He helps
the fallen; he does not strike them down more heavily."
"Ah, so! And is he fit to be a Cardinal?" queried the Princesse
D'Agramont dubiously.
Angela gave her a quick look, but had no time to reply as at that
moment a servant entered and announced, "Monsignor Moretti!"
Angela started nervously.
"Moretti!" she said in a low tone, "I thought he had left Paris!"
Before she had time to say any more the visitor himself entered, a
tall spare priest with a dark narrow countenance of the true Tuscan
type,--a face in which the small furtive eyes twinkled with a
peculiarly hard brilliancy as though they were luminous pebbles. He
walked into the room with a kind of aggressive dignity common to
many Italians, and made a slight sign of the cross in air as the two
ladies saluted him.
"Pardon me, Mesdames, for this intrusion," he said in a harsh
metallic voice, "But I hear that the Abbe Vergniaud is in this
house,--and that Cardinal Felix Bonpre has received him here SINCE"
(and he emphasised the word "since") "the shameful scene of this
morning. My business in Paris is ended for the moment; and I am
returning to Italy to-night,--but I wish to know if the Abbe has
anything to say through me to His Holiness the Pope in extenuation
of his conduct before I perform the painful duty of narrating this
distressing affair at the Vatican.
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