the room, his ears for the instant filled with the clatter of
some cart outside the open, barred windows, a figure came swiftly
into the room, without the sound of a footstep to warn him.
Behind he could make out two faces waiting. . . .

It was the Cardinal who stood there, upright and serene as ever,
with a look in his eyes that silenced the priest. He lifted his
hand on which shone his great amethyst, and at the motion,
scarcely knowing what he did, the priest was on his knees.

"_Benedictio Dei omnipotentis Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,
descendat super te, et maneat semper._"

That was all; not a word more.

And as the priest sprang up with a choking cry, the slender
figure was gone, and the door shut and locked.




CHAPTER III



(I)

All day long there had hung a strange silence over the city,
unlike in its quality that ordinary comparative quiet of modern
towns to which the man who had lost his memory had become by now