II.

In the beginning Ramoni could not think. He sat looking dully at the
softened tones of the wall, trying to evolve some order of thought
from the chaos into which the shock of his disappointment had plunged
his mind. It was late in the night before the situation began to
outline itself dimly.

His first thought was, curiously enough, not of himself directly, but
of the people out in Marqua who were anxiously looking for his return
as their leader, confident of his appointment to the new
Archbishopric. He could not face them as the servant of another man.
From the crowd afar his thoughts traveled back to the crowd on the
Pincio--the crowd that welcomed him as the great missionary. He would
go no more to the Pincio, for now they would point him out with that
cynical amusement of the Romans as the man who had been shelved for
his servant. He resented the fate that had uprooted him from Rome ten
years before, sending him to Marqua. He resented the people he had
converted, Pietro, the Consistory--everything. For that black and
bitter night the Church, which he had loved and reverenced, looked to
him like the root of all injustice. The more he thought of the slight
that had been put upon him, the worse it became, till the thought
arose in him that he would leave the Community, leave Rome, leave it
all. After long hours, anger had full sway in the heart of Father
Ramoni.

At midnight he heard the striking of the city's clocks through the
windows, the lattices of which he had forgotten to close. The sound of
the city brought back to him the words of the great prelate who had
returned with him to San Ambrogio from his first audience with the