoarse growl, and turned his face towards the wall.

The imperturbable prelate continued:  “The views of Providence are not confined to your salvation, my very dear father.  Its power has been manifested in another way.  What I am about to tell you is of the highest importance.  Listen attentively.”

Without turning his head, Rodin muttered in a tone of angry bitterness, which betrayed his intense sufferings:  “They desire my death.  My chest is on fire, my head racked with pain, and they have no pity.  Oh, I suffer the tortures of the damned!”

“What! already” thought the Roman, with a smile of sarcastic malice; then he said aloud:  “Let me persuade you, my very dear father—­make an effort to listen to me; you will not regret it.”

Still stretched upon the bed, Rodin lifted his hands clasped upon his cotton handkerchief with a gesture of despair, and then let them fall again by his side.

The cardinal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and laid great stress on what follows, so that Rodin might not lose a word of it:  “My dear father, it has pleased Providence that, during your fit of raving, you have made, without knowing it, the most important revelations.”

The prelate waited with anxious curiosity for the effect of the pious trap he had laid for the Jesuit’s weakened faculties.  But the latter, still turned towards the wall, did not appear to have heard him and remained silent.

“You are, no doubt, reflecting on my words, my dear father,” resumed the cardinal; “you are right, for it concerns a very serious affair.  I repeat to you that Providence has allowed you, during your delirium, to betray your most secret thoughts—­happily, to me alone.  They are such as would compromise you in the highest degree.  In short, during your delirium of last night, which lasted nearly two hours, you unveiled the secret objects of your intrigues at Rome with many of the members of the Sacred College.”

The cardinal, rising softly, stooped over the bed to watch the expression of Rodin’s countenance.  But the latter did not give him time.  As a galvanized corpse starts into strange and sudden motion, Rodin sprang into a sitting posture at the last words of the prelate.

“He has betrayed himself,” said the cardinal, in a low voice, in Italian.  Then, resuming his seat, he fixed on the Jesuit his eyes, that sparkled with triumphant joy.

Though he did not hear the exclamation of Malipieri, nor remark the expression of his countenance, Rodin, notwithstanding his state of weakness, instantly felt the imprudence of his start.  He pressed his hand to his forehead, as though he had been seized with a giddiness; then, looking wildly round him, he pressed to his trembling lips his old cotton handkerchief, and gnawed it mechanically for some seconds.