The cripple overflowed with benedictions, mingling with them such humble expressions as: “Just as you please, just as you please! I may have been mistaken, I may have been mistaken,” and with his string of pious mumblings he took himself off. Jeanne again questioned the herder and the gardener. Was it possible that Benedetto had taken the habit?—Impossible! The beggar was only a poor fool.
Presently the herder left, and Jeanne, entering the kitchen-garden, sat down tinder an olive tree, reflecting that Noemi could easily learn from the door-keeper where to find her. The old gardener, whose curiosity was aroused, asked, with many apologies, if she was a relative of Benedetto’s,
“For it is known that he is a gentleman, a rich man!” said he.
Jeanne did not answer his question. She wished rather to find out why this belief in Piero’s riches prevailed.—Well, you could see by his manners and by his face; he really had the face of a gentleman.—And he had not become a monk?—Well, no.—And why had he not become a monk?—That was not known for a certainty, There were many tales told. It was even said he had a wife, and that his wife had played him what the gardener called “a mean trick.” Jeanne was silent, and it suddenly struck the gardener that she might be the wife, the woman who had played the “mean trick.” She had perhaps repented, and was come to ask his forgiveness.
“If this story about the wife is true,” he added, “I don’t say she may not have had her reasons; but as far as goodness goes, she surely did not find a better man. You see, signora, these fathers are holy men, that is undeniable; but there is no one so holy as he, either at Santa Scolastica or at the Sacro Speco. That I will swear to! Not even Don Clemente, who is most holy! Still he is not equal to Benedetto. No, no!”
The beggar’s words suddenly sounded in Jeanne’s heart. Benedetto a monk! But why? It was discouraging to have them thus return, without a reason, to her heart. Had not the two men said it was nonsense; that the cripple was a fool? Yes, nonsense, she could see that herself; yes, a fool, he had impressed her as such; but still the stupid words beat and throbbed in her heart, as gruesome as masqueraders in comic masks would be should they knock at your door at any other time save during Carnival!
“If you will wait, signora, in less than half an hour he is sure to be here. Che! What am I saying? In a quarter of an hour. Perhaps he is in the library studying with Don Clemente, or perhaps he is in the church.”
The library, which runs across the narrow lane, communicates directly with the kitchen-garden.
“There he is now!” the old man exclaimed.
Jeanne started to her feet. The door leading from the library to the garden opened slowly. Instead of Piero, Noemi appeared, followed by the big monk. Noemi perceived her friend among the olives, and stopped suddenly, greatly surprised. Jeanne in the garden? Was it possible that—? No, the old man beside her could not be Maironi, and there was no one else with her. She smiled and shook her finger at her. Don Leone took leave of Noemi upon learning that this was the friend who—as she had told him during the visit to the monastery—had remained at the door-keeper’s lodge. Of course the ladies would go up to the other convent, and his great size was no longer adapted to the climb to the Sacro Speco.