middle of one wall was a
magnificently-carved folding-door, with fruits and flowers and twining
foliage with rare birds sitting among the tendrils. She was examining
these details, when she discovered that the door was ajar. A slight
push, and she was in a large, beautiful hall, where three lofty vaulted
aisles were supported by slender marble columns with richly-carved
capitals. At the end of the centre aisle a staircase in the form of a
horseshoe led to a gallery. The walls up-stairs and down, sparsely
filled with books, told her she was in the library.

"It will be all the same to the padre," she thought, "if I wait here
instead of in the pavilion," and she was half-way down the hall, her
eyes glued to the shelves, when she came suddenly upon Fra Lorenzo
sitting before a table covered with manuscripts in the niche of a deep
window. He must have been aware of her presence from the first, for his
eyes were fixed upon her with a look of intense expectancy.

"I was thinking of you, signora, and you come to me," was his strange
salutation.

She felt she must be composed at any cost: so she said, in as easy a
tone as she could command, "I should like to know what resemblance there
is between me and these dusty old manuscripts, that you think of me as
you copy them. You are copying them, are you not?"

"No, signora, I do nothing: you are always between me and my work. Why
did you look at me so at the fountain? But no; forgive me: I was
thinking of you before that. From the first evening in the refectory
your laugh has been ringing in my heart. You seemed to me like a
beautiful light in the shadows of our old hall."

She was moving quickly away, when he reached after her and touched her
sleeve. "You are not angry?"

"No," she answered. "I would only remind you that you belong to God in
body and soul, and when you think of me you commit a deadly sin, for
which never-ending penance can scarcely atone."

"Signora, you are right. The penance does so little for me now. All
night long I was before the crucifix in the church, and while I prayed I
felt better; but when morning came and I thought of the long, lonely
years I must spend here sinning against God and finding no rest, with
you always in my heart--What can I do? You are good; tell me what I can
do."

The pain of this innocent, beautiful life was a weight too heavy for
her to bear, and she felt herself giving way under it. "Pray," she
stammered,--"pray for us both