to do that?"

"Why not?"

"The Holy Father knows best. For my own part, your Holiness, I think it
a danger to tamper with the secrets of a soul, whatever the good end in
view or the evil to be prevented."

The Capuchin looked round to where the horses were pawing the path and
the Guards stood by the carriage.

"Thirty-five years ago we had a terrible lesson in such dangers, your
Holiness."

The Pope dropped his head and continued to scrape the gravel.

"Your Holiness remembers the poor young woman who told her confessor she
was about to marry a rich young man. The confessor thought it his duty
to tell the young man's father in general terms that such a marriage was
to be contracted. What was the result? The marriage took place in secret
and ended in grief and death."

The Pope rose uneasily. "We will not speak of that. It was a case of a
father's pride and perverted ambition. This is a different case
altogether. A man who is a prey to diabolical illusions, an enemy of the
Church and of social order, is hatching a plot which can only end in
mischief and bloodshed. The Holy Father knows it. Shall he keep this
guilty knowledge locked in his own bosom? God forbid!"

"Then you intend to warn the civil authorities?"

"I must. It is my duty. How could I lay my head on my pillow and not do
it? But I will do it discreetly. I will commit no one, and this poor
lady shall remain unknown."

The venerable old men, each leaning on his stick, walked down a path
lined by clipped yews, shaded by cypresses, and almost overgrown with
crocus, anemone, and violet. Suddenly from the bushes there came a
flutter of wings, followed by the scream of a bird, and in a moment the
Pope's cat had leapt on to a marble which stood in the midst of the
jungle. It was an ancient sarcophagus, placed there as a fountain, but
the spring that had fed it was dry, and in its moss-grown mouth a bird
had made its nest. The cat was about to pounce down on the eggs when the
Pope laid hold of it.

"Ah, Meesh, Meesh," he said, "what an anarchist you are, to be sure!...
Monsignor!"

"Yes, your Holiness," said the chamberlain, coming up behind.

"Take this _gatto rosso_ back to the carriage, and keep him in
_domicilio coatto_ until we come."

The Monsignor laughed and carried off the cat, and the Pope put his
mittened hand gently on the little speckled eggs.

"Poor things! they're warm. Listen! That's the mother bird screaming in
the tree. Hark! She