“Your Holiness, I regret it, but my answer is final. I can say nothing as to anything that occurred at the palazzo of the Cardinal.” Bari--an irascible man--threw down his biretta in the Pope’s presence. “I call your Holiness to witness! To-night my life was attempted. By the confession of the assassin the Conte was his employer. The Conte’s denial is most imperfect. By plain implications from his silences it is likely others were in the plot. I know well certain high personages,”--he darted a glance upon Forli and Rocca, “have envied the favor awarded me by your Holiness, and coveted the prebends and benefices you have deigned to bestow upon me. If the Pope is not a lord merely over bravoes and bandits, I demand--” But Forli had already whispered to a fellow-cardinal, and he to the Master of Ceremonies. Now good Messere Paris stepped forward with uplifted hand. “May it please the Pope! The very reverend Archbishop is about, I fear, to say many harsh things, calculated--if bruited through Rome, to spread even through Christendom, to the great scandal of the Church. He is saved. _Laus Deo!_ The bravo is taken. _Laus Deo in excelsis!_ But this being the case I pray your Holiness to act delicately in opening a matter in which more may be involved than the mere avenging of Monsignore.” “Well said,” uttered an influential cardinal, in audible whisper. “Yet I,” asserted Bari, “have been all but murdered. I insist--” “_Pax_”! ordered the Pope, moving uneasily on his cushions. “Was ever there a less happy case! Bari must be vindicated? Right. The Church must be spared a scandal? Right. But how do both. Have I Solon, Periander, Thales and all the other Seven Sages in my council? How could you do this, Forli? how could you?” The cardinal addressed tried hard not to seem to comprehend. “What lack of judgment? What lack of consideration for me? And now you have involved our unfortunate Gualtiero--” The Holy Father took refuge in a new demand by the poodle to be fed, and stopped to satisfy the dog. “At least,” urged Bari, his eyes like daggers, “there is no scandal to the Church in the case of the gallant Conte,--to all intents my murderer. Let _him_ pay out his penalty.” But I had now measured the situation, and broke my silence. “Hear me, your Holiness. It is true I am so unluckily situated that to refute this bravo’s story I must involve others whom I would, as an honorable friend, fain spare. I will not whine abjectly for leniency: but I will remind the Pope of the day when not the Holy Father, but the then Cardinale de’ Medici, was banished from Florence, was driven with insults from Bologna, but found refuge and true friendship at my grandfather’s castle at Palaestro.” “I remember,” muttered the Pope, “I remember.” “Then I entreat your Holiness, in whatever you decide to recall this service in dealing with your protector’s grandson.”