Benedetto stopped. He hesitated a moment and then said, with dignified
gravity:
"What do you want of me?"
It had become almost dark. The lightning flashed, the noise of the
thunder filled the miserable little lane, and prevented the two from
hearing each other. Benedetto approached the door.
"I have been told," the young girl answered, without raising her head,
and pausing when the thunder crashed forth, "that you will perhaps be
obliged to leave Jenne. A word spoken by you has given me life, but your
departure will kill me. Repeat that word to me; say it for _me_, for me
alone."
"What word?"
"You were with the _Signor Arciprete_, the parish priest, I was in the
next room with the servant, and the door was open. You said that a
man may deny the existence of God without really being an atheist or
deserving eternal death, if that God, whose existence he denies, be
placed before him in a shape repugnant to his intellect, and if he love
Truth, Virtue, and his fellow-men, and by his life give proof of his
love."
Benedetto was silent.
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