I. At two o’clock on the following day Jeanne, with Maria and Noemi, was waiting at Casa Selva for news from Villa Mayda, her thoughts dwelling, from time to time, on the persistent silence at the Grand HÔtel. Giovanni had gone to Villa Mayda before seven o’clock. He had returned at nine. He had not been able to see Benedetto. Professor Mayda would not allow him or any one else to enter. He knew that the sick man had received the Sacraments, but more as an act of devotion than because he was in immediate danger. However, in the night a trace of fever had reappeared. It was hoped the attack might be conquered or checked. Perhaps, in making this report to Jeanne, Giovanni had slightly coloured it with optimism. Benedetto was in the Professor’s own room. Giovanni said it would not be possible to describe how full of exquisite, womanly tenderness were the attentions lavished upon him by this terrible Mayda, who was believed by many to be harsh and proud. Giovanni had gone back again after lunch about mid-day. From Carlino nothing had come, neither a written word, nor a message. Notwithstanding her other great sorrow, Jeanne could not help thinking of him also. What if his grief, his anger, had really made him ill? Her friends reassured her. Either the maid or the footman would have come to tell her. She had little confidence in the intelligence of these servants. What was to be done? Jeanne was about to beg that some one might be sent to inquire, when, at a quarter-past two, hurried steps were heard in the hall, and Giovanni entered, in his great-coat, his hat in his hand. Jeanne glanced at his face, and understood that the moment was come. She rose, as white as death. Silently and immediately Maria and Noemi rose also, Maria watching Jeanne, while Noemi gazed at her brother-in-law, who, confronted by Jeanne’s ghostly face, could find no words. Five or six terrible seconds passed, but not more. Then Maria said, in a hushed voice:

“Are we to go?”

Her husband answered:

“We had better go.”

Nothing more was said.

The three ladies went to put on their cloaks and hats, Jeanne into one room, Maria and Noemi into another. Giovanni followed his wife and Noemi. Well? The fever had greatly increased, and the Professor no longer hoped. Noemi, hearing this, put on her hat quickly, and went to the other room, where Jeanne was dressing. She turned, saw that Noemi was coming to kiss her, and checked her, with a gesture placing her finger on her lips. Noemi understood. It was a time for fortitude; Jeanne would have neither kisses, nor words, nor tears. She did not ask for particulars, asked no questions. They all met presently, and Maria told her husband, in a low tone, to send for two closed cabs, for the sky had become overcast, and one of the thunderstorms of the Roman winter was threatening. No cabs would be necessary, for Giovanni had come in the landau, belonging to Casa Mayda. They entered the landau, which was closed. Then Jeanne noticed that her companions had on dark dresses, while she was wearing a gray dress, too light and too fashionable. She started slightly, and the others looked at her questioningly. She hesitated a moment, but reflected that she had neither the time nor the means to make a change, and answered:

“It is nothing.”

The carriage moved on. No one spoke again.

Upon turning into Via del Pianto the carriage was stopped by an obstruction. It had grown darker still and was thundering. The horses were frightened, and Maria looked anxiously out of the window. Jeanne, seated opposite Giovanni, asked him in a low tone if he had telegraphed to Don Clemente. Giovanni answered that Don Clemente had been at Villa Mayda ever since half-past ten. The carriage started forward. When they reached Piazza Montanara it began to rain. The horses were trotting rapidly. When at last the coachman brought them down to a walk Maria looked at her husband—Is not this the Aventine? We must be near. This was said with the eyes, not with the lips. Jeanne had never passed that way, but she also felt that they would soon reach their destination. Holding herself very straight, she stared at the wall, which passed before her eyes. She stared at it attentively, as if striving to count the chinks between the stones. The horses broke into a trot. Beyond Sant’ Anselmo the road leads downwards. People standing on the right and on the left looked into the carriage. Involuntarily Giovanni Selva murmured:

“Here we are.”

Then Jeanne started violently, and covered her face with her hands. Maria, who sat next to her, put her arm round her neck, and, bending close to her, whispered:

“Courage!”

But Jeanne drew back, avoiding her as much as possible, while Noemi shook her head, signing to her sister not to insist. Maria sighed, and the carriage, turning to the left, between two dense lines of people, passed through a gateway. The wheels grated on the gravel and then stopped. A servant came to the door. The Professor desired them to come into the villa. Not until then did Giovanni Selva tell his companions that Benedetto was no longer in the villa, that he had begged to be carried to his little old room in the gardener’s house. The carriage moved forward a few yards, and the four friends alighted before a flight of white marble steps, between two groups of palms. It was still raining, but not heavily, and no one thought about it, neither the populace crowding round the gate, nor a group of people who were watching the new arrivals, from the avenue bordered by orange trees, which ran parallel with the inclosing wall down to the gardener’s little house. Some one left the group. It was di LeynÌ, who mounted the marble steps behind Selva, and, stopping him under the arch of the Pompeian vestibule, spoke to him in a low tone, without so much as a glance at the magnificent scene which was spread out before them between the two groups of palms: the river of begonias, tumbling down the slope of the Aventine, between two banks of musae; the black and stormy sky, striped with white down above the battlements of Porta San Paolo, above the pyramid of Caio Cestio, and above the little grove of cypress which springs from the heart of Shelley.

