Francesco, turning to the Pontiff, was struck by the reticent shrewdness in Clement's eyes, the expression of his face, the calm, unmoved poise of body and head.
It crossed his consciousness in a flash that it was possible for this man to impress his will upon a world, no matter if that world rebelled.
"Your name?" the Pontiff spoke at last.
"Francesco Villani," came the reply, given with bated breath.
Clement stared into space as one endeavoring to recall a memory.
"Villani,—Villani—" he muttered to himself with an absent air. "Where have we heard the name before?"
The Cardinal of Cosenza leaned forward, his lips at Clement's ear.
The Pontiff nodded.
"We remember,—we remember,—the illegitimate offspring of Gregorio Villani, Grand Master of the Knights of the Hospital!"
The words had been spoken with intent of being heard by all present.
Francesco straightened himself to his full height.
His eyes blazed as he faced the Pontiff.
"Your Holiness need not proclaim my father's shame to the ears of Christendom! Let it suffice, that I am atoning for his fault,—if fault it was!"
There was a heavy silence, during which the Pontiff and Charles of Anjou exchanged significant glances.
They had not remained unremarked by Francesco, and the spark of rebellion which had slumbered in his soul all these long and weary months was fanned to devouring flame, as with inexpressible loathing his gaze rested upon the man who was the abomination of Christendom, the instrument of the Pontiff.
"What proof have we that you are atoning for the transgressions of one who passed from earth in mortal sin?" the Pontiff queried after a pause, while a fatuous smile played about Anjou's lips.
"The garb I wear," Francesco flashed. "The garb your Holiness has imposed!"
The Pontiff regarded him quizzically.
"You have served your novitiate?"
"At Monte Cassino!"
"How fares the Prior? It is many moons since we have visited his mountain-heights!"
Francesco gave a brief account of his life at the cloister, up to the time when he had received the summons to Rome.
Clement listened warily, the lawyer in his expression uppermost.
"You come from Rome?"
Francesco shivered at the memory.
"From Rome!" he replied curtly.
"What of the city?"
"King Conradino lords the Capitol!"
"You have seen the Pretender?"
"We have stood face to face."
"What is he like?"
Francesco gazed from Clement to Anjou
"A man!"
The Pontiff nodded, as if he approved the observation.
In the man Francesco had long discovered the judicial mind, and the discreet intelligence of the trained statesman.
From the shadows the Pontiff was warily regarding the sun-steeped features of the young monk.
At last, his voice sinking down to its accustomed calm, he said, as if feeling his ground:
"Does the new life satisfy your soul?"
The restless, ceaseless pain of longing again knocked at Francesco's heart, and with it returned the old spirit of rebellion, which had possessed him in the days of his novitiate at Monte Cassino. And, unconsciously, he repeated the words of the Duke of Spoleto:
"Men make a patchwork quilt of life, and call the patchwork religion and law."
An audible gasp was wafted to his ears.
Clement opened his hand and dropped the little crucifix, which he had been fingering during their talk, with a gesture of rejection, on the floor behind him. The palm of the hand, still stretched and open, bore sharp red marks. The point of the cross had evidently just been pressed into it with convulsive energy.
"Obedience is holiness," the Pontiff said at last, with a sweep of his hand.
Francesco discovered himself unwittingly gazing in the direction of Anjou. The Pontiff intercepted the look. Perhaps there was a reason for his question which Francesco was far from guessing, as he suavely said:
"You do not conceive, my son, that the Church can err in the choice of her instruments?"
"I have heard of some striking instances of the readiness of the servants of the Church," he replied with a straight look at Anjou, "to suppress the spirit when it suited them to do so."
At these words a change, visible even in the shadows, crossed the features of the Provencal leader.
"The spirit is capable of various interpretations," he snarled with a vicious glare at the young monk, whose air of loathing had stung him to the quick.
"But not the instrument," Francesco retorted hotly.
Clement at this point thought fit to interpose, yet not without a sting of rebuke to the brother of Louis of France.
"The Church requires not her subjects to think for her, nor to interpret her spirit. What she exacts, is unfaltering obedience!"
There was something in the Pontiff's tone which startled Francesco. He was conscious that Clement avoided touching on the business of his summons to Rome, as if to force him to betray his own trend of mind. Yet he shrank unwittingly from uttering the words which hovered on his lips. He felt instinctively there was no mercy within these walls, and at the thought he was seized with a secret dread.
The silence at last grew irksome. Francesco felt a cold hand clutching at his heart.
If the sacrifice had been in vain! If he had been tricked into selling his birthright, tricked into bartering his happiness for a shroud! He felt the flood-gates of his memory re-open; he felt the portals of the past, which had been locked and barred, swing back upon their hinges, grating deep down into his soul. The mad longing for the world bounded back into his heart.
Still the Pontiff did not speak.
"I have been summoned from Monte Cassino," Francesco at last spoke with an assumption of courage which he was far from feeling. "I am waiting the commands of your Holiness!"
The Pontiff nodded.
"These are grievous times indeed; the Church must needssummon her faithful about her, to become militant in her service!"
"What would your Holiness have me do?" said Francesco.
"The service that will be demanded of you is to be commensurate with the boon you have come to ask at our hands," Clement replied at last.
For a moment Francesco stared speechless at the Pontiff. Clement had read the very depths of his soul.
"When I entered the monastic life," he said at last, "it was stipulated that at the expiration of a certain period the burden should be lightened."
"Conditions?" replied Clement, with a slight contraction of the brows. "The Church demands unconditional surrender! Are you so very anxious to be relieved of the garb which befits the servant of God?"
"There are various ways to serve the Church," Francesco replied in a hard voice.
