And, moreover, we could not relinquish it; we are bound by our oath to God and man." He paused for a moment to allow Pierre to answer him.

But the latter to his stupefaction could say nothing, for he perceived that this pope spoke as he was bound to speak.

All the heavy mysterious things which had weighed the young priest down whilst he was waiting in the ante-room, now became more and more clearly defined.

They were, indeed, the things which he had seen and learnt since his arrival in Rome, the disillusions, the rebuffs which he had experienced, all the many points of difference between existing reality and imagination, whereby his dream of a return to primitive Christianity was already half shattered.

And in particular he remembered the hour which he had spent on the dome of St.Peter's, when, in presence of the old city of glory so stubbornly clinging to its purple, he had realised that he was an imbecile with his idea of a purely spiritual pope.