sinner,—that was all. And such deeds
as these were commanded by Christ. Yet—the
Head of the Church for these same things viewed him
with wrath and suspicion! Wearily he sat, turning
over everything in his mind, and longing, with a weakness
which he fully admitted to his own conscience, to
leave Rome at once and return to his own home, there
to die among his roses at peace. But he saw it
would never do to leave Rome just yet. He was
bound fast hand and foot. He was “suspect”!
In his querulous fit the Pope had ordered Claude Cazeau
to return to Rouen without delay, and there gather
further evidence respecting the Cardinal’s stay
at the Hotel Poitiers, and if possible, to bring the
little Fabien Doucet and his mother back to Rome with
him. Pending the arrival of fresh proof, Bonpre,
though he had received no actual command, knew he
was expected to remain where he was. Weary and
sick at heart, the venerable prelate sighed as he
reviewed all the entangling perplexities, which had,
so unconsciously to himself, become woven like a web
about his innocent and harmless personality, and so
absorbed was he in thought that he did not hear the
door of his room open, and so was sot aware that his
foundling Manuel had stood for some time silently watching
him. Such love and compassion as were expressed
in the boy’s deep blue eyes could not however
radiate long through any space without some sympathetic
response,—and moved by instinctive emotion,
Cardinal Felix looked up, and seeing his young companion
smiled,—albeit the smile was a somewhat
sad one.
“Where have you been, my child?” he asked
gently, “I have missed you for some hours.”
Manuel advanced a little, and stood between the pale
afternoon light reflected through the window, and
the warmer glow of the wood fire.
“I have been to the strangest place in all the
world!” he answered, “The strangest,—and
surely one of the most wicked!”
The Cardinal raised himself in his chair, and bent
an anxious wondering look upon the young speaker.
“One of the most wicked!” he echoed, “What
place are you talking of?”
“St. Peter’s!” answered Manuel,
with a thrill of passion in his voice as he uttered
the name, “St. Peter’s,—the
huge Theatre misnamed a Church! Oh, dear friend!—do
not look at me thus! Surely you must feel that
what I say is true? Surely you know that there
is nothing of the loving God in that vast Cruelty
of a place, where wealth and ostentation vie with
intolerant officialism, bigotry and superstition!—where
even the marble columns have been stolen from the
temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the
names of Isis and Jupiter wrought in the truthful
stone;—where theft, rapine and murder have
helped to build the miscalled Christian fane!
You cannot in your heart of hearts feel it to be the
abode of Christ; your soul, bared to the sight of
God, repudiates it as a Lie! Yes!”—For,
startled and carried away by the boy’s fervour,