"According to his promise, the cardinal ordered the palace to be
searched, but, in less than a quarter of an hour, the major-domo received
orders to stop, and the only reason for these new instructions must be
this:

"I am told by the major-domo that at nine o'clock exactly a very
handsome, young abbe, whom he immediately judged to be a girl in
disguise, asked him to deliver a note to his eminence, and that the
cardinal, after reading it, had desired the said abbe be brought to his
apartment, which he has not left since. As the order to stop searching
the palace was given immediately after the introduction of the abbe to
the cardinal, it is easy enough to suppose that this ecclesiastic is no
other than the young girl missed by the police, who took refuge in the
palace in which she must have passed the whole night."

"I suppose," said I, "that his eminence will give her up to-day, if not
to the bargello, at least to the Vicar-General."

"No, not even to the Pope himself," answered Gama. "You have not yet a
right idea of the protection of our cardinal, and that protection is
evidently granted to her, since the young person is not only in the
palace of his eminence, but also in his own apartment and under his own
guardianship."

The whole affair being in itself very interesting, my attention could not
appear extraordinary to Gama, however suspicious he might be naturally,
and I was certain that he would not have told me anything if he had
guessed the share I had taken in the adventure, and the interest I must
have felt in it.