After his defence had been received, and the same obligations imposed on him on oath as after the second hearing, he was allowed to return to the embassy. The nearer the time approached when the old man’s illusions were to be dispelled, the more sanguine was the intelligence he sent to his friends. He reminds one of a consumptive patient, full of hope when in the last stage of his disorder. Galileo receives in reply to his letters the congratulations of his friends on the, as they suppose, doubtless favourable issue of his trial. Cardinal Capponi writes on 21st May, that he had never expected anything else.[381] Bocchineri, Guiducci, Agguinti, Cini, and others heartily express their satisfaction;[382] the Archbishop of Siena, Ascanio Piccolomini, Galileo’s devoted friend, invites him, in expectation of his speedy dismissal from Rome, to come and see him at Siena, that he may await the extinction of the plague at Florence.[383] Galileo accepts the friendly invitation, and informs Bocchineri that he intends to go to Siena immediately after the end of the trial.[384] Archbishop Piccolomini even offers his impatiently expected guest a litter for the journey.[385] A favour granted to Galileo just at the last, on the urgent solicitation of Niccolini, and quite unheard of in the annals of the Inquisition, might have increased these confident hopes. He was permitted to take the air for the sake of his health in the gardens of the Castle of Gandolfo, to which, however, he was always conveyed in a half-closed carriage, as he was not to be seen in the streets.[386] Niccolini, however, did not share the hopes of his famous guest, and for very good reasons. He had had an audience, on 21st May, of the Pope and Cardinal Barberini, who had told him in answer to his inquiries when the trial might be expected to end, that it would probably be concluded in the congregation to take place in about a fortnight. After reporting this in his despatch to Cioli of 22nd May, Niccolini continues: “I very much fear that the book will be prohibited, unless it is averted by Galileo’s being charged, as I proposed, to write an apology. Some ‘salutary penance’ will also be imposed upon him, as they maintain that he has transgressed the command communicated to him by Cardinal Bellarmine in 1616. I have not yet told him all this, because I want to prepare him for it by degrees, in order not to distress him. It will also be advisable to observe silence about this in Florence, that he may not hear it from his friends there; and the more so, as it may turn out otherwise.”[387] It was indeed “to turn out otherwise,” but in a way that even Niccolini did not in the least suspect.