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She described the state of Maironi's health, and the circumstances which, for this reason, rendered it advisable to remove him from Villa Mayda; she did not, however, allude to the danger of arrest. She explained her friend's request to him, and added that the invalid's condition rendered the matter most urgent.
"But I believe," she added hesitatingly, "that Signor Maironi is ill, and not able to travel." When she uttered Maironi's name flames rushed to her face. She felt them far hotter than they appeared, but the Minister noticed them, and came to her aid. "Perhaps, Signora," he said, "you fear to compromise your friends the Selvas. Do not fear this.
You may even tell Signor Selva that, if he desire it, I will request my colleague, the Minister of Public Works, to place a reserved compartment at Signor Maironi's service." Jeanne, trembling violently, was about to interrupt him, to exclaim, "Only for a few hours longer?" but, controlling herself with difficulty, she took leave of the Minister, anxious to hasten to the Senate, to know!
Jeanne had shown her several photographs of him, telling her at the same time that no one of them was entirely satisfactory. In Piero Maironi's winning face Noemi had noticed a shade of sadness; Benedetto's face shone with extraordinary vivacity. Two days before he had had his hair and beard shaved, because he had heard a woman murmur: "He is as beautiful as Jesus Himself!"
The order had been executed, and according to a rumour coming straight from the Episcopal Palace, the packet contained a letter from Don Giuseppe to the Bishop, and a sealed envelope bearing in another hand the words: "To be opened after Piero Maironi's death."
I hoped that the holiness of the work would be confirmed, after Maironi's death, by the perusal of this document, which might come to be looked upon in the light of a prophecy. I hoped this, although I was at great pains to prudently hide my secret hopes from Maironi. "Two years have elapsed since the day of his disappearance, and nothing has since been heard of him.
She did not relate the particulars of Don Giuseppe's death to Noemi, but pondered them herself with a vague, deeply bitter consciousness of how different her destiny might have been, had she been able to believe; for at the bottom of Piero Maironi's soul there had always lurked a hereditary tendency to religion, and to-day she was convinced that when, on the night of the eclipse, she had confessed her unbelief, she had written her own condemnation in the book of destiny.
A boy from Jenne, who passed near him in the field, ran to the town and reported excitedly that the Saint was lying dead on the grass, near the cross. Benedetto reflected, with that shade of cloudy reason which governs us when we sleep and when we first awake. These were not his clothes. They were Piero Maironi's clothes. He was still Piero Maironi.
He felt much sympathy for Signor Maironi's religious views, and much esteem for his proposed apostolate, but Signor Selva must really convince him of the wisdom of leaving Rome for some time at least, and this in the interest of his apostolate itself; for his religious antagonists in Rome were waging war against him so violently, dealing him such slanderous blows, that very soon he must inevitably find himself entirely without disciples.
All that Jeanne had told her about him convinced her that Maironi had behaved very badly to her friend, that he had never really loved her and at the same time awoke in Noemi an intellectual curiosity, which, though she struggled against it, was always returning a curiosity to know if that man would have loved her better than Jeanne. She replied that Maironi's character was an enigma to her.
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