Clement bent serious brows upon him.
"We must subdue the mind for the sake of the mind! The boon you are about to ask might be granted—in return for some signal service to the Church!"
Francesco's eyelids narrowed.
"And this service,—what is it?"
He saw the Pontiff and Charles of Anjou exchange glances.
What new traffic were they about to propose to him?
He looked about the circle of ecclesiastics.
He met but the reflection of the Pontiff's quizzical glances.
"We require a special envoy to Naples, to calm the minds of the disaffected. Our choice has fallen upon you. On the result of your mission depends the granting of the boon."
Francesco made no reply.
What could he urge in his own behalf that was not defeated in the utterance?
He was no match for Clement in subtlety and, though hecould not fathom the reasons governing Clement's choice of himself to treat, as he surmised, with the Neapolitans, he recognized therein the desire on the part of the Pontiff to strike his enemies through one of their own.
"What are the commands of your Holiness?" he said at last.
"You will receive your instructions from the Cardinal of Cosenza," the Pontiff replied calmly.
"Your audience is concluded," the latter whispered into Francesco's ear. He approached the pontifical dais as one in a dream; and, after the customary genuflection and the ceremony of kissing the Pontiff's feet, he passed out of the audience-chamber into the sun-fraught air of noon, the Pontiff's "Go in peace!" still ringing in his ears.
The personality of Clement had not passed from him without a deep impress. Here was a man created in the type of his predecessors, Alexander IV and Urban IV, a man who shrank from nothing that would advance the cause of the Church.
Thinking of the audience which had just come to a close, a heavy sense of defeat weighed Francesco down. His resistance had been utterly swept away; in vain had he waited for a power that did not come to uplift him and release.
The chasm between the life of the present and the life of the past gaped ever wider. By some invincible force he was being hurried onward to a dark and uncertain goal.
In the language of the East, he had his fate bound about his neck. There was no escape for him. Vainly as he might cast about him for an anchor, he saw nothing encompassing him but a great void. From the old life he was barred forevermore. The future appeared as a country bleak and unredeemed.
Towards evening he rode out of the gates of Viterbo. From its mountain height the pontifical palace frowned upon theworld below with stern defiance, its architecture expressive of the asceticism, defensive of the soldier, rather, than the asceticism, contemplative of the saint.
Thus he rode out into the deepening dusk.
THE RED TOWER
WITHthe first pulse of dawn in the East, Francesco was up and astir with the zest of the hour. The woods were full of golden vapor, of dew and the chanting of birds. A stream sang under the boughs, purling and foaming over a broad ledge of stone into a misty pool. A blue sky glimmered above the glistening tree-tops; the dwindling wood-ways quivered with the multitudinous madrigals of the dawn.
A strange calm encompassed him, as he rode down the castle hill into a wood of ilex where the dawn freshness still lingered. The rebellious temper of his mood sank like a sea beneath the benediction of a god. His was not a soul that bartered through carven screens for penitence and peace. His face caught a radiance from the vaultings of the trees.
Around him ran wooded hills, streams and pastures, dusted thick with flowers. The odors of dawn burdened the breeze. In the distance the purple heights of Viterbo faded into the azure of the sky.
Southward he rode, towards Circé's land. The far heights bristled with woodlands, shimmering with magic mystery under the rising sun. The forest spires were smitten with a glamor of gold. Precipice and wooded heights were solitary as the sea itself.
Francesco had left Viterbo exalted, liberated, glad. The prospect of high endeavor had lifted him out of his melancholy. His mind, overawed by the spirit, was for the time set free from that intellectual restlessness and moral incertitude, which against his will had grown up in him in the atmosphere wherein he moved.
He was the messenger of the Church, bound for the Neapolitan court on a mission aiming to restore the Southern Italian cities to the control of him who was the Vicar of Christ on earth. For a moment even the paradox did not distress him. Enough that he was under marching orders, that the walls of Monte Cassino lay far behind him. Surely the time was coming when loyalty to Church and country would be as one! If he might only meet some great outward test, he mused, some great trial, in which, to his own mind, as to the world, his convictions might shine forth!
All he saw and heard confirmed the dark insinuations of the Duca di Spoleto; yet the fact of decision had soothed his bewilderment, and there was hope of action ahead. Meantime he allowed himself to react passively on the impressions of the way. He was entertained with making acquaintances all along the route. Nothing in his graceful aspect betrayed the religious, and people, not suspecting his errand talked to him with the frankness to which excited times give birth. On all lips there was the same tale; the cause of the League of Italian cities against the Pope was filling young and old with chivalric passion. From the lower undulations of Tuscany, through the valleys of the Apennines, in the levels of Emilia, everywhere waved the Florentine banner, blood red, with its flashing motto: "Libertas." It fanned the fire of a patriotism which he was compelled to recognize as pure, of that proud spirit of independence and hatred of oppression which has created the free cities of Italy. Not for the last time united protest against foreign tyranny was stilling petty strife andevoking the national consciousness, which even Dante was vainly to long for. And Francesco's spirit was swift to respond to the call. How otherwise? Was he not young? Was he not, too, a man, to whom country and race were dear?
But as he continued upon his way, as with his steady advance the forests gradually thinned and he began the descent into the plains of the Campagna, the image of Ilaria was constantly before him. Where was she? What was she doing? The thought brought with it a troubled bewilderment. Possessed like himself of a love of beauty, like himself consumed by a restlessness tremulous for something not quite clearly understood, this fine and beautiful creature would be ill at ease in the rough life of the feudal castle. That in the one case the restlessness might be reaching upwards, in the other, downwards. Francesco was too loyal to surmise. What good days they had known, he and she! Together they had watched the play of light on the mountain slopes, or over the great faint-gleaming lands within the soft curve of whose farthest blue they could divine the sea; together the two dark heads had bent over some vellum roll of Lariella's favorite poet.
