f a believer strong in his faith,
and submissive to the will of God. In refusing a miracle, in dealing so
hard a blow to that house, God had doubtless had His reasons, and he, the
Cardinal, one of God's ministers, one of the high dignitaries of His
terrestrial court, was in duty bound to bow to it. The silence lasted for
another moment, and then, in a voice which he managed to render natural
and cordial, Boccanera said: "You are leaving us, you are going back to
France to-morrow, are you not, my dear son?"

"Yes, I shall have the honour to take leave of your Eminence to-morrow,
again thanking your Eminence for your inexhaustible kindness."

"And you have learnt that the Congregation of the Index has condemned
your book, as was inevitable?"

"Yes, I obtained the signal favour of being received by his Holiness, and
in his presence made my submission and reprobated my book."

The Cardinal's moist eyes again began to sparkle. "Ah! you did that, ah!
you did well, my dear son," he said. "It was only your strict duty as a
priest, but there are so many nowadays who do not even do their duty! As
a member of the Congregation I kept the promise I gave you to read your
book, particularly the incriminated pages. And if I afterwards remained
neutral, to such a point even as to miss the sitting in which judgment
was pronounced, it was only to please my poor, dear niece, who was so
fond of you, and who pleaded your cause to me."

Tears were coming into his eyes again, and he paused, feeling that he
would once more be overcome if he evoked the memory of that adored and
lamented Benedetta. And so it was with a pugnacious bitterness that he
resumed: "But what an execrable book it was, my dear son, allow me to
tell you so. You told me that you had shown respect for dogma, and I
still wonder what aberration can have come over you that you should have
been so blind to all consciousness of your offences. Respect for
dogma--good Lord! when the entire work is the negation of our holy
religion! Did you not realise that by asking for a new religion you
absolutely condemned the old one, the only true one, the only good one,
the only one that can be eternal? And that sufficed to make your book the
most deadly of poisons, one of those infamous books which in former times
were burnt by the hangman, and which one is nowadays compelled to leave
in circulation after interdicting them and thereby designating them to
evil curiosity, which explains the