e dark phantom of the past was hovering about them, and they were
afraid to challenge it.

At that moment the silence of the listening air was broken by a long
clear call, which rang out through the night without any warning, and
then stopped as suddenly.

"The nightingale," said the Pope.

A mighty flood of melody floated down from some unseen place, in varying
strains of divine music broken by many pauses, and running through every
phase of jubilation, sorrow, and pain. It ended in a low wail of
unutterable sadness, a pleading, yearning cry of anguish, which seemed
to call on God Himself to hear. When it was over, and all was hushed
around, the world seemed to have become void.

The Pope's feet shuffled on the gravel. "I shall never forget it," he
said.

"It was wonderful," said the Capuchin.

"I was thinking of that poor lady," said the Pope. "Her pleading voice
will ring in my ears as long as I live."

"Poor child!" said the Capuchin.

"After all, we could not have acted otherwise. Don't you think so,
Father Pifferi? Considering everything, we could not possibly have acted
otherwise."

"Perhaps we could not, your Holiness."

They turned the bend of an avenue, where the path under their feet
rustled with the thick blossom shed from the overhanging Judas trees.

"Surely this is where the little mother bird used to be," said the Pope.

"So it is," said the friar.

"Strange, she has not sprung out as usual. Ah, Meesh is not here, and
perhaps that's the reason." And feeling for the old sarcophagus, the
Pope put his hand gently down into it. A moment afterwards he said in
another tone: "Father, the young birds are gone."

"Flown, no doubt," said the friar.

"No. See," said the Pope, and he brought up a little nest filled with a
ruin of fluff and feathers.

"Meesh has been here indeed," said the friar.

The venerable old men walked on in silence until they re-entered the
vaulted courtyards of the Vatican. Then the Pope turned to the Capuchin
and said in a breaking voice, "You'll go with the poor lady to the
Procura in the morning, Father Pifferi. If the magistrates ask questions
which they should not ask, you will protect her, and even forbid her to
reply, and if she breaks down at the last moment you will support and
comfort her. After that ... we must leave all to the Holy Spirit. God's
hand is in this thing ... it is in everything. He will bring out all
things well--well for us, well for the Church