Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/120

86 recognised her!" Then he talked of the meeting, but as one preoccupied with other thoughts, without warmth, without details; nor did his companion once interrupt him with questions or comments.

"We separated," he said, "without having come to any conclusion; this was partly owing to the arrival of some foreigners. So I was not able to arrange with Signor Giovanni about you. But I think some of us, at least, will meet again tomorrow. And you yourself, " he added hesitatingly, "do you, or do you not feel inclined to return?"

Benedetto, walking steadily on, answered in the same submissive tone as before: "Are the foreign ladies I saw going to remain?"

Don Clemente pressed his arm very hard.

"I do not know," he said, adding, much moved, and with another pressure of the arm: "If I had only known!"

Benedetto opened his lips to speak, but checked himself. They proceeded thus in silence towards the two black cliffs in the noisy ravine, and leaving the main road, which turns to cross the Anio by the Ponte di San Mauro, took the mule-path leading to the convents, which winds up to the cliff on the left. The enormous, slanting mass of rock before them seemed to Don Clemente at that moment the symbol of a demoniacal power standing in Benedetto's way; so, too, the gathering darkness seemed to him symbolically threatening,