“Dead!” he murmured, and he nodded slowly, and beat with one finger on the back of the other hand, as though keeping time mechanically to some funeral march in his brain.  “Dead!  A fortunate thing for him!  An escape from worse than death, so far as this life is concerned!  But what of the next?—­’where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched!’” And here the representative of St. Peter smiled pallidly.  “Dead!—­but his works live after him; and his sin-begotten son also lives, to spread his pernicious writings through the world, and incite the already disobedient to further license.  Therefore the Church must still publicly condemn his memory, as a warning to the faithful.  And you, Cardinal Bonpre, must receive from us a necessary measure of correction, for having pardoned one who in his last discourse to humanity attacked the Church and slandered it.  To one of your eminence and reputation, the lesson may seem hard, but a chastening reproof can but purify the spirit, and free it from that pride which apes humility!”

The Cardinal bent his head patiently and remained silent.

Monsignor Moretti advanced a step towards the Papal throne.

“The boy”—­he began.

A slight animation warmed the chill lifelessness of the Pope’s features.  “True!  I had almost forgotten!” he said.  Then to the Cardinal, “Where is the boy you rescued from the streets, who lives with you, and who witnessed the miracle at Rouen?”

Manuel had till now stood aside, half hidden in the shadow of the crimson damask which, falling from ceiling to floor in rich luxurious folds, draped the corners of the room, but at these words he advanced at once.

“I am here!” he said.

Fronting the Pope, with his fair head thrown back, and his blue eyes flashing with all the soul-light of a swift, unwarped intelligence, he stood,—­and the white shrunken figure of the old man in the gilded chair raised itself as if by some interior electric force, slowly, slowly—­higher and higher—­the deep-set old eyes staring into the brilliant youthful ones—­staring—­staring till they seemed to protrude and tremble under their shelving brows, like the last sparks of a flame about to fall into extinction.  Gherardi made a quick step forward.

“My lord Cardinal!” he said significantly, “Should not your waif and stray have been taught how to comport himself before he came here?  He does not kneel to the Holy Father!”

The Cardinal opened his lips to speak, but Manuel stayed him by a slight gesture.

“I may not kneel to any man!” he said, “But to God only!  For it is written,’ Call no man your Father upon the earth, for One is your Father which is in Heaven.  Neither be ye called Masters, for One is your Master, even Christ.’  How then,” and he came nearer to the Pope’s foot-stool, “can you be called ‘Father’? or ‘Holy’?  For there is none Holy but God!”

The deep silence which had fallen like a spell upon them all in the antechamber, fell now with redoubled impressiveness.  The Pope, gripping the arms of his gilded chair, forced himself fully upright, and his lips trembled.