"INTROIBO ad altare Dei." Montanelli stood before the high altar among his ministers and acolytes and read the Introit aloud in steady tones. All the Cathedral was a blaze of light and colour; from the holiday dresses of the congregation to the pillars with their flaming draperies and wreaths of flowers there was no dull spot in it. Over the open spaces of the doorway fell great scarlet curtains, through whose folds the hot June sunlight glowed, as through the petals of red poppies in a corn-field. The religious orders with their candles and torches, the companies of the parishes with their crosses and flags, lighted up the dim side-chapels; and in the aisles the silken folds of the processional banners drooped, their gilded staves and tassels glinting under the arches. The surplices of the choristers gleamed, rainbow-tinted, beneath the coloured windows; the sunlight lay on the chancel floor in chequered stains of orange and purple and green. Behind the altar hung a shimmering veil of silver tissue; and against the veil and the decorations and the altar-lights the Cardinal's figure stood out in its trailing white robes like a marble statue that had come to life.

As was customary on processional days, he was only to preside at the Mass, not to celebrate, so at the end of the Indulgentiam he turned from the altar and walked slowly to the episcopal throne, celebrant and ministers bowing low as he passed.

"I'm afraid His Eminence is not well," one of the canons whispered to his neighbour; "he seems so strange."

Montanelli bent his head to receive the jewelled mitre. The priest who was acting as deacon of honour put it on, looked at him for an instant, then leaned forward and whispered softly:

"Your Eminence, are you ill?"

Montanelli turned slightly towards him. There was no recognition in his eyes.

"Pardon, Your Eminence!" the priest whispered, as he made a genuflexion and went back to his place, reproaching himself for having interrupted the Cardinal's devotions.

The familiar ceremony went on; and Montanelli sat erect and still, his glittering mitre and gold-brocaded vestments flashing back the sunlight, and the heavy folds of his white festival mantle sweeping down over the red carpet. The light of a hundred candles sparkled among the sapphires on his breast, and shone into the deep, still eyes that had no answering gleam; and when, at the words: "Benedicite, pater eminentissime," he stooped to bless the incense, and the sunbeams played among the diamonds, he might have recalled some splendid and fearful ice-spirit of the mountains, crowned with rainbows and robed in drifted snow, scattering, with extended hands, a shower of blessings or of curses.

At the elevation of the Host he descended from his throne and knelt before the altar. There was a strange, still evenness about all his movements; and as he rose and went back to his place the major of dragoons, who was sitting in gala uniform behind the Governor, whispered to the wounded captain: "The old Cardinal's breaking, not a doubt of it. He goes through his work like a machine."

"So much the better!" the captain whispered back. "He's been nothing but a mill-stone round all our necks ever since that confounded amnesty."

"He did give in, though, about the court-martial."

"Yes, at last; but he was a precious time making up his mind to. Heavens, how close it is! We shall all get sun-stroke in the procession. It's a pity we're not Cardinals, to have a canopy held over our heads all the way---- Sh-sh-sh! There's my uncle looking at us!"

Colonel Ferrari had turned round to glance severely at the two younger officers. After the solemn event of yesterday morning he was in a devout and serious frame of mind, and inclined to reproach them with a want of proper feeling about what he regarded as "a painful necessity of state."

The masters of the ceremonies began to assemble and place in order those who were to take part in the procession. Colonel Ferrari rose from his place and moved up to the chancel-rail, beckoning to the other officers to accompany him. When the Mass was finished, and the Host had been placed behind the crystal shield in the processional sun, the celebrant and his ministers retired to the sacristy to change their vestments, and a little buzz of whispered conversation broke out through the church. Montanelli remained seated on his throne, looking straight before him, immovably. All the sea of human life and motion seemed to surge around and below him, and to die away into stillness about his feet. A censer was brought to him; and he raised his hand with the action of an automaton, and put the incense into the vessel, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

The clergy had come back from the sacristy, and were waiting in the chancel for him to descend; but he remained utterly motionless. The deacon of honour, bending forward to take off the mitre, whispered again, hesitatingly:

"Your Eminence!"

The Cardinal looked round.

"What did you say?"

"Are you quite sure the procession will not be too much for you? The sun is very hot."

"What does the sun matter?"

Montanelli spoke in a cold, measured voice, and the priest again fancied that he must have given offence.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence. I thought you seemed unwell."

Montanelli rose without answering. He paused a moment on the upper step of the throne, and asked in the same measured way:

"What is that?"

The long train of his mantle swept down over the steps and lay spread out on the chancel-floor, and he was pointing to a fiery stain on the white satin.

"It's only the sunlight shining through a coloured window, Your Eminence."

"The sunlight? Is it so red?"

He descended the steps, and knelt before the altar, swinging the censer slowly to and fro. As he handed it back, the chequered sunlight fell on his bared head and wide, uplifted eyes, and cast a crimson glow across the white veil that his ministers were folding round him.

He took from the deacon the sacred golden sun; and stood up, as choir and organ burst into a peal of triumphal melody.