And again she stood before him; the perfectly arched eyebrows, the wide forehead, the sweet curves that had dimpled in girlish days beneath a shadowy crown, greeted him from a dusky frame. With the increased perfection of her person went, he soon perceived, a trained and practised instinct for all the graces of life. As she had appeared to him in Rome, she had been more charming than ever before.
Too charming, alas! to remain unapproached by desire,—and too reckless, perchance, to resist!
With a jerk he reined in his steed.
Of a sudden, the fears that had been squirming below consciousness heaved up their heads and Francesco heard himself cry aloud:
"God! If one's lady of the stars should prove a wanton!"—
The uttered words struck cold upon his ear. He had stopped abruptly, throwing his open palm against the rough bark of a tree. The hurt mixed with the sound of his own voice.
Dismounting, he permitted the disturbed animal to graze in an adjacent meadow-land; then, invaded by the terror of the fact, he flung himself face downward, pressing his cheek into the wet grass, recalling every too significant word and look of the Proserpina of yore, thrilled in his senses by her last glance at him and troubled by a passion he despised. Slowly to the first pain, with which the image of his dream-lady faded, there succeeded another. The friend of his youth, the one woman he loved,—what was befalling her? Was she happy? Had the memory of the past faded from her mind? This pain was sharper than the other, though Francesco knew it not. It healed the pang of fleshly desire.
He called to his steed, mounted, and rode on with a new gravity. According to his curious wont in concrete experience, his relations with Ilaria became the index to wider questionings.
The old spell had been renewed, with a difference, and Francesco found himself trembling on the verge of a genuine passion. Through the mystic reverence which he sought to cultivate towards his lady flashed the allurement of the senses, and an occasional pang of reproach for his own cowardly surrender. He reproached himself bitterly for it, as he rode down the long hill that stretched in uneven rise and fall from Tivoli to Bracciano. Not that it troubled him, to find in his own love an earthly taint; many he knew who had struggled, had conquered, not without salt-tears. But to distrust the brightness of his lady's image; this surely in the annals of high love was a crime unparalleled. He tried to cast the evil thought aside, to exalt at once his love and his ideal. Breathing the morning air, the thing seemed possible. The situation helped;delicate enough to tickle his sense of honor, dramatic enough to absorb fancy.
The Ilaria of the ilex-wood grew dim as a fading fresco to Francesco's memory. He saw in her stead the little maid of the old castle of Avellino, whose waywardness, whose bright and ready gaiety had seemed to his more despondent temperament a gift of enchanting sweetness. Thinking of these things, dubious traits vanished from her image; she shone before his eyes, the piteous lady of his desire, and the devotion for which he longed rose ardent within him. It brought a fulness to the throat, to the eyes a smart which he coaxed into a tear. Then he rode on in a happier mood. The dark trees, which crowned the hill, were giving way as he descended to a wood of fresher green.
It was now verging towards evening. Francesco had reached the top of a lower ridge, from which the towers of Camaldoli, seen through a gap in the trees, rose shadowy against the fading blue of the horizon. The path, hardly more than a foottrail, had been lonely. Now a priest came ambling up on mule-back, feasting his eyes on the pleasant woodland. At the sight of Francesco he dropped them on his breviary, and passed on without word or sign.
For a moment the action struck him as a smart.
The sight of the Office-book had opened the door of another chamber in the house of Mind, that mysterious dwelling which always numbers rooms which the owner has never entered, and others, closed in long disuse.
At that moment the faint spark of devotion passed into a large indifference. In his early youth Francesco had been in the habit—how acquired he could not have told—of repeating, whenever possible, the canonical hours. He had long abandoned the custom, as far as intention went; yet in some forgotten chapel of the mind, deserted of the conscious powers, the holy rites go on forever, biding the time of their recall.He was as one in the grip of a bitter wrong; for through the jostling images which filled his mind, the Office continued to ring in persistent undertones.
The light between the great tree trunks grew from splendor to splendor; flashing its level glories through the forest, transfiguring the wood into flame. The sun had reached the rim of the horizon. Some far memory of brilliance was stirring and seeking. A pageant, withal, but not that triumph of earthly love, so fair in the false twilight of a night in the past, so wizened gray and lustful red in the light of recollection. The beams of the sinking sun were seven candle-sticks of gold. What noble elders follow, crowned with fleurs-de-lis? What mystic chariot was this, within which rides a woman olive-garlanded, robed in hues of living fire and of the fresh spring grass? Memory found what it sought: but he who thus looked back into the past was unaware that neither Lethé nor Eunoë might be his, who had not yet climbed the Purgatorial Mound.
The sun was sinking in the west when Francesco came to a ridge in the woodland, which sloped southward from the high rocks. The path seemed to lead into the heart of a wilderness. Pine woods bordered it and dead bracken and whortleberry spread away under the stiff shadows of the silent trees. A thousand spires began to blacken against the sunset, and Francesco was aware that he was carrying a savage hunger. He had hoped for a manor-house or inn, or some woodman's lodge, but the brambles that had rooted their long feelers across the path made it appear that the track had not been used for years. So rough and tangled did it become that Francesco turned in among the trees, where the dense summer foliage of the beeches had kept the ground clear of brush and bramble.
