"I liked You when I saw You in that forest; and I like You now: but mother told me that the White Father was not my father's friend." "Mother made a mistake, little son;" said the Empress, leaning forward in sudden confusion. "The White Father is father's best friend." "Oh, how I am glad for that: because now You can be also my friend!" the prince cried, scattering his deliberate English to the four quarters of the globe. "Most willingly," said Hadrian, taking the rose-brown hand, and drawing the child towards Him. Innocence put up its pretty lips. The Apostle lost one breath;--and stooped and kissed the stainless brow. Then He turned to greet the girls. "This child once asked my husband a very awkward question," the mother said, presenting the Princess Yolanda. "The King of England was coming here; and Victor was shewing her His Majesty's incoronation portrait. Ah, but how she admired it! And she said, 'Father why don't you wear a hat like that king?'" The Supreme Pontiff looked at the blushing child. "You would not call it a 'hat,' Princess, now that you are grown up?" "No, Papa Inglese,--a crown." "You would like your father to have a crown? Tell him that there are two waiting for him, one at Monza, and another in the Lateran." The Roman Emperors escorted the Pope returning to Vatican. On the way, carriages met them, and disgorged sovereigns: state-coaches met them, and emitted cardinals: courtiers alighted from horseback and emerged from motor-cars. The return became a procession of the powers, led by the Power of the Keys. They had crossed the Ponte Santangelo, and were about to turn to the left by the Castle, when a dishevelled man in black contrived to break out from the ranks of the people. He got through the bersaglieri and stepped into the middle of the road: pointed a revolver at Hadrian; and fired. The bullet struck His Holiness high up on the left breast, piercing the pulmonary artery just above the lung. The slim white figure stopped--wavered--and sank down. The whole world seemed to stand still, while the human race gasped once. A frantic woman in a fox-coloured wig pitched out of the opposite crowd; and grovelled. "Love, Love," she howled hideously: "oh and I loved him so! Oh! Oh! I really did love him. Yes I did, I did, I did, I did ..." she yelped to the sun in the firmament of heaven. The discord resembled the baying of a dog which breaks the cadence of Handel's _Largo_ on arch-lutes. God's Vicegerent moved,--looked at her from a distance, gently, even curiously. "Daughter, go in peace," He said and turned away. She remained there grovelling, longing to touch Him, forlorn, gorgonized. The Roman Emperors also kneeled to right and left, fiercely looking among their aides for the help which did not come, which could not come, from man.