tragic lament
of the invisible water, the silent trembling of the blades of grass on
the rocky slope, even the burning heat, made the heart shrink. A few
paces from the arch which, standing rigid there, holds in check the
black crowd of evergreen oaks, Noemi was relieved to hear human voices.
They belonged to Dane on horseback and to Marinier and the Abbot on
foot, who were coming down together from the Sacro Speco,

Dane showed great pleasure at this meeting; he stopped his horse,
presented the ladies to the Abbot, and spoke of the Sacro Speco in
enthusiastic language. Jeanne, after exchanging a few words with the
Abbot, asked him if any one had recently pronounced the solemn vows or
perhaps taken the habit. The Abbot replied that he had been at Santa
Scolastica only a few days, and was not, at that moment, in a position
to answer her question; but he did not believe any one had made the
solemn profession or assumed the habit of a novice at Santa Scolastica
for at least a year. Jeanne was radiant with joy. Now she understood;
she had been a fool to believe it possible, even for a single moment,
that in twelve hours Piero the peasant had become Piero the monk. She
longed to return at once to the garden at Santa Scolastica; but how
could she manage it? what pretext could she invent? She pressed forward,
anxious to be done with the Sacro Speco as soon as possible. Noemi
proposed resting a few minutes in the shade of the evergreen oaks,
which, there on the path of those souls agitated by Divine Love,
themselves seem twisted by an inward ascetic fury, by a frantic effort
to tear themselves from the earth, and to dart their arms into the sky.
Jeanne refused impatiently. The colour had returned to her face, and
the light to her eyes. She started rapidly up the narrow stair where the
short walk comes to an end, and in spite of the protests of Noemi (who
could not understand the cause of this change) would not stop to
take breath at the head of the stairs where, suddenly, the dark, deep
spectacle of the valley reveals itself. High up on the left looms the
terrible crag, dear to falcons and crows, bulging out above the dreary
walls, pierced by unadorned openings which are incrusted upon the bare
slope, running crosswise along its face, and form the monastery of the
Sacro Speco. In the depths below the convent hangs the rose garden of
St. Benedict, and below the rose garden hang the kitchen-garden and the
olive groves, sloping to