Father Anselmo shrugged his fat shoulders, ruefully.

“It’s all well enough,” he said, “for those that want to take this hard road to Paradise; but why need they drive the flock up with them?”

“True enough, Brother Anselmo,” said Father Johannes; “but the flock will rejoice in it in the end, doubtless.  I understand he is purposing to draw yet stricter the reins of discipline.  We ought to be thankful.”

“Thankful?  We can’t wink but six times a week now,” said Father Anselmo; “and by-and-by he won’t let us wink at all.”

“Hist! hush! here he comes,” said Father Johannes, “What ails him? he looks wild, like a man distraught.”

In a moment more, in fact, Father Francesco strode hastily through the corridor, with his deep-set eyes dilated and glittering, and a vivid hectic flush on his hollow cheeks.  He paid no regard to the salutation of the obsequious monks; in fact, he seemed scarcely to see them, but hurried in a disordered manner through the passages and gained the room of his cell, which he shut and locked with a violent clang.

“What has come over him now?” said Father Anselmo.

Father Johannes stealthily followed some distance, and then stood with his lean neck outstretched and his head turned in the direction where the Superior had disappeared.  The whole attitude of the man, with his acute glittering eye, might remind one of a serpent making an observation before darting after his prey.

“Something is working him,” he said to himself; “what may it be?”

Meanwhile that heavy oaken door had closed on a narrow cell,—­bare of everything which could be supposed to be a matter of convenience in the abode of a human being.  A table of the rudest and most primitive construction was garnished with a skull, whose empty eyeholes and grinning teeth were the most conspicuous objects in the room.  Behind this stood a large crucifix, manifestly the work of no common master, and bearing evident traces in its workmanship of Florentine art:  it was, perhaps, one of the relics of the former wealth of the nobleman who had buried his name and worldly possessions in this living sepulchre.  A splendid manuscript breviary, richly illuminated, lay open on the table; and the fair fancy of its flowery letters, the lustre of gold and silver on its pages, formed a singular contrast to the squalid nakedness of everything else in the room.  This book, too, had been a family heirloom; some lingering shred of human and domestic affection sheltered itself under the protection of religion in making it the companion of his self-imposed life of penance and renunciation.