and he raised his hand with the action of an
automaton, and put the incense into the vessel, looking neither to the
right nor to the left.

The clergy had come back from the sacristy, and were waiting in the
chancel for him to descend; but he remained utterly motionless. The
deacon of honour, bending forward to take off the mitre, whispered
again, hesitatingly:

"Your Eminence!"

The Cardinal looked round.

"What did you say?"

"Are you quite sure the procession will not be too much for you? The sun
is very hot."

"What does the sun matter?"

Montanelli spoke in a cold, measured voice, and the priest again fancied
that he must have given offence.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence. I thought you seemed unwell."

Montanelli rose without answering. He paused a moment on the upper step
of the throne, and asked in the same measured way:

"What is that?"

The long train of his mantle swept down over the steps and lay spread
out on the chancel-floor, and he was pointing to a fiery stain on the
white satin.

"It's only the sunlight shining through a coloured window, Your
Eminence."

"The sunlight? Is it so red?"

He descended the steps, and knelt before the altar, swinging the censer
slowly to and fro. As he handed it back, the chequered sunlight fell on
his bared head and wide, uplifted eyes, and cast a crimson glow across
the white veil that his ministers were folding round him.

He took from the deacon the sacred golden sun; and stood up, as choir
and organ burst into a peal of triumphal melody.

"Pange, lingua, g]oriosi
Corporis mysterium,
Sanguinisque pretiosi
Quem in mundi pretium,
Fructus ventris generosi
Rex effudit gentium."

The bearers came slowly forward, and raised the silken canopy over his
head, while the deacons of honour stepped to their places at his right
and left and drew back the long folds of the mantle. As the acolytes
stooped to lift his robe from the chancel-floor, the lay fraternities
heading the procession started to pace down the nave in stately double
file, with lighted candles held to left and right.

He stood above them, by the altar, motionless under the white canopy,
holding the Eucharist aloft with steady hands, and watched them as they
passed. Two by two, with candles and banners and torches, with crosses
and images and flags, they swept slowly down the chancel steps, along
the broad nave between the garlanded pillars, an