his wrinkled hands were tightly clasped.

Roma stopped. There was a prolonged silence. The atmosphere of the room
seemed to be whirling round with frightful rapidity to one terrific
focus.

"Holy Father," said Roma at length, in a low tone, "if David Rossi were
_your own son_, would you still ask me to denounce him?"

The Pope lifted a face full of suffering and said in his deep, vibrating
voice, "Yes, yes! More than ever for that--a thousand times more than
ever."

"Then _I will do it_," said Roma.

The Pope rose up in great emotion, laid both hands on her shoulder, and
said, "Go in peace, my daughter, and may God grant you at least a little
repose."

XVIII

After recitation of the Rosary, the Pope, who had kept his religious
retreat throughout the day, announced, to the astonishment of his
chamberlains, his desire to walk in the garden at night. With Father
Pifferi carrying a long Etruscan lamp he walked down the dark corridors
with their surprised _palfrenieri_, and across the open courtyards with
their startled sentinels, to where the arches of the Vatican opened upon
the soft spring sky.

The night was warm and quiet, and the moon, which had just risen and was
near the full, shone with steady brilliance.

The venerable old men walked without speaking, and only the beating of
their sticks on the gravel seemed to break the empty air. At length the
Pope stopped and said:

"How strange it all was, Father Pifferi!"

"Very strange, your Holiness," said the Capuchin.

"Rossi is not his name, it seems."

"'Not _really_ his name' was what she said."

"His mother was deceived by every one, and she drowned herself in the
Tiber."

"That was so, your Holiness."

"He was nursed in the Foundling, brought up in the Campagna, and then
sold as a boy into England."

"It is really extraordinary," said Father Pifferi.

"Most extraordinary," repeated the Pope.

They looked steadily at each other for a moment, and then walked on in
silence. Little sparks of blue light pulsed and throbbed and floated
before their faces, and the moon itself, like a greater firefly, came
and went in the interstices of the thin-leaved trees. The Pope, who
shuffled in his walking, stopped again.

"Your Holiness?"

"Who can he be, I wonder?"

The Capuchin drew a deep breath. "We shall know everything to-morrow
morning."

"Yes," said the Pope, "we shall know everything to-morrow morning."

Som