The prospect of a supperless night under the trees, even though he had never been clogged with heavy feeding at the monastery, made Francesco's thoughts hark back to the inn hehad left at Viterbo, and he regretted not having supplied himself with a stock of provisions ere he departed. Suddenly a distant sound made him pause and listen. The sound had a human note, and seemed nearer to him than he had at first imagined. He urged his steed on through the on-coming dusk. It was not long before the trees thinned before him and streams of golden light, slanting into an open space, gave the clearing the appearance of a forest-chapel at sunset.
From the open ground ahead came the incessant babbling of a thin and querulous voice, that faltered between the prattling of a child and the chatter of a mad soul, talking to the empty air. Sometimes there was a croon in the voice, sometimes a touch of decrepit anger.
A long, green bank, brushed by the boughs of the beech-trees, hid from Francesco the open ground that lay ahead of him. But, though it hid what he desired to see, the bank gave him the chance of approaching unobserved. Dismounting, he went up it on hands and knees, and insinuated a cautious head between the turf and the branches of the beeches.
On the other side of the bank lay a stretch of undulating grass, that rose into mounds and ridges, and dipped into shallow dykes, the mounds and ridges catching the fading sunlight, the hollows lying filled with the shadows. The trunks of the forest-trees shut in this open space on every side as with a palisade. On a mound in the centre stood crags of ruined masonry smothered in ivy, a broken squint in the wall looking like a rent in a cloud, through which the sunlight slanted.
A little old woman, with hair as white as snow, and strange black eyes in a strange and wrinkled face, knelt there, polishing something smooth and round that she held in her lap. The strange sight caused Francesco to peer all the more intently, and he drew back with a quick gasp, when in the suddenly revealed white dome of the head, the shadowy eye-sockets, theglistening teeth in the bare jaws, he recognized the thing for what it was,—the head of a skeleton.
As he sat there, considering the strange picture, Francesco for a time became oblivious of the cravings of his stomach. It was plain that the woman was mad, for as she polished the skull, she chattered incessantly. He asked himself, what was behind this madness. Death had been here at some time, perhaps with violence, wiping out life and reason, leaving white hair and tragic madness in its wake. The furrows deepened above Francesco's eyes. He sat there in the deepening dusk calling up visions of ruffianism and wrong; the vision of this poor soul's madness made him forget the dangers of the woods by night. Picking his way cautiously among the trees, he came within about five paces of her, before she lifted her head and saw him. Then he crossed himself and gave her a "Pax Dei."—
The little old woman stared at him and said nothing, her lower lip drooping, her inert hands resting on the top of the skull.
Her eyes puzzled Francesco, they were so black and bright, like the eyes of a bird. There was a startled wonder in them, as though she had never seen such a creature before. Then she suddenly wrapped the head in a bright-colored scarf which lay by her side, arose, and started through the thicket, putting her arms around the thing as a mother would hold a child.
The sun was now below the hills and the woods were turning black. Francesco felt a vague shudder go through him as, following the woman, he arrived at the fragments of a ruin, that was smothered up in ivy. An arched doorway with broken pillars led into a vault in which there stood an open coffin. He saw her approach the receptacle for the dead, place the skull in the coffin and close the lid. Then she crooned softly to herself and hobbled away into the dusk.
The thought that there must be a hut close by, struck Francescowith the pang of the returning consciousness of hunger, when suddenly he saw a light gleaming through the night as from a blood-red star. Straining his eyes, he peered through the dusk in the direction whence the light shone.
Under the shadow of a wooded spur that ran down into the valley Francesco saw a tower rising from an island in the centre of one of the great pools, of which the region abounded.
The walls of the tower shone crimson in the light of the rising moon, glowing above the black water as though it had been built of iron at red heat. Thousands of willows and aspens grew about the mere, and in the shallows were sedges and sword-leaved flags.
Remounting his steed, Francesco resolved to ask for food and a night's lodging, rather than to traverse the forests at night. He was spent, and so was his steed, and the region was infested by all manner of outlaws, who made the roads insecure. As he approached the mere, a large boat put out from a water-gate and crawled with long oars, like a beetle on the surface of the water. It disappeared in the night, and Francesco decided to hail it upon its return, in the meanwhile watching the red tower overhanging the pool. The reflection of the walls in the rippling waters was a broken redness wrinkling into black.
Francesco's wait was destined to be brief. The barge soon returned, and hailing the astonished oarsmen, he requested to be rowed across the mere. They seemed to hold silent council, then, seeing it was but one man, they grumblingly ran out planks for Francesco's horse, and he rode into the barge, remaining in the saddle and caressing his steed's black ears.
At the water-gate a lean man in a black tunic stood waiting. He gave the newcomer the blind stare of two watery eyes and, upon learning his request, disappeared inside of the tower. After a wait of brief duration he returned, and, beckoning to Francesco to enter the dark gateway, called to some attendant,who took charge of his horse and then led the guest to a dimly lighted chamber, in which he discovered the forms of a woman and a man. As Francesco appeared on the threshold, the man precipitately arose and, whispering a few words in the woman's ear, retreated by an opposite door. Francesco was so absorbed in the scrutiny of his surroundings, that he paid little heed to the action of the one of the occupants. The castellan ushered him into the chamber, closing the door behind him, and Francesco, making the best of a strange situation, approached the woman, who, reclining upon a dais, was regarding him intently, and preferred his request for a night's hospitality.
"Our guest-table waits for strangers," she replied with a smile, bidding Francesco to take the seat vacated by the former occupant, then regarding him with unconcealed interest.
For a moment Francesco was mute; the suddenness of the transition deprived him of speech. Perhaps it was also her complete fearlessness of manner, bare of every trace of aloofness, which had a somewhat disconcerting effect upon one who had not known woman's society in a long space of time, which caused the consciously awkward silence, as now and then their eyes met.
