on of
Benedetta's marriage was now assuming a more and more favourable aspect.
Guided by a powerful hand, Donna Serafina was apparently acting very
vigorously, for almost every day she had some further good news to
report. She was indeed anxious to finish the affair both for the
continuity and for the honour of the name, for on the one hand Dario
refused to marry any one but his cousin, and on the other this marriage
would explain everything and put an end to an intolerable situation. The
scandalous rumours which circulated both in the white and the black world
quite incensed her, and a victory was the more necessary as Leo XIII,
already so aged, might be snatched away at any moment, and in the
Conclave which would follow she desired that her brother's name should
shine forth with untarnished, sovereign radiance. Never had the secret
ambition of her life, the hope that her race might give a third pope to
the Church, filled her with so much passion. It was as if she therein
sought a consolation for the harsh abandonment of Advocate Morano.
Invariably clad in sombre garb, ever active and slim, so tightly laced
that from behind one might have taken her for a young girl, she was so to
say the black soul of that old palace; and Pierre, who met her
everywhere, prowling and inspecting like a careful house-keeper, and
jealously watching over her brother the Cardinal, bowed to her in
silence, chilled to the heart by the stern look of her withered wrinkled
face in which was set the large, opiniative nose of her family. However
she barely returned his bows, for she still disdained that paltry foreign
priest, and only tolerated him in order to please Monsignor Nani and
Viscount Philibert de la Choue.

A witness every evening of the anxious delight and impatience of
Benedetta and Dario, Pierre by degrees became almost as impassioned as
themselves, as desirous for an early solution. Benedetta's suit was about
to come before the Congregation of the Council once more. Monsignor
Palma, the defender of the marriage, had demanded a supplementary inquiry
after the favourable decision arrived at in the first instance by a bare
majority of one vote--a majority which the Pope would certainly not have
thought sufficient had he been asked for his ratification. So the
question now was to gain votes among the ten cardinals who formed the
Congregation, to persuade and convince them, and if possible ensure an
almost unanimous pronouncement. The tas