had exchanged a few kindly words with her, he
understood the state of the case at once, and turned back through the
wood towards the public road without entering his own room. In vain had
he endeavored to banish the hideous word "Wegewarte" from his memory.
It was clear that every child in the convent knew how matters which he
dreaded admitting to himself stood between him and Lydia. Then his
brother had bluntly at once hinted at his well kept secret, and he had
angrily repelled the hand, because perhaps it alone had any right to
lift the veil. With a feeling of unspeakable misery and bitterness he
now stood alone on the road gazing at the river. Had he wished to
represent clearly to himself the feeling which oppressed him, he would
perhaps have thus addressed himself: "Beloved Magister Laurenzano, the
pious Fathers in the College taught thee, that deception is a weapon
with which a wise man can overthrow a hundred fools. But this weapon is
sharp and double-edged, and often wounds him, who carries it concealed
about him, even before he can turn it against others. Hadst thou boldly
appeared in thy veritable character of Roman priest, this fair German
maiden had never gazed on thee with such eyes, and had never stolen thy
heart from thee; or if thou wert, what thou appearest to be, a
Calvinistic clergyman, thou wouldst go tomorrow to her father and
frankly ask for the hand of his daughter, and I know he would not say
thee, nay. Whom hast thou therefore most grievously injured by thy
deception? Thyself, thyself alone. But why not put an end to these
deceits and frauds?" Had the dejected man wished to render himself a
plain answer, thus would he have spoken: "I, Paolo Laurenzano, primus
omnium of the College at Venice, am too good for the people here. I
have not worked day and night and denied myself all the joys of youth,
to now throw up my career on account of a fair child. Every Priest
wears his nimbus under his tonsure, so was I taught and so I learnt. Of
the generalship, of the scarlet hat, of the Tiara was the song ever
dinned into my ears, and now shall I end in this excommunicated land,
in this dull German town my days as tutor of these unlicked whelps?
Why, even the feeling of homesickness for the sunny skies of Italy
prevents me from accepting a belief, which would ever prevent my return
thither."

Something of this unconscious wish roused him to-day from his
inertness, and as a keen east wind blew towards him fr