The Saint Part 8

"If you do not care to meet these ladies," he said, "come with me at once, and I will let you out through the Casino, by the upper path."

The Padre seemed greatly relieved, and the two started off in haste, the Benedictine even forgetting to say good-night.

"It is late, too" said he. "When I asked the Father Abbot's permission, I said I should be back at half-past nine."

They ran down the widening stairway, but when they reached the little open s.p.a.ce where the acacias stood, Jeanne Dessalle, Maria, and Noemi were just entering it from the opposite direction.

It was not too dark under the acacias for Maria to recognise her husband and Don Clemente in the two figures coming from the house. Being in advance of her sister with Jeanne, she promptly turned to the right, making her companion turn with her, and directed her steps towards the little Casino, an addition to the villa, and standing with its back to the larger house. Selva, on his part, seeing his wife's movement, promptly whispered to the Padre:

"Go down the straight path at once."

But it was all to no purpose.

All to no purpose, because Noemi, astonished at seeing her sister turn to the right, stopped short, exclaiming:

"Where are you going?" and Don Clemente, having perhaps noticed a lady standing in his way, instead of pa.s.sing her and going down, went to summon the gardener, who was waiting for him in the darkest corner of the little opening, where the side of the house meets the hill. He called "Benedetto!" and then turning to Selva said: "Would you like to show him the little field?" "At this hour?" Giovanni answered, while his wife whispered to Noemi: "Some visitors are just leaving, let us stay here at the Casino until they have pa.s.sed," shaking her head at her so emphatically the while, that Signora Dessalle noticed the action, and at once suspected some mystery.

"Why?" she said. "Are they dangerous?" and slackened her pace. Noemi, on the other hand, having understood her sister's wish, but not her secret motive, was over-zealous in seconding her; and clasping her two companions round the waist, she pushed them towards the Casino. Jeanne Dessalle was instinctively moved to rebel, and turning upon her, exclaimed: "What are you doing?" Then she saw Selva coming towards them.

He hastened to greet them, spreading out his arms as if to hide Don Clemente, who, followed by the gardener, pa.s.sed rapidly within five paces of Jeanne, and descended the steep path.

Noemi, who had also turned at her brother-in-law's greeting, ran to embrace him; Selva in the meantime, feeling gratified that Don Clemente had avoided a meeting. Selva, releasing himself from Noemi's embrace, extended his hand to Jeanne, who did not see it, and murmured absently some incomprehensible words of greeting. At that point Dane, Marinier, Fare, di Leyn, and Padre Salvati issued from the villa. The Selvas went to meet them, leaving Noemi and Signora Dessalle to await their return.

The parting compliments lasted some time. Dane wished to pay his respects to Signora Dessalle, but Maria, not seeing her where she had left her, supposed that she and Noemi had gone into the house, pa.s.sing behind them, so she promised to be the bearer of the professor's greetings. At last, when the five had started down the hill accompanied by Giovanni, Maria heard Noemi calling her:

"Maria! Maria!"

A peculiar note in her sister's voice told her something had happened.

She ran back, and found Signora Dessalle seated on a bundle of f.a.gots, in the corner where the gardener from Santa Scolastica had stood, not five minutes before, and repeating in a weak voice: "It is nothing, nothing, nothing! We will go in directly, we will go in directly!"

Noemi, greatly agitated, explained that her friend had suddenly felt faint while those gentlemen were talking, and that she had with difficulty been able to drag her as far as the bundle of f.a.gots.

"Let us go in, let us go in," Jeanne repeated, and rising with an effort, dragged herself as far as the villa, supported by her two friends. She sat down on the steps waiting for some water, of which she took only a sip. She would have nothing else, and was presently sufficiently restored to ascend the stairs very, very slowly. She apologised at each halt, and smiled, but the maid who, walking backwards, led the way with the light nearly fainted herself, at sight of those dazed eyes, those white lips, and that terrible pallor. They led her to the sofa in the little salon; and after a minute of silent relaxation with closed eyes, she was able to tell Signora Selva, still smiling, that these attacks were caused by anaemia, and that she was accustomed to them. Noemi and Maria spoke softly together. Jeanne caught the words "to bed" and with a look of grat.i.tude, consented by a nod.

Maria had prepared the best room in the little apartment for Jeanne and Noemi--the corner room opposite Giovanni's study, on the other side of the corridor. While Jeanne was walking painfully towards it, leaning on Noemi's arm, Selva returned, having accompanied his friends as far as the gate. His wife heard his step on the stairs, and went down to detain him. They spoke, in the dark, with hushed voices. Then it was really he; but how could she have recognised him? Indeed Giovanni had attempted to place himself between Jeanne and Don Clemente at the critical moment, and the Padre had pa.s.sed her almost running; but he, Giovanni, had at once suspected something, for Signora Dessalle had stood like a statue, not giving him her hand, and hardly responding to his greeting. On the terrace the Padre himself had shown uneasiness when he heard that Signora Dessalle had arrived. His desire to avoid her had been evident; but he was quite master of his feelings. Oh! yes, he was quite master of his feelings. Maria was of the same opinion, and she told of her conversation with him at the foot of the stairway. Husband and wife slowly ascended the stairs, absorbed in contemplation of this extraordinary drama, of the poor woman's crushing grief, of the terrible impression the man must have borne away with him, and--now that it was over--of the night both must pa.s.s, wondering what would happen to-morrow, what he would do, what she would do.

