quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the
expanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up
yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away
from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn
from his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made,
a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of Monsignor
Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had been
told that in any case he would end by doing what Monsignor Nani might
desire, and he was now stupefied to find that he had done so.

But sudden despair seized upon him, such atrocious distress of spirit
that, from the depths of the abyss of darkness where he stood, he raised
his quivering arms into space and spoke aloud: "No, no, Thou art not
here, O God of life and love, O God of Salvation! But come, appear since
Thy children are perishing because they know neither who Thou art, nor
where to find Thee amidst the Infinite of the worlds!"

Above the vast square spread the vast sky of dark-blue velvet, the silent
disturbing Infinite, where the constellations palpitated. Over the roofs
of the Vatican, Charles's Wain seemed yet more tilted, its golden wheels
straying from the right path, its golden shaft upreared in the air;
whilst yonder, over Rome towards the Via Giulia, Orion was about to
disappear and already showed but one of the three golden stars which
bedecked his belt.

XV.

IT was nearly daybreak when Pierre fell asleep, exhausted by emotion and
hot with fever. And at nine o'clock, when he had risen and breakfasted,
he at once wished to go down into Cardinal Boccanera's rooms where the
bodies of Dario and Benedetta had been laid in state in order that the
members of the family, its friends and clients, might bring them their
tears and prayers.

Whilst he breakfasted, Victorine who, showing an active bravery amidst
her despair, had not been to bed at all, told him of what had taken place
in the house during the night and early morning. Donna Serafina, prude
that she was, had again made an attempt to have the bodies separated; but
this had proved an impossibility, as _rigor mortis_ had set in, and to
part the lovers it would have been necessary to break their limbs.
Moreover, the Cardinal, who had interposed once before, almost quarrelled
with his sister on the subject, unwilling as he was that any one should
distu