‘I know enough, sir, to be sure that I speak on good authority; and I repeat that when this youth can prove his descent, he is the rightful heir to a royal fortune. It may be, that he will have higher and nobler ambitions: he may feel that a great cause is ever worthy a great effort; that the son of a prince cannot accept life on the same humble terms as other men. In short, sir, it may chance that the dream of a poor Jesuit father should become a grand reality.’
‘If all be but as real as the heritage, Massoni,’ said the Cardinal scoffingly, ‘you called it by its true name, when you said “dream.”’
‘Have you, then, not heard of this legacy?’
‘Heard of it! Yes: all Rome heard of it; and, for that matter, his Royal Highness may have left him St. James’s and the royal forest of Windsor.’
‘Your Eminence, then, doubts that there was anything to bequeath?’
‘There is no need to canvass what I doubt. I ‘ll tell you what I know. The rent of the Altieri for the last two years is still unpaid; the servants at Albano have not received their wages, and the royal plate is at this moment pledged in the hands of the Jew Alcaico.’
The Père was silent. The sole effect these stunning tidings had on him was to speculate to what end and with what object the Cardinal said all this. It was not the language he had used a short hour ago with Kelly. Whence, therefore, this change of tone? Why did he now disparage the prospects he had then upheld so highly? These were questions not easily solved in a moment, and Massoni pondered them deeply. The Cardinal had begun with hinting doubts of the youth’s identity, and then he had scoffed at the prospect of his inheritance. Was it that by these he meant to discourage the scheme of which he should have been the head, or was it that some deeper and more subtle plan occupied his mind? And if so, what could it be?
‘I see how I have grieved and disappointed you, Père Massoni,’ said his Eminence, ‘and I regret it. Life is little else than a tale of such reverses.’
The Jesuit’s dark eyes glanced forth a gleam of intense intelligence. It was the light of a sudden thought that flashed across his brain. He remembered that when the Cardinal moralised he meant a treachery, and now he stood on his guard.
‘I had many things to tell your Eminence of Ireland,’ he began in a calm, subdued voice. ‘The priest Carrol has just come from thence, and can speak of events as he has witnessed them. The hatred to England and English rule increases every day, and the great peril is that this animosity may burst forth without guidance or direction. The utmost efforts of the leaders are required to hold the people back.’