ente! Yes, Don Clemente was also
going to Jenne, was going to see Benedetto. And as to the gardener,
there had been no deception, only a desire to bring the two
souls together in the most natural way, without violence, without
recommendations and previous explanations.

They started up the hill together, talking of Benedetto.

Noemi, forgetting her weariness, hung upon the Padre's lips, and the
Padre, precisely on this account, said so little and was so circumspect
that she trembled with impatience, and presently felt tired again.
She took Maria's arm, and allowed Don Clemente to go on with her
brother-in-law. Then Don Clemente confided to Giovanni that his mission
at Jenne was of a painful nature. It seemed some one at Jenne had
written to Rome, speaking in hostile language of Benedetto, accusing
him of preaching what was not perfectly orthodox, of pretending to be
a miracle worker, and of wearing a religious habit to which he had no
right: this greatly enhancing the gravity of the scandal. Certainly they
had written to the Abbot from Rome, for he had ordered Don Clemente to
go to Jenne, and demand of Benedetto the restitution of the habit. Don
Clemente had tried in vain to dissuade the old abbot, who had waved the
matter aside with a jest. "Read the Gospel--the Passion according to St.
Mark. He who follows Christ after all others have forsaken Him must part
with his cloak. It is a mark of holiness." Therefore, as some one must
carry this message to Jenne, Don Clemente preferred to do it himself.
He had, moreover, received a strange letter from the parish priest of
Jenne. This priest, a good man, but timid, had written that Benedetto
was, to his mind, a most pious Christian, but that he talked too much of
religion to the people, and that his discourses sometimes had a flavour
of quietism and of rationalism, that there were those who accused him
of employing a demoniacal power for the furtherance of his not
over-orthodox views, that this accusation was certainly false, but that,
nevertheless, prudence forbade the writer to keep Benedetto with him
any longer. Perhaps the wisest course for him would be to retire to some
town where he was not known, and to live quietly there.

Their conversation was here interrupted by a call from Maria.
Noemi, overpowered by the heat of the burning sun, and seized with
palpitations, must rest again. The sisters had seated themselves in the
shadow of a rock.

Don Clemente took leave of