ts assaulted in the streets."

"But what will happen if I refuse to outrage the sanctity of an immortal
soul in spite of all this danger?"

"Your Holiness asks me what will happen if you refuse to obtain the
denunciation of a man whom your Holiness knows to be conspiring against
public order?"

"I do."

"What will happen will be ... your Holiness, I am speaking...."

"Go on."

"That, if the crime is committed and the King is killed, I, the Minister
of his Majesty, will be in a position to say--and to call upon this
friar to witness--that the Pope knew of it beforehand, and under the
most noble sentiments about the sanctity of an immortal soul gave a
supreme encouragement of regicide."

"And then, sir?"

"The world draws no nice distinctions, your Holiness, and the Vatican is
now at war with nearly all the powers and peoples of Europe. In the
presence of a monstrous crime against the most innocent and the most
highly placed, the world would say that what the Pope did not prevent
the Pope desired, what the Pope desired the Pope designed, and that the
Vicar of the Prince of Peace attempted to rebuild his temporal power by
means of the plots of conspirators and the daggers of assassins."

The sandals of the Capuchin were scraping the floor again, and once more
the Pope put up his hand.

"You come to me, sir, when you have exhausted all other means of
obtaining your end?"

"Naturally the Government wishes if possible to spare your Holiness an
unusual and painful ordeal."

"The lady has resisted all other influences?"

"She has resisted all influences which can be brought to bear upon her
by the proper authorities."

"I have heard of it, sir. I have heard what your 'authorities' have done
to humble a helpless woman. She had been the victim of a heartless man,
and by knowledge of that fact your 'authorities' have tempted and tried
her. They tried her with poverty, with humiliation, with jealousy and
the shadow of shame. But the blessed God upheld her in the love which
had awakened her soul, and she withstood them to the last."

The Baron, for the first time, looked confused.

"I have also heard that in order to achieve the same end one of your
gaols has been the scene of a scandal which has outraged every divine
and human law."

"Your Holiness must not accept for truth all that is printed in the
halfpenny papers."

"Is it true that in the cell where a helpless unfortunate was paying the
penalty of his