se, wavering in my heart between good and evil. Soon I returned
to her, all aflame with sin, knowing I should lose myself, even
determined to lose myself. There was no longer an atom of grace in my
soul when a dying hand, dear and saintly, seized me and saved me."

"Look me in the eyes," said the Abbot, without allowing him to rise.
"Have you ever let any one know you were here?"

"I have never let any one know." The Abbot answered drily:

"I do not believe you!"

Benedetto did not flinch.

"You know why I do not believe you?" the Abbot continued.

"I can imagine why," Benedetto answered, dropping his eyes. "_Peccatum
meum contra me est semper_."

"Rise!" the Abbot commanded, still inflexible. "I expel you from the
monastery. You will now go and take leave of Don Clemente, in his cell,
and then you will depart, never to return. Do you understand?"

Benedetto bowed his head in assent, and was about to bend his knee to
pay homage in the usual way, when the Abbot stopped him with a gesture.

"Wait," said he.

Putting on his glasses he took a sheet of paper, upon which he traced
some words, standing the while,

"What will you do, when you have left?" he asked still writing.

Benedetto answered softly:

"Does the sleeping child that his father lifts in his arms know what his
father will do with him?"

The Abbot made no answer; his writing finished, he placed the paper in
an envelope, closed it, and without turning his head, held it out to
Benedetto, who was standing behind him.

"Take this to Don Clemente," he said. Benedetto begged permission to
kiss his hand.

"No, no, go away, go away!"

The Abbot's voice trembled with anger. Benedetto obeyed. Hardly had
he reached the corridor when he heard the angry man thundering on the
piano.

* * * * *

Before entering Don Clemente's little cell, Benedetto stopped before the
great window at the end of the corridor. Here, a few hours earlier, the
master himself had lingered, contemplating the lights of Subiaco, and
thinking of the enemy, the creature of beauty, of genius, of natural
kindliness, who was perhaps come to strive with him for possession of
his spiritual son, to strive with God Himself. Now the spiritual son
felt a mysterious certainty that the woman he had loved so ill, during
the time of his blind and ardent leaning towards inferior things, had
discovered his presence in the monastery, and would come in search of
him