We understand each other, do we not?
And now prepare yourself to listen to my last words, which I hope you will cherish." Don Clemente's whole face flushed as he spoke thus, in low tones.
Benedetto bowed his head, and Don Clemente laid his hands upon it with gentle dignity.
"Do you desire to surrender your whole being to Supreme Truth, to His Church, visible and invisible ?" said the low, manly voice.
As though he had expected both the action and the question, Benedetto answered at once, and in a firm voice: "Yes." The low voice: "Do you promise, as from man to man, to remain unwed and poor, until I shall absolve you from your promise ?" The firm voice "Yes." The low voice: "Do you promise to be obedient always to the authority of the Holy Church, administered according to her laws ?" The firm voice: "Yes." Don Clemente drew his disciple's head towards him, and said, his lips almost touching Benedetto's forehead: "I asked the Abbot to allow me to give you the habit of a lay-brother, that on leaving here you might, at least, carry with you the sign of a humble religious office.

The Abbot wished to speak with you before deciding." Here Don Clemente kissed his disciple on the forehead, thus intimating what the Abbot's decision had been after their meeting; and into the kiss he put silent words of praise which his fatherly character and the humility of his disciple would not permit him to utter.
He did not notice that the disciple was trembling from head to foot.
"Here is what the Abbot wrote after talking with you," said he.
He showed Benedetto the sheet of paper, upon which the Abbot had written: "I consent.

Send him away at once, that I may not be tempted to detain him!" Benedetto embraced his master impulsively, and rested his forehead against his shoulder without speaking.

Don Clemente murmured: "Are you glad?
Now it is I who ask you!" He repeated his question twice without obtaining an answer.

At last he heard a whisper: "May I be allowed not to answer?
May I pray a moment ?" "Yes, _caro_, yes!" Beside the monk's narrow bed, and high above the kneeling-desk, a great bare cross proclaimed: "Christ is risen; now nail thy soul to me!" In fact some one, perhaps Don Clemente, perhaps one of his predecessors, had written, below it: "_Omnes superbiae motus ligno crucis affigat_." Benedetto prostrated himself on the floor, and placed his forehead where the knees should rest.