Selva entered the vestibule, and reappeared a moment later with his wife. They went down the steps with di LeynÌ, and turned in the direction of the people, who seemed to be expecting them in the avenue of orange-trees. At that moment a volley of angry voices rang out at the gate. The road was full of people. They had been waiting for hours, ever since the rumour spread in the Testaccio quarter that the Saint of Jenne had returned to Villa Mayda, but was ill. So far they had asked only for news. Now they demanded that a deputation be allowed to enter, and to see him. The servants refused to take the message, and an exchange of angry words was the result, which, however, suddenly stopped as the tall, dark figure of Professor Mayda appeared, coming from the orange-grove. The men took off their hats. He ordered the gate to be opened, told the people that all should see Benedetto later, but not now. In the meantime they might come into the garden. “Of course, poor things!”

And the people entered, slowly, respectfully, some gathering around the Professor and asking, with tears in their eyes:

“Is it true, Signor Professore? Is it true he is dying? Tell us!”

And behind them others pressed, anxiously awaiting the answer. The answer was only:

“Alas! What can I say to you?”

But the sad, manly face said more than the words and the crowd moved away mournfully, along the green slopes, which had taken on a livid hue under the black sky streaked with white and formed a mystic symbol of death, of the dark passage from terrestrial shadows to the upper regions of infinite brightness.

II.

Benedetto loved Professor Mayda. When, at the Senator’s house, he heard that the Professor had decided to carry him away to Villa Mayda, he showed great pleasure, He loved this man, who was perhaps, as yet, incapable of faith, but was profoundly convinced that there are enigmas which science cannot solve; who was generous, haughty with the great, but gentle with the humble. He loved the garden also, the trees, the flowers, and the grass, whose friend and servant he had been, as he had been the friend and servant of the Professor. Everything in this garden was full of sweet, innocent souls, in whose company he had adored God in certain moments of spiritual ecstasy, placing his lips on the tiny beings, on a flower, on a leaf, on a stem, in a breath of green coolness. He was happy in the thought of dying amidst them. Sometimes, under one of those pine-trees, its canopy, full of wind and of sound, turned towards the Coelian Hill, he had thought of the last scene in his vision, and had imagined himself stretched there on the grass, in the Benedictine habit, pale and calm, and surrounded by mournful faces, while the pine-tree above him sang the mysterious song of Heaven. Each time he had stifled in his heart this sense of pleasure, which was not unmixed with selfish, human vanity, and not entirely controlled and suppressed in submission to the Divine Will. But he had not been able to tear out its roots. Therefore he stretched out his arms gratefully to the Professor. But immediately he was assailed by scruples. His intelligence and his Christian sentiment were in a state of contradiction. He was aware that he was not liked by the lady who had married the Professor’s son, a naval officer, now in the East; he saw that his return to Villa Mayda would be displeasing to her, and a source of discord between her father-in-law and herself. But how could he say so now, without implying a want of justice and of charity in a person whom, from the very fact that she was his enemy, he was especially bound to love? He entreated the Professor to let him go to Sant’ Onofrio. The change was so sudden that it surprised Mayda. He thought a moment, understood, and then said, knitting his brows:

“Do you wish me never to forgive some one for something?”

Benedetto offered no further opposition. Only when that night the moment came to go down to the carriage, and he realised that he could not stand alone, he said to the Professor, smiling, and placing his hand on his friend’s arm:

“You know that, if I continue thus, you will have a dead man in your house to-morrow or the day after?”

The Professor replied that he would not lie to him, that this was possible, but not certain.

“You know,” Benedetto continued, no longer smiling, “that first you will have—”

“I understand what you mean,” the Professor interrupted him. “Come in peace, dear friend. I am not a believer, as you are, but I wish I were; and I will throw my doors open respectfully to all whom you may wish me to see. Meanwhile shall we not take this with us?”

From the wall he took the Crucifix which Benedetto had brought with him, and then lifted the sick man in his powerful arms.

The journey was accomplished without accident. Stretched across the landau, upon a bank of cushions, Benedetto, who seemed to have shrunk in stature, answered the Professor’s frequent questions more often with a smile than with his feeble voice. The Professor kept his finger continually on Benedetto’s pulse, and from time to time gave him a cordial. At the entrance to the villa, either from emotion or from fatigue, the sick man’s poor, fleshless face blanched, and was covered with sweat, and he closed his great, shining eyes. Mayda carried him to his own bed, and thus it happened that when Benedetto regained consciousness he was quite bewildered.

In his state of extreme weakness he did not regain consciousness without passing through shadows of vain imaginings. He thought he was dead, and lying on the ever-dark face of the moon, in the centre of a funnel, formed by the solar rays, which streaked away to the infinite; and at the dark bottom of this funnel he saw the flaming eyes of the stars. Little by little be realised he was on an enormous bed which stood in darkness, but was surrounded by a pale light, so dim that the walls were hardly visible. Great shadows were moving about him. Opposite him was a blue, open space, all strewn with specks of light. His heart beat faster. Were they not, indeed, stars? He was obliged to remind himself of the feeling of the bed, and that he was alive, in order to convince himself that they were stars, but that he was not lying on the moon. Where was he, then? He gave himself up to a sense of sweetness which was coming over him, the sweetness of hardly feeling his body any longer, but of feeling God in his soul, so near, so tender, so warm. He was where God wished him to be.

A hand was laid on his forehead, an electric light dazzled his eyes, and an affectionate, strong voice said:

“Well, how do you feel?”

He recognised Mayda. Then he asked him where he was, why he was not in his little old room? Before the Professor could answer, Benedetto was assailed by a painful doubt. The Crucifix? The dear Crucifix? Had it been left at the Senator’s house? The Crucifix was standing on the table by his side. The Professor showed it to him.

