Suddenly it occurred to him that the Rota had been long since closed, and therefore it was physically impossible that anybody could have put a child into the cradle. Then he remembered that he had not heard the bell, or the woman's footsteps, or the sound of her voice when she wept.
He stopped and looked back. The woman was returning in the direction of the piazza of St. Peter's. By an impulse which he could not resist he followed her, overtook her, and looked into her face.
Again he thought he was looking at Roma. There was the same nobility in the beautiful features, the same sweetness in the tremulous mouth, the same grandeur in the great dark eyes. But he knew perfectly who it was. It was his mother.
It did not seem strange that his mother should be there. From her home in heaven she had come down to watch over her son on earth. She had always been watching over him. And now that he too was betrayed and lost, now that he too was broken-hearted and alone....
He was utterly unmanned. "Mother! Mother! I am coming to you! Every door is closed against me, and I have nowhere to go to for refuge. I am coming!... I am coming!"
Then the spirit paused, and pointing to the bronze gate of the Vatican, said, with infinite tenderness:
"Go there!"