“Your brother represents an idea,” answered the Cardinal.  “That idea is the subversion of all social principle.  It is an idea which must spread, because there is an enormous number of depraved men in the world who have a very great interest in the destruction of law.  The watchword of that party will always be ‘there is no God,’ because God is order, and they desire disorder.  They will, it is true, always be a minority, because the greater part of mankind are determined that order shall not be destroyed.  But those fellows will fight to the death, because they know that in that battle there will be no quarter for the vanquished.  It will be a mighty struggle and will last long, but it will be decisive, and will perhaps never be revived when it is once over.  Men will kill each other where-ever they meet, during months and years, before the end comes, for all men who say that there is a God in Heaven will be upon the one side, and all those who say there is no God will be upon the other.”

“May we not be alive to see anything so dreadful!” exclaimed Don Paolo devoutly.

“No, you and I shall not see it.  But those little children who are playing with chestnuts down there in the court—­they will see it.  The world is uneasy and dreads the very name of war, lest war should become universal if it once breaks out.  Tell your brother that.”

“It is what he longs for.  He is always speaking of it.”

“Then it is inevitable.  When many millions like him have determined that there shall be evil done, it cannot long be warded off.  Their blood be on their own heads.”

When Don Paolo had climbed again to his lonely lodging, half an hour later, he pondered long upon what the Cardinal had said to him, and the longer he thought of it, the more truth there seemed to be in the prediction.

CHAPTER X

Gianbattista reached the church in which he was to do his work, and superintended the unloading of the carts.  It was but a little after one o’clock, and he expected to succeed in putting up the grating before night.  The pieces were carefully carried to the chapel where they were to be placed, and laid down in the order in which they would be needed.  It took a long time to arrange them, and the apprentice was glad he had advised Maria Luisa and Lucia to come late.  It would have wearied them, he reflected, to assist at the endless fitting and screwing of the joints, and they would have had no impression of the whole until they were tired of looking at the details.