h in tenderness and indignation, would
too often interfere, speaking for or against, according to its own
passions. One evening at Casa C. he was playing the _andante_ of
Beethoven's twenty-eighth sonata, when, with quivering nerves and
flashing eyes, he said in a low tone: "Ah! This, this, this!" He was
reflecting that no theologian, no doctor, could communicate the
religious sentiment as Beethoven does. As he played on he put his whole
soul into the music, and longed for Luisa's presence that he might play
this divine _andante_ to her, that he might unite himself to her,
praying thus in an ineffable spasm of the spirit. But he did not reflect
that Luisa who, moreover, was far less sensitive to music than he was,
would probably have attributed another meaning to the _andante_, that of
the painful conflict between our affections and our convictions.

He went to G., returned the works of St. Thomas and confessed his utter
incapacity in such humble and feeling language, that after a few moments
of frowning and uneasy silence, the old priest forgave him. "There,
there, there!" said he, resignedly taking back the first volume of the
_Somma_. "Commend yourself to our Lord, and let us hope He Himself will
act." Thus ended Franco's theological studies.

All this pondering of his wife's opinions and his own, and above all
the Professor's advice: "Commend yourself to our Lord," were not
fruitless. He began to see that on some points Luisa was not mistaken.
When she had reproached him for not leading a life in conformity with
his faith, he had been more offended by this than by anything else. Now
a generous impulse carried him to the other extreme; he judged himself
severely, exaggerated his faults of idleness, of anger, even of greed,
and held himself responsible for Luisa's intellectual aberrations. He
felt a desire to tell her this, to humble himself before her, to
separate his own cause from the cause of God. When he obtained his
position on the _Opinione_, and regulated his own expenses in such a
manner as to be able to make an allowance to his family, his wife wrote
that this allowance was entirely too large in proportion to his
earnings, and that the thought of him, living in Turin on sixty lire a
month, gave her own food a bitter taste. He answered--and this was not
strictly true--that in the first place, he never went hungry, but that
he would, indeed, be glad to fast, because he felt an intense desire to
change his way