Angela started nervously.

“Moretti!” she said in a low tone, “I thought he had left Paris!”

Before she had time to say any more the visitor himself entered, a tall spare priest with a dark narrow countenance of the true Tuscan type,—­a face in which the small furtive eyes twinkled with a peculiarly hard brilliancy as though they were luminous pebbles.  He walked into the room with a kind of aggressive dignity common to many Italians, and made a slight sign of the cross in air as the two ladies saluted him.

“Pardon me, Mesdames, for this intrusion,” he said in a harsh metallic voice, “But I hear that the Abbe Vergniaud is in this house,—­and that Cardinal Felix Bonpre has received him here since” (and he emphasised the word “since”) “the shameful scene of this morning.  My business in Paris is ended for the moment; and I am returning to Italy to-night,—­but I wish to know if the Abbe has anything to say through me to His Holiness the Pope in extenuation of his conduct before I perform the painful duty of narrating this distressing affair at the Vatican.”

“Will you see him for yourself, Monsignor?” said Angela quietly, offering to lead the way out of the studio, “You will no doubt obtain a more direct and explicit answer from the Abbe personally.”

For a moment Moretti hesitated.  Princesse D’Agramont saw his indecision, and her smile had a touch of malice in it as she said,

“It is a little difficult to know how to address the Abbe to-day, is it not, Monsignor?  For of course he is no longer an Abbe—­no longer a priest of Holy Church!  Helas!  When anybody takes to telling the truth in public the results are almost sure to be calamitous!”

Moretti turned upon her with swift asperity.

“Madame, you are no true daughter of the Church,” he said, “and my calling forbids me to enter into any discussion with you!”

The Princesse gave him a charming upward glance of her bright eyes, and curtsied demurely, but he paid no heed to her obeisance, and moving away, went at once with Angela towards the Cardinal’s apartments.  In the antechamber he paused, hearing voices.

“Is there anyone with His Eminence, besides Vergniaud?” he asked.

“The Abbe’s son Cyrillon,” replied Angela timidly.

Moretti frowned.

“I will go in alone,” he said, “You need not announce me.  The Abbe knows me well, and—­” he added with a slight sneer, “he is likely to know me better!”

Without further words he signed to Angela to retire, and passing through the antechamber, he opened the door of the Cardinal’s room and entered abruptly.

XV.

The Cardinal was seated,—­he rose as Moretti appeared.

“I beg your Eminence to spare yourself!” said Moretti suavely, with a deep salutation, “And to pardon me for thus coming unannounced into the presence of one so highly esteemed by the Holy Father as Cardinal Bonpre!”