He thought of these things, and a certain sense of uneasiness and misgiving came over him.  The young artist had spoken kindly and sweetly to him.  She had seemed to him wonderfully pretty,—­and that is not without its influence even on eyes over which the cowl had been drawn for more than three-score years; she was a fellow-Venetian too,—­and that with Italians, who find themselves in a stranger city, is a stronger tie of fellowship than the people of less divided nations can readily appreciate; and, above all, there were motives connected with those awakened remembrances of the old man which made her an object of interest to him.  And the result of all this was, that he was uneasy at seeing her depart on the errand on which he suspected that she had gone.

After awhile he arose from his knees, and, returning to the great open door of the church, stood awhile irresolutely gazing out towards the forest to the southward.  He could not see the farmhouse, which has been so frequently mentioned, from where he stood, because it is to the eastward of the church.  After awhile he strolled out and along the road, till he came in sight of the house on the border of the forest.  But there was no human being to be seen.  Then, apparently having taken a resolution, he went into the dilapidated remains of the old convent, and ascended a stair to the room where his sole companion, the lay brother, was ill in bed.  He gave the sick man a potion, placed a cup with drink by his side, smoothed his pillow, and replaced a crucifix at the bed-foot before the patient’s eyes; and then, with a word of consolation, descended again to the road, and after a long look towards the forest, slowly moved off the nearest border of it.

It was between eight and nine when Father Fabiano, moving slowly and irresolutely, thus sauntered off in the direction of the forest; but it was nearly time for him to sound the “Angelus” at midday before he returned.

Perhaps it was the fear that he might be late for this duty,—­a task which devolved on him, the lay brother being ill,—­that made his steps, as he returned, very different from those with which he had set forth.  He came back hurrying, with a haggard, wild terror in his eyes, shaking in every limb, and with great drops of perspiration standing on his brow.  One would have said that all this evident perturbation could not be caused only by the fear of being late to ring the “Angelus.”  His first care, however, was to pay another visit to his patient.

“Ah!  Padre, you are going to have your turn again.  It is early this year.  All this wet weather.  Why, your hand is shaking worse than mine!” said the sick man, as the old monk handed him his draught.  And it was true enough that not only Father Fabiano’s hands were shaking, but he was, indeed, trembling all over; and any one but a sick man, lying as the fevered lay-brother was lying, could not have failed to see that it was from mental agitation, rather than from the shivering of incipient ague, that he was suffering.