Her face had a singular charm. The lips were thin, tinged slightly with scorn, yet tender when she smiled. The eyes were large, of greenish hue, and strange lights seemed to flash from their depths. There was a rich, round beauty upon the face; the rose tints of the skin warm, and sensuous as the bloom upon fruit. She was very slender where the girdle ran, but big of bosom and long of limb.
Unconsciously, as he joined her at the board and partook of food and drink, she drew from him his tale. Her swift comprehension was as a magic mirror, wherein all creatures showed their thoughts. Not being burdened with the reflectivesense, he flung his words in the welkin's face, with the candour of one who had no shame or fear.
Between the woman's talking and his hunger, Francesco found little time for reflection. He did not see a dim figure with a white face pass out behind the hangings, turning half furtively to look at the two at the high table, before it disappeared. There were no lights in the hall, save a torch on a bracket by the screens. Francesco saw the smoke wavering up into the gloom of the roof, and the way it vanished into nothingness made him think of the updrift of souls into the night.
He was silent a while, thinking of the little old woman and the skull she cherished. The woman beside him felt his silence like the sudden closing of a door.
"You are thinking of some one?" she asked. "Or is it that you are tired?"
Francesco held his head high, as one looking into the distance. There seemed no reason why he should conceal the goal of his journey.
He stared at the flaring torchlight as he talked, but had he looked into the woman's eyes, he might have seen a sudden shiver of light leap up into them. She became watchful, studying Francesco as he talked, yet keeping a white calm.
"You journey to Naples," she said at last with a strange smile while she caught his wrist, her tense arm quivering, her eyes looking into his. "Do you not fear the contagion of that Court of Love?"
Her face seemed suddenly to blaze with intense passion, her eyes taking a reddish lustre and shining like points of fire.
"Hot blood and a cold ending," he said, looking past her, and she took her hand from his wrist and sat silent and stiff, her eyes fixed upon his face. Then she clapped her hands. An attendant conducted Francesco to a chamber which had been prepared for him, but as he passed out of her presence,he still felt the burning touch of her fingers and the strange look of her eyes.—
Sleep would not come readily to Francesco that night, as he lay on the couch prepared for him high up in the Red Tower. A full moon had risen and his wakeful mood shared the wonder and the mystery of the night. A dog bayed in the courtyard; the sound had but the effect of intensifying the stillness. The mere lay like a pavement of black marble, with no wavelets lapping against the base of the tower.
Francesco had lived through many strange moments, since he left Viterbo, and chance had thrown him with a singular suddenness into the life that he sought. Vividly in the midst of his wakefulness he saw the proud beauty of Ilaria as contrasted with the fierce pallor in the face of the lady of the castle, whose name he knew not. It seemed to Francesco that these two confronted one another with a mysterious hatred. And he was conscious of desires that had been awakened within him, the heat of the blood, the simmering of the brain. The woman was beautiful, lithe and limp as a snake and he felt, that once she had set her mind on gratifying a desire, resistance would be utterly in vain.
It was towards midnight when Francesco fell asleep, and his sleep had lasted for about an hour when he started awake in bed with a loud cry and a flinging out of the hands. He sat up with a shiver of fear, awakened from a dream in which torrents of black water had poured down to smother him. A wind had suddenly arisen far off in the valley. Francesco heard it sweeping out of the night, whistling through the aspens and the willows until it struck the tower and moaned about it, like a desperate and dying thing clinging to something that it loved. A cloud passed across the face of the moon. In the court below the watch-dogs set up a fierce howling.
Francesco crossed himself, feeling the presence of evil in the moaning of the wind. The night had sprung from moonbeamsand slumber into a tumult of unrest. He heard the water splashing against the base of the tower.
The moon came out again and Francesco rose from the bed and went to the window. The mere was scarred with lines of foam and the aspen boughs glittered and clashed in the moonlight. Francesco, greatly astonished, saw the barge was crossing the water with long, sinuous strokes of the oar. In the barge there stood a figure on horseback, motionless and black as jet, save for a sparkle of moonlight about its head. On the far bank among the aspen trees, a company of horsemen waited, spears erect, helmets glimmering, the wind tossing the dark manes of their steeds.
The nose of the barge turned to the bank, and almost instantly the wind ceased, and a great calm fell. The night grew quiet. The watch-dogs turned into their kennels. The plash of the water against the tower grew less and less.
Francesco saw the black horseman ride up the bank and join those who waited. There was not a sound save the muffled beat of horses' hoofs, as they turned and rode away among the trunks of the aspen trees. The barge had thrust out again and was recrossing the mere, with wrinkles of silver running from its snout. Francesco watched it with a strange misgiving. Who was the man who had disappeared the instant he had entered the presence of the woman? Why were armed men coming and going at this hour of the night? Why should the wind rise so suddenly and die down again when the barge touched the further bank? Reality and dream mingled strangely in the deep of the night, and these happenings made him question his own eyes and ears.
Again he betook himself to his rest, but it was some time ere sleep would come to his eyes. And then it seemed not sleep, but rather a deep trance, that seemed to hold him enthralled, seemed to benumb his limbs and deprive him of all energy, as if some opiate had been mingled with his draught.
He was suddenly conscious of an arch in the heavy stone, parting. In the opening there stood a woman, tall, lithe, slender. Instinctively he knew it was the lady of the tower. She held a lamp behind the folds of her skirt, and after she had entered his chamber the aperture closed noiselessly behind her.
Francesco stared at her wide-eyed, afraid to speak, afraid to move. Was it indeed the woman at whose side he had partaken of drink and food,—or was it some restless phantom haunting the abode of former days? He saw the strange glitter of her eyes in the midst of the darkness, for the moon was again hidden behind a cloud; he heard the sudden shrill clanging of a bell from some distant cloister or convent.
