And he left the room.
He left the room and the house, crossed the square, walking awkwardly in his ill-fitting clothes, and, without looking to right or left, took the road leading down the slope, impelled by his spirit rather than by the weakened powers of his body. He intended to pass the night under some tree, and, on the morrow, go to Subiaco; from there, with Don Clemente’s aid, he would go to Tivoli, where he knew a good old priest, who was in the habit of coming to Santa Scolastica from time to time. He no longer thought of accepting the Selvas’ hospitality, which would have been precious to him. His heart was pure and at peace, but he could not forget that the young foreign girl’s sweet voice, and the tone of sadness in which she had said “You will not come to Subiaco?” had awakened strange echoes within him, and that in that one second the thought had flashed across his mind: “Had Jeanne been like this, I should not have left her!” The mystics were right; penance and fasting were of no avail. But it had all disappeared now. Only the humiliating sense of a frailty essentially human remained, which, though it may have come forth triumphant from hard trials, may also reappear unexpectedly, and be overthrown by a breath. The little town was deserted. The storm over, the people from Trevi, Filettino, and Vallepietra had started homeward, discussing the events of the morning, the case of doubtful healing, and that in which the healing had not been effected, the warnings which had been swiftly sown by hidden hands against the corrupter of the people, the false Catholic. On leaving the town Benedetto was seen by two or three women of Jenne. The secular garments filled them with amazement; they concluded he had been excommunicated and allowed him to pass in silence.
A few steps beyond, some one who was running overtook him. It was a slender, fair lad, with blue eyes full of intelligence.
“Are you going to Rome, Signor Maironi?” he said.
“I beg you not to call me by that name!” Benedetto answered, ill-pleased to find that his name, who knows by what means, had been revealed. “I do not yet know whether I go to Rome.”
“I shall follow you,” the young man said, impulsively.
“You will follow me? But why should you follow me?”
In reply the young man took his hand, and, in spite of Benedetto’s resistance and protests, raised it to his lips.
“Why?” said he. “Because I am sick of the world, and could not find God, and to-day it Seems to me that, through you, I have been born to happiness! Please, please, let me follow you!
“Caro [dear one];” Benedetto replied, greatly moved, “I myself do not know whither I shall go!”