"You felt, perhaps, the need of rest? The English winds are keen. You came to recruit yourself before going back to fight your cause in a court of law? You wanted help and counsel?" Dino's head sank lower upon his breast: he breathed quickly, and did not speak. "Had you not proof sufficient? I sent all necessary papers by a trusty messenger. You received them?" "Yes." Dino's voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper. "You have them with you?" Dino flashed one look of appeal into the Prior's face, and then sank on his knees. "Father," he said, desperately, "I have not done as you commanded me. I could not fight this cause. I could not turn them out of their inheritance--their home. I destroyed all the papers. There is no proof left." In spite of his self-possession the Prior started. Of this contingency he had certainly never thought. He came a step nearer to the young man, and spoke with astonished urgency. "You destroyed the proofs? You? Every one of them?" "Every one." A sudden white change passed over Padre Cristoforo's face. His lips locked themselves together until they looked like a single line; his eyes flashed ominously beneath his heavy brows. In his anger he did, as he was privileged to do to any inferior member of his community, forgetting that Dino Vasari, with his five-and-twenty years, had passed from under his control, and was free to resent an offered indignity. But Dino had laid himself open to rebuke by adopting the tone of a penitent. Thence it came that the Prior lifted his hand and struck him, as he sometimes struck an offending novice--struck him sharply across the face. Dino turned scarlet, and then white as death; he sank a little lower, and crushed his thin fingers more closely together, but he did not speak. For a moment there was silence. The waiting monks, the passing pupils who saw the blow given and received, wondered what had been the offence of one who used to be considered the brightest ornament of the monastic school, the pride and glory of his teachers. His fault must be grave, indeed, if it could move the Prior to such wrath. Padre Cristoforo stood with his hand lifted as if he meant to repeat the blow; then it fell slowly to his side. He gathered his loose, black robe round him, as though he would not let his skirts touch the kneeling figure before him--the scorn of his gesture was unmistakable--and hastily turned away. As he went, Dino fell on his face on the marble pavement, crushed by the silence rather than the blow. Monks and pupils, following the Prior, passed their old companion, and did not dare to speak a word of greeting.