ows on his knees. He seemed not to have
heard the sandaled tread of the good brother, but as the monk remained
watching him, he at last looked up. It was not the ignoble old man who
had admitted him, but a pale, gaunt personage, of a graver and more
ascetic, and yet of a benignant, aspect. Rowland's face bore the traces
of extreme trouble. The frate kept his finger in his little book,
and folded his arms picturesquely across his breast. It can hardly be
determined whether his attitude, as he bent his sympathetic Italian
eye upon Rowland, was a happy accident or the result of an exquisite
spiritual discernment. To Rowland, at any rate, under the emotion of
that moment, it seemed blessedly opportune. He rose and approached the
monk, and laid his hand on his arm.

"My brother," he said, "did you ever see the Devil?"

The frate gazed, gravely, and crossed himself. "Heaven forbid!"

"He was here," Rowland went on, "here in this lovely garden, as he was
once in Paradise, half an hour ago. But have no fear; I drove him out."
And Rowland stooped and picked up his hat, which had rolled away into a
bed of cyclamen, in vague symbolism of an actual physical tussle.

"You have been tempted, my brother?" asked the friar, tenderly.

"Hideously!"

"And you have resisted--and conquered!"

"I believe I have conquered."

"The blessed Saint Francis be praised! It is well done. If you like, we
will offer a mass for you."

"I am not a Catholic," said Rowland.

The frate smiled with dignity. "That is a reason the more."

"But it 's for you, then, to choose. Shake hands with me," Rowland
added; "that will do as well; and suffer me, as I go out, to stop a
moment in your chapel."

They shook hands and separated. The frate crossed himself, opened his
book, and wandered away, in relief against the western sky. Rowland
passed back into the convent, and paused long enough in the chapel to
look for the alms-box. He had had what is vulgarly termed a great scare;
he believed, very poignantly for the time, in the Devil, and he felt an
irresistible need to subscribe to any institution which engaged to keep
him at a distance.

The next day he returned to Rome, and the day afterwards he went in
search of Roderick. He found him on the Pincian with his back turned to
the crowd, looking at the sunset. "I went to Florence," Rowland said,
"and I thought of going farther; but I came back on purpose to give you
another piece of advice. Once more,