strongly!--but that woman came between--why did she come? They said she was Lotys!--ha ha!--Lotys, the Revolutionary sybil!--Lotys, the Socialist!--but that could not be,--Lotys is as great an enemy of kings as I am!” “And an enemy of the Church as well!” said Del Fortis harshly--“Between the Church and Socialism, all Thrones stand on a cracking earth, devoured by fire! But make no mistake about it!--the woman was Lotys! Socialist and Revolutionary as she may be, she has saved the life of the King. This is so far fortunate--for you! And it is much to be hoped that she herself is not slain by your dagger thrust;--death is far too easy and light a punishment for her and her associates! We trust it may please a merciful God to visit her with more lingering calamity!” As he said this, he piously kissed the crucifix he held, keeping his shallow dark eyes fixed on the prisoner with the expression of a cat watching a mouse. The half-crazed youth, absorbed in the ideas of his own dementia, still smiled to himself vaguely, and nervously plucked at his fingers, till Del Fortis, growing impatient and forgetting for the moment that they stood in a prison cell, the interior of which might possibly be seen and watched from many points of observation unknown to them, went up to him and shook him roughly by the arm. “Attention!” he said angrily--“Rouse yourself and hear me! You talk like a fool or a madman,--yet you are neither--neither, you understand?--neither idiot-born nor suddenly crazed;--so, when on your trial do not feign to be what you are not! Such ideas as you have expressed, though they may have their foundation in a desire for good, are evil in their results--yet even out of evil good may come! The power of Rome--the glory of Rome--the dominion of Rome! Rome, supreme Mistress of the world! Would you help the Church to win this great victory? Then now is your chance! God has given you--you, His poor instrument,--the means to effectually aid His conquest,--to Him be all the praise and thanksgiving! It rests with you to accept His message and perform His work!” The high-flown, melodramatic intensity with which he pronounced these words, had the desired effect on the stunned and bewildered, weak mind of the unfortunate lad so addressed. His eyes sparkled--his cheeks flushed,--and he looked eagerly up into the face of his priestly hypnotizer. “Yes--yes!” he said quickly in a breathless whisper--“But how?--tell me how! I will work--oh, I will work--for Rome, for God, for the Blessed Virgin!--I will do all that I can!--but how--how? Will the Holy Father send an angel to take me out of this prison, so that I may be free to help God?”