"I have had a letter from Italy," she said, after gently waving aside
Noemi's pressing inquiries. "Don Giuseppe Flores is dead."

"Flores? Who is he?" Noemi did not remember him, and Jeanne chided her
sharply, as if such forgetfulness rendered her unworthy of her position
of confidante. Don Giuseppe Flores was the old Venetian priest who had
brought a last message from Piero Maironi to Villa Diedo. Jeanne had
then believed that his counsels had decided her lover to renounce the
world, and, not satisfied with giving him an icy reception, had wounded
him with ironical allusions to his supposed attitude, which she
pronounced truly worthy of a servant of the Father of infinite mercy.
The old man had answered with such clear understanding, in language so
solemn and gentle and so full of spiritual wisdom--his fine face glowing
with a radiance from above--that she had ended by begging him not only
to forgive her, but to visit her from time to time. He had, in fact,
come twice, but on neither occasion had she been at home. She had
then sought him out In his solitary villa, and of this visit, of this
conversation with the old man so lofty of soul, so humble in heart,
so ardent in spirit, so modest and reticent, she had retained an
ineffaceable memory. He was dead, they wrote. He had passed away, bowing
gently and humbly to the Divine Will. Shortly before his death he had
dreamed continually during a long night, of the words addressed to the
faithful servant in the parable of the talents: _"Ecce superlucratus sum
alia quinque,"_ and his last words had been: _"Non fiat voluntas mea sed
tua."_ Her correspondent was unaware that, in spite of many misgivings,
of certain yearning towards religion, Jeanne, stubborn as ever, still
denied God and immortality as eternal illusions, and if from time to
time she went to Mass, it was only to avoid acquiring the undesirable
reputation of being a free-thinker.