s arm with a sovereign gesture of absolution and
sanctification, as if, Prince of the Church that he was, disposing of the
will of Heaven, he consented that the lovers should appear in that
embrace before the supreme tribunal. In presence of such wondrous love,
indeed, profoundly stirred by the sufferings of their lives and the
beauty of their death, he showed a broad and lofty contempt for mundane
proprieties. "Leave them, leave me, my sister," said he, "do not disturb
their slumber. Let their eyes remain open since they desire to gaze on
one another till the end of time without ever wearying. And let them
sleep in one another's arms since in their lives they did not sin, and
only locked themselves in that embrace in order that they might be laid
together in the ground."

And then, again becoming a Roman Prince whose proud blood was yet hot
with old-time deeds of battle and passion, he added: "Two Boccaneras may
well sleep like that; all Rome will admire them and weep for them. Leave
them, leave them together, my sister. God knows them and awaits them!"

All knelt, and the Cardinal himself repeated the prayers for the dead.
Night was coming, increasing gloom stole into the chamber, where two
burning tapers soon shone out like stars.

And then, without knowing how, Pierre again found himself in the little
deserted garden on the bank of the Tiber. Suffocating with fatigue and
grief, he must have come thither for fresh air. Darkness shrouded the
charming nook where the streamlet of water falling from the tragic mask
into the ancient sarcophagus ever sang its shrill and flute-like song;
and the laurel-bush which shaded it, and the bitter box-plants and the
orange-trees skirting the paths now formed but vague masses under the
blue-black sky. Ah! how gay and sweet had that melancholy garden been in
the morning, and what a desolate echo it retained of Benedetta's winsome
laughter, all that fine delight in coming happiness which now lay prone
upstairs, steeped in the nothingness of things and beings! So dolorous
was the pang which came to Pierre's heart that he burst into sobs, seated
on the same broken column where she had sat, and encompassed by the same
atmosphere that she had breathed, in which still lingered the perfume of
her presence.

But all at once a distant clock struck six, and the young priest started
on remembering that he was to be received by the Pope that very evening
at nine. Yet three more hours! He had n