"You are awake!" she said in a whisper.
And suddenly the intimate dimness of the room was surcharged with faint perfumes, as the woman slowly walked towards him, looking at him steadily with deep, long breath.
He leaped up, sitting on the edge of the couch. Her fine finger tips rested on his shoulders, preventing him from rising. He saw the whiteness of her arms, bare to the shoulders; his eyes rested on the soft curves of the lithe body, under the clinging, transparent texture of a gown vying in whiteness with her skin. He looked up and trembled.
"What did you see, my friend?" she queried, bending over him.
"The wind waked me at midnight," he replied evasively.
The pressure of her fingers increased.
"What did you see?"
He noted the strange glitter in her eyes. The strange perfume which clung to her, crept to his brain.
"I saw armed men waiting among the aspens; a man on a horse ferrying across in the barge."—
His straightforwardness sent a momentary shadow across her face and for a moment she shut her lips tightly. But a strange light played in her eyes, as she said:
"Friends come and go in the night. There may be pain in their passing to and fro. The man you saw was my brother!"
She spoke with a level and unhesitating voice, yet in her eyes there gleamed a vague smouldering of unrest.
"I do not even know your name," he said, longing to clasp those firm white hands which were so close to his eyes.
"What is a name?" she shrugged, then, with a laugh, she added: "Has the night taken away your courage?"
Their eyes met.
"What is there to be afraid of?" he queried tremulously.
Again her eyes thrilled him.
"I have tricked you!"
He started to rise, grasping the white soft hands in his own and relinquishing them the next moment, as if he had touched fire. She held him easily with a glance of her strange eyes.
"What do you want of me?" he stammered. "Why are you here?"
"Come,—let me show you!" she said, taking him by the hand and leading him towards the window which looked out upon the mere.
He followed her resistlessly.
In a flash he felt her arms about him, drawing him close to her. She threw words in his face, with a fierce, intimate whispering.
Francesco recoiled, as if he had been bitten by a snake. But the magic was too strong for his starved senses; ever and ever she caught him towards her, kissing him with moist, hungry lips, while her eyes scintillated in strange lights that made him dizzy, and her arms were coiled about him with a strength he had not guessed.
With a choking outcry he succeeded at last in releasing himself, and turning to the door, tore at it, and found it fastened on the other side.
He stood there, facing her, white with fear, anger, passion.He knew if she willed to make him her own, he was lost, and she came slowly towards him, with the soundless tread of a tigress who has cornered her prey.
She was regarding him with a strange amused smile, then she held out her white arms.
"Are these charms so poor, that they must go begging?" she said with a return of the sardonic glitter in her eyes.
"In the name of mercy—go!" he stammered with blind pleading eyes.
"The halo cannot fail you," she replied with a laugh, as her glance swept him from head to foot. "Fool—fool!" She placed her hands tightly about his throat, looking into his eyes.
"Should you learn at the court of Naples to value the earthly joys more than the heavenly,—return,—and be forgiven!"—She kissed him and sent him reeling against the wall.
For a moment he stood paralyzed, facing her in the darkness, while her laughter, high and shrill, resounded in his ears. He rushed at her, tried to detain her, as she reached the arch. But as the panel parted, a figure suddenly came between him and the woman. The moon had emerged from the cloud, behind which it had been hidden. Francesco recoiled and staggered back into his chamber, as if he had been dealt a sudden blow. For, swift as the shadow had come between them, ere the panel closed behind the woman—he had recognized Raniero Frangipani.
End of Book the Third.
Book the Fourth
THE PASSION
SIREN LAND
ITwas early on the following morning when Francesco saddled his steed and departed from the Red Tower. He did not trust himself to remain longer under the same roof with the woman whose spell boded evil to soul and body, much less to face Raniero Frangipani and to have his worst fears and suspicions confirmed. He had spent the remainder of the night awake with the shadows, dazed, unable to think, beset by weird, mocking phantoms. The woman's insatiate kisses still burned on his lips; her strange perfume still clung to the air; her passion had seared his soul. If he remained, he was lost. The spark that had slumbered in his soul had suddenly leaped into a consuming flame; the voice of the body, hushed so long, began to clamor; the long restraint threatened to break down the self-imposed barriers with its own sheer weight. A strange dizziness had seized him; everything seemed to swim in a blood-red haze. It was only by degrees that reason returned; the phantom of desire faded before the memory of Ilaria.
Almost dazed he crossed the mere, expecting every moment to hear the ferryman recalled and resolved to resist to the utmost any attempt to stop his departure.
But nothing happened. An enchanted silence encompassedthe castle, unbroken even by the voices of the slowly awakening dawn.
Thousand and one thoughts, desires and fears rushed through Francesco's brain, as he rode down into the picturesque valley, which encompassed the feudal masonry where he had spent the night. And with the memory of the white arms, which had held him in their close embrace, with the memory of the thirstily parted lips, which had well-nigh kissed him to his doom, with the memory of the haunting eyes which had discoursed to him a secret he was never to know, an indescribable longing for happiness stole into his heart, a longing which made him utterly oblivious of time and space and caused him to spur his steed to greater haste in the desire to arrive at his goal.
Little as Francesco had mingled with the world, inexperienced as he was in mundane matters, his instinct had not been slow to inform him that Raniero was leading a double life, that he was deceiving Ilaria, who perchance trusted him utterly. The certainty of the indisputable fact struck him with quick pang. Was Ilaria awake to the truth? And what had been the effect of the stunning revelation?
In the ban of these conflicting emotions, in which love and doubt alternately held the balance in the scales, Francesco rode towards Circé's land.
