He sprang up with
almost the alacrity of youth, and saw Manuel standing beside him.
"Did you call me, my child?"
"Yes, dear friend!" And Manuel smiled upon him with a look that
conveyed the brightness of perfect love straight from the glance
into the soul. "I need you for myself alone to-night! Come out with
me!"
The Cardinal gazed at him in wonder that was half a fear.
"Come out with me!"
Those had been the words the boy had used to the Pope, the Head of
the Church, when he had dared to speak his thoughts openly before
that chiefest man of all in Rome!
"Come out with me!"
"Now, in the darkness and the rain?" asked the Cardinal wonderingly.
"You wish it? Then I will come!"
Manuel said nothing further, but simply turned and led the way. They
passed out of the little tenement house they inhabited into the dark
cold street,--and the door closed with a loud bang behind them, shut
to by the angry wind. The rain began to fall more heavily, and the
small slight figure of the waif and stray he had befriended seemed
to the Cardinal to look more lonely and piteous than ever in the
driving fog and darkness.
"Whither would you go, my child?" he asked gently. "You will suffer
from the cold and storm--"
"And you?" said Manuel.
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