"The spirit is capable of various interpretations," he snarled with a vicious glare at the young monk, whose air of loathing had stung him to the quick. "But not the instrument," Francesco retorted hotly. Clement at this point thought fit to interpose, yet not without a sting of rebuke to the brother of Louis of France. "The Church requires not her subjects to think for her, nor to interpret her spirit. What she exacts, is unfaltering obedience!" There was something in the Pontiff's tone which startled Francesco. He was conscious that Clement avoided touching on the business of his summons to Rome, as if to force him to betray his own trend of mind. Yet he shrank unwittingly from uttering the words which hovered on his lips. He felt instinctively there was no mercy within these walls, and at the thought he was seized with a secret dread. The silence at last grew irksome. Francesco felt a cold hand clutching at his heart. If the sacrifice had been in vain! If he had been tricked into selling his birthright, tricked into bartering his happiness for a shroud! He felt the flood-gates of his memory re-open; he felt the portals of the past, which had been locked and barred, swing back upon their hinges, grating deep down into his soul. The mad longing for the world bounded back into his heart. Still the Pontiff did not speak. "I have been summoned from Monte Cassino," Francesco at last spoke with an assumption of courage which he was far from feeling. "I am waiting the commands of your Holiness!" The Pontiff nodded. "These are grievous times indeed; the Church must needs summon her faithful about her, to become militant in her service!" "What would your Holiness have me do?" said Francesco. "The service that will be demanded of you is to be commensurate with the boon you have come to ask at our hands," Clement replied at last. For a moment Francesco stared speechless at the Pontiff. Clement had read the very depths of his soul. "When I entered the monastic life," he said at last, "it was stipulated that at the expiration of a certain period the burden should be lightened." "Conditions?" replied Clement, with a slight contraction of the brows. "The Church demands unconditional surrender! Are you so very anxious to be relieved of the garb which befits the servant of God?" "There are various ways to serve the Church," Francesco replied in a hard voice. Clement bent serious brows upon him. "We must subdue the mind for the sake of the mind! The boon you are about to ask might be granted--in return for some signal service to the Church!" Francesco's eyelids narrowed. "And this service,--what is it?" He saw the Pontiff and Charles of Anjou exchange glances. What new traffic were they about to propose to him? He looked about the circle of ecclesiastics. He met but the reflection of the Pontiff's quizzical glances.