The Father Superior kept up a continuous, low grumbling, and heard him with knitted brows.
"Here," he exclaimed at last, "you are going back to the days of St.
Benedict! to the wiles of shameless women! Let your Benedetto go, let him go, let him go! To Jenne and farther still! And you were not going to tell me this?
Did it seem a matter of slight consequence?
Was it of no consequence that intrigues of this sort should be carried on round the monastery?
Now go; go, I say!" Don Clemente was about to answer that he had not known of any intrigue, nor if the woman had recognised his disciple; that at any rate he had already informed Benedetto of his intention of sending him away; but he silenced this useless self-justification and, kneeling, took leave of the Abbot.
Don Clemente took up again the tiny lantern, which he had left in the corridor, but did not go to his cell.

Slowly, very slowly, he walked to the end of the corridor; slowly, very slowly, and not without frequent pauses, he descended by a little winding stair to the other passage leading to the chapter-hall.

The thought of his beloved disciple wandering amidst the darkness on the mountains; the anticipation of the resolutions he might form, after communing with his God; the covert hostility of his brother monks; the Abbot's frowns and doubts; the fear that he would oblige Benedetto to choose between leaving the convent and taking the monastic vows, all weighed heavily upon his heart.
Benedetto's mystic fervour, his great and unconscious humility, his progress in comprehending the Faith according to the ideas originating with Signor Giovanni, a new lucidity of thought which flashed from him in conversation, the growing strength of their mutual affection, had awakened in him hopes of a revelation of Divine Grace, of Divine Truth, of Divine Power for the saving of souls, to be made, at no distant period, through this outcast of the world.

They had said at the meeting at Signor Selva's house, "A saint is needed." The first to affirm this had been the Swiss Abbe.

Others had said that the saint should be a layman.