“Do you not remember,” he said, using the affectionate “thou”, “that we brought it with us?”

Benedetto looked at him, pleased at the new word of affection, and stretched out his hand in search of Mayda’s; the Professor took it tenderly between his own.

At the same time he felt humiliated by his own forgetfulness. Was he about to lose his reason? All the previous day he had thought about the words he should speak to his friends, and to the person who had made her invisible presence so keenly felt. But if he lost his reason? The Professor began to saturate him with quinine. At first Benedetto accepted these painful injections and bitter doses willingly, in his desire to grow a little stronger, and thus to ward off the darkening of his spirit, and also because he wished to suffer. Oh yes! to suffer, to suffer! During the preceding days he had suffered greatly, not from any local pain, not from any acute pain, but his was an inexpressible suffering, which extended from the roots of his hair to the soles of his feet. It had been a beatitude for his soul to be able, in such moments, to associate his own will with the Divine Will, to accept from this Love all the pain which he was destined to suffer, without revealing to him the mysterious reason, a reason hidden in the designs of the Universe, certainly a reason bringing good; bringing good not only to him who suffered, but universal good; a good radiating from his poor body, and without known limits, like the movement of a vibrating atom of the world. Oh! to suffer great things, like Christ, humbly, to continue the redemption, as a sinner may, making amends by his own pain for the ills of others. There on that lonely path leading to the Sacro Speco, In the roaring of the Anio, among the everlasting hills, Don Clemente had spoken thus to him.

And now that mortal suffering was past. When the quinine began to ring in his head, he felt discouraged. These remedies were stupefying him. He called the Professor; a sister answered him. He begged that a priest might be sent for from Bocca della VeritÀ.

The Professor, who had gone to rest for an hour, came to reassure him, and judged it best to tell him what he had before concealed. Don Clemente had telegraphed to Selva that he would reach Rome the next morning at ten o’clock. This was a great joy to Benedetto.

“But will it not be too late?” he said. “Will it not be too late?”

No, it would not be too late. At present he was not in immediate danger. It would be a question of life and death if the fever should return, but even in the worst event many hours would elapse. Mayda feared he had spoken too plainly, and whispered to him.

“But you will recover.”

He left the room. Benedetto, thinking of Don Clemente, passed from the quiet of his contentment into a light sleep, into dreams, whither the spirits of evil descended, and conjured up for him a deceitful vision, suggested by the Professor’s last words. He saw himself confronted by a colossal marble wall, crowned with rich balustrades, which shone white in the moonlight. Up there, behind the balustrades, a dense forest swayed in the wind. Six flights of stairs, these also flanked by balustrades, slanted down, across the face of the great wall, three on the left, and three on the right, and terminated upon six landings, jutting out from the wall. The upper balustrades were divided by small pilasters, supporting urns. And now, between the urns, six beautiful maidens appeared; they seemed to be dancing and all came forward at the same time, with the same graceful motion of the head. They were all dressed alike, in pale blue robes, which left their shoulders bare. With the same harmonious movement of their bare arms, bending their bodies forward, they offered him from their elevation, six shining silver goblets. Then, at the same moment, all withdrew from the balustrade, to reappear again simultaneously, on the six flights of stairs, down which they came with uniform swiftness, and reaching the landings they again offered him the six shining goblets, bending their bodies forward gracefully, and gazing at him with a strange gravity. No word fell from their lips, but nevertheless he knew that the six maidens were offering him, in those six silver goblets, an elixir of life, of health, of pleasure.

He felt a distressing, mortal fear of them; still he could not remove his glance from the shining goblets, from the lovely, grave faces bending over them. He strove to close his eyes, and could not; strove to cry out to God, and could not. At last the six dancing-girls inclined the goblets towards him, and six flowing ribbons of liquor streamed through the air. “Just as I did, at Praglia!” the sleeper thought, confusing persons in his clouded, mind. Then everything disappeared, and he saw Jeanne before him. Holding herself erect, wrapped in her green cloak lined with fur, her face shadowed by the great black hat, she gazed at him as she had done at Praglia, at the moment of their first meeting. But this time the sleeper perceived a resemblance between the gravity of that look and the gravity of the dancing-girls’ faces. In his spirit he read the silent word of the seven souls: Unhappy man, you now recognise your grievous error; you now know that God is not! The gravity of the glances was only the sadness of pity. The goblets of life, of health, of pleasure, were offered him discreetly, and without joy, as to one in mourning, who has lost all he held dearest; offered as the only poor comfort left him. Thus Jeanne offered her love. And the sleeper was filled with what seemed to him fresh evidence that God is not! It was, indeed, a real physical sensation, a chill creeping over all his limbs, moving slowly to the heart. He began to tremble violently, and awoke. Mayda was bending over him, the thermometer in his hand. Benedetto murmured, with straining eyes: “Father!—Father!—Father!” The sister suggested, “Our Father who art in Heaven,” and would have gone on in her unfortunately colourless voice, had not the Professor checked her sharply. He applied the thermometer to Benedetto, who hardly noticed what was being done. He was absorbed in the effort to detach from his innermost self the images of those tempting figures, and of their horrible words; in the effort to cast himself, soul and conscience, upon the Father’s breast, to cling to Him with his whole being, to lose himself in the Father. Slowly the images began to give way, their assaults becoming each time more brief, less violent. His face was so transfigured in this mystic tension of the soul, that Mayda, watching him, was as one turned to stone, and forgot to look at his watch, until the features, which had been contracted in that anxious prayer, finally began to relax into a peaceful composure. Then he remembered, and removed the thermometer. The sister, standing behind him, held up the electric lamp, trying to see also. He could not at first distinguish the points, and during those few seconds of fixed attention neither of them noticed that the invalid had turned upon his side, and was looking at the Professor. At last Mayda gave the instrument a shake. How many points had it marked? The sister did not dare to inquire, and the Professor’s face was impenetrable. Without his noticing the motion, the sick man stretched out his hand and touched him gently on the arm, Mayda turned towards him, and read in his smiling eyes the question, “Well?” He did not speak, but answered with that undulating movement of open hands which meant neither good, nor bad. Then he sat down beside the bed, still silent, impenetrable, looking at Benedetto, who had sunk upon his back once more, and no longer looked at him, but was gazing at the specks of light in the immense expanse of blue.

