“It was my only thought.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision.”
Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment fell far below my deserts....
I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name “De Roberti, Professor of Italian.” Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized Roberto Siviano.
I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a word.
“What’s the matter?” asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I stammered that the sick man was an old friend.
“He wouldn’t know his oldest friend just now,” said the doctor. “The fever’s on him; but it will go down toward sunset.”
I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto’s hand in mine.
“Is he going to die?” I asked.