But there was no going back through that tempest, and St. Benedict, perceiving that the Lord was on Scholastica’s side, stayed with her till morning, and they had great sweetness of holy converse all night long. And when the sun rose, Scholastica asked for his blessing and said farewell for the last time, and she and her nuns went down the hill to their own convent, looking back many times, I think, to that other one on the hill. And three days later she died, and her brother saw her soul mount to heaven under the appearance of a spotless dove, and he called his monks and said to them with great rejoicing: “My sister is with God. Go and bring her body hither that we may bury it with honour.” Which they did, and Benedict made her a grave at the foot of the altar in his church. Now he knew that his own end was approaching, and he disposed all things rightly, and mightily exhorted his brethren to persevere and to be faithful to their Rule. And he more than ever afflicted his body with penance and abounded in charity to the poor. And thirty-four days after Scholastica had departed, a great fever seized him, so that he had no strength and suffered much. But he never ceased from praying, and bade all his monks pray that God would have mercy on his soul. On the sixth day of the fever he bade them carry him into the church, where he had already caused his sister’s grave to be opened to receive him. There, on the edge of the grave, supported by his disciples, he received the Holy Viaticum, and then bade them lift him to his feet. He stretched out his arms, praised God once more for all His goodness, and died—_standing_, like the gallant warrior he was! They buried him beside Scholastica. Two of his monks, whom he had sent forth on a mission, were very far away from Monte Cassino when they saw, in the dead of night, a vast number of the stars of heaven run together to form a great bridge of light towards the east. A voice spoke to them, saying, “By this road, Benedict, the beloved of God, has ascended to heaven.” CHAPTER III ST. GREGORY THE GREAT Three years before St. Benedict and his sister Scholastica passed away, there was born, in a palace on the Cœlian Hill, a child who was christened Gregory, a name which signified “Vigilant.” His lineage was exceedingly illustrious, his parents belonging to the great old Gens Anicia, a family of nobles which had been respected and honoured ever since the days of the Republic, and in which, to use the words of a chronicler of Gregory’s time, “the men seemed all to have been born Consuls, and the women Saints.”