employ their intelligent
zeal, which is ready to serve you, so that you may assure yourselves the
help of the next, the coming pope? It is necessary for you that he should
be on your side, that he should continue the work of Leo XIII, which is
so badly judged and so much opposed, but which cares little for the petty
results of to-day, since its purpose lies in the future, in the union of
all the nations under their holy mother the Church. Tell Cardinal
Bergerot, tell him plainly that he ought to be with us, that he ought to
work for his country by working for us. The coming pope, why the whole
question lies in that, and woe to France if in him she does not find a
continuator of Leo XIII!"

Nani had again risen, and this time he was going off. Never before had he
unbosomed himself at such length. But most assuredly he had only said
what he desired to say, for a purpose that he alone knew of, and in a
firm, gentle, and deliberate voice by which one could tell that each word
had been weighed and determined beforehand. "Farewell, my dear son," he
said, "and once again think over all you have seen and heard in Rome. Be
as sensible as you can, and do not spoil your life."

Pierre bowed, and pressed the small, plump, supple hand which the prelate
offered him. "Monseigneur," he replied, "I again thank you for all your
kindness; you may be sure that I shall forget nothing of my journey."

Then he watched Nani as he went off, with a light and conquering step as
if marching to all the victories of the future. No, no, he, Pierre, would
forget nothing of his journey! He well knew that union of all the nations
under their holy mother the Church, that temporal bondage in which the
law of Christ would become the dictatorship of Augustus, master of the
world! And as for those Jesuits, he had no doubt that they did love
France, the eldest daughter of the Church, and the only daughter that
could yet help her mother to reconquer universal sovereignty, but they
loved her even as the black swarms of locusts love the harvests which
they swoop upon and devour. Infinite sadness had returned to the young
man's heart as he dimly realised that in that sorely-stricken mansion, in
all that mourning and downfall, it was they, they again, who must have
been the artisans of grief and disaster.

As this thought came to him he turned round and perceived Don Vigilio
leaning against the credence in front of the large portrait of the
Cardinal. Holding hi