o, who had been brought to
the church that morning, when the sacristan had also seen her there.
He added that his reason for inquiring was, that he had been ordered to
wait for the parish priest, who was going to carry the viaticum to the
man. Noemi knew that the young man from Arcinazzo was dying, but that
was all.

"I see," said the sacristan, raising his voice intentionally. "He
probably does not wish for Christ. These are their fine miracles! Thank
God for the thunder and lightning, for had it not been for the storm,
they would have brought the girl here!"

Then he went back to rest and doze on the steps.

Noemi could not turn her eyes away from Benedetto. It was not a
fascination in the true sense of the word, nor was it the passionate
sentiment of the young schoolmistress. She saw him sway, rest his hands
on the steps and then turn with difficulty and sit down; and she did
not ask herself if he were suffering. She gazed at him, but was more
absorbed in herself than in him, absorbed in a gradual change which was
taking place within her, and which was making her different, making her
irrecognisable to herself; a still confused and blind sense of immense
truth, which was being borne in upon her, in mysterious ways, and
which strained painfully at the innermost fibres of her heart. Her
brother-in-law's religious arguments might have troubled her mind, but
they had never touched her heart. Why was it touched now? And how? What
had that pale, emaciated man said, after all? Ah I but the look, the
voice, the-what else? Something it was impossible to grasp. Perhaps a
presentiment--But of what? _Ma! Chi sa?_ Who knows? A presentiment of
some future bond between this man and herself. She had followed him, had
entered the church that she might not lose the opportunity of speaking
to him, and now she was almost afraid of him. And then to talk to him of
Jeanne! Had Jeanne understood him? How had Jeanne, loving him, been able
to resist the current of higher thought which was in him, which perhaps,
at that time, was latent, but which a Jeanne should have felt? What had
she loved? The lower man? If she, Noemi, spoke with him, she would speak
not only of Jeanne, but of religion also. She would ask him what his
own religion really was. And then what if he should answer something
foolish, something commonplace? For this reason she was almost afraid to
speak to him.

A dash of rain splashed through a broken window upon the pavemen