IV

When the Pope walked in his garden that afternoon as usual, the old

Capuchin was with him. From the door of the Vatican they drove in the

Pope's landau with two of the Noble Guard riding beside the carriage,

and one of the chamberlains walking behind it, through lanes enshrouded

in laurel and ilex, until they reached the summer-house on the top of

the hill. There the old men stepped down, the Pope in his white cassock,

white overcoat and red hat, the Capuchin in his brown habit, skull-cap

and sandals. The Pope's cat, a creature of reddish coat, which followed

him into the garden as a dog follows his master, leapt out of the

carriage after them.

The Pope was more than usually grave and silent. Once or twice the

Capuchin said, "And how did you find my young penitent this morning?"

"_Bene, bene!_" the Pope replied.

But at length the Pope, scraping the gravel at his feet with the ferrule

of his walking-stick, began to speak on his own initiative.

"Father!"

"Your Holiness?"

"The inscrutable decree of God which made me your Pontiff has not

altered our relations to each other as men?"

The Capuchin took snuff and answered, "Your Holiness is always so good

as to say so."

"You are my master now just as you were thirty years ago, and there is

something I wish to ask of you."

"What is it, your Holiness?"

"You have been a confessor many years, Father?"

"Forty years, your Holiness."

"In that time you have had many difficult cases?"

"Very many."

"Father, has it ever happened that a penitent, has revealed to you a

conspiracy to commit a crime?"

"More than once it has happened."

"And what have you done?"

"Persuaded him to reveal it to the civil authorities, or else tell it to

me outside the confessional."

"Has the penitent ever refused to do so?"

"Never."

"But if ... if the case were such as made it difficult for the penitent

to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, having regard to the

penalties the revelation would bring with it ... if by reason of ties of

blood and affection such revelation were humanly impossible, and it

would even be cruel to ask for it, what would you do then?"

"Nothing, your Holiness."

"Not even if the crime to be committed were a serious one, and it

touched you very nearly?"

The Capuchin shook out his coloured print handkerchief and said, "That

could make no difference, your Holiness."

"But suppose you heard in confession that your brother is to be

assassinated, what is your duty?"

"My duty to the penitent who reveals his soul to me is to preserve his

secret."

"And what is your duty to God?"

The handkerchief dropped from the Capuchin's hand.

The Pope paused, scraped the gravel with the ferrule of his stick, and

said:

"Father, I am in the position of the confessor who has guilty knowledge

of a conspiracy against the life of his enemy."

The Capuchin pushed his handkerchief into his sleeve and dropped back

into his seat. After a moment the Pope told the story of what Roma had

said of Rossi's plans abroad.

"A conspiracy," he said, "plainly a conspiracy."

"And what do you understand the conspiracy to be?"

"Who can say? Perhaps a recurrence to the custom of the Middle Ages,

when citizens who had been banished by their opponents used to apply

themselves in exile to attempt the reconquest of their country by

stirring up the factions at home."

"You think that is Rossi's object?"

"I do."

The Capuchin shifted uneasily the skull-cap on his crown and said:

"Holy Father, I trust your Holiness will leave the matter alone."

"Why so?"

"In reading history I do not find that such enterprises have usually

been successful. I see, rather, how commonly they have failed. And if it

was so in the Middle Ages when the arts of war were primitive, how much

less likely are the conspiracies of secret societies, the partial and

superficial risings of refugees, to be serious now in the days of

standing armies."

"True. But is that a good reason for doing nothing in this instance?"

"But, Holy Father, think. You cannot disclose the secrets this poor lady

has revealed to you. Her confession was only a confidence, but your

Holiness knows well that there is such a thing as a natural secret which

it would be a great fault to reveal. Facts which of their own nature are

confidential belong to this order. They are assimilated to the

confessional, and as such they should be respected."

"Indeed they should."

"Then it is not possible for your Holiness to reveal what you heard this

morning without bringing trouble to the penitent and wronging her in

relation to her husband."

"God forbid that I should do so, whatever happens. But is a priest

forbidden to speak of a sin heard in confession if he can do so in such

a way that the identity of the penitent cannot be discovered?"

"Your Holiness intends to do that?"

"Why not?"

"The Holy Father knows best. For my own part, your Holiness, I think it

a danger to tamper with the secrets of a soul, whatever the good end in

view or the evil to be prevented."