“Professor,” he said, “what time is it?”

“Three o’clock.”

“At five you must send for the priest from Bocca della VeritÀ.”

“Very well.”

“Will it be too late?”

This last question the Professor answered with a loud and ringing “No.” After a moment of silence he added, in a lower tone, another “no” as if in answer to his own thoughts. The thermometer had gone up to thirty-seven point five; more than one degree since the evening before. Should the fever increase, should there be danger of delirium, he would send at once, to Bocca della VeritÀ, even before five o’clock. It did not seem probable the fever would increase rapidly, although that thirty-seven point five had a black look.

He asked the invalid if the electric light troubled him. Benedetto replied that materially it did not trouble him, but that spiritually it did, because it prevented his seeing the sky, the starry night. “Illuminatio mea,” said he, softly.

The Professor did not understand, and made him repeat the words. Then he asked him what his light was, and the feeble voice murmured,

“Nox.”

Mayda was not familiar with the Psalms, with the profound word of that ancient Hebrew, to whom our little sun seemed dark, the sun which conceals the higher world. He understood, without understanding. He remained reverently silent.

Benedetto sought the stars with his eyes. His own conscience was passing in those stars, which gazed upon him so austerely, knowing he was about to review—before the threatening hour of death—the whole moral history of his life, to tell it in words which would be a first judgment, pronounced in the name of the God of Justice, impelled by the God of Love; in words that would not be lost, because no movement is lost; which would appear—who knows how, who knows where, who knows when?—to the glory of Christ, as the supreme testimony of a spirit to moral Truth, directed against itself. Thus the silent stars spoke to him, animated by his own thoughts. And his life was pictured in his mind from beginning to end, the external, salient outline less strongly marked than the inner moral substance. He saw all the first part of it dominated by a religious conception in which egotism prevailed, and so ordered as to make the love of God and the love of man converge into an individual well-being, the aim being personal perfection, and reward. He was grieved that he had thus obeyed in words only the law which places the love of God before the love of self; and it was a gentle grief, not because it was easy to find excuses for this error, to impute it to teachers, but because it was sweet to feel his own minuteness in the wave of grace which enveloped him. And he felt his own minuteness in that past, spoiled by imperfect beliefs, influenced by the uprising of the senses, in the central depression of his life, which had been one vast tissue of sensuality, of weakness, of contradictions, of lies. He felt his own minuteness in his life after his conversion, the impulse and work of an inner Will, which had prevailed against his own will, and during this last period it seemed to him, he himself had weighted the scales against the good impulse. He longed to drop off this “self” which held him back like a heavy garment. He saw that the affection for the Vision was part of this burdensome “self.” He aspired to Divine Truth in all its mystery, whatever it might be, and gave himself to Divine Truth with such violence of desire that the spasm of it nearly rent him asunder. And the stars shone forth upon him such a lively sense of the immeasurable vastness of Divine Truth as compared with his own and his friends’ religious conceptions, and at the same time such a firm faith that he was travelling towards that vastness, that he suddenly raised his head from the pillow exclaiming:

“Ah!”

The sister was dozing, not so the Professor.

“What is it?” said he. “Do you see something?”

Benedetto did not reply immediately. The Professor raised the lamp, and bent over him. Then Benedetto turned his face and looked at Mayda with an expression of intense desire, and after gazing at him a long time, sighed:

“Ah, Professor! Indeed you must come where I am going!”

“But do you know where you are going?” Mayda said.

“I know,” Benedetto replied, “that I am parting with all that is corruptible, all that is burdensome.”

He then inquired if some one had gone to the parish church. Not yet: only a quarter of an hour had passed. He apologised. It had seemed a century to him. He entreated the Professor to retire, to take some rest, and once more he fell to watching the celestial lights. Then he closed his eyes, longing for Jesus, for two human arms which should lift him up, should encircle him; longed for a human breast, incarnate of the Divine, in which to hide his head, as he entered the vast mystery.

