it, but was in a subsequent age removed to a more specially
honourable position under the high altar at the eastern end of the
church. There is still, however, the slab deeply carved with letters
of ancient form, which tells how St. Romauld, the founder of the
order of Camaldoli, praying by night at that altar, saw in a vision
St. Apollinare, who bade him leave the world, and become the founder
of an order of hermits.

It was on the same stones that the knees of St. Romauld had pressed,
that the Capucin was kneeling, as Paolina walked up the nave of the
church. The peaked hood of his brown frock was drawn over his head,
for the air of the church was deadly cold, and the fever and ague of
many a successive autumn had done their work upon him. He was called
Padre Fabiano, and was said to be, and looked to be, upwards of
eighty years old. Probably, however, his age was much short of that.
For the nature of his dwelling-place was such as to stand in the
place of time, in its power to do worse than time's work on the
human frame.

Of course, it can be no matter of question, why a monk is here or is
there, does this or does that. Obedience to the will of his
superiors is the only reason for all that, in the case of other
human beings, depends on their own volition. The monk has no
volition.

No human being who had, it might be supposed, would consent to live
at St. Apollinare in Classe, with one lay brother for a companion,
and discharge the duties assigned to the Padre Fabiano. But the
question why his superiors sent him there, was still one that might
suggest itself, though it was little likely ever to be answered. And