On all sides lonely stretches of country expanded before the solitary horseman's eyes. With each onward step the scene changed, and Francesco's abstracted gaze roamed far away to the distant mountain ranges of the Basilicata, revealing reaches of fantastic peaks and stretching away in long aerial lines towards the sun-fraught plains of Calabria.
Though he pushed onward with restless determination, Francesco was compelled to devote the hours of high-noon to rest and refreshments in this cloister or that, which he came upon during his journey. For the glare of the August sun wasintense, and though the nights were cool, the roads were infested by all manner of outlaws, making progress slow and hazardous.
While at a Cistercian monastery during the siesta hours on the third day of his journey, the first tidings of a battle between the hosts of Anjou and Conradino reached Francesco's ear. The armies had met at Tagliacozzo in Apulia—so a peasant had informed the monks—but the outcome of the conflict was shrouded in mystery. The monks, chiefly old men, who had long cast the vanities of the world behind them, met Francesco's eager questionings with mute shrugs. The quarrels between pope and emperor meant nothing to them.
Ever southward he rode, until, breasting the moors, he saw the strange, tumultuous magic of the Maremmas drifting into the vague distance of night.
The summer woods in the valleys were as a rolling sea, carved out of ebony. Hill rose beyond hill, each more dim and misty and alluring. A great silence held. Enchantment brooded over Terra di Lavoro.
The last day of his journey had come.
The torrid plains of Torre del Greco dreamed deserted in the glow of the noonday sun. The leaves of the palms and the branches of the mimosa hung limp and motionless. The sky was as a burning sapphire. The glare of the sun was almost insufferable, as it fell over the arid expanse of the Neapolitan Campagna to the pencilled line of the southern horizon, where a long circle divided the misty shimmering dove-color of the Tyrrhene Sea from the pale, sun-fraught sky.
The region, as far as the eye could reach, was deserted. Almost it seemed as if the spell of a magician had banished at once all life and sound. Mala Terra the inhabitants called the stretches beyond the Cape of Circé, where, grim and impregnableupon its chalk cliffs, rose Astura, the sinister stronghold of the Frangipani, silent, bleached against the background of the restless waves, which laved its base.
With a shudder Francesco skirted the dreary castello, and the name of Ilaria flew to his lips. Was it upon yonder lonely castle height she was waiting Raniero's return; was it up yonder the thread of her destiny was interminably spinning itself out in self-consuming, wasting monotony? Was she, who had been created for happiness, slowly pining away, remote from all she loved and held dear on earth? Or had the lure of the Siren land drawn her into the vortex of life and the passions of the sun-kissed shores? Francesco shivered despite the noonday heat, and, fondling the ears of his steed, urged it onward over the rocky expanse.
The sun was low in the heavens when Francesco came within sight of Naples. From Castellamare to Posilippo the graceful lines of the gulf rose on the horizon; the blue cone of Vesuvius was wreathed in smoke; Resina and Portici reposed snugly at its base. Eagerly Francesco's eye scanned the outlines of spires and domes as he rode towards the city. The surrounding hillsides were scarlet and purple, gold and bronze, and great masses of green where ilex-trees and acanthus grew. The wine-pressers were shouting gaily. There was so much light and life in the world, and he felt almost as if he had lost them in the shadow of the cloister.
Military rule, he saw, as he drew near, obtained in the place. To the challenge of the sentry at the gate of San Gennaro he gave his name, and "From Viterbo" repeated the soldier, calling the news back over his shoulder.
"From Viterbo!" the word passed on. Through the arched gate, Francesco could see a clustering confusion of people. There was an aspect of reckless merriment about the crowded streets.
A tall horseman, just inside the gate, beckoned, and Francesco rode slowly through the arch.
"From Viterbo?" repeated a big man significantly. "Well, friend, you bear no olive! Hardly the days these for the olive of peace to circulate in Italy!"
A snicker ran through the crowd.
"But, nevertheless, we are free to perceive that you are a messenger, and all the more welcome!"
"I know not for whom you take me!" returned Francesco. "But—"
"Are you not a messenger?" interrupted the large man.
A strange audacity possessed Francesco of a sudden.
"Certainly I am a messenger," he returned fearlessly,—"but not to your rebellious city, Messere!"
The last part of his speech was either not heard, or not heeded, for at the first there was loud applause. In the midst of the clamor, Francesco was endeavoring to make himself understood, but finding his efforts futile, he resigned himself to silence, and was carried onward with the crowd, calm as the atom at the centre of a cyclone, yet noting all the incidents of the way. He watched the streets with their luxuriant picturesqueness, so different in appearance from the severe and heroic style of Viterbo. At last Francesco accosted the big horseman, inquiring the direction of the palace. Thereupon the latter became more civil and offered to accompany the stranger in person. This innuendo Francesco thought best to decline, giving as his reason that he intended putting up at an inn, it being too late to see the Regent.
Having received the desired intelligence, Francesco abandoned himself for the nonce to the charm of the hour, the magic of the place. As he rode leisurely through the streets, crowds came and went from Santa Maria. Now and then the note of a mandolin was heard. All was life, mirth, happiness! How fair this city,—the city that seemed to be girt only by lilies!The flower-girl, nodding and smiling, distributed her violets, embedded in geraniums. The blind beggar touched his harp; in the distance were heard the rhythmic strains of a Barcarole.
Over the whole gulf a faint, transparent mist had arisen.
The magnolias shone white in the dying light. The soughing of the wind through the leafy boughs sounded like the faint music of Aeolian harps.
