rden. She merely whispered: "You were making believe, eh?"
Jeanne said that Noemi must certainly start for the Sacro Speco at
once, but that she herself intended to wait for her in the garden. Noemi
suspected another plot.

"No, no!" she exclaimed, "either you come to the Sacro Speco or--if you
do not feel well enough--we will go down to Subiaco at once."

Jeanne objected that it would be useless to go down now, for they would
not find the carriage; but Noemi was determined not to yield. They
could walk down very slowly, and be ready for the carriage as soon as it
arrived. Jeanne refused again, more emphatically than before, having
no other argument to set forth. Then Noemi looked searchingly into her
eyes, silently trying to read her hidden purpose there. In that moment
of silence Jeanne's heart was again assailed by the beggar's words.
Impulsively she seized her friend's arm.

"You wish me to go to the Sacro Speco?" she said. "Very well, let us go
then. You believe something and you do not know! Let Fate decide!"

But before moving a step she dropped her friend's arm, and while Noemi,
completely bewildered, stood watching her she wrote in her notebook: "I
am at the Sacro Speco. For the sake of Don Giuseppe Flores wait for me!"
She did not sign her name, but tearing out the tiny page gave it to
the gardener. "For that man, should he return." Then once more taking
Noemi's arm, she exclaimed:

"Let us go!"

The sun's burning rays, smiting the steaming, rocky hillside, brought
out damp odours of herbs and of stone, silvered the puffs of mist
creeping along the sides of the narrow, wild valley, as far as the
enormous mass resting there, in the background, like a cap on the
heights of Jenne, while the mighty voice of the Anio filled the
solitude. Jeanne climbed upwards in silence, without replying to Noemi's
questions. Noemi was becoming more and more alarmed by her silence, by
her pallor, by the nervous twitching of her arm, by the sight of her
lips pressed tightly together, to keep back her sobs. Why was she thus
moved? During the night and, indeed, until they had reached the entrance
to Santa Scolastica, the poor creature had wavered between fear and
hope, in a fever of expectancy. Now her fever was of a different nature;
at least it seemed so to Noemi. She thought Jeanne must have heard
something there in the garden, something of which she did not wish to
speak, something painful, frightful! What could it be? The