clouds rang out the long solemn melancholy song of the innumerable
bells. Noemi, who had intended to have her own way, was silent, her
heart full of despondency. It was as if those melancholy voices from the
darkening sky were proclaiming her friend's destiny; a destiny of love
and suffering, which must be accomplished.

CHAPTER II. DON CLEMENTE

The light was fading in Giovanni Selva's study, and on the little table
covered with books and papers. Giovanni rose and opened the west window.
The horizon was on fire behind Subiaco, along the oblique line of the
Sabine hills, which stretch from Rocca di Canterano and Rocca di Mezzo
to Rocca San Stefano. Subiaco, that pointed pile of houses large and
small which culminates in the Rocca del Cardinale, was veiled in shadow;
not a branch stirred on the olives clustered behind the small, red villa
with green blinds, rising on the summit of the circular cliff, round
whose base winds the public road; not a branch stirred on the great oak
beside it, overhanging the little ancient oratory of Santa Maria della
Febbre. The air, laden with the odours of wild herbs and recent rain,
came fresh from Monte Calvo. It was a quarter past seven. In the
shell-shaped tract watered by the Anio the bells were ringing; first the
big bell of Sant' Andrea, then the querulous bells of Santa Maria della
Valle; high up on the right, from the little white church near the great
wood, the bells of the Capuchins, and others in the far-away distance. A
woman's voice, submissive and sweet, the voice of five and twenty,
came from the half-open, door behind Giovanni, saying almost timidly In
French:

"May I come in?"

Giovanni, smiling, turned half round, and stretching out his arm,
encircled the young woman pressing her to his side without answering.

She felt she must not speak; that her husband's soul was following the
dying night, and the mystic song of the bells. She rested her head on
his shoulder, and only after a moment of religious silence did she ask
softly;

"Shall we say our prayer?"

A pressure of the arm encircling her was the answer. Neither her lips
nor his moved. Only the eyes of both dilated, straining towards the
Infinite, and assumed that look of reverence and sadness which mirrors
the thoughts that remain unspoken, the uncertain future, the dark
portals which lead to God. The bells became silent, and Signora Selva,
fixing her blue eyes on her husband's eager gaze, offered him h