by
the window. Beyond the bridge, beyond the rolling hilltops--destitute of
trees--which loomed between intervening houses, she could see the summit
of a lofty tower, shrouded fantastically in azure mists. She heard the
continuous peaceful flow of Bach, and thought of Don Giuseppe with that
feeling of melancholy which we experience when we catch a last glimpse
of some beloved home, turning at every step to look back until at length
some bend in the road hides the last corner, the last window from sight.
There was an element of anxiety in Jeanne's grief. The letter told her
that among the papers of the dead man, a sealed packet had been found
with the following superscription In Don Giuseppe's hand: "To be
consigned by my executor to Monsignor the Bishop." The order had been
executed, and according to a rumour coming straight from the Episcopal
Palace, the packet contained a letter from Don Giuseppe to the Bishop,
and a sealed envelope bearing in another hand the words: "To be opened
after Piero Maironi's death." The Bishop was reported to have said: "Let
us hope that Piero Malroni, of whose abode we are ignorant, may reappear
to let us know of his death."

Jeanne was unaware that previous to the night when he fled from home,
leaving no trace, Piero had entrusted to Don Giuseppe a written account
of a vision of his own life in the future and his death; a vision of
which she was ignorant, and which had come to Piero in the little church
adjoining the asylum where his wife lay dying. What did that sealed
envelope contain? Surely something he himself had written; but what? A
confession, probably of his sins. The conception of such an action, the
manner in which it had been carried out, would be in harmony with his
innate mysticism, with the predominance in him of imagination over
reason, with his intellectual physiognomy. Three years had passed since
the day at Vena di Fonte Alta, when Jeanne in despair had sworn to
herself to love Piero no longer, feeling that henceforward she could
love nothing else in the world. Nevertheless she always loved him;
still, as in the past, she judged him with her intellect independent
of her heart, an independence dear to her pride. She judged him with
severity in all his actions, all his attitudes, from the moment when he
had conquered her by sheer strength in the monastery of Praglia to the
moment when their lips had met near the basin of the Acqua Barbarena.
He had shown himself incapable