s hands to his face as if he desired to annihilate
himself, the secretary was shivering in every limb as much with fear as
with fever. At a moment when no fresh visitors were arriving he had
succumbed to an attack of terrified despair.

"_Mon Dieu_! What is the matter with you?" asked Pierre stepping forward,
"are you ill, can I help you?"

But Don Vigilio, suffocating and still hiding his face, could only gasp
between his close-pressed hands "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!"

"What is it? What has he done to you?" asked the other astonished.

Then the secretary disclosed his face, and again yielded to his quivering
desire to confide in some one. "Eh? what he has done to me? Can't you
feel anything, can't you see anything then? Didn't you notice the manner
in which he took possession of Cardinal Sanguinetti so as to conduct him
to his Eminence? To impose that suspected, hateful rival on his Eminence
at such a moment as this, what insolent audacity! And a few minutes
previously did you notice with what wicked cunning he bowed out an old
lady, a very old family friend, who only desired to kiss his Eminence's
hand and show a little real affection which would have made his Eminence
so happy! Ah! I tell you that he's the master here, he opens or closes
the door as he pleases, and holds us all between his fingers like a pinch
of dust which one throws to the wind!"

Pierre became anxious, seeing how yellow and feverish Don Vigilio was:
"Come, come, my dear fellow," he said, "you are exaggerating!"

"Exaggerating? Do you know what happened last night, what I myself
unwillingly witnessed? No, you don't know it; well, I will tell you."

Thereupon he related that Donna Serafina, on returning home on the
previous day to face the terrible catastrophe awaiting her, had already
been overcome by the bad news which she had learnt when calling on the
Cardinal Secretary and various prelates of her acquaintance. She had then
acquired a certainty that her brother's position was becoming extremely
bad, for he had made so many fresh enemies among his colleagues of the
Sacred College, that his election to the pontifical throne, which a year
previously had seemed probable, now appeared an impossibility. Thus, all
at once, the dream of her life collapsed, the ambition which she had so
long nourished lay in dust at her feet. On despairingly seeking the why
and wherefore of this change, she had been told of all sorts of blunders
committed by the C