“Listen. Don’t you believe he suffers temptations?”
Silence.
Jeanne, this time ignoring the fact that Noemi did not answer, exclaimed:
“It would be nice if he had just now stopped suffering from temptations!”
Her sarcasm is so comic, that—although she is greatly shocked—Noemi cannot help laughing; and Jeanne laughs with her. In spite of her mirth, Noemi reproaches Jeanne for saying such intensely foolish things without stopping to reflect. For Noemi knows her friend, and knows that the Jeanne of this hour is not the true Jeanne, self-possessed and mistress of herself; or rather perhaps it is the true Jeanne, but certainly not she who will stand before Piero Maironi, if, by any chance, they meet.
The thunder has ceased, and Jeanne would like to see what the weather is, but she dreads to leave her bed, fearing to feel ill again, fearing to discover she will not be able to go up to the monastery a few hours hence. She also fears the opposition of her hosts, should the weather prove too unpleasant. She is therefore anxious to see how the sky looks. Get up must Noemi, the slave whose acts of rebellion very seldom ended in victory. Noemi rises, opens the window, and examines the darkness, her hand extended. Tiny, frequent drops tickle her palm. The darkness grows less impenetrable as her eyes become accustomed to it. She distinguishes, down below, Santa Maria della Febbre, grey, against a black background. The mass of heavy mist grows lighter, and the arms of the oak towering on the right show black against it. The tiny, frequent drops continue to tickle her outstretched hand, which she finally withdraws. Jeanne questions.
“Well?” “It is raining.”
She sighs “What a bother,” as if it were going to rain for ever. And the tiny drops acquire a louder voice, fill the room with soft murmurs, and then are hushed once more. Jeanne does not understand the soft murmurs, does not understand that the man of whom her heart is full is lying unconscious, on the lonely, rocky, hillside, down which the rain washes.
Late on the following morning Signora Selva, somewhat anxious because neither of her guests had as yet appeared, entered her sister’s room quietly. Noemi was nearly dressed, and signed to her to be silent. Jeanne had fallen asleep at last. The two sisters left the room together and went to the study where Giovanni was waiting for them. Well? Was Don Clemente really the man? The husband and wife were anxious to know in order to regulate their conduct accordingly. Giovanni no longer doubted, but his wife was not sure even now. Noemi! Noemi must know! Giovanni closed the door, while Maria, interpreting her sister’s silence as confirmation, insisted: “Then it is really he, really he?”
Noemi was silent. She would perhaps have betrayed her friend’s secret in order to conspire with the Selvas for Jeanne’s happiness, had she not been deterred by a doubt of their agreeing with her, and by a sense of wavering in her own mind. Probably, as Catholics, the Selvas would not wish this man who had fled from the world to return to it. She, a Protestant, could not feel thus; at least she should not feel thus. She should rather believe that God is better served out in the world and in the married state. She did feel this, but she could not hide from herself that should Signor Maironi marry Jeanne now, she could feel little respect for him. At any rate it would be wiser to hide the strange truth.