e pointed vault, while he knelt on the one placed
on the left. On the drum of the arch a fourteenth century painter had
depicted the Great Sorrow. Through a high window on the left, the light
fell upon the Mother of Sorrows--the _Dolorosa_; Benedetto was in the
shadow.

His voice murmured in a scarcely audible tone:

"Still without faith?"

Softly, as he himself had spoken, and without turning her head, she
answered:

"Yes."

He was silent for a time, then he continued, in the same tone:

"Do you long for it? Could you regulate your actions as if you believed
in God?"

"Yes, if I be not forced to lie."

"Will you promise to live for the poor and the afflicted, as if each one
of these were a part of the soul that you love?"

Jeanne did not answer. She was too far-seeing, too honest to declare
that she could.

"Will you promise this," Benedetto continued, "if I promise to call you
to my side at a certain hour in the future?"

She did not know of what solemn and not far distant hour he was
thinking, as he spoke thus. She answered, quivering:

"Yes, yes!" "In that hour I will call you," said the voice out of the
shadow, "But until I call you, you must never seek to see me again."

Jeanne pressed her hands to her eyes, and answered "No" in a smothered
tone. It seemed to her she was whirling in the vortex of such agonising
dreams as accompany a raging fever, Piero had ceased speaking. Two or
three minutes slipped by. She withdrew her hands from her tearful eyes,
and fixed her gaze upon the cross, which shone there in front of
her, beyond the pointed arches, against the dark phantoms of ancient
paintings. She murmured:

"Do you know that Don Giuseppe Flores is dead?"

Silence.

Jeanne turned her head. The church was empty.

CHAPTER V. THE SAINT

I. The moon had already set, and in the wind of late evening the
Anio discoursed, now noisily, now softly, as one who in animated
conversation, from time to time, reminds his interlocutor of something
which others must not hear. Perhaps the only person who, in all the
lovely shell in which Subiaco lies, was listening to this discourse,
was Giovanni Selva. Seated on the terrace, near the parapet, on which
he rested his elbows, he was gazing silently into the sounding darkness.
Maria and Noemi, who had also come out to enjoy the freshness and
the wild odours of the night wind, stood at a little distance. Maria
whispered a word in her sister's ear, and Noemi