At six o’clock he received the Sacraments. The thermometer had risen a few points. At nine Benedetto asked for Giovanni Selva, He learned that he had been there, and had gone away again, but that di LeynÌ was waiting. He insisted upon seeing him, notwithstanding the Professor’s opposition. He told him he wished to greet at least some of his friends of the Catacombs. Di LeynÌ knew of this desire, for Selva had mentioned it to him. He could announce to Benedetto that they were to meet at Villa Mayda about one o’clock. The nursing sister who had come shortly before to relieve her companion indiscreetly remarked that many of the common people were asking for news. Benedetto said nothing at the moment, but when di LeynÌ was gone he sent for the Professor. The Professor was not in, he had been obliged to go to the University. The sister’s words had made Benedetto form a definite resolution, which he had been thinking about ever since the first light of day had shown him the walls of the room, decorated with mythological subjects, in the style of the House of Livia. He longed with an intense longing for his little old room. There he would see his friends, the common people, who wished to visit him, and that other person, if she came. He begged to speak with the gardener, with the servants, and he told them of his wish. When they refused to move him, he besought them for the love of God to do so, and he so worked upon their feelings that they finally consented, at the risk of being dismissed from service. “These are indeed the ideas of a Saint!” thought the sister. Benedetto made the journey in the arms of the gardener and of one of the men-servants; he was wrapped in blankets, and held the Crucifix in his hands. His delight at once more finding himself in his poor little room was so great that all thought he was improving. But still the thermometer rose.

After one o’clock the thermometer registered thirty-nine. Don Clemente had arrived at half-past ten.

III.

The Selvas and di Leyni joined the group of people who were waiting for them in the avenue of orange-trees. They were all laymen save one, a young priest from the Abruzzo. He was short, with skin of an olive hue, and his black eyes were deep, and fiery. The student Elia Viterbo was also there. He was a Christian now, and had been baptized by the young priest. There was the fair-haired Lombard youth, the master’s favourite. There was a very handsome young workman, with the face of an apostle, who was also from the Abruzzo, and was a friend of the priest’s. There was that same Andrea Minucci, who had been at the religious meeting at Subiaco. There were, also, a naval officer, who had a post in the Naval Department, a painter, and some others. All of them were men who would have sacrificed any earthly affection to their affection for Benedetto. Not one of them had believed any of the slanderous reports which had been spread concerning him. They had defended him with fierce indignation, against their more diffident companions. It may be said of them, one day, that they were put to the proof by Providence, and then appointed to carry on the master’s work, Di LeynÌ belonged to their ranks. In Giovanni Selva they admired and respected the man admired and respected by their master, but they stood in awe of him. They had now been waiting some time in the avenue of orange-trees, expecting him, for they were ready to go to the master’s room, as soon as Signor Giovanni should arrive. The eyes of many of them were full of tears. As the Selvas approached, all took off their hats in silence. Giovanni started towards the small house, followed by the whole group. His wife came last. One of the young men motioned to her to pass on in front, but she would not, and he did not insist. It was neither the place nor the hour for ceremony. Maria felt that these men were called before her, to continue Benedetto’s work, after his death. They walked in silence, and with bare heads, although it was raining; Selva as the others. Mayda received them on the threshold. On his return from the University he had heard the news of Benedetto’s removal to the small house, with an outburst of wrath. He would not admit it to the sister, to the gardener, or to the servants, but when he looked at the list of temperatures, taken every half-hour, he was bound to admit, in his heart that this act of folly had had no sensible effect upon the course of the fever. Upon being asked if they should stay in the room only a short time, and endeavour to have the sick man speak as little as possible, he answered:

“Do whatever he wishes. It is the feast of a condemned man!”

He went up the wooden stairs before them.

“Your friends,” he said, entering the room. He allowed them all to come in, and then closed the door. His hands clasped behind him, he leaned against the doorpost, watching Benedetto, and the tall, dark figure never moved from that spot during all the time that Benedetto kept his followers with him.

Benedetto’s face was flushed, his eyes glittered, and his breathing was quick. He greeted his friends with a “Thank you!” which quivered with happy and intense excitement, and which made some one sob. Then he lifted his hand as if begging them to be quiet. After receiving the Viaticum, his one prayer had been to be able to speak with his favourite disciples, and that God would give him words of truth, with the strength to pronounce them. Now he felt that the Spirit filled his breast.

“Come near to me,” he said.

The fair-haired youth, his face stained with silent tears, passed before the others, and knelt beside the bed. The master placed his hand on the youth’s head, and continued:

“Remain united.”

The painful unspoken words wrung their hearts still more cruelly, but each one felt that Benedetto was about to give forth a last flicker of instruction, of counsel, and they all checked their sobs. Benedetto’s voice sounded; amidst the deepest silence:

“Pray without ceasing, and teach others to pray without ceasing. This is the fundamental principle. When a man really loves a human being, or an idea of his own mind, his secret thoughts are ever clinging to his love, while he is attending to the many various occupations of his life, be it the life of a servant, or the life of a king; and this does not prevent his attending carefully to his work, for he has no need to speak many words to his love. Men who are of the world may carry thus in their hearts some human being, some ideal of truth, or of beauty. Do you always carry in your breasts the Father whom you have not seen, but whom you have felt as a Spirit of love, breathing within you; a Spirit which filled you with the sweetest desire to live for Him. If you will do this your labours will be all alive with the spirit of Truth.”

He rested a moment, and looked with a smile, at Don Clemente, seated beside the bed.

“Your words, spoken at dear Santa Scolastica,” he said, and continued: “Be pure in your lives, for otherwise you will dishonour Christ before the world. Be pure in your thoughts, for otherwise you will dishonour Christ before the spirits of good, and the spirits of evil, which strive together in the souls of all living beings.”

When he had spoken these words he encircled the head of the fair-haired youth with his arm, almost as if to defend him from evil, and prayed, in his soul, for him who was, perhaps, his greatest hope. Then he resumed:

“Be holy. Seek neither riches nor honours. Put your superfluous possessions—measured by the inner voice of the Spirit—into a common fund for your works of truth and of charity. Give friendly help to all the human suffering you may encounter; be meek with those who offend you, who deride you, and they will be many, even within the Church herself; be dauntless in the presence of evil; lend yourselves to the necessities of one another, for if you do not live thus you cannot serve the Spirit of Truth. Live thus, that the world may recognise the Truth by your fruits, that your brothers may recognise by your fruits that you belong to Christ.”

