Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/129

Rh by a life devoid of comfort. This the master told him.

"Do not consider my body," the young man pleaded humbly and ardently. "My body is infinitely remote from me! Fear rather that I may not do all that is possible to ascertain the Divine Will!"

He added that he would also pray for light concerning this meeting, and that he had never felt God so near as when praying on the hills. The master took his face between his hands, and kissed him on the forehead.

"Go," said he.

"And you will pray for me?"

"Yes, nunc et semper."

Steps in the corridor. A key turns in the lock. Benedetto vanishes like a shadow.

Good old Fra Antonio, the doorkeeper of the monastery, did not betray the fact that he had expected to see Benedetto also, and, with that dignified respect in which were blended the humility of an inferior and the pride of an old and honest retainer, he told Don Clemente that the Father Abbot was waiting for him in his private apartment. Don Clemente, carrying a tiny lantern, went up to the great corridor, out of which the Abbot's rooms and his own opened.

The Abbot, Padre Omobono Ravasio of Bergamo, was waiting for him in a small salon dimly