“It grew to be part of me, this Dream!” went on the lad, his eyes now shining with a feverish brilliancy--“And I began to see wonderful visions, and to hear voices calling me in the daytime,--voices that no one else heard! Once in the College chapel I saw the Blessed Virgin’s picture smile! I was copying documents for the Vatican then,--and I thought of the Holy Father,--how he was imprisoned in Rome, when he should be Emperor of all the Emperors,--King of all the Kings! I remembered how it was that he had no temporal power,--though all the powers of the earth should be subservient to him!--and my heart beat almost to bursting, and my brain seemed on fire!--but the Blessed Virgin’s picture still smiled;--and I knelt down before it and swore that I,--even I, would help to give the whole world back to Rome, even if I died for it!” He caught his breath with a kind of sob, and looked appealingly at Del Fortis, who, fingering the crucifix he held, sat immovable. “And then--and then” he went on, “I heard enough,--while at work in the monastery with you and the brethren,--to strengthen and fire my resolution. I learned that all kings are, in these days, the enemies of the Church. I learned that they were all united in one resolve; and that,--to deprive the Holy Father of temporal power! Then I set myself to study kings. Each, and all of those who sit on thrones to-day passed before my view;--all selfish, money-seeking, sensual men!--not one good, true soul among them! Demons they seemed to me,--bent on depriving God’s Evangelist in Rome of his Sacred and Supreme Sovereignty! It made me mad!--and I would have killed all kings, could I have done so with a single thought! Then came a day when you preached openly in the Cathedral against this one King, who should by right have gone to his account this very afternoon!--you told the people how he had refused lands to the Church,--and how by this wicked act he had stopped the progress of religious education, and had put himself, as it were, in the way of Christ who said: ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me!’ And my dreams of the glory of Rome again took shape--I saw in my mind all the children,--the poor little children of the world, gathered to the knee of the Holy Father, and brought up to obey him and him only!--I remembered my oath before the Blessed Virgin’s picture, and all my soul cried out: ‘Death to the crowned Tyrant! Death!’ For you said--and I believed it--that all who opposed the Holy Father’s will, were opposed to the will of God!--and over and over again I said in my heart: ‘Death to the tyrant! Death!’ And the words went with me like the response of a litany,--till--till--I saw him before me to-day--a pampered fool, surrounded by women!--a blazoned liar!--and then--” He paused, smiling foolishly; and shaking his head with a slow movement to and fro, he added--“The dagger should have struck home!--it was aimed surely--aimed