At nine o'clock Benedetto took the road to the Sacro Speco.

He left the monastery unobserved, while Fra Antonio was confabulating with Giovanni Selva's messenger.

At that moment the rays of the returning sun suddenly lit up the old walls, the road, the hill itself; shrill cries of gladness, swift wings of tiny birds broke through the green on all sides, and to his lips the words rose spontaneously: "I am coming!" III.
Jeanne and Noemi reached the monastery at ten o'clock.

A few paces from the gate Jeanne was seized with a violent palpitation.

She would have liked to visit the garden before the convent, the urchin from Subiaco having told her that the monks of Santa Scolastica had a fine kitchen-garden, and that some people belonging to them worked in it--an old man from Subiaco and a young stranger.