“Pray do you come from your brother with this petition?” inquired the doctor.

“No; I come solely on my own account.  My brother seems careless what happens.  He has made a full statement of his share in the matter from the first; has forwarded it to his ecclesiastical superior (who will send it to the archbishop), and is now awaiting whatever sentence they choose to pass on him.  I have a copy of the document, to prove that he has at least been candid, and that he does not shrink from consequences which he might have avoided by flight.  The law cannot touch him, but the Church can—­and to the Church he has confessed.  All I ask is, that he may be spared a public exposure.  Such an exposure would do no good to the count, and it would do dreadful injury to me.  Look over the papers yourself, and show them, whenever you think proper, to the master of this house.  I have every confidence in his honor and kindness, and in yours.”

He laid the roll of papers open on the table, and then retired with great humility to the window.  The doctor looked over them with some curiosity.

The statement or confession began by boldly avowing the writer’s conviction that part of the property which the Count Fabio d’Ascoli had inherited from his ancestors had been obtained by fraud and misrepresentation from the Church.  The various authorities on which this assertion was based were then produced in due order; along with some curious particles of evidence culled from old manuscripts, which it must have cost much trouble to collect and decipher.

The second section was devoted, at great length, to the reasons which induced the writer to think it his absolute duty, as an affectionate son and faithful servant of the Church, not to rest until he had restored to the successors of the apostles in his day the property which had been fraudulently taken from them in days gone by.  The writer held himself justified, in the last resort, and in that only, in using any means for effecting this restoration, except such as might involve him in mortal sin.

The third section described the priest’s share in promoting the marriage of Maddalena Lomi with Fabio; and the hopes he entertained of securing the restitution of the Church property through his influence over his niece, in the first place, and, when she had died, through his influence over her child, in the second.  The necessary failure of all his projects, if Fabio married again, was next glanced at; and the time at which the first suspicion of the possible occurrence of this catastrophe occurred to his mind was noted with scrupulous accuracy.