The monastic laws had never before appeared to him in such fierce antagonism with his ideal of a modern saint.

And now, what if the Divine Will concerning Benedetto should reveal itself contrary to his desires?
Ah! was he not already almost on the verge of committing mortal sin?
Had he not been about to judge the ways of God, he presumptuous dust?
Prostrate upon the kneeling-stool, he sought to merge himself in the Almighty, praying silently for forgiveness, for a revelation to Benedetto of the Divine Will, and ready to worship it, whatever it might be, from this time forth.

As he rose, with a natural ebbing of the mystic wave from his heart, his eyes still turned towards the altar, but no longer fixed upon the tabernacle, he could not refrain from thinking of Jeanne Dessalle and of what Benedetto had said.

The very indifferent picture above the altar represented the martyr Anatolia offering, from Paradise, the symbolical palms to Audax, the young pagan who had attempted to seduce her, but whom, instead, she had led to Christ.
Jeanne Dessalle had seduced Benedetto; of this Don Clemente had no doubts, notwithstanding Benedetto's attempt to exonerate her and accuse himself.

What if she should now be converted through him?
Was it perhaps right that he should try?
Was Benedetto's impulse really more Christian than his own fears and the Abbot's scruples?
As he crossed the church with bowed head, Don Clemente's mind was struggling with these questions.