Decidedly, life was becoming too complicated for Amédée. And, what is more, his feet were frozen, his head burning and his ideas topsyturvy. How was he to know where he was, if Father Cave himself turned out to be a humbug?... Then, the Cardinal too perhaps?... But the cheque then? He took the paper out of his pocket, felt it and was reassured by its reality. No, no! It wasn’t possible! Carola was wrong. And then what did she know of the mysterious interests that compelled poor Cave to play double? It was much more likely that the whole thing was some paltry vengeance of Baptistin’s, against whom, in fact, the _abbé_ had warned him.... No matter! he would keep his eyes open wider than ever; he would suspect Cave for the future just as he already suspected Baptistin; and who knows if even Carola ...? “And, indeed,” he said to himself, “here we have at once the consequence and the proof of that initial vice--the collapse of the Holy See; everything comes tottering down with that. Whom can one trust if not the Pope? And once the corner-stone on which the Church was built gives way, nothing else deserves to be true.” Amédée was walking hurriedly in the direction of the post office; he was in great hopes of finding news from home--honest, comfortable news, on which he could at length rest his wearied confidence. The slight mistiness of early morning and that southern profusion of light in which everything seemed melting away into a vaporous haze--seemed losing substance and reality--increased his dizziness; he walked as though in a dream, doubting the solidity of the ground, of the walls--doubting the actual existence of the people he passed--doubting, above all, his own presence in Rome.... Then he pinched himself so as to wake from this horrid dream and find himself again in Pau, in his own bed, with Arnica already up and bending over him with the accustomed question on her lips: “Have you slept well, dear?” At the post office they recognised him and made no difficulty in giving him another letter from his wife. “...I have just heard from Valentine de Saint-Prix,” wrote Arnica, “that Julius is in Rome, too, where he has been summoned to a congress. I am so glad to think that you will meet him! Unfortunately Valentine was not able to give me his address. She thinks he is at the Grand Hotel, but she isn’t sure. She knows, however, that he is going to the Vatican on Thursday morning; he wrote beforehand to Cardinal Pazzi so as to be given an audience. He has just been to Milan, where he saw Anthime, who is in great distress because he can’t get what the Church promised him after his conversion; so Julius means to go and ask the Holy Father for justice; for of course he knows nothing about it as yet. He is sure to tell you about his visit and then you will be able to inform him.