Three or four days after that visit, as I was walking with the Abbé Gama toward the Villa Medici, he told me with an air of carelessness that there would be an execution that 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?"
"Of course; but such a permission is never denied."
"And if the person to be arrested happened to be under the protection of the cardinal—what then?"
"His eminence would give timely warning to that person."
We changed the subject, but the news had already unsettled me. I thought of Barbara and her lover, and the suspicion fixed itself on their house, which lay under the Spanish jurisdiction.
I tried to see the young man, but he kept out of my reach. I hesitated to go either to his house or to M. Dalacqua's, for I feared to compromise myself.
Yet it is certain that this last consideration would not have stopped me if I had been positively sure that they were threatened; had I felt satisfied of their danger, I would have braved everything.
About midnight, as I was preparing for bed and had just opened my door to take the key from outside, an abbé rushed into my room out of breath and sank into a chair.
It was Barbara.
I understood at once what had happened, and the thought of the trouble her visit might bring upon me made me both uneasy and angry.
I told her sharply that she must go at once and begged her to leave my room before matters grew worse.
Fool that I was! I knew I was only compromising myself without the least hope of saving her. I ought to have forced her out, or called the servants if she had refused.
But I had not courage enough, or rather I voluntarily obeyed the decrees of destiny.
At my order to leave, she dropped to her knees and, dissolving into tears, implored my pity.
Where is the heart of steel which is not softened by the tears, by the prayers of a pretty and unfortunate woman?
I gave way, but I told her that it was ruin for both of us.
"No one," she replied, "has seen me, I am certain, when I entered the mansion and came up to your room, and I consider my visit here a week ago as most fortunate; otherwise, I never could have known which was your room."
"Alas, how much better it would have been had you never come. But what has become of your lover?"
"The 'sbirri' have carried him off, as well as the servant. I will tell you all about it. My lover had informed me that a carriage would wait to-night at the foot of the flight of steps before the Church of Trinita del Monte, and that he would be there himself. I entered his room through the garret window an hour ago. There I put on this disguise, and, accompanied by the servant, proceeded to meet him. The servant walked a few yards before me, and carried a parcel of my things. At the corner of the street, one of the buckles of my shoes being unfastened, I stopped an instant, and the servant went on, thinking that I was following her. She reached the carriage, got into it, and, as I was getting nearer, the light from a lantern disclosed to me some thirty sbirri; at the same instant, one of them got on the driver's box and drove off at full speed, carrying off the servant, whom they must have mistaken for me, and my lover who was in the coach awaiting me. What could I do at such a fearful moment? I could not go back to my father's house, and I followed my first impulse which brought me here. And here I am! You tell me that my presence will cause your ruin; if it is so, tell me what to do; I feel I am dying; but find some expedient and I am ready to do anything, even to lay my life down, rather than be the cause of your ruin."
She broke into fresher tears.
Her plight was so desperate that I thought it even worse than my own. For my part, I could almost see ruin standing at my door, though I had done nothing to invite it.
"Let me," I said, "conduct you to your father; I feel sure of obtaining your pardon."But that only made her tremble more.
"I am lost," she exclaimed; "I know my father. Ah! reverend sir, turn me out into the street, and abandon me to my miserable fate."
I ought to have done it, and perhaps I should have done it, had concern for myself been stronger than pity.
But those tears. I have said it before, and those who have seen what tears can do will not deny it.
There is nothing more difficult to resist than a pair of beautiful eyes in tears when the face that bears them is young, honest, and unhappy. I found myself physically unable to send her away.
"My poor girl," I said at last, "when daylight comes, and that will not be long, for it is past midnight, what do you intend to do?"
"I must leave the palace," she replied, sobbing. "In this disguise no one can recognize me; I will leave Rome, and I will walk straight before me until I fall on the ground, dying with grief and fatigue."
With that she sank upon the floor. Her breath failed her. Her face changed colour before my eyes, and I was in the greatest distress.
I loosened the band at her throat, unlaced the stays beneath the abbé's dress, threw cold water upon her face, and at last succeeded in bringing her back to herself.
The night was bitterly cold, and my room had no fire. I told her to lie down in my bed and promised to respect her.
"Alas! reverend sir, pity is the only feeling with which I can now inspire anyone."
She spoke truth.
I was too moved, and too troubled, for desire to find room in me.
So I helped her to the bed, for she was too weak to do anything for herself, and I undressed her and covered her over.
Compassion, at times, has a force stronger than nature and silences it without effort.
I lay down beside her in my clothes and woke her at daybreak. Her strength had returned a little. She dressed herself, and I left her, bidding her remain quiet until I came back.
