spiritual forces combine to fight against long-concealed sin and
practised old hypocrisies. It would not surprise me if the volcanic
agencies which are for ever at work beneath the blood-stained soil
of Italy, were to meet under the Eternal City, and in one fell burst
of flame and thunder prove its temporary and ephemeral worth! The
other day an earthquake shook the walls of Rome and sent a warning
shock through St. Peter's. St. Peter's, with its vast treasures, its
gilded shrines, its locked-up wealth, its magnificence,--a strange
contrast to Italy itself!--Italy with its people ground down under
the heel of a frightful taxation, starving, and in the iron bonds of
poverty! 'The Pope is a prisoner and can do nothing'? Monsignor, the
Pope is a prisoner by his own choice! If he elected to walk abroad
among the people and scatter Peter's Pence among the sick and needy,
he would then perhaps be BEGINNING to do the duties our Lord
enjoined on all His disciples!"

Moretti had stood immovable during this speech, his dark face rigid,
his eyes downcast, listening to every word, but now he raised his
hand with an authoritative gesture.

"Enough!" he said, "I will hear no more! You know the consequences
of this at the Vatican?"

"I do."

"You are prepared to accept them?"

"As prepared as any of the truth-tellers who were burned for the
love of Christ by the Inquisition," replied Vergniaud deliberately.
"The world is wide,--there is room for me in it outside the Church."