She ended her discourse thus: _"Nous vous attendons absolument, monsieur! Quittez ce vilain trou! Quittez-le bientot! Bientot!"_ Having let his stern gaze wander rapidly round the circle of mocking or stolid faces, from the Duchess's _lorgnon_ to the journalist's eye-glass, Benedetto replied: _"A l'instant, madame!"_ And he left the room.
He left the room and the house, crossed the square, walking awkwardly in his ill-fitting clothes, and, without looking to right or left, took the road leading down the slope, impelled by his spirit rather than by the weakened powers of his body.

He intended to pass the night under some tree, and, on the morrow, go to Subiaco; from there, with Don Clemente's aid, he would go to Tivoli, where he knew a good old priest, who was in the habit of coming to Santa Scolastica from time to time.

He no longer thought of accepting the Selvas' hospitality, which would have been precious to him.

His heart was pure and at peace, but he could not forget that the young foreign girl's sweet voice, and the tone of sadness in which she had said "You will not come to Subiaco ?" had awakened strange echoes within him, and that in that one second the thought had flashed across his mind: "Had Jeanne been like this, I should not have left her!" The mystics were right; penance and fasting were of no avail.

But it had all disappeared now.