Don Clemente, distressed by his laboured breathing, bent over him, and, in a low voice, begged him to rest. Benedetto took his hand, and pressed it, and was silent for a few seconds. Then raising his great shining eyes to Don Clemente’s face, he said, “Hora ruit.”

And he resumed:

“Let each one perform his religious duties as the Church prescribes, according to strict justice and with perfect obedience. Do not give your union a name, or speak collectively, or draw up rules, beyond those I have dictated! Love one another, love is enough. Communicate with one another. Many are doing the same work in the Church for which you are preparing yourselves, through the moral preparations I have prescribed for you; I mean the work of purifying the faith, and imbuing life with the purified faith. Honour them and learn from them, but do not allow them to become members of your union unless they come to you of their own free will, and pour their superfluity into the common fund. This shall be the sign that they are sent unto you by God.”

Here Benedetto paused, and gently begged Giovanni Selva to come nearer.

“I wish to see you,” he said. “What I have said and, above all, what I am going to say, was born of you.”

He stretched out his hand, and taking Don Clemente’s hand, he added:

“The Father knows it. Each should feel God’s presence within himself, but each should feel it also in the other, and I feel it so strongly in you. Yes,” he continued, turning to Don Clemente, as if appealing to his authority, “this is the true foundation of human fraternity, and therefore those who love their fellow men and believe they are cold toward God are nearer the Kingdom than many who imagine they love God, but who do not love their fellow-men.”

The young priest who was standing, almost timidly, behind Selva, exclaimed, “Oh! yes, yes!” Selva bowed his head with a sigh. The tall, dark figure leaning against the doorpost did not move, but the gaze fixed on Benedetto became inexpressibly intense, tender and sad.

Don Clemente again bent over the invalid, entreating him to pause a moment, and the sister also begged him to rest. Neither Mayda nor any of the disciples spoke. Benedetto drank a little water, thanked the sister, and began to speak once more:

“Purify the faith for grown men, who cannot thrive on the food of infants. This part of your work is for those who are outside the Church, whether they belong to her by name or not—for those with whom you will be constantly mingling. Work to glorify the idea of God, worshipping above all things, and teaching that there is no truth which is opposed to God or to His laws. But be equally cautious that the infants do not approach their lips to the food for grown men. Be not offended by an impure faith, an imperfect faith, when the life is pure and the conscience upright; for in comparison with the infinite depths of God, there is little difference between your faith and the faith of a simple, humble woman, and if the woman’s conscience be upright, and her life pure, you will not pass before her in the Kingdom of Heaven. Never publish writings concerning difficult religious questions, for sale, but rather distribute them with prudence, and never put your name to them.

“Labour that the purified faith may penetrate into life. This labour is for those who are in the Church,—and for those who wish to be in the Church,—and their name is legion, they are infinite in number; for those who really believe in the dogmas, and would gladly believe in more dogmas; I who really believe in the miracles, and are glad to believe in more miracles, but who do not really believe in the Beatitudes, who say to Christ, ‘Lord, Lord!’ but who think it would be too hard to do all. His will, and who have not even zeal enough to search for Him in the Holy Book; who do not know that religion is, above all things, action and life. Teach such as these who pray abundantly, often idolatrously, to practise, besides the prayers which are prescribed, the mystic prayer as well, in which is the purest faith, the most perfect hope, the most perfect charity, which in itself purifies the soul and purifies life. Do I tell you to take, publicly, the place of the pastors? No; let each one work in his own family, each one among his own friends, and those who can, with the pen. Thus you will till the soil from which the pastors arise. My sons, I do not promise you that you will renew the world. You will labour in the night-time, without visible gain, like Peter and his companions on the Sea of Galilee. But, at last, Christ will come, and then your gain shall be great.”

He was silent, praying for his disciples, sighing in the prescience of much suffering to come to them from many enemies of many kinds. Then he pronounced the last words:

“Later, give me your prayers; now, your kiss.”

The disciples, with one voice, begged him to bless them. He sought to avoid this, saying he did not feel himself worthy.

“I am only the poor blind man, whose eyes Christ has opened with clay.”

Don Clemente did not appear to have heard. He knelt down saying, “Bless me, also!”

With humble obedience Benedetto laid his hand on Don Clemente’s head, said the words of the ritual benediction, and kissed him. He did the same with all the others, one by one. Each one seemed to feel the breath of the Spirit flowing into him from that hand. When the priest’s turn came, he murmured:

“Master, and to us?”

The dying man composed himself and replied: “Be poor, live in poverty. Be perfect. Take no pleasure in titles nor in proud vestments, neither in personal authority nor in collective authority. Love those who hate you; avoid factions; make peace in God’s name; accept no civil office; do not tyrannise over souls, nor seek to control them too much; do not train priests artificially; pray that you may be many, but do not fear to be few; do not think you need much human knowledge,—you need only much respect for reason and much faith in the universal and inseparable Truth.”

The last to come forward was Maria Selva. She knelt at a short distance from the bed. The sick man smiled at her, and motioned to her to rise.

“I have already blessed you in your husband,” said he, “I cannot distinguish you. You are a part of his soul. You are his courage. Let this courage increase in the painful hours which await him. And, together, may you be the poetry of Christian love, until the end. Stay here a little while, both of you.”

