"Last night, in this neighborhood?" repeated Magnani, turning pale; "no, padre."
"On your salvation?"
"On my salvation and my honor!"
"In that case, Magnani, you must not think about Mila. Mila loves someone, and you are not that some one. And the worst of it is that neither her father nor I can guess who it is. Would to God that a girl so devoted to her duties, so hard-working, and down to this very day so modest, might have taken a fancy to a man like you! You would have brought up a family nobly, and your union would have edified your neighbors. But Mila is a child, and a romantic child, I fear. Hereafter we must watch her more carefully; I will warn her father, and you, being a man of heart, will say nothing and forget her."
"What!" cried Magnani, "can it be that Mila, the personification of honesty, courage, and innocence, already has a misstep upon her conscience? Great God! have chastity and truth ceased to exist on earth?"
"I do not say that," the monk replied: "I trust that Mila is still pure; but she is on the road to her destruction if someone does not hold her back. Last night, at sunset, she passed here, all alone, and dressed in her best clothes; she tried to avoid me, she refused to account for herself, she tried to lie. Ah! I prayed earnestly for her last night, and I slept but little."
"I will keep Mila's secret, and I will think no more about her," said Magnani, utterly confounded.
But he continued to think of her. It was natural to his character, grave and strong, but incapable of boastful confidence, to go forward to meet obstacles, and to halt when he reached them, unable to surmount them or to make up his mind to turn his back upon them.
At that moment Michel arrived; he seemed to have undergone a magical transformation since the preceding day, although he still wore his artisan's jacket; his forehead and his eyes seemed larger, his nostrils inhaled the air more freely, his chest seemed to have developed in a different atmosphere. The pride, the conscious strength, the tranquillity of the free man shone in his face.
"Ah!" said Magnani, throwing himself into the arms the young prince held out to him, "your dream has come true already, Michel! It was a beautiful dream! the awakening is still more beautiful. I have been struggling with a nightmare which your good fortune has driven away, but which has left me bewildered and crushed by fatigue."