“Benedetto is not here.”
Her gladness had already vanished; she felt icy cold; the two men looked at her curiously, in silence.
“Is this the lady who is looking for Benedetto?” said the old man.
Jeanne did not reply; the herder answered for her, and then he told how Benedetto had spent the night out of doors; that he had found him at daybreak, in the grove of the Sacro Speco, wet to the skin. He had offered him some milk and Benedetto had drunk like a dying man to whom life is returning.
“Listen, Giovacchino,” the herder added, growing suddenly grave. “When he had drunk he embraced me like this. I was feeling ill; I had not slept, my head ached, all my bones ached. Well, as he held me in his arms slight shivers seemed to come from them and creep over me, and then I felt a sort of comforting heat; and I was content, and as comfortable all over as if I had had two mouthfuls of the very best spirits in my stomach! The headache was gone, the pains in the bones were gone, everything was gone. Then I said to myself: ‘By St. Catherine, this man is a saint!’ And a saint he certainly is!”
While he was speaking a poor cripple passed, a beggar from Subiaco. Seeing a lady, he stopped and held out his hat. Jeanne, completely absorbed in what the herder was saying, did not notice him, nor did she hear him when—the herder having ceased speaking—he begged for alms, for the love of God. She asked the gardener where this Benedetto was to be found. The man scratched his head, doubtful how to answer. Then the beggar groaned out in a mournful voice:
“You are seeking Benedetto? He is at the Sacro Speco.”
Jeanne turned eagerly towards him.
“At the Sacro Speco?” said she; and the gardener asked the beggar if he himself had seen him there.
The cripple, more tearful than ever, told how more than an hour ago he had been on the road to the Sacro Speco, beyond the grove of evergreen oaks, only a few steps from the convent. He was carrying a bundle of fagots, and had fallen badly, and could not rise again with his burden.