Pier-Angelo turned pale.--"Who? who?" he exclaimed; "the cardinal?" "Yes, the cardinal in person, the paralytic in his great gilt box. It must be the famous Prince Hieronymo, who was the terror of my childhood, and who seemed to me all the more terrible because I did not know the cause of my fear. Well, dear father, I assure you that even if he still has the will to do harm, he has not the power, for all varieties of infirmity seem to have conspired together to crush him. I will tell you of our interview; but tell me first of my sister, and let us go at once and surprise her." "No, Michel, no, the most important thing is for you to tell me how you happened to see the cardinal so close. Let us go into this clump of trees; I am not at all easy in my mind. Tell me, tell me quickly! He spoke to you, you say? Is it certain that he spoke?" "Let me reassure you, father, he cannot speak." "Are you sure of it? You told me that he questioned you." "I was questioned in his behalf, I suppose; but, as I observed everything with perfect coolness, and as that caricature of an abbé who acts as his interpreter is too thin to conceal the whole interior of the chair, I saw plainly that his eminence spoke with his eyes only. Moreover, his eminence is stone deaf, for when I told my age, which the abbé asked me for some unknown reason, I saw the abbé lean toward monsignore and hold up his ten fingers twice over, and then the thumb of his right hand." "Dumb, helpless, and deaf to boot! I breathe again. But how old did you say you were? Twenty-one?" "You told me to lie as soon as I set foot in Sicily." "It is well, my child; Heaven aided and inspired you in that encounter." "I think so, but I should be much more certain of it if you would tell me how the cardinal can be interested to know whether I am eighteen or twenty-one." "That question cannot interest him in any way," said Pier-Angelo, with a smile. "But I am overjoyed to find that you remembered my advice and that you have suddenly acquired this prudence, of which I didn't believe you to be capable. But tell me again, what did Abbé Ninfo--for it must have been he, I am sure; was he very ugly?" "Frightful; he squints and has a flat nose." "That's the man! What else did he ask you? your name, or your province?" "No, no other direct question, except as to my age, and my brilliant reply to that seemed to satisfy him so entirely that he turned his back, promising me his eminence's blessing." "And his eminence didn't give it to you? he didn't raise his hand?" "The abbé himself told me a little later that his eminence was entirely deprived of the use of his limbs." "What! that man spoke to you again? that fiend of hell came back to you?" As he spoke, Pier-Angelo scratched the back of his neck, the only spot on his head where his restless hand could find any hair. It was a sign with him of great perturbation of spirit. IV MYSTERIES