es of any sort. I am
Sebastian the hermit."

His lips smacked testily. "Were you baptized Sebastian?" he inquired.

"No," I answered him. "I took the name when I became the guardian of
this shrine."

"And when was that?"

"In September of last year, when the holy man who was here before me
died."

I saw a sudden light leap to his eyes and a faint smile to his lips.
He leaned towards me. "Heard you ever of the name of Anguissola?" he
inquired, and watched me closely, his face within a foot of mine.

But I did not betray myself, for the question no longer took me by
surprise. I was accounted to be very like my father, and that a member
of the house of Cavalcanti, with which Giovanni d'Anguissola had been so
intimate, should detect the likeness was not unnatural. I was convinced,
moreover, that he had been guided thither by merest curiosity at the
sight of that crowd of pilgrims.

"Sir," I said, "I know not your intentions; but in all humility let me
say that I am not here to answer questions of worldly import. The world
has done with me, and I with the world. So that unless you are come
hither out of piety for this shrine, I beg that you will depart with God
and molest me no further. You come at a singularly inauspicious time,
when I need all my strength to forget the world and my sinful past, that
through me the will of Heaven may be done here."

I saw the maid's tender eyes raised to my face with a look of great
compassion and sweetness whilst I spoke. I observed the pressure which
she put on his arm. Whether he gave way to that, or whether it was the
sad firmness of my tone that prevailed upon him I cannot say. But he
nodded shortly.

"Well, well!" he said, and with a final searching look, he turned, the
little lady with him, and went clanking off through the lane which the
crowd opened out for him.

That they resented his presence, since it was not due to motives of
piety, they very plainly signified. They feared that the intrusion at
such a time of a personality so worldly must raise fresh difficulties
against the performance of the expected miracle.

Nor were matters improved when at the crowd's edge he halted and
questioned one of them as to the meaning of this pilgrimage. I did not
hear the peasant's answer; but I saw the white, haughty face suddenly
thrown up, and I caught his next question:

"When did it last bleed?"

Again an inaudible reply, and again his ringing voice--"That would be
before