every night together."

"I congratulate you."

"The servant is our friend; she has consented to follow us, and all our
arrangements are completed."

"I wish you every happiness. Adieu. I beg you to leave me."

Three or four days after that visit, as I was walking with the Abbe Gama
towards the Villa Medicis, he told me deliberately that there would be an
execution during the night in the Piazza di Spagna.

"What kind of execution?"

"The bargello or his lieutenant will come to execute some 'ordine
santissimo', or to visit some suspicious dwelling in order to arrest and
carry off some person who does not expect anything of the sort."

"How do you know it?"

"His eminence has to know it, for the Pope would not venture to encroach
upon his jurisdiction without asking his permission."

"And his eminence has given it?"

"Yes, one of the Holy Father's auditors came for that purpose this
morning."

"But the cardinal might have refused?"