The Capuchin looked round to where the horses were pawing the path and

the Guards stood by the carriage.

"Thirty-five years ago we had a terrible lesson in such dangers, your

Holiness."

The Pope dropped his head and continued to scrape the gravel.

"Your Holiness remembers the poor young woman who told her confessor she

was about to marry a rich young man. The confessor thought it his duty

to tell the young man's father in general terms that such a marriage was

to be contracted. What was the result? The marriage took place in secret

and ended in grief and death."

The Pope rose uneasily. "We will not speak of that. It was a case of a

father's pride and perverted ambition. This is a different case

altogether. A man who is a prey to diabolical illusions, an enemy of the

Church and of social order, is hatching a plot which can only end in

mischief and bloodshed. The Holy Father knows it. Shall he keep this

guilty knowledge locked in his own bosom? God forbid!"

"Then you intend to warn the civil authorities?"

"I must. It is my duty. How could I lay my head on my pillow and not do

it? But I will do it discreetly. I will commit no one, and this poor

lady shall remain unknown."

The venerable old men, each leaning on his stick, walked down a path

lined by clipped yews, shaded by cypresses, and almost overgrown with

crocus, anemone, and violet. Suddenly from the bushes there came a

flutter of wings, followed by the scream of a bird, and in a moment the

Pope's cat had leapt on to a marble which stood in the midst of the

jungle. It was an ancient sarcophagus, placed there as a fountain, but

the spring that had fed it was dry, and in its moss-grown mouth a bird

had made its nest. The cat was about to pounce down on the eggs when the

Pope laid hold of it.

"Ah, Meesh, Meesh," he said, "what an anarchist you are, to be sure!...

Monsignor!"

"Yes, your Holiness," said the chamberlain, coming up behind.

"Take this _gatto rosso_ back to the carriage, and keep him in

_domicilio coatto_ until we come."

The Monsignor laughed and carried off the cat, and the Pope put his

mittened hand gently on the little speckled eggs.

"Poor things! they're warm. Listen! That's the mother bird screaming in

the tree. Hark! She's watching us, and waiting for us to go. How snugly

she thought she kept her secret."

The Capuchin drew a long breath. "Yes, nature has the same cry for fear

in all her offspring."

"True," said the Pope.

"It makes me think of that poor girl this morning."

The Pope walked back to the carriage without saying a word. As he

returned to the Vatican, the Angelus was ringing from all the church

bells of Rome, the city was bathed in crimson light, the sun was sinking

behind Monte Mario, and the stone pines on the crest of the hill,

standing out against the reddening sky, were like the roofless columns

of a ruined temple.

V

Next day Francesca came up with a letter. The porter from Trinità de'

Monti had brought it and he was waiting below for a present. In a kind

of momentary delirium Roma snatched at the envelope and emptied her

purse into the old woman's hand.

"Santo Dio!" cried Francesca, "all this for a letter?"

"Never mind, godmother," said Roma. "Give the money to the good man and

let him go."

"It's from Mr. Rossi, isn't it? Yes? I thought it was. You've only to

say three Ave Marias when you wake in the morning and you get anything

you want. I knew the Signora was dying for a letter, so...."

"Yes, yes, but the poor man is waiting, and I must get on with my work,

and...."

"Work? Ah, Signora, in paradise you won't have to waste your time

working. A lady like you will have violins and celestial bread and...."

"The man will be gone, godmother," said Roma, hustling the deaf old

woman out of the room.

But even when Roma was alone she could not at first find courage to open

the envelope. There was a certain physical thrill in handling it, in

turning it over, and in looking at the stamps and the postmark. The

stamps were French and the postmark was of Paris. That fact brought a

vague gleam of joy. Rossi had been travelling, and perhaps he had not

yet received her letter.

With a trembling kiss and a little choking prayer she broke the seal at

last, and as the letter came rustling out of the envelope she glanced at

the closing lines:

"Your Faithful Husband."

She caught her breath and waited a moment, tingling all over. Then she

unfolded the paper and read:--

"DEAREST,--A telegram from Rome, published in the Paris newspapers

this morning, reports the trial and death of Bruno. To say that I

am shocked is to say little. I am shaken to my foundations. My

heart is bursting and my hand can with difficulty hold the pen.

