Filled with a mortal bitterness, she tore the sheet, stained with the word it was impossible to maintain, impossible even to write honestly.

The light once more extinguished, she accused the Almighty--if, indeed, He existed--of cruelty, and wept in this darkness of her own making, wept unrestrainedly.
The clock of St.Peter's struck eight.

Benedetto left a little group of people at the corner of Via di Porta Angelica, and turned, alone, into Bernini's colonnade, his steps directed towards the bronze portal.

He paused to listen to the roar of the fountains, to gaze at the clustered lights of the four candelabra round the obelisk, and--tremulous, opaque against the moon's face--the mighty jet of the fountain on the left.

In five minutes, or, perhaps, in fifteen minutes, he would find himself in the presence of the Pope.