Gradually he felt immersed in a morbid train of reflections concerning as ever, the utter emptiness of his own existence, now really more exiled in loneliness than ever before. For months now he had been in the cloisters, and not one single word from the outer world concerning his future had come to him. The time was fast approaching when he must take the final vows. Had the Pontiff forgotten him? Had his emissary deceived his father on his death-bed? Or--it was unthinkable--had his father deceived him, to make him pliable to his wishes? Was he doomed to remain here till the end of time, severed from the world,--forgotten? The very thought was unendurable. These conjectures were worse than immediate annihilation. No matter which it was to be,--he, the monk, was utterly powerless. It were far better not to yield himself to these unwise fears. The Prior had been invisible to him for days. He alone might, by word or hint, have alleviated his fears; but he had not spoken. After brooding over these matters till he thought his brain would burst, Francesco determined to shake off the oppression of his cell and to seek solace under the azure vault of Heaven. Suiting the action to the impulse, he opened the door noiselessly and stepped into the corridor without. About him there was absolute silence. He stood at the farthest corner of the western wing. Nearly all the cells immediately about him were untenanted. For a moment or two he tarried, undecided. Then, following an irresistible impulse, he stepped on to the trellised walk without and decided to ascend the top of the mountain. Escaping from the court and the cloisters, all hushed in dream-like stillness, he climbed a green knoll which several ancient pines marked strangely with their shadows. There, leaning against one of the trunks, he raised his eyes to the barrier of encircling mountains, discovered by the quivering sunlight falling directly on the forests which fringed their acclivities. The vast woods, the steep descents, the precipices and torrents all lay extended beneath, softened by a pale-blue haze that alleviated in a measure the stern prospects of the rocky promontories above. The sky was of the deepest azure. The hoarse roar of torrents, throwing themselves from distant wildernesses into the gloomy vales below, mingled with the chant from remote convents.