"If prayers and penances avail, and masses untold,--her soul is in Heaven! Yet--how do I know if the sacrifice availed?" Francesco again relapsed into silence. Out of the mist before his eyes there rose his own life. He saw its shimmering past,--all the allurement for happiness it held out,--and the dreary future decreed for him, to atone for another's sin. "What is required to make a monk of me?" he queried with a dead voice. "What cloister am I to enter?" The sick man breathed quickly. "All these matters have I arranged. From His Holiness himself have I letters, sanctioning the matter. You will be given the right of friar's orders that shall free you at times from the weariness and monotony of the cloister. In all difficulties or troubles you will appeal directly to the Pontiff! These privileges are great!" "The Pontiff!" Francesco uttered with a start. "Pope Clement IV is the mortal enemy of those to whom I have pledged my troth, to whom I owe allegiance. I am a Ghibelline!" he concluded, as if struck by a new thought. "I can never become a monk!" For a moment the elder Villani lay silent, as if dazed by this sudden unforeseen resistance. He forced himself to answer calmly and not to betray his own misgivings. "Your reasons are mere sophistry!" he said, after a brief pause. "Has the party of Conradino the power to pave your way to Heaven,--to save my soul from perdition? To insure your mother's eternal peace? Your path lies henceforth with the Church, from which only my own perverseness and blindness had severed you. For you henceforth there are no commands save those of the Holy Father! What are Guelphs and Ghibellines to you in this of all homes,--when I am lying at the door of death?" "They will look upon me as an ingrate, a renegade, a traitor,--and she of all,--she--" He covered his face with his hands. "What say you?" asked his father drearily. "Where am I to go?" came the monotonous response. "You will repair to Monte Cassino, there to serve your novitiate. Your time is to be shortened by special dispensation. At the end of that period you will be called to Rome, to enter the Chapter House of the Order of St. John. It holds out greater honor and privileges than any in the world. You will take your orders directly from His Holiness. The path to glory and to holiness lies open to you. Are you satisfied?" A moan came from Francesco's lips. "My strength is failing,--your word,--to God!" Francesco stood beside his father's death-bed, his arms hanging limply by his side. His damp hair clung closely to his head. His eyes were dull and unseeing. Like a breath of the evening wind his youth had passed from him. His gaze was not upon his father's face, but turned inwardly upon the great aching void where his happiness had been. When he spoke his words were low, his tone and his face alike without expression. "In the sight of God, I promise to become a monk!"