y to his desires?

Ah! was he not already almost on the verge of committing mortal sin?
Had he not been about to judge the ways of God, he presumptuous dust?
Prostrate upon the kneeling-stool, he sought to merge himself in
the Almighty, praying silently for forgiveness, for a revelation to
Benedetto of the Divine Will, and ready to worship it, whatever it
might be, from this time forth. As he rose, with a natural ebbing of the
mystic wave from his heart, his eyes still turned towards the altar, but
no longer fixed upon the tabernacle, he could not refrain from thinking
of Jeanne Dessalle and of what Benedetto had said. The very indifferent
picture above the altar represented the martyr Anatolia offering,
from Paradise, the symbolical palms to Audax, the young pagan who had
attempted to seduce her, but whom, instead, she had led to Christ.
Jeanne Dessalle had seduced Benedetto; of this Don Clemente had no
doubts, notwithstanding Benedetto's attempt to exonerate her and accuse
himself. What if she should now be converted through him? Was it perhaps
right that he should try? Was Benedetto's impulse really more Christian
than his own fears and the Abbot's scruples? As he crossed the
church with bowed head, Don Clemente's mind was struggling with these
questions. Anatolia and Audax! He remembered that a sceptical foreigner,
upon hearing the explanation of the picture from him, had said: "Yes,
but what if neither of them had been put to death? And what if Audax had
been a married man?"

These jesting words had seemed to him an unworthy profanation. He
thought of them again now, and, sighing, took up the little lantern he
had left on the floor in the chapter-hall.

Instead of going towards his cell he turned into the second cloister
to look at the ridge of the Colle Lungo, where, perhaps, Benedetto was
praying. Some stars were shining above the rocky, grey ridge, spotted
with black, and their dim light revealed the square of the cloister, the
scattered shrubs, the mighty tower of Abate Umberto, the arcades, the
old walls, which had stood for nine centuries, and the double row of
little stone friars ascending in procession upon the arch of the great
gate where Don Clemente stood, lost in contemplation. The cloister and
the tower stood out majestic and strong against the darkness. Was
it indeed true that they were dying? In the starlight the monastery
appeared more alive than in the sunlight, aggrandised by its mystic
religio