ordial terms. . . .

But now he had lost himself altogether. He had wandered up a long
corridor, thinking that it would lead him back to the Court of St.
Damasus, whence he knew his way well enough; and he now paused,
hesitating. For it seemed to him that every step he was taking led
him farther from the lights and the din of voices and music.

He could see behind him, framed in a huge open doorway, as on an
illuminated disc, a kaleidoscope of figures moving; and in front,
as he stood, the corridor, although here the lights burned as
brilliantly as elsewhere, seemed to lead away into comparative
darkness. Yet he felt certain of his direction.

Then, as he stood, a door opened somewhere in front, and he thought
he heard voices talking again. It reassured him, and he went on.

It was not until he found himself in a small lobby (comparatively
small that is, for it was not less than forty feet square, and
the painted coffered ceiling was twenty feet above his head),
that he stopped again, completely bewildered. There was no longer
any sound to guide him, for he had closed a couple of
passage-doors behind him as he came; and he noticed that
practically complete silence was on all sides; a single
illuminated half-globe shone gently from the ceiling overhead.

He stood some time considering and listening to the silence, till
he became aware that it was not silence. There was a very faint
murmur of a voice behind one of the four doors that opened on
this lobby; and beside the door there rested (he now noticed for
the first time) the halberd of a Swiss, as if the soldier had
just been called within. This decided him; he went to the door,
laid his hand upon the handle, and immediately the murmur ceased.
He pushed down the handle and opened the door.

For a moment as he stared within he could not understand: he had
expected a passage--a guard-room--at least something secular. Yet
it was some kind of a chapel or sacristy into which he was
looking: he observed the outline of an altar with its crucifix;
and two figures.

Then one of the figures--in the habit of a Franciscan,
barefooted, with a purple stole across its shoulders--had sprung
towards him, and half pushed, half waved him backwards again.

"What are you doing here? How dare you----I beg pardon,
Monsignor, but----"

"I beg pardon, father; I had lost my way. . . . I am a stranger."

"Back--back that way, Monsignor," stammered the friar. "The guard
should have t