"The news first reached me last evening, when I was in a

restaurant with a group of journalists. We were at dinner, but I

was compelled to rise and return to my lodgings. I must have been

almost in delirium the whole night long. More than once I started

from my sleep with the certainty that I heard Bruno's voice

calling to me. Once I went to the window and looked out into the

silent street. And yet I knew all the time that my poor friend lay

dead in prison.

"Poor Bruno! I do not hold with suicide under any circumstances. A

man's life does not belong to himself. Each of us is a soldier,

and no sentinel ought to kill himself at his post. Who knows what

the next turn of the battle will be? It is our duty to the General

to see the fight out. But when the sentinel dies rather than pass

a false watchword, suicide is sacrifice, death is victory, and God

takes His martyr under the wings of His mercy.

"The poor fellow died believing I had been false to him! I knew

him for eight years, and during that time he was more faithful to

me than my shadow. He was the bravest, staunchest friend man ever

had. And now he has left me, thinking I have wronged him at the

last. Oh, my brother, do you not know the truth at last? In the

world to which you are gone, does no heavenly voice tell you? Does

not death reveal everything? Can you not look down and see all,

tearing away the veil that clouded your vision here below? Is it

only vouchsafed to him who remains on earth to know that he was

true to the love you bore him? God forbid it! It cannot, cannot

be.

"Dearest, I came to Paris unexpectedly ten days ago...."

Roma lifted her swimming eyes. "Then he hasn't received it," she

thought.

"Called in haste, not only to organise our Italian people for the

new crusade, but to compose by a general principle the many groups

of Frenchmen who, under different names, have the same

aspirations--Marxists, Possibilists, Boulangists, Guesdists, and

Central Revolutionists, with their varying propaganda, co-operative,

trade-unionist, anti-semite, national, and I know not what--I had

almost despaired of any union of interests so pitifully subdivided

when the news of Bruno's death came like a trumpet-blast, and the

walls of the social Jericho fell before it. Everybody feels that

the moment of action has arrived, and what I thought would be an

Italian movement is likely to become an international one. A great

outrage on the spirit of Justice breaks down all barriers of race

and nationality.

"God guide us now. What did our Master say? 'The dagger of the

conspirator is never so terrible as when sharpened on the

tombstone of a martyr.' With all the heat of my own blood I

tremble when I think what may be the effect of these tyrannies. Of

course the ruling classes at home will wash their hands of this

affair. When a Minister wants to play Macbeth he has no lack of

grooms to dabble with Duncan's blood. But the people will make no

nice distinctions. I wouldn't give two straws for the life of the

King when this crime has touched the conscience of the people. He

didn't do it? No, he does nothing, but he stands for all.

Anarchists did not invent regicide. It has been used in all ages

by people who think the spirit of Justice violated. And the names

of some who practised it are written on marble monuments in

letters of gold."

Roma began to tremble. Had the Pope been right after all? Was it really

revolution and regicide which Rossi contemplated?

"Dearest, don't think that because I am so moved by all this that

other and dearer things are not with me always. Never a day or an

hour passes but my heart speaks to you as if you could answer. I

have been anxious at not hearing from you for ten days, although I

left my Paris address in London for your letters to be sent on.

Sometimes I think my enemies may be tormenting you, and then I

blame myself for not bringing you with me, in spite of every

disadvantage. Sometimes I think you may be ill, and then I have an

impulse to take the first train and fly back to Rome. I know I

cannot be with you always, but this absence is cruel. Happily it

will soon be over, and we shall see an end of all sadness. Don't

suffer for me. Don't let my cares distress you. Whatever happens,

nothing can divide us, because love has united our hearts for

ever.

"That's why I'm sure of you, Roma, sure of your love and sure of

your loyalty. Otherwise how could I stay an hour longer after this

awful event, tortured by the fear of a double martyrdom--the

martyrdom of myself and of the one who is dearest to me in the

world?

"The spring is coming to take me home to you, darling. Don't you

smell the violets? Adieu!

"YOUR FAITHFUL HUSBAND."

Roma slept little that night. Joy, relief, disappointment, but, above

all, fear for Rossi, apprehension about his plans, and overpowering

dread of the consequences kept her awake for hours. Early next day a man

in a blue uniform brought a letter from the Braschi Palace. It ran:--

"DEAR ROMA,--I must ask you to come across to my office this

morning, and as soon as convenient. You will not hesitate to do

so when I tell you that by this friendly message I am saving you

the humiliation of a summons from the police. Yours, as always,

affectionately,

BONELLI."