And he was bitterly troubled in spirit.  He had spent the whole morning at the Vatican, and the manner of his reception there had been so curiously divided between flattery and reproach that he had not known what to make of it.  The Pope had been tetchy and querulous,—­precisely in such a humour as one naturally expects so aged a man to be when contradicted on any matter, whether trivial or important.  For with such advanced years the faculties are often as brittle as the bones, and the failing powers of the brain are often brought to bear with more concentration on inconsiderable trifles than on the large and important affairs of life.  He had questioned the Cardinal closely concerning the miraculous cure performed at Rouen, and had become excessively angry when the honest prelate earnestly disclaimed all knowledge of it.  He had then confronted him with Claude Cazeau, the secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen, and Cazeau had given a clear and concise account of the whole matter, stating that the child, Fabien Doucet, had been known in Rouen since his babyhood as a helpless cripple, and that after Cardinal Bonpre had prayed over him and laid hands on him, he had been miraculously cured, and was now to be seen running about the city as strong and straight as any other healthy child.  And Bonpre listened patiently;- -and to all that was said, merely reiterated that if the child were so cured, then it was by the special intervention of God, as he personally had done no more than pray for his restoration.  But to his infinite amazement and distress he saw plainly that the Holy Father did not believe him.  He saw that he was suspected of playing a trick,—­a trick, which if he had admitted, would have been condoned, but which if he denied, would cause him to be looked upon with distrust by all the Vatican party.  He saw that even the man Cazeau suspected him.  And then,—­when the public confession of the Abbe Vergniaud came under discussion,—­the Pope had gathered together all the visible remains of physical force his attenuated frame could muster, and had hurled himself impotently against the wall of opposing fact with such frail fury as almost to suggest the celebrated simile of “a reed shaken with the wind”.  In vain had the Cardinal pleaded for Vergniaud’s pardon; in vain had he urged that after all, the sinner had branded himself as such in the sight of all men; what further need to add the ban of the Church’s excommunication against one who was known to be within touch of death?  Would not Christ have said, “Go, and sin no more”?  But this simple quotation from the Gospels seemed to enrage the representative of St. Peter more violently than before, and when Bonpre left the Holy Presence he knew well enough that he was, for no fault of his own, under the displeasure of the Vatican.  How had it all come about?  Nothing could have been simpler than his life and actions since he left his own Cathedral-town,—­he had prayed for a sick child,—­he had sympathised with a sorry