unknown? It is to
be a priest!"

Don Ippolito spoke in Italian, and he uttered these words in a voice
carefully guarded from every listener but the one before his face. "Do
you know what it is when such a moment as this comes, and you would
fling away the whole fabric of falsehood that has clothed your life--do
you know what it is to keep still so much of it as will help you to
unmask silently and secretly? It is to be a priest!"

His voice had lost its vehemence, and his manner was strangely subdued
and cold. The sort of gentle  it expressed, together with a
certain sad, impersonal  at the difference between his own and
the happier fortune with which he contrasted it, was more touching than
any tragic demonstration.

As if she felt the  of the  which she could not fully
analyze, the young girl sat silent. After a time, in which she seemed
to be trying to think it all out, she asked in a low, deep murmur: "Why
did you become a priest, then?"

"It is a long story," said Don Ippolito. "I will not  you with
it now. Some other time."

"No; now," answered Florida, in English. "If