mood, he accomplished without apparent effort the things for which
others paid by a life-time of struggle; and morally he had no visible
combats, not seeming to be even reached by the things which tempted
other men. His wants were fewer than the simplest rule of his convent
allowed, and it seemed less that he had triumphed over the usual earthly
temptations than that he had been created abnormally free from them that
his whole strength might spend itself in the solving of problems. In a
certain sense he stood mysteriously alone, though his friends were many
and devoted and among the wise and venerated of the earth; but there was
always a door closed to them beyond the affection which he returned
them. "Always," he said once, "we veil our faces": yet none doubted his
sincerity.

From time to time, as the years sped, some echo of the jealousy which
his phenomenal success and the boldness of his bearing naturally evoked,
penetrated to the cloisters of the Servi; and more than once there had
been a denunciation to the Inquisition to discuss; some one in authority
had found fault with his theological opinions and denounced him for his
reading of a passage in Genesis, upon which he based his argument--the
affair was grave indeed.

"Ah, the pity of it--the pity of it!" Fra Giulio had exclaimed. "They
should show mercy--he is still so young a man!"

"Ay, young enough to need much discipline," bravely muttered a friar
who dared to disbelieve in their prodigy.

"Silence!" commanded Father Gianmaria, who was now the Superior, in a
stentorian tone; for within these walls there was no appeal from his
judgment or his temper. "The man who speaks only what he _knows_ is old