He seemed not to have heard the sandaled tread of the good brother, but as the monk remained watching him, he at last looked up.

It was not the ignoble old man who had admitted him, but a pale, gaunt personage, of a graver and more ascetic, and yet of a benignant, aspect.

Rowland's face bore the traces of extreme trouble.

The frate kept his finger in his little book, and folded his arms picturesquely across his breast.

It can hardly be determined whether his attitude, as he bent his sympathetic Italian eye upon Rowland, was a happy accident or the result of an exquisite spiritual discernment.