Ah! how great was the melancholy grandeur of that slumber, that famous square, the Vatican and St.Peter's, thus seen by night when wrapped in silence and darkness! But suddenly the clock struck ten with so slow and loud a chime that never, so it seemed, had more solemn and decisive an hour rung out amidst blacker and more unfathomable gloom.

All Pierre's poor weary frame quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the expanse.

What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn from his bleeding heart and brain.

The supreme experiment had been made, a world had collapsed within him.

And all at once he thought of Monsignor Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right.