Father Pietro was taking the letter from its large square envelope. He read it with puzzled wonder rising to his eyes. Before he came to its end he was on his feet.
"No! No!" he cried. "It is impossible. It is a mistake."
Father Ramoni turned quickly. The man who had been his faithful servant for ten years in Marqua was very dear to him. "What is a mistake, Pietro?" he asked, coming to the table.
"The Consistory," Father Pietro stammered, "the Consistory has made a mistake. They have done an impossible thing. They have mixed our names. This letter to the General—this letter—" he pointed to the document on the table "—says that I have been made Archbishop of Marqua."
Ramoni took the letter. As he read it he knew what Pietro had not known. The news was genuine. The name signed at the letter's end guaranteed that. Ramoni caught the edge of the table. The pain of the blow gripped him relentlessly and he knew that it was a pain that would stay. He had been passed over, ignored, set down for Pietro, who sat weeping beside the table, his head buried in his hands.
"I can't take it," he was sobbing; "I am not able. It's a mistake, a terrible mistake."
Ramoni put his hand on the other man's head. "It is true, Pietro," he said. "You are Archbishop of Marqua. May God bless you!"
But he could say no more. Pietro was still weeping when Ramoni went away, crossing the cloister on his way to his cell, where, with the door closed behind him, he fought the battle of his soul.
II.
IN the beginning Ramoni could not think. He sat looking dully at the softened tones of the wall, trying to evolve some order of thought from the chaos into which the shock of his disappointment had plunged his mind. It was late in the night before the situation began to outline itself dimly.