As the disciples passed out, the room grew darker. The rumbling of thunder was heard, and the sister went to close the window. First, however, she glanced into the garden, and exclaimed, “Poor things!” Benedetto heard, and wished to know what she meant. He was told that the garden was full of people who had come to see him, and that a heavy shower was threatening. He begged the Selvas to wait, and the Professor to allow the people to enter.

A heavy trampling sounded, on the narrow wooden stairs. The door was thrown open, and several persons entered on tiptoe. In a moment the room was full. A crowd of bare heads peered in at the door. No one spoke; all were gazing at Benedetto, and they were reverent and respectful. Benedetto greeted them with both hands, with widespread arms.

“I thank you,” he said. “Pray, as I have surely taught some of you to do. And may God be with you always!”

A big, stout man answered, his face crimson:

“We will pray, but you are not going to die. Don’t believe that. But please give us your blessing.”

“Yes, give us your blessing, give us your blessing!” was repeated by many voices.

Meanwhile, from the narrow stairway the impatient voices could be heard of those who wished to come up, and could not. Benedetto said something in an undertone to Don Clemente. Don Clemente ordered those present to file past the bed and then leave the room, that the others might do the same.

One by one they all passed. They were poor people from the Testaccio—workmen, clerks from shops, women who sold fruit, pedlars and beggars. From time to time Benedetto said a word of dismissal, in a tired voice: “Addio.”—“Farewell!”—“We shall meet in Paradise.”—Some in passing silently bent the knee, others touched the bed and then made the sign of the cross. Some begged him to pray for them or for their dear ones, while others called down blessings upon him. One asked to be forgiven because he had believed the slanderers, and at that a series of “Forgive me also, me also!” sounded. The hunchback from Via della Marmorata was there, and began telling him amidst her tears that the old priest had confessed; and would have liked to tell him all her gratitude, had not those behind her pushed her away, and taken her from the sight of him for ever. Many passed thus before him for the last time, and, weeping, went from him, forever,—many he had comforted, in body and in mind. He recognised some, and greeted them with a gesture. On they passed, often turning their tearful faces back towards him. The stream that passed down brushed against the stream that passed up the narrow stairs, and gave them their impressions of the sorrowful room in advance:—“Ah! what a face.”—“Ah! what a voice!”—“Good God! he is dying!”—“He is one of God’s angels!”—“You will see!”—“He has Paradise in his eyes!” And not a few were murmuring curses against the wretches who had slandered him; not a few spoke, with a shudder, of poison, or murder. Dio!—He had been taken away by the police, and had returned in this state. A mournful, continuous rumbling of thunder, and the loud steady splash of the rain, drowned both the sorrowful and the angry whisperings. When the stream of people had ceased to flow out, Mayda had the window opened, for the air had become vitiated. Benedetto asked them to raise his head a little. He wanted to see the great pine-tree, with its top bending towards the Coelian Hill. The dark green crown of the pine cleft the stormy sky. He gazed at it a long time. When his head was resting on the pillow once more, he motioned to Dom Clemente to bend down to him, and whispered almost into his ear:

“Do you know, when they brought me here from the villa I longed to be laid under the pine-tree, which we see from the window, so that I might die there. But I thought at once that this was something too strongly desired, and that it was not good. And besides,” he added, smiling, “after all the habit would have been missing.”

A slight movement of Don Clemente’s lips revealed to him that he had brought the habit with him from Subiaco. Benedetto experienced a great wave of intense inward emotion. He clasped his hands, and remained silent as long as the inward struggle was going on, the struggle between the desire that the vision might be fulfilled, and the consciousness that its fulfilment could not come about naturally. He concentrated his mind in an act of abnegation to the Divine Will.

“The Lord wishes me to die here,” he said. “But still he permits me, at least, to have the habit on my bed, before I die.” Don Clemente bent over him, and kissed his forehead.

Meanwhile the Selvas were waiting a little way off. Benedetto called them to him, and told them that he would receive Signora Dessalle in half an hour, but he begged her not to come alone. She might come with them. Mayda went out with the Selvas. The sister was dozing. Then Benedetto asked Don Clemente to go to the Pontiff, afterwards, and to tell him that the end of the vision had not been fulfilled, that thus all that had seemed miraculous in his life had vanished and that before his death he had felt the sweetness of the Pope’s blessing.

“And tell him,” he added, “that I hope to speak in his heart again.”

His breathing was less laboured, but his voice was growing weaker, and his strength was going with the fever. Don Clemente took his wrist and held it for some time. Then he rose.

“Are you going for the habit?” Benedetto murmured, with a sweet smile. The Padre’s handsome face flushed. He quickly conquered the human sentiment which prompted him to prevaricate, and replied:

“Yes, caro, I think the hour is come.”

“What time is it?”

“Half-past five.”

“Do you think it will be at seven? At eight?”

“No, not so soon, but I want you to have this consolation at once.” In a small sitting-room at the villa, Giovanni Selva, after consulting his watch, said to his wife, “Go, now.”

It had been arranged that Maria and Noemi should accompany Jeanne to see Benedetto. Noemi stretched out her hands to her brother-in-law.

“Giovanni,” she said, trembling, “I have some news to give him concerning my soul. Do not be offended if I tell him first.”