I meant to go at once to her father and ask for her pardon. But when I saw several suspicious figures lingering about the palace, I changed my mind and went instead to a coffeehouse.
There I soon discovered that a spy was following me at a distance. I gave no sign of noticing him.
I took some chocolate and slipped a few biscuits into my pocket, then returned toward the palace at an easy pace, as though I had nothing on my mind.
He followed all the while.
I judged that the bargello, having failed in his first attempt, was now reduced to guesswork. The gatekeeper confirmed as much without my asking.
As I entered, he told me that an arrest had been attempted during the night and had not succeeded.
While he was speaking, one of the auditors of the Vicar General called to ask when he might see Abbé Gama.
I saw at once that there was no time to lose.
I went up to my room to decide what had to be done next.
I began by making the poor girl eat two biscuits dipped in Canary wine, and afterward I led her to the top floor of the palace.
There I left her in a little closet, neither handsome nor decent, but at least unused by anyone, and told her to wait for me.
My servant came soon after.
I ordered him to lock my room as soon as he had put it in order, and to bring me the key at Abbé Gama's apartment, where I was going.
I found Gama with the auditor sent by the Vicar General. As soon as he had dismissed him, he joined me and had chocolate brought in.
When we were alone, he told me of their interview. The auditor had come to ask that the cardinal should order out of his palace a person who was believed to have taken refuge there about midnight.
The abbé answered that they must wait until his eminence was visible, but that if anyone had hidden there without his knowledge, he was sure the cardinal would compel that person to leave at once.
We then spoke of the weather and a few indifferent matters until my servant brought the key.
I judged that I had at least an hour before me, and I at once conceived the only plan that could save Barbara from shame and misery.
Believing myself unobserved, I went up to my poor prisoner and made her write in French:
"I am an honest girl, monsignor, though I am disguised in the dress of an abbe. I entreat your eminence to allow me to give my name only to you and in person. I hope that, prompted by the great goodness of your soul, your eminence will save me from dishonour."
I then told her how the note was to be delivered. Once the cardinal had read it, I said, he would have her brought to him at once.
"When you are in his presence," I added, "throw yourself on your knees, tell him everything without any concealment, except as regards your having passed the night in my room. You must be sure not to mention that circumstance, for the cardinal must remain in complete ignorance of my knowing anything whatever of this intrigue. Tell him that, seeing your lover carried off, you rushed to his palace and ran upstairs as far as you could go, and that after a most painful night Heaven inspired you with the idea of writing to him to entreat his pity. I feel certain that, one way or the other, his eminence will save you from dishonour, and it certainly is the only chance you have of being united to the man you love so dearly."
She promised to follow my instructions exactly.
I went down, had my hair dressed, and then went to church, where the cardinal saw me.
I went out and did not return until dinner. The table rang with nothing but the night's adventure.
Abbé Gama said little, and I kept the same silence, but from the talk around me I understood that the cardinal had taken poor Barbara under his protection.
That was all I had wanted.
I congratulated myself in secret on a stratagem which now seemed to me a masterstroke.
After dinner, when I was alone with Gama, I asked him to explain the whole affair, and this is what he told me:
"A father, whose name I do not know yet, had requested the assistance of the Vicar-General to prevent his son from carrying off a young girl, with whom he intended to leave the States of the Church; the pair had arranged to meet at midnight in this very square, and the Vicar, having previously obtained the consent of our cardinal, as I told you yesterday, gave orders to the bargello to dispose his men in such a way as to catch the young people in the very act of running away, and to arrest them. The orders were executed, but the 'sbirri' found out, when they returned to the bargello, that they had met with only a half success, the woman who got out of the carriage with the young man not belonging to that species likely to be carried off. Soon afterwards a spy informed the bargello that, at the very moment the arrest was executed, he had seen a young abbe run away very rapidly and take refuge in this palace, and the suspicion immediately arose that it might be the missing young lady in the disguise of an ecclesiastic. The bargello reported to the Vicar-General the failure of his men, as well as the account given by the spy, and the Prelate, sharing the suspicion of the police, sent to his eminence, our master, requesting him to have the person in question, man or woman, turned out of the palace, unless such persons should happen to be known to his excellency, and therefore above suspicion. Cardinal Acquaviva was made acquainted with these circumstances at nine this morning through the auditor you met in my room, and he promised to have the person sent away unless she belonged to his household.
"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 affair was in itself too curious to leave me indifferent, and I think my attention could not have seemed strange to Gama, however suspicious he might have been by nature.
Had he guessed the share I had taken in the adventure, and how deeply I was already concerned in it, he would certainly have told me nothing at all.