ut in all his acts? He thought
himself obeying God in defending his own inspiration, but does not the
Church speak in the name of God? Are not the words of her
representatives the words of Jesus forever perpetuated on earth? He
desired to be a man of the Gospel, an apostolic man, but was not the
best way of becoming such to obey the Roman pontiff, the successor of
Peter? With an excess of condescension they had let him go on in his own
way, and the result was the saddest of lessons. But the situation was
not desperate, there was still time to find a remedy; to do that he had
only to throw himself at the feet of the pope, imploring his blessing,
his light, and his counsel.

Reproaches such as these, mingled with professions of love and
admiration on the part of the prelate, could not but profoundly disturb
a sensitive heart like that of Francis. His conscience bore him good
witness, but with the modesty of noble minds he was ready enough to
think that he might have made many mistakes.

Perhaps this is the place to ask what was the secret of the friendship
of these two men, so little known to one another on certain sides. How
could it last without a shadow down to the very death of Francis, when
we always find Ugolini the very soul of the group who are compromising
the Franciscan ideal? No answer to this question is possible. The same
problem presents itself with regard to Brother Elias, and we are no
better able to find a satisfactory answer. Men of loving hearts seldom
have a perfectly clear intelligence. They often become fascinated by
men the most different from themselves, in whose breasts they feel none
of those feminine weaknesses, those strange dreams, that almost sickly
pity for creatures and things, that mysterious thirst for pain which is
at once their own happiness and their torment.

The sojourn at Camaldoli was prolonged until the middle of September,
and it ended to the cardinal's satisfaction. Francis had decided to go
directly to the pope, then at Orvieto, with the request that Ugolini
should be given him as official protector intrusted with the direction
of the Order.

A dream which he had once had recurred to his memory; he had seen a
little black hen which, in spite of her efforts, was not able to spread
her wings over her whole brood. The poor hen was himself, the chickens
were the friars. This dream was a providential indication commanding him
to seek for them a mother under whose wings they coul