take care.”

“You suspect, then, that it may be long, father?”

“How can I think it otherwise, when a man has lived so completely as your eminence has done?”

“Ah! that is true! — yes — the recital may be long.”

“The mercy of God is great,” snuffled the Theatin.

“Stop,” said Mazarin; “there I begin to terrify myself with having allowed so many things to pass which the Lord might reprove.”

“Is that not always so?” said the Theatin naively, removing further from the lamp his thin pointed face, like that of a mole. “Sinners are so forgetful beforehand, and scrupulous when it is too late.”