The rebuke was so gently given that Arthur hardly coloured under it. “Yes, I know,” he answered, sighing; “but it is so difficult——”
“I was sorry you could not come to me on Tuesday evening,” Montanelli said, abruptly introducing a new subject. “The Bishop of Arezzo was here, and I should have liked you to meet him.”
“I had promised one of the students to go to a meeting at his lodgings, and they would have been expecting me.”
“What sort of meeting?”
Arthur seemed embarrassed by the question. “It—it was n-not a r-regular meeting,” he said with a nervous little stammer. “A student had come from Genoa, and he made a speech to us—a-a sort of—lecture.”
“What did he lecture about?”
Arthur hesitated. “You won't ask me his name, Padre, will you? Because I promised——”
“I will ask you no questions at all, and if you have promised secrecy of course you must not tell me; but I think you can almost trust me by this time.”
“Padre, of course I can. He spoke about—us and our duty to the people—and to—our own selves; and about—what we might do to help——”
“To help whom?”