"It is well to pray over such matters, is it not?" said Maria.

"Yes, dear, it is. Let us pray that she may learn to give her love and her sorrow to G.o.d," the husband answered.

Hand in hand they entered their bedroom, which was divided in two by a heavy curtain. They went to the window and looked up at the sky, praying silently. A breath of the north wind soughed like a lament through the oak overhanging the tiny chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre.

"Poor creature!" said Maria. It seemed to her and to her husband that their affection for one another was more tender than ever to-night, but nevertheless--though neither said so--both felt that there was something deterring them from the kiss of love.

Jeanne, as soon as Noemi had closed the door of their room behind them, fell upon her neck in a paroxysm of uncontrollable sobbing. Poor Noemi had concluded, from the effect produced on her friend when the monk hastened past her, that he was Maironi, and she was now overcome with pity. She spoke most loving, tender, and sweet words to her, in the voice of one soothing a suffering child. Jeanne did not answer, but her sobbing continued.

"Perhaps it is better so, dear," Noemi ventured to say. "Perhaps it is better for you to know, that you may no longer cherish a false hope; better for you to have seen him in that habit."

This time an answer came between the sobs, "No, no!" Jeanne repeated pa.s.sionately and vehemently many times, and the tone, though hardly sorrowful, was so strange that Noemi was greatly puzzled. She resumed her soothing, but more timidly now.

"Yes, dear! yes, dear! because knowing there is no help---"

Jeanne raised her tear-stained face, "Do you not understand? It is not he!" she said.

Noemi drew away from her embrace, amazed,

"What do you mean? Not he--! All this scene because it is not he?"

Jeanne again fell upon her neck.

"The monk who pa.s.sed me, is not he," she said sobbing; "it is the other man!"

"What other man?"

"The one who was following him, who went away with him!"

Noemi had not even noticed this person. With a convulsive laugh Jeanne nearly suffocated her in a close embrace.

CHAPTER III. A NIGHT OF STORMS

On his way down from the villa to the gate, Don Clemente asked himself with secret anxiety: "Did he recognise her, or not? And if he did, what impression did she make?" On reaching the gate he turned to him he had called Benedetto, and scrutinised his face closely--a fleshless, pallid, intellectual face, in which he read no sign of agitation. The eyes met his wonderingly, almost as if questioning: "Why do you look at me thus?"

The monk said to himself: "Probably he did not recognise her, or he supposes me to be unaware of her arrival." He pa.s.sed his arm through his companion's, holding him close, and in silence turned to the left towards the dark and noisy gorge of the Anio. When they had walked on a few paces under the trees which border the road, he said: "Do you not wish to question me about the meeting?" There was more tenderness in his tone than the commonplace words demanded. His companion answered:

"Yes, tell me about it."

The voice was husky and devoid of interest. Don Clemente said to himself: "He certainly recognised her!" Then he talked of the meeting, but as one preoccupied with other thoughts, without warmth, without details; nor did his companion once interrupt him with questions or comments.

"We separated," he said, "without having come to any conclusion; this was partly owing to the arrival of some foreigners. So I was not able to arrange with Signor Giovanni about you. But I think some of us, at least, will meet again tomorrow. And you yourself," he added hesitatingly, "do you, or do you not feel inclined to return?"

Benedetto, walking steadily on, answered in the same submissive tone as before: "Are the foreign ladies I saw going to remain?"

Don Clemente pressed his arm very hard.

"I do not know," he said, adding, much moved, and with another pressure of the arm: "If I had only known--!"

Benedetto opened his lips to speak, but checked himself. They proceeded thus in silence towards the two black cliffs in the noisy ravine, and leaving the main road, which turns to cross the Anio by the Ponte di San Mauro, took the mule-path leading to the convents, which winds up to the cliff on the left. The enormous, slanting ma.s.s of rock before them seemed to Don Clemente at that moment the symbol of a demoniacal power standing in Benedetto's way; so, too, the gathering darkness seemed to him symbolically threatening, and threatening also the ever-increasing, ever-deepening roar of the lonely river.

Beyond the oratory of San Mauro, where the mule-path to the convents turns to the left, running along the side of the hill towards the Madonnina dell' Oro, and another mule-path leads straight into the ravine, past the ruins of the Baths of Nero, Benedetto disengaged himself gently from the monk's arm, and stopped.

"Listen, Padre," said he; "I must speak with you; perhaps at some length."

"Yes, my friend, but it is late; let us go into the monastery."

Benedetto lived at the Ospizio for pilgrims, the farmhouse, which is reached from a courtyard communicating by a great gate with the public way and by a small gate with the corridor of the monastery, leading from the public way to the church and to the second of the three cloisters.

"I had rather not return to the monastery tonight, Padre," said he.

"You had rather not return?"

On other occasions during the three years he had spent in the free service of the monastery, Benedetto had obtained permission from Don Clemente to spend the night in prayer, out among the hills. Therefore the master at once concluded that his disciple was pa.s.sing through one of those periods of terrible inward struggle, which forced him to flee from his poor couch and from the shadows of his room, accomplices, these, of the evil one, in tormenting his imagination,