Odo made no reply, and the other went on in the same firm but courteous tone:  “Foreseeing that it would be difficult for you to leave her so abruptly I provided myself, in Venice, with a passport which will take her safely across the border.”  He drew a paper from his coat.  “This,” said he, handing it to Odo, “is the Papal Nuncio’s authorisation to the Signorina Fulvia Vivaldi, known in religion as Sister Veronica, to absent herself from Italy for an indefinite period.  With this passport and a good escort your companion will have no difficulty in joining her friends.”

Excess of astonishment kept Odo silent for a moment; and in that moment he had as it were a fugitive glimpse into the workings of the great power which still strove for predominance in Italy.  A safe-conduct from the Papal Nuncio to Fulvia Vivaldi was equivalent to her release from her vows; and this in turn implied that, for the moment, religious discipline had been frankly sacrificed to the pressure of political necessities.  How the invisible hands made and unmade the destinies of those who came in their way!  How boldly the Church swept aside her own defences when they obstructed her course!  He was conscious, even at the moment, of all that men like de Crucis had to say in defence of this higher expediency, this avowed discrimination between the factors in each fresh combination of circumstances.  He had himself felt the complex wonder of thoughtful minds before the Church’s perpetual miracle of change disguised in immutability; but now he saw only the meaner side of the game, its elements of cruelty and falseness; and he felt himself no more than a frail bark on the dark and tossing seas of ecclesiastical intrigue.  For a moment his heart shuddered back from its fate.

“No passport, no safe-conduct,” he said at length, “can release me from my duty to the lady who has placed herself in my care.  I shall not leave her till she has joined her friends.”

De Crucis bowed.  “This is the answer I expected,” he said, not without sadness.

Odo glanced at him in surprise.  The two men, hitherto, had addressed each other as strangers; but now something in the abate’s tone recalled to Odo the familiarity of their former intercourse, their deep community of thought, the significance of the days they had spent together in the monastery of Monte Cassino.  The association of ideas brought before him the profound sense of responsibility with which, at that time, he had looked forward to such an hour as this.

The abate was watching him gravely.

“Cavaliere,” he said, “every instant counts, all you had once hoped to do for Pianura is now yours to accomplish.  But in your absence your enemies are not idle.  His Highness may revoke your appointment at any hour.  Of late I have had his ear, but I have now been near a week absent, and you know the Duke is not long constant to one purpose.—­Cavaliere,” he exclaimed, “I appeal to you not in the name of the God whom you have come to doubt, but in that of your fellow-men, whom you have wished to serve.”