And the old monk did go, and the "Angelus" was duly rung. But
Brother Simone, as he lay upon his fevered bed, was very well able
to tell that the rope was pulled by a very uncertain and unsteady
hand. "Poor old fellow! he's going fast! I wonder whether there's
any chance of their moving me when he's gone?" thought Brother
Simone to himself.

But Father Fabiano, for his own part, judged that prayer and penance
were more needed for the healing of his present disorder, than
either bark or quinine. And when he had rung the bell, he betook
himself again to the altar of St. Apollinare, and with cowl drawn
over his head, and frequent prostrations till his forehead touched
the marble flags of the altar-step, spent before it most of the
remaining hours of that day. Nevertheless, it was true that, be the
cause what it might, the aged friar was ill, not in mind only, but
also in the body. And before the hour of evensong came,--his
coadjutor, Fra Simone, the lay-brother, being by that time so much
better as to be able to crawl out,--Father Fabiano was fain to
stretch himself on the pallet in his cell. And Fra Simone took it
quite as a matter of course in the ordinary order of things, that
the father was laid up in his turn with an attack of fever and ague.

It was much about the same time that Father Fabiano had set out on
that walk to the forest, from which he had returned in such a state
of agitation, that old Quinto Lalli, the prima donna's travelling
companion, was made acquainted with the escapade of his adopted
daughter. Though she bore his name, the fact was that the old man
was in no way related to the famous singer. But they had lived
together in the relationship first of teacher and pupil, and then of