The dying light touched the walls of houses and palaces with mellow hues, then faded away before the swift southern night. Here and there torches gleamed; then the city grew silvery in the moonlight which flooded the heavens.
As in a dream Francesco rode in the direction indicated by the horseman. Again he was to enter the sphere of his former life; again he was to move in the sphere of a court, again he was to taste the life of the past. It was the same,—yet not the same. Then he had been happy, care-free, loving and beloved. Now he stood alone, looking from a frosty elevation upon the joys of life! Would the dark phantoms of the past vanish, here in this radiant air, under this cloudless, sun-fraught sky?
The inn, where he took lodging, was built after the manner of the thirteenth century, in a hollow square. It was of white stone, simple, harmonious, with quaint carvings and ornamentations. The Byzantine arches of the cloistered walks were its chief beauty, disclosing a vista of the garden with its orange trees and grape-vines; its waving rose bushes, which encircled the ancient fountain. A long parapet of dusky tiles left open the beautiful view of the Bay of Naples.
After Francesco's steed had been properly cared for, after he had refreshed himself with a bath and had partaken of food and drink, he felt irresistibly drawn into the vortex of gladsome humanity, which enlivened the streets towards the Vice-regal palace.
What an enchanted land this was, contrasted with the shadowy courts of Viterbo, that hill-encircled city with her dusky shrubbery, her funereal cypresses!
How fair were the flowery fields, the marble villas, encircling the bay! The wonderful glow of color seemed like fairyland enchantment! The gaily dressed crowds that thronged streets and piazzas, the brilliant processions, continuing way into the night, the mass of scarlet, blue and gold, which flashed out from under the torch-light, the music, the tumult, the laughter, the fantastic, the freedom:—here life was indeed but a merry holiday.
The night was radiant. Sky and houses and bay were aglow with her silver beams. Merry groups were passing to and fro. There was music, singing, happiness,—all the gentleness of a perfect night.
Francesco walked more slowly in the moonlight. Suddenly a couple passed him: a man and a woman. The woman wore a crimson cloak, and in passing she looked up into his face. It was only a moment's meeting; but all the color had faded from Francesco's cheeks. He looked back: they had disappeared among the throngs.
For a moment he stood still as one paralyzed. Could his eyes have deceived him? Impossible! He could never mistake that face, nor was there another like it on earth! He faltered, stopped, recovered himself, then retraced his steps in search of the two. But his efforts were utterly in vain. As one dazed he returned to the inn. The convent bells of Santa Lucia, pealing the midnight hour, found him pacing up and down within the narrow confines of his chamber. Now and then he paused and looked out into the night. Only when the noise and merriment had died to silence he sought his couch, but it was long ere sleep would come to him. For in the woman with the unknown cavalier, who had passed him without recognition, he had recognized Ilaria Caselli.
THE LADY OF SHADOWS
ITwas early on the following day when Francesco took the direction of the palace. The city appeared gay and bright; the beautiful isles of Ischia and Capri, like twin outposts guarding an earthly paradise. He had arrived at the hour of dusk, which had soon faded into the swift southern night, and much of the magic of the scene had thus been veiled before his gaze. Now he saw and marvelled.
All around stretched the bay in its azure immensity, its sweeping curves bounded on the left by the rocky Sorrentine promontory, with Sorrento, Meta and a cluster of little fishing villages, nestling on the olive-clad precipices, half hidden by orange groves and vineyards and the majestic form of Monte Angelo towering above. Farther along the coast rose Vesuvius, the tutelary genius of the scene, its vine-clad lower slopes presenting a startling contrast to the dark smoke-wreathed cone of the mountain. On the right the graceful undulations of the Camaldoli hills descended to the beautifully indented bay of Putcoli, while Naples herself, with Portici and Torre del Greco, reposed as a marble quarry between the blue waters of the bay. Beyond, in the far background, the view was shut in by a phantom range of snowy peaks, an offshoot of the Abruzzi mountains, faintly discerned in the purple haze of the horizon.
As Francesco strode along his wonder increased step by step. He seemed to have invaded the realms of the sun, who sent his unrelenting light rays down upon glistening pavements composed of lava, reflecting the beams with all the brilliancy of mosaic. Notwithstanding the glare of August, balconies, casements, terraces and galleries were enlivened by a gay and merry crowd. The gloomy fronts of marble and granite had disappeared under silken hangings and garlands of flowers. Everywhere there was joy and gladness, and the bells from Santa Chiara rang as joyously over the city and gulf as if the papal Inderdict held no terrors for these children of an azure sky.
The situation was nevertheless acute. A Clementine court and a Ghibelline populace, who defied alike the Pontiff and their self-imposed ruler. Excommunication was hanging black over the leaders of this movement; the court was in evil moral repute, and it was difficult to foresee whither matters were drifting under these sun-fraught, cloudless skies.
Francesco requested and obtained immediate audience of the Duke of Lerma, Anjou's representative in the kingdom of Sicily. The interview being terminated, and his duties outlined, he strode out into the palace gardens, which sloped in picturesque terraces down towards the bay.
With fevered pulses he leaned against the parapet of the broad stone wall which encircled the gardens, his eyes resting on the enchanted landscape, the clustered towers of Naples, beyond which rose the smoke-wreathed cone of Vesuvius. Thence his gaze wandered to the sea, which glowed from rose to violet and sapphire, all melting into unity of lapis lazuli, and finally down into the Parthenopean fields, where the atmosphere heaved with the pulsing intensity of high noon.
On all sides the spell of Circé enfolded him triumphantly. Truly, here all painful broodings might be forgotten, wherethought and sight were alike suffused with the radiance of sea and sky. It was a place of dawns and sunsets, of lights rising amber in the East over purple hills and amethