"If the penitent was obliged under pain of mortal sin to reveal his

accomplices to repair a common injury, I have maintained against other

theologians that even then the confessor cannot oblige him to do so."

"There!" cried the Capuchin. "What did I say? Gaume is wise, and the

other theologians, who are they?"

"Only," continued the Pope, turning a page and holding up one finger,

"he can and must oblige him to make known his accomplices to other

persons who can arrest the scandal."

The Capuchin took a long breath. "Is that what the Holy Father intends

to do in this instance?"

"He can and must."

The Capuchin dropped his head, and there was a long pause, in which the

Pope walked nervously about the room.

"Poor child!" said the Capuchin. "But perhaps her heart has been too

much set on human love."

The Pope sighed.

"Yet who are we, whose hearts are closed to earthly affection, to

prescribe a limit to human love?"

"Who indeed?" said the Pope.

"Do you recall her resemblance to any one, your Holiness?"

The Pope stopped in his walk and looked towards the curtained window.

"The same soft voice and radiant smile, the same attitude of idolatry

towards the husband she is devoted to, the same...."

"The Sisters of the Sacred Heart will take her when all is over," said

the Pope.

"And the man, too, whatever his errors, has a certain grandeur of soul,

that lifts him far above these chief gaolers and detectives who call

themselves statesmen and diplomatists, these scavengers of

civilisation."

"He must go back to America and begin life again," said the Pope.

Two hours later Father Pifferi went off to fetch Roma, and the Pope sat

down to his mid-day meal. The room was very quiet, and in the absence of

the church bells the city seemed to sit in silence. Cortis stood behind

the Pope's chair, and the cat sat on a stool at the opposite side of the

table.

The chamberlains, lay and ecclesiastical, waited in the ante-camera, and

the Swiss and Noble Guards, the Palatine Guards, and the palfrenieri

dotted the decorated halls that led to the royal stairs.

But the saintly old man, who had a palace yet no home, servants yet no

family, an army yet no empire, who was the father of all men, yet knew

no longer the ordinary joys and sorrows of human life, sat alone in his

little plain apartment and ate his simple dish of spinach and beans.




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