since the shocking news of the morning,
when a new mine had been sprung under the shaking Church, and he had
watched the stately ceremonial, the gorgeous splendour, the dignified,
tranquil movements of the Pope and his court, with a secret that burned
his heart and brain--above all, since that quick interview in which old
plans had been reversed and a startling decision formed, and a blessing
given and received, and a farewell looked not uttered--all done in
half-an-hour--his whole nature had concentrated itself into one keen
tense force, like a coiled spring. He felt power tingling to his
finger-tips--power and the dulness of an immense despair. Every prop had
been cut, every brace severed; he, the City of Rome, the Catholic
Church, the very supernatural itself, seemed to hang now on one single
thing--the Finger of God. And if that failed--well, nothing would ever
matter any more....

He was going now to one of two things--ignominy or death. There was no
third thing--unless, indeed, the conspirators were actually taken with
their instruments upon them. But that was impossible. Either they would
refrain, knowing that God's ministers would fall with them, and in that
case there would be the ignominy of a detected fraud, of a miserable
attempt to win credit. Or they would not refrain; they would count the
death of a Cardinal and a few bishops a cheap price to pay for
revenge--and in that case well, there was Death and Judgment. But Percy
had ceased to fear. No ignominy could be greater than that which he
already bore--the ignominy of loneliness and discredit. And death could
be nothing but sweet--it would at least be knowledge and rest. He was
willing to risk all on God.

The other, with a little gesture of apology, took out his office book
presently, and began to read.

Percy looked at him with an immense envy. Ah! if only he were as old as
that! He could bear a year or two more of this misery, but not fifty
years, he thought. It was an almost endless vista that (even if things
went well) opened before him, of continual strife, self-repression,
energy, misrepresentation from his enemies. The Church was sinking
further every day. What if this new spasm of fervour were no more than
the dying flare of faith? How could he bear that? He would have to see
the tide of atheism rise higher and more triumphant every day;
Felsenburgh had given it an impetus of whose end there was no
prophesying. Never before had a single man wie