Hence the power of the
Church!"
Gherardi put back the volume he had been glancing at, on its shelf,
and looked at his confrere with a certain amount of admiring
respect. He had been long an interested student of the various
psychological workings of Moretti's mind,--and he knew that
Moretti's scheming brain was ever hard at work designing bold and
almost martial plans for securing such conversions to the Church as
would seriously trouble the peace of two or three great nations.
Moretti was in close personal touch with every crowned head in
Europe; he was acquainted more closely than anyone alive with the
timidities, the nervous horrors, the sudden scruples, the sickening
qualms of conscience, and the overwhelming fears of death which
troubled the minds of certain powerful personages apparently
presenting a brave front to the world,--and he held such personages
in awe by the very secrets which they had, in weak moments,
entrusted to him. Gherardi even was not without his own fears,--he
instinctively felt that Moretti knew more about himself than was
either safe or convenient.
"We all live for Barabbas," pursued Moretti, an ironical smile
playing on his thin lips, "Not for Christ! Barabbas, in the shape of
the unscrupulous millionaire, robs the world!--and we share the
spoils, pardon his robberies, and set him free.
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