ssible in an hour. The Cardinal
was an early riser, and was to pontificate at high mass in the Lateran.
The sergeant could send a soldier to the major domo's office by and by,
but no one would be stirring upstairs for at least another hour. The
gracious lady seemed tired; would she wait in the sergeant's own room?
It was at her disposal.

Ortensia accepted gratefully, and the big, fair-haired, wooden-faced
Swiss opened the door for her, pointed to a sort of settle on which she
could rest, and told Cucurullo to wait in the guard-room. The sergeant
himself would call her as soon as the major-domo's office was open. He
saluted her with stiff politeness and went away.

Even then she did not realise that she was tired, and instead of
stretching herself on the settee, as she might have done, she sat bolt
upright on the edge of it, staring at the door that had just been shut,
as if she expected the sergeant to come back at once. Yet she was not
conscious of the passage of time, and her intense anxiety centred in her
coming interview with the Cardinal rather than in any present longing
for the sergeant's quick return. In her mind she went over what she was
going to say, and tried to put together the Cardinal's probable replies.
She meant to ask for immediate liberty for her husband, or immediate
imprisonment for herself with him. Nothing could be simpler; if the
great man refused to grant either, leaving her at liberty, she would
risk everything and appeal to the Venetian Ambassador.

She had not changed her position once in three-quarters of an hour when
the door opened again, and the sergeant most respectfully invited her to
go with him. His Eminence had been informed that she was below and
wished to see her at once. She remembered nothing after that, till she
found herself in a small sunny room hung with red damask and furnished
in the same colour. The Cardinal sat in a high-backed chair at a
magnificent polished writing-table, on which stood a crucifix having the
sacred figure carved apparently from a single gigantic amethyst; the
inkstand, pen-tray, and sand-boxes were also gilt, and made a glittering
show in the bright sunshine that poured through the open window.

Cardinal Altieri was a grey-haired man with steely eyes set near
together, the strong lean face of a fighter, and the colourless
complexion of most high ecclesiastics, who are generally what the
physicians of that day called 'saturnians.' He held out a large