life-current and learned the secret which Harvey, later, uttered to the
world?

Or had he been wholly absorbed in those philosophical questions which he
so brilliantly disputed at the learned Court of Mantua?

But to be near him was only to wonder more at the mystery which
enveloped him; and Fra Giulio, now that the lad had reached his prime,
often went reverently back to that night under the stars, when the
gifted youth had first stood, distanced as it were from men, remote from
human habitations and alone with the One whom only he acknowledged as
Master--then, perhaps, he had first been conscious of his latent power;
surely then the manifold message of his life must have whispered within
him many premonitions!

The time was long past when a question could arise as to the right of
the Augustinians to rich possessions in church and convent; and the
priceless treasures of art, flung sometimes in atonement upon their
quiet walls by a world-worn artist, or sent in propitiation for some
unconfessed sin by a prince of Church or State, were found side by side
with the gifts and legacies of the faithful, which, in sincere devotion,
they often impoverished their families to bestow.

But none of these things had charms for Fra Paolo. Not even the beauty
of the cloisters, where the low, gray arches rested on slender shafts of
marble, wrought and twisted into as many devices, drew his thoughts from
the ceaseless contemplation of his problems; not even the petted
rose-tree, lovingly trained by the gentle Fra Francesco and lifting its
pink glory to the crest of the colonnade, won his eyes to wander from
the absorbing treasures of the great library where he passed his days.