But at Rome the true motives for actions both public and private are rarely to be discovered on the surface. Nominally, Monsignor Lelli's disgrace was the direct consequence of his negligence in safeguarding the sums of money for the sound investment of which he was supposed to be responsible. Practically, its cause lay elsewhere. He was known to be a Liberal in his political views, the friend of a prominent foreign cardinal resident in Rome, to whose influence, indeed, he owed his canonry of Santa Maria Maggiore, and whose attitude towards the Italian government, and also towards various dogmatic questions, had for some time aroused the ill-will of a pontiff who was even more anti-Italian than his predecessor. Unfortunately for himself, Monsignor Lelli had published his views on the relations between Church and State, and had drawn down upon his head the wrath of the clerical party in consequence. His enemies, and they were many, left no means untried to bring about his disgrace, fully aware that by doing so they would at the same time be striking a blow at the obnoxious cardinal who supported not only Monsignor Lelli but also every Liberal ecclesiastic in Rome. When it became evident that more than one grave financial blunder had been committed by others in authority, it was equally obvious that the moment to strike this blow had arrived, and it was delivered accordingly.
All these things, however, had happened years ago. The cardinal was dead—of one of those mysteriously rapid illnesses which he made no secret to his more intimate friends as being likely some day to overtake him—and Monsignor Lelli remained at Montefiano, forgotten, as his parishioners declared, though he himself knew well that at Rome nothing is forgotten, and that so long as his enemies lived, so long would he, Monsignor Lelli, be required to devote his learning and his intellect to the needs of a peasant population. Afterwards—well, it was of the afterwards he was thinking, as he gazed dreamily over the great plain stretching away to Rome, when the sound of horses' hoofs in the street below attracted his attention, and, looking round, he saw the agent, Giuseppe Fontana—Sor Beppe, as he was commonly called in Montefiano—riding towards him apparently in some haste.
Don Agostino moved out of the shade to meet him.
"Signor Fattore, good-evening!" he said, courteously, knowing that the man liked to be given his full official title as administrator of the Montefiano fief.
Sor Beppe rode up alongside of him, raising his felt hat as he returned the salutation. He wore his official coat of dark-blue cloth, on the silver buttons of which were engraved the arms and coronet of the Montefiano. He was a powerfully made man with a dark, grizzled beard, inclining to gray, and he sat his horse—a well-built black stallion—as one who was more often in the saddle than out of it. On ordinary days he would carry a double-barrelled gun slung across his shoulders, but to-day the weapon was absent.
Don Agostino noted the fact, and also that the agent's face was lighted up with unusual excitement.
"And what is there new, Signor Fontana?" he asked, briefly.
"Perbacco! What is there new?" repeated Fontana. "There is a whole world of new—but your reverence will never guess what it is! Such a thing has not happened for fifteen years—"
"But what is it?" insisted Don Agostino, tranquilly. "I quite believe that nothing new has happened in Montefiano for fifteen years. I have been here nearly ten, and—"
"I have ridden down to tell you. The letter came only an hour ago. Her excellency the princess—their excellencies the princesses, I should say—"