“Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow.” “No. What I have to say must be said at once.” He examined me thoughtfully. “You have a parish here in New York?” I assented. “And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a change.” “A change?” He continued to look at me calmly. “It would be difficult for me,” he explained, “to find employment in a new place.” “But why should you leave here?” “I shall have to,” he returned deliberately, “if you persist in recognizing in me your former friend Count Siviano.” “Roberto!” He lifted his hand. “Egidio,” he said, “I am alone here, and without friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?” “Roberto,” I cried, “it is too dreadful to understand!” “Be a man, Egidio,” said he with a touch of impatience. “The choice lies with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions, to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends together, in God’s name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?” I was on my knees at his side in an instant. “We must never be parted!” I cried. “Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not always obeyed you?” I felt his hand close sharply on mine. “Egidio!” he admonished me. “No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--“ “Think nothing?” “Think nothing,” I said with a last effort. “God bless you!” he answered. My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy’s liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand. “I see,” he said; “it was _your_ penance too.”