lost spark. In vain did Pierre seek the Janiculum. In the
depths of that ocean of nihility all sunk and vanished, Rome's four and
twenty centuries, the ancient Palatine and the modern Quirinal, even the
giant dome of St. Peter's, blotted out from the sky by the flood of
gloom. And below him he could not see, he could not even hear the Tiber,
the dead river flowing past the dead city.

III.

AT a quarter to ten o'clock on the following morning Pierre came down to
the first floor of the mansion for his audience with Cardinal Boccanera.
He had awoke free of all fatigue and again full of courage and candid
enthusiasm; nothing remaining of his strange despondency of the previous
night, the doubts and suspicions which had then come over him. The
morning was so fine, the sky so pure and so bright, that his heart once
more palpitated with hope.

On the landing he found the folding doors of the first ante-room wide
open. While closing the gala saloons which overlooked the street, and
which were rotting with old age and neglect, the Cardinal still used the
reception-rooms of one of his grand-uncles, who in the eighteenth century
had risen to the same ecclesiastical dignity as himself. There was a
suite of four immense rooms, each sixteen feet high, with windows facing
the lane which sloped down towards the Tiber; and the sun never entered
them, shut off as it was by the black houses across the lane. Thus the
installation, in point of space, was in keeping with the display and pomp
of the old-time princely dignitaries of the Church. But no repairs were
ever made, no care was taken of anything, the hangings were frayed and
ragged, and dust preyed on the furniture, amidst an unconcern which
seemed to betoken some proud resolve to stay the course of time.

Pierre experienced a slight shock as he entered the first room, the
servants' ante-chamber. Formerly two pontifical _gente d'armi_ in full
uniform had always stood there amidst a stream of lackeys; and the single
servant now on duty seemed by his phantom-like appearance to increase the
melancholiness of the vast and gloomy hall. One was particularly struck
by an altar facing the windows, an altar with red drapery surmounted by a
_baldacchino_ with red hangings, on which appeared the escutcheon of the
Boccaneras, the winged dragon spitting flames with the device, _Bocca
nera, Alma rossa_. And the grand-uncle's red hat, the old huge ceremonial
hat, was also there, with the