“I was thinking of you, signora, and you come to me,” was his strange salutation.

She felt she must be composed at any cost:  so she said, in as easy a tone as she could command, “I should like to know what resemblance there is between me and these dusty old manuscripts, that you think of me as you copy them.  You are copying them, are you not?”

“No, signora, I do nothing:  you are always between me and my work.  Why did you look at me so at the fountain?  But no; forgive me:  I was thinking of you before that.  From the first evening in the refectory your laugh has been ringing in my heart.  You seemed to me like a beautiful light in the shadows of our old hall.”

She was moving quickly away, when he reached after her and touched her sleeve.  “You are not angry?”

“No,” she answered.  “I would only remind you that you belong to God in body and soul, and when you think of me you commit a deadly sin, for which never-ending penance can scarcely atone.”

“Signora, you are right.  The penance does so little for me now.  All night long I was before the crucifix in the church, and while I prayed I felt better; but when morning came and I thought of the long, lonely years I must spend here sinning against God and finding no rest, with you always in my heart—­What can I do?  You are good; tell me what I can do.”

The pain of this innocent, beautiful life was a weight too heavy for her to bear, and she felt herself giving way under it.  “Pray,” she stammered,—­“pray for us both, for we must never meet again.”  She reached the door, went down the stair, and, turning mechanically to the right, found herself at last in the pavilion, where she leaned against the parapet and looked into space.  She had lost the capacity of thinking.

It was fortunate the padre was so long delayed, for when he came up at last with the signorine she had so far recovered herself as to be standing upright, apparently absorbed in the view.

“I don’t wonder this view has made you speechless,” her friends called out.  “It is simply glorious.”

“Yes,” said the padre:  “on these cliffs we seem on the brink of eternity; down there among the morasses of the Maremma man cannot stay his feet; and beyond is the sea.”

“How beautiful the thought,” said Julia, “that good men dying here have no longer need to stay their feet!  One step from these cliffs, and they must be in heaven.”

“Who knows, who knows,” sighed the padre, “if any of us have found it so?  But now let us go to the library.”

The signora followed them, since she could not do otherwise.  They stopped before the carved door, which the padre said was undoubtedly Fra Giovanni’s own work, and he pointed out the details of the beautiful workmanship.  At length he opened the door, which the signora felt sure she had not closed.  One glance around the hall showed her it was empty.