It was nearly eleven o’clock; they had ordered the carriage to meet them where they had left it at half-past twelve, for dinner was at one at the Selvas’; if Jeanne wished to see the Sacro Speco there was no time to lose, provided her indisposition had disappeared, as would seem to be the case. Noemi encouraged her going, and did not stop to ask, in the presence of the gardener, why she had left Fra Antonio to run off and explore the garden. She merely whispered: “You were making believe, eh?” Jeanne said that Noemi must certainly start for the Sacro Speco at once, but that she herself intended to wait for her in the garden. Noemi suspected another plot.
“No, no!” she exclaimed, “either you come to the Sacro Speco or—if you do not feel well enough—we will go down to Subiaco at once.”
Jeanne objected that it would be useless to go down now, for they would not find the carriage; but Noemi was determined not to yield. They could walk down very slowly, and be ready for the carriage as soon as it arrived. Jeanne refused again, more emphatically than before, having no other argument to set forth. Then Noemi looked searchingly into her eyes, silently trying to read her hidden purpose there. In that moment of silence Jeanne’s heart was again assailed by the beggar’s words. Impulsively she seized her friend’s arm.
“You wish me to go to the Sacro Speco?” she said. “Very well, let us go then. You believe something and you do not know! Let Fate decide!”
But before moving a step she dropped her friend’s arm, and while Noemi, completely bewildered, stood watching her she wrote in her notebook: “I am at the Sacro Speco. For the sake of Don Giuseppe Flores wait for me!” She did not sign her name, but tearing out the tiny page gave it to the gardener. “For that man, should he return.” Then once more taking Noemi’s arm, she exclaimed:
“Let us go!”
The sun’s burning rays, smiting the steaming, rocky hillside, brought out damp odours of herbs and of stone, silvered the puffs of mist creeping along the sides of the narrow, wild valley, as far as the enormous mass resting there, in the background, like a cap on the heights of Jenne, while the mighty voice of the Anio filled the solitude. Jeanne climbed upwards in silence, without replying to Noemi’s questions. Noemi was becoming more and more alarmed by her silence, by her pallor, by the nervous twitching of her arm, by the sight of her lips pressed tightly together, to keep back her sobs. Why was she thus moved? During the night and, indeed, until they had reached the entrance to Santa Scolastica, the poor creature had wavered between fear and hope, in a fever of expectancy. Now her fever was of a different nature; at least it seemed so to Noemi. She thought Jeanne must have heard something there in the garden, something of which she did not wish to speak, something painful, frightful! What could it be? The tragic lament of the invisible water, the silent trembling of the blades of grass on the rocky slope, even the burning heat, made the heart shrink. A few paces from the arch which, standing rigid there, holds in check the black crowd of evergreen oaks, Noemi was relieved to hear human voices. They belonged to Dane on horseback and to Marinier and the Abbot on foot, who were coming down together from the Sacro Speco,
Dane showed great pleasure at this meeting; he stopped his horse, presented the ladies to the Abbot, and spoke of the Sacro Speco in enthusiastic language. Jeanne, after exchanging a few words with the Abbot, asked him if any one had recently pronounced the solemn vows or perhaps taken the habit. The Abbot replied that he had been at Santa Scolastica only a few days, and was not, at that moment, in a position to answer her question; but he did not believe any one had made the solemn profession or assumed the habit of a novice at Santa Scolastica for at least a year. Jeanne was radiant with joy. Now she understood; she had been a fool to believe it possible, even for a single moment, that in twelve hours Piero the peasant had become Piero the monk. She longed to return at once to the garden at Santa Scolastica; but how could she manage it? what pretext could she invent? She pressed forward, anxious to be done with the Sacro Speco as soon as possible. Noemi proposed resting a few minutes in the shade of the evergreen oaks, which, there on the path of those souls agitated by Divine Love, themselves seem twisted by an inward ascetic fury, by a frantic effort to tear themselves from the earth, and to dart their arms into the sky. Jeanne refused impatiently. The colour had returned to her face, and the light to her eyes. She started rapidly up the narrow stair where the short walk comes to an end, and in spite of the protests of Noemi (who could not understand the cause of this change) would not stop to take breath at the head of the stairs where, suddenly, the dark, deep spectacle of the valley reveals itself. High up on the left looms the terrible crag, dear to falcons and crows, bulging out above the dreary walls, pierced by unadorned openings which are incrusted upon the bare slope, running crosswise along its face, and form the monastery of the Sacro Speco. In the depths below the convent hangs the rose garden of St. Benedict, and below the rose garden hang the kitchen-garden and the olive groves, sloping to the open bed of the roaring Anio. The mass of cloud which had rested on the heights of Jenne was rising and invading the sky. A wave of shadow passed over the enormous crag, over the monastery, over the parapet upon which Noemi had rested her elbows, lost in contemplation.
“This is magnificent!” she said. “Let us stop here a few seconds at least, now that it is shady,”
But at that moment the little door of the monastery, not two steps from them, opened and a party of visitors, men and women, came out. The monk who had acted as guide, seeing Noemi and Jeanne, held the door open, expecting them to enter. Jeanne hastened to do so, and Noemi, much against her will, followed her,