Varillo opened his eyes again languidly, and turned them on a monk sitting beside him,—a monk whose face was neither old nor young, but which presented a singular combination of both qualities. His high forehead, white as marble, had no furrows to mar its smoothness, and from under deep brows a pair of wondering wistful brown eyes peered like the eyes of a lost and starving child. The cheeks were gaunt and livid, the flesh hanging in loose hollows from the high and prominent bones, yet the mouth was that of a youth, firm, well-outlined and sweet in expression, and when he smiled as he did now, he showed an even row of small pearly teeth which might have been envied by many a fair woman.
"Only God who is never weary!" he said, nodding his head slowly, "but we—you and I—we are soon tired!"
Varillo looked at him dubiously; and a moment's thought decided him to assume a certain amount of meekness and docility with this evident brother of some religious order, so that he might obtain both sympathy and confidence from him, and from all whom he might be bound to serve. Ill and weak as he was, the natural tendency of his brain to scheme for his own advantage, was not as yet impaired.
"Ah, yes!" he sighed, "I am very tired!—very ill! I do not know what has happened to me—nor even where I am. What place is this?"
"It is a place where the dead come!" responded the monk. "The dead in heart! the dead in soul—the dead in sin! They come to bury themselves, lest God should find them and crush them into dust before they have time to say a prayer! Like Adam and his wife, they hide themselves 'from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.'"
Varillo raised himself on one elbow, and stared at the pale face and smiling mouth of the speaker in fear and wonder.
"'A place where the dead come!'" he echoed. "But you are alive—and so am I!"
"You may be—I am not," said the monk quietly. "I died long ago! People who are alive say we are men, though we know ourselves to be ghosts merely. This place is called by the world a Trappist monastery,—you will go out of it if indeed you are alive—you must prove that first! But we shall never come out, because we are dead. One never comes out of the grave!"
With an effort Varillo tried to control the tremor of his nerves, and to understand and reason out these enigmatical sentences of his companion. He began to think—and then to remember,—and by and by was able to conjure up the picture of himself as he had last been conscious of existence,—himself standing outside the gates of a great building on the Campagna, and shaking the iron bars to and fro. It was a Trappist monastery then?—and he was being taken charge of by the Trappist Order? This fact might possibly be turned to his account if he were careful. He lay down once more on his pillow and closed his eyes, and under this pretence of sleep, pondered his position. What were they saying of him in Rome? Was Angela buried? And her great picture? What had become of it?
"How long have I been here?" he asked suddenly.