Now he understood that he should have recalled something; but what?
"Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed.

"Was it perhaps your vision ?" Yes, surely.

Benedetto had seen himself dying on the bare ground, in the shade of a great tree, and wearing the habit of the Benedictines; and one argument against believing in the vision--in accordance with the advice of Don Giuseppe Flores and of Don Clemente--had been the seeming contradiction between this detail and his repugnance to the monastic vows, which had been ever increasing since his withdrawal from the world.

Now this contradiction seemed to be vanishing, and therefore the credibility of the prophetic nature of the vision was reappearing.

Don Clemente was aware of this part of the vision, and should have been able to read in Benedetto's heart, his awe at being once more confronted with a mysterious, divine purpose concerning him, and his fear of falling into the sin of pride.