e his ancestors for that; don't blame him."

"I blame him as long as the spoil is not restored."

"How do you know that it was spoil, after all?"

"I have examined more carefully than most men the records of the civil
wars in Italy; and I know that the ancestors of Fabio d'Ascoli wrung
from the Church, in her hour of weakness, property which they dared to
claim as their right. I know of titles to lands signed away, in
those stormy times, under the influence of fear, or through false
representations of which the law takes no account. I call the money thus
obtained spoil, and I say that it ought to be restored, and shall be
restored, to the Church from which it was taken."

"And what does Fabio answer to that, brother?"

"I have not spoken to him on the subject."

"Why not?"

"Because I have, as yet, no influence over him. When he is married, his
wife will have influence over him, and she shall speak."

"Maddalena, I suppose? How do you know that she will speak?"

"Have I not educated her? Does she not understand what her duties are
toward the Church, in whose bosom she has been reared?"

Luca hesitated uneasily, and walked away a step or two before he spoke
again.

"Does this spoil, as you call it, amount to a large sum of money?" he
asked, in an anxious whisper.

"I may answer that question, Luca, at some future time," said the
priest. "For the present, let it be enough that you are acquainted with
all I undertook to inform you of when we began our conversation. You now
know that if I am anxious for this marriage to take place, it is from
motives entirely unconnected with self-interest. If all the property
which Fabio's ancestors wrongfully obtained from the Church were
restored to the Church to-morrow, not one paulo of it would go into my
pocket. I am a poor priest now, and to the end of my days shall remain
so. You soldiers of the world, brother, fight for your pay; I am a
soldier of the Church, and I fight for my cause."

Saying these words, he returned abruptly to the statuette; and refused
to speak, or leave his employment again, until he had taken the mold
off, and had carefully put away the various fragments of which it
consisted. This done, he drew a writing-desk from the drawer of his
working-table, and taking out a slip of paper wrote these lines:

"Come down to the studio to-morrow. Fabio will be with us, but Nanina
will return no more."

Without signing what he had written, he sealed it