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Don Gervaso's face grew stern and his eyes rested sadly on Odo. "You speak," said he, "of bringing light into dark places; but what light is there on earth save that which is shed by the Cross, and where shall they find guidance who close their eyes to that divine illumination?"
These annals were locked in the archives, under Don Gervaso's care; but Odo learned from the old servant that some of the great Marquess's books had lain for years on an upper shelf in the vestry off the chapel; and here one day, with Bruno's aid, the little boy dislodged from a corner behind the missals and altar-books certain sheepskin volumes clasped in blackened silver.
Don Gervaso's words came back to him with deepening significance, and he thought how truly the old chaplain's prayer had been fulfilled. Honour and power had come to him, and they had abased him to the dust. The "Humilitas" of his fathers, woven, carved and painted on every side, pursued him with an ironical reminder of his impotence.
As a companion for Odo the abate was clearly not to Don Gervaso's taste; but he stood silent, turning the comment of a cool eye on the soprano's protestations, and saying only, as Cantapresto swept the company into the circle of an obsequious farewell: "Remember, signor abate, it is to your cloth this business is entrusted."
Odo's glimpse of the square at Oropa told him that here was a band of strolling players such as Cantapresto had talked of on the ride back to Donnaz. Don Gervaso's instructions and the old Marchioness's warning against the theatre were present enough in the boy's mind to add a touch of awe to the curiosity with which he observed these strange objects of the Church's reprobation.
Guided perhaps by his mother's exclamation, he noticed an added zeal in Don Gervaso's teachings and an unction in the manner of his aunts and grandmother, who embraced him as though they were handling a relic; while the old Marquess, though he took his grandson seldomer on his rides, would sit staring at him with a frowning tenderness that once found vent in the growl "Morbleu, but he's too good for the tonsure!"
The impression Odo had gathered from Don Gervaso's talk was of the provincial stage in all its pothouse license; but here was a spectacle as lofty and harmonious as some great religious pageant. As the action developed and the beauty of the verse was borne to Odo on the light hurrying ripples of Caldara's music he turned instinctively to share his pleasure with those about him.
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