tion, nowadays the
Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, was no longer the institution it
had been, the purveyor of heretics for the stake, the occult tribunal
beyond appeal which had right of life and death over all mankind. True,
it still laboured in secrecy, meeting every Wednesday, and judging and
condemning without a sound issuing from within its walls. But on the
other hand if it still continued to strike at the crime of heresy, if it
smote men as well as their works, it no longer possessed either weapons
or dungeons, steel or fire to do its bidding, but was reduced to a mere
_role_ of protest, unable to inflict aught but disciplinary penalties
even upon the ecclesiastics of its own Church.

When Pierre on entering was ushered into the reception-room of Monsignor
Nani who, as assessor, lived in the palace, he experienced an agreeable
surprise. The apartment faced the south, and was spacious and flooded
with sunshine. And stiff as was the furniture, dark as were the hangings,
an exquisite sweetness pervaded the room, as though a woman had lived in
it and accomplished the prodigy of imparting some of her own grace to all
those stern-looking things. There were no flowers, yet there was a
pleasant smell. A charm expanded and conquered every heart from the very
threshold.

Monsignor Nani at once came forward, with a smile on his rosy face, his
blue eyes keenly glittering, and his fine light hair powdered by age.
With hands outstretched, he exclaimed: "Ah! how kind of you to have come
to see me, my dear son! Come, sit down, let us have a friendly chat."
Then with an extraordinary display of affection, he began to question
Pierre: "How are you getting on? Tell me all about it, exactly what you
have done."

Touched in spite of Don Vigilio's revelations, won over by the sympathy
which he fancied he could detect, Pierre thereupon confessed himself,
relating his visits to Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor Fornaro and Father
Dangelis, his applications to all the influential cardinals, those of the
Index, the Grand Penitentiary, the Cardinal Vicar, and the Cardinal
Secretary; and dwelling on his endless journeys from door to door through
all the Congregations and all the clergy, that huge, active, silent
bee-hive amidst which he had wearied his feet, exhausted his limbs, and
bewildered his poor brain. And at each successive Station of this Calvary
of entreaty, Monsignor Nani, who seemed to listen with an air of rapture,
exclaimed