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Page 51
"Oh, padre, I would give everything if I had not forgotten it! You must
think of me as a good woman, for indeed I deserve it."
"I do think of you as such, and am sure the lesson will not be
forgotten," was the crumb of comfort upon which she fed all the rest of
the day and for several days following, during which Fra Lorenzo had not
reappeared. The fountain-scene had not been mentioned to her friends, so
one day at dinner Margaret said, "Do the offices for the dead generally
require so much time, that Lorenzo does not return?"
"Fra Lorenzo is here," was the answer. "He was only absent one night. He
is very much occupied: that is why you do not see him."
The next day they were to be shown the library, and at the hour set the
signora went to the padre's reception-room to see if he were ready. He
was just reaching for the key, when a peasant appeared, his hand
bleeding from a cut which had nearly dissevered the thumb. This
necessitated a delay, and the padre went down with him to the
dispensary. "While you are waiting," he said, "perhaps you would like to
go up into the pavilion, where you can look over the Maremma to the sea.
Go up that stair," and he pointed to the end of a corridor, "to the
first landing, then turn to the left."
As she went up the stair her eye was caught by a carved ceiling at the
top of it. "I suppose I ought to go that far," she thought, and up she
went, until she found herself in a room frescoed with portraits of the
distinguished men of the order. In the middle of one wall was a
magnificently-carved folding-door, with fruits and flowers and twining
foliage with rare birds sitting among the tendrils. She was examining
these details, when she discovered that the door was ajar. A slight
push, and she was in a large, beautiful hall, where three lofty vaulted
aisles were supported by slender marble columns with richly-carved
capitals. At the end of the centre aisle a staircase in the form of a
horseshoe led to a gallery. The walls up-stairs and down, sparsely
filled with books, told her she was in the library.
"It will be all the same to the padre," she thought, "if I wait here
instead of in the pavilion," and she was half-way down the hall, her
eyes glued to the shelves, when she came suddenly upon Fra Lorenzo
sitting before a table covered with manuscripts in the niche of a deep
window. He must have been aware of her presence from the first, for his
eyes were fixed upon her with a look of intense expectancy.
"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.
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