t servant
of those who lived by the altar. He had not even shown common penitence
for his sin. Let him do that: let him humble himself: let him sit in
dust and ashes, metaphorically speaking: and then, by-and-bye, the
Church might open her arms to him, and listen to the voice of his
prayer. But now--Father Cristoforo declined even to hear any formal
confession: his pupil must wait and prepare himself, before he was fit
for the sacrament of penance.

To Dino, this was a hard sentence. He did not know that the Prior was
secretly much better satisfied with his submissive state of mind than he
chose to allow, or that he had made up his mind to relax his severity on
the morrow. Just for this one night the Prior had resolved to be stern
and harsh. "I will make him eat dust," he said to himself, out of his
real vexation and disappointment, as he looked vengefully at Dino, who
was lying face downwards on the ground, weeping with all the
self-abandonment of his nature. "He must never rebel again." The Prior
knew that his measures were generally effectual: he meant to take strong
ones now.

"There is something more in it that I can understand," he murmured to
himself, presently, after he had taken a few turns up and down the room.
He halted beside Dino's prostrate form, and looked down upon it with a
hidden gentleness shining out of his deep-set eyes. But he would not
speak gently. "You have not told me all," he said. "Rise: let me see
your face."

Dino struggled to his knees, and, after a moment's hesitation, dropped
his hands to his sides.

"What else have you to tell me?" said the priest, fixing his eyes on the
young man's face, as if he could read the secrets of his soul.

"I have told you all that I did," stammered Dino.

"But not all that you thought."

There was a short silence. Then Dino spoke again, in short-broken
sentences, which at times the Prior could scarcely hear.

"Reverend Father, there is one thought, one feeling. I do not know what
it is. I am haunted by a face which never leaves me. And yet I saw it
twice only: once in a picture and once in life; but it comes between me
and my prayers. I cannot forget her."

"Whose face was this?" asked the Prior, with the subtle change of eye
and lip which showed that Dino's answer had fulfilled his expectations.
"Her name?"

But the name that Dino murmured was not one that Padre Cristoforo had
expected to hear from him.

"Elizabeth Murray!" he repeated. "The