Major Interdiction."

A gentle smile, that might have been half indifference, half pity,
wreathed the ascetic lips as he spoke the last words. They were not
empty words in those days, and unawares Gilbert shrank a little from
his companion.

"I see that you are a devout person," said the friar, quietly. "Let my
presence not offend you at your meal. I go my way."

But as he began to rise, Gilbert's hand went out, and his fingers met
round the skeleton arm in the loose grey sleeve.

"Stay, sir," he said, "and break your fast with us. I am not such a one
as you think."

"You shrank from me," said the stranger, hesitating to resume his seat.

"I meant no discourtesy," answered Gilbert. "Be seated, sir. You call
yourself an outcast. I am but little better than a wanderer,
disinherited of his own."

"And come you hither for the Pope's justice?" asked the friar,
scornfully. "There is no Pope in Rome. Our last was killed at the head
of a band of fighting men, on the slope of the Capitol, last year, and
he who is Pope now is as much a wanderer as you and I. And in Rome we
have a Republic and a Senate, and justice of a kind, but only for
Romans, and claiming no dominion over mankind; for to be free means to
set free, to live means to let live."