He went.  She was standing there, lamp in hand, like Our Lady of Sorrows on her altar.  She vanished, reappeared on a terrace close above his head, and spoke to him.  He had sent her letters, she said, which she could not read; but she had been told that they spoke of love.  She thought at first that he must be wicked, and then she felt that he could not be so wicked as to have meant what that woman said; and now that she saw his face she knew he did not write it.  Still, he meant her well when no one else did.  Her need was sore; he alone in the world could help her; she had determined to call to him.  If he had some feverish fancy for what was not her’s to give, he would be cured of it so soon as he knew all.  She told him her story, and entreated him to take her to Rome, and consign her to her parents’ care.  He promised, and then his heart misgave him.  Would it be right in him?  Would it be good for her?  He passed two days in a ceaseless internal conflict, and then determined to see her once more, but only to comfort and advise.

She stood again awaiting him at her window.  Again she spoke, reproaching him for the suspense she had undergone.  Her manner dispelled all doubt, and he did for her what she desired.  The journey, which he describes in detail, was to him one spontaneous and continued revelation of her purity and truth.  Then came the trial and his banishment.  He was compelled to leave her to the protection of the law; to the good offices of the Court which confronts him now—­of the men who, as he reminds them, laughed in their sleeve at the young priest’s escapade, and at the transparent excuses with which he had taxed their credulity,—­of the men who, in consideration for his youth, merely sent him to disport himself elsewhere, leaving the woman he had striven to protect, to the husband who was to murder her.

The news which summons him from Civita Vecchia has fallen on him like a thunderbolt.  His being is shaken to its foundations.  He strives to contain himself in outward deference to the Court, but a storm of suppressed sorrow and indignation rages beneath all his words:  now uttering itself in pitying tender reverence for Pompilia’s memory; now in scorn of those who would defame her; now in anger at himself, who is casting suspicion on her innocence by the very passion with which he defends it, now in defiance of those who choose to call the passion by the vulgar name of love.  He tears up the flimsy calumnies which have been launched against her and himself; flinging them back in short, contemptuous utterances in the teeth of whosoever may believe them; begs his judges to forget his violence; and makes a last attempt to convince himself and them that no selfish desire underlies it.  Pompilia is dying:  he too is dead—­to the world.  What can she be to him but a dream—­a thinker’s dream—­of a life not consecrated to the Church, but spent, as with her, in one constant domestic revelation of the eternal goodness and truth—­a dream from which he will pass content....  And here the whole edifice of self-control and self-deception breaks down, and the agonized heart sends forth its cry:—­