Jeanne guessed the nature of the news Noemi had for the dying man: her conversion to Catholicism, in the near future. All the strength she had gathered in herself for the supreme moment now forsook her. She embraced Noemi, and burst into tears. The Selvas strove to encourage her, mistaking the cause of her tears. Between her sobs she entreated them to go, to go; she herself could not possibly go. Only Noemi understood. Jeanne would not come because she had guessed, because she could not do the same. She besought her, she entreated her, and whispered to her, holding her in an embrace: “Why will you not yield, at this moment?”

Jeanne, still sobbing, answered,

“Ah! you understand me!” And because Noemi protested that now she would not go, it was Jeanne’s turn to entreat her to do so, to go at once; not to delay giving him this consolation. She, herself, could not go, could not, could not! It was impossible to move her. A servant came to call Selva. Maria and Noemi went out. When she was alone Jeanne was tempted, for a moment, to hasten after them, to yield, to go also, and say the joyful word to him. She fell upon her knees, and stretched out her arms, almost as if he were standing before her, and sobbed: “Dear one, dear one! How could I deceive you?” She had often struggled against her own unbelief, and always in vain. A surrender to faith through sudden impulse would not be lasting, that she knew.

“Why will you not have me alone?” she groaned again, still on her knees. “Why will you not have me alone? That pious consciences may not be scandalised? That my despair may not trouble you? Why will you not have me alone? How can I say, before them, what is within me? You who are gentle as your Lord Jesus, why will you not have me alone? Oh!”

She started to her feet, convinced that if Piero heard her, he would answer, “Yes, come!” She stood a moment as if turned to stone, her hands pressed to her forehead; then she moved slowly, like one walking in her sleep, left the room, crossed the hall and went down into the garden.

It was raining so hard, the sky, still rent from time to time by lightning, was so dark, that although it was not yet seven o’clock, on that February evening it seemed almost like night. Just as she was, with bare head, Jeanne went out into the cold and streaming rain. Without hastening her steps, she took, not the avenue of orange-trees on the right, but the path which, on the left, leads downwards, between two rows of great agaves, to a little grove of laurels, cypresses and olives, to which roses cling. She passed the great pine that looks towards the Crelian and winding down, on the right by a long curve of paths, she reached the spring which an ancient sarcophagus receives on the steep slope, within a belt of myrtles, a few steps below the gardener’s little house. Here she stopped. A window in the little house was lit up; surely that was Piero’s window. A shadow flitted across it—perhaps that was Noemi! Jeanne sat down on the marble rim of the basin. Would it be possible to drown in that? Would she try to die, if it were not for Carlino? Vain speculations! She did not linger over them. She waited, and waited in the cold rain, her eyes and her soul fixed on the lighted window. Other shadows passed. Were they going now? Yes, perhaps Maria and Noemi were going, but they would not leave Piero alone. Mayda would be there; the Benedictine and the sister would be there. Well, at least, she would try. A hurried footstep in the avenue of orange-trees; some one was going towards the gardener’s house. Jeanne, who had risen, sat down again. Now the unknown person entered. More shadows at the window. Two people came out, in animated conversation—the voices of the Professor and of Giovanni Selva. They seemed to be speaking of some one who had come for news. Others came out. The water from the eaves dripped on their umbrellas. It must be Maria and Noemi. Jeanne once more rose, and started forward.

She crossed the threshold of the little house, and saw people in the gardener’s kitchen. She asked a girl to go up-stairs and see who was with the sick man. The girl hesitated, demurred at first, but finally went, and came down again immediately. The priest and the sister were in the room. Jeanne asked for a piece of paper, a pencil, and a light. She began to write.

“Padre—I appeal—” She stopped and listened. Someone was coming down the wooden stair. A man’s step, therefore it must be the Padre. Then she would speak to him. She threw aside the pencil, and went to meet him on the stairs. It was dark, and Don Clemente mistook her for Maria Selva.

“He is quiet,” the Benedictine said, before she could speak. “He seems to be asleep. What your sister told him did him so much good! The Professor thinks he will live through the night. Send for the other lady. He has asked for her. I thought you had already gone for her.”

Jeanne was dumb. She stepped aside. With an “Excuse me” he passed her without looking at her, and entered the kitchen, to ask for a little bread and some water, for he had been fasting since the night before. Jeanne was trembling like a leaf. He had asked for her! The words and the opportunity thus offered made her dizzy. Noiselessly she mounted the stairs. Noiselessly she pushed the door open. The sister saw her, and started to rise. She signed to her, her finger on her lips, not to move, and noiselessly approached the bed. She saw a long, black something spread upon it, over the quilt, and stopped, horrified, not understanding. A faint groan. The man on the bed raised his right hand with a vague gesture, as if in search of something. The sister rose, but Jeanne, moving more swiftly, rushed to the pillow, and bent over Piero, who had begun to groan again and move his hand.

Jeanne questioned him anxiously, but he did not answer. He only groaned and looked at something beside the bed. Jeanne offered him a glass of water, but he shook his head. She was in despair because she could not understand. Ah! the Crucifix! the Crucifix! The sister lifted the light from the ground; Jeanne held out the Crucifix to Piero, who, pressing his lips to it, gazed at her, gazed at her with those great glassy eyes, from which death looked forth. The sister gave a cry and ran to call the Padre. Piero gazed and gazed at Jeanne. With a great effort, he clasped the Crucifix in both hands, and raised it towards her. His lips moved, moved again, but no sound came from them. Jeanne took Piero’s hands between her own, and pressed a passionate kiss upon the Crucifix. Then he closed his eyes. A smile broke across his face.

His head drooped a little towards his right shoulder. He moved no more.

THE END.