"Pange, lingua, g)oriosi

Corporis mysterium,

Sanguinisque pretiosi

Quem in mundi pretium,

Fructus ventris generosi

Rex effudit gentium."

The bearers came slowly forward, and raised the silken canopy over his head, while the deacons of honour stepped to their places at his right and left and drew back the long folds of the mantle. As the acolytes stooped to lift his robe from the chancel-floor, the lay fraternities heading the procession started to pace down the nave in stately double file, with lighted candles held to left and right.

He stood above them, by the altar, motionless under the white canopy, holding the Eucharist aloft with steady hands, and watched them as they passed. Two by two, with candles and banners and torches, with crosses and images and flags, they swept slowly down the chancel steps, along the broad nave between the garlanded pillars, and out under the lifted scarlet curtains into the blazing sunlight of the street; and the sound of their chanting died into a rolling murmur, drowned in the pealing of new and newer voices, as the unending stream flowed on, and yet new footsteps echoed down the nave.

The companies of the parishes passed, with their white shrouds and veiled faces; then the brothers of the Misericordia, black from head to foot, their eyes faintly gleaming through the holes in their masks. Next came the monks in solemn row: the mendicant friars, with their dusky cowls and bare, brown feet; the white-robed, grave Dominicans. Then followed the lay officials of the district; dragoons and carabineers and the local police-officials; the Governor in gala uniform, with his brother officers beside him. A deacon followed, holding up a great cross between two acolytes with gleaming candles; and as the curtains were lifted high to let them pass out at the doorway, Montanelli caught a momentary glimpse, from where he stood under the canopy, of the sunlit blaze of carpeted street and flag-hung walls and white-robed children scattering roses. Ah, the roses; how red they were!

On and on the procession paced in order; form succeeding to form and colour to colour. Long white surplices, grave and seemly, gave place to gorgeous vestments and embroidered pluvials. Now passed a tall and slender golden cross, borne high above the lighted candles; now the cathedral canons, stately in their dead white mantles. A chaplain paced down the chancel, with the crozier between two flaring torches; then the acolytes moved forward in step, their censers swinging to the rhythm of the music; the bearers raised the canopy higher, counting their steps: "One, two; one, two!" and Montanelli started upon the Way of the Cross.

Down the chancel steps and all along the nave he passed; under the gallery where the organ pealed and thundered; under the lifted curtains that were so red--so fearfully red; and out into the glaring street, where the blood-red roses lay and withered, crushed into the red carpet by the passing of many feet. A moment's pause at the door, while the lay officials came forward to replace the canopy-bearers; then the procession moved on again, and he with it, his hands clasping the Eucharistic sun, and the voices of the choristers swelling and dying around him, with the rhythmical swaying of censers and the rolling tramp of feet.

"Verbum caro, panem verum,

Verbo carnem efficit;

Sitque sanguis Christi merum----"

Always blood and always blood! The carpet stretched before him like a red river; the roses lay like blood splashed on the stones---- Oh, God! Is all Thine earth grown red, and all Thy heaven? Ah, what is it to Thee, Thou mighty God---- Thou, whose very lips are smeared with blood!

"Tantum ergo Sacramentum,

Veneremur cernui."

He looked through the crystal shield at the Eucharist. What was that oozing from the wafer-- dripping down between the points of the golden sun--down on to his white robe? What had he seen dripping down--dripping from a lifted hand?

The grass in the courtyard was trampled and red,--all red,--there was so much blood. It was trickling down the cheek, and dripping from the pierced right hand, and gushing in a hot red torrent from the wounded side. Even a lock of the hair was dabbled in it,--the hair that lay all wet and matted on the forehead--ah, that was the death-sweat; it came from the horrible pain.

The voices of the choristers rose higher, triumphantly:

"Genitori, genitoque,

Laus et jubilatio,

Salus, honor, virtus quoque,

Sit et benedictio."

Oh, that is more than any patience can endure! God, Who sittest on the brazen heavens enthroned, and smilest with bloody lips, looking down upon agony and death, is it not enough? Is it not enough, without this mockery of praise and blessing? Body of Christ, Thou that wast broken for the salvation of men; blood of Christ, Thou that wast shed for the remission of sins; is it not enough?

"Ah, call Him louder; perchance He sleepeth!

Dost Thou sleep indeed, dear love; and wilt Thou never wake again? Is the grave so jealous of its victory; and will the black pit under the tree not loose Thee even for a little, heart's delight?

Then the Thing behind the crystal shield made answer, and the blood dripped down as It spoke:

"Hast thou chosen, and wilt repent of thy choice? Is thy desire not fulfilled? Look upon these men that walk in the light and are clad in silk and in gold: for their sake was I laid in the black pit. Look upon the children scattering roses, and hearken to their singing if it be sweet: for their sake is my mouth filled with dust, and the roses are red from the well-springs of my heart. See where the people kneel to drink the blood that drips from thy garment-hem: for their sake was it shed, to quench their ravening thirst. For it is written: 'Greater love hath no man than this, if a man lay down his life for his friends.'"

"Oh, Arthur, Arthur; there is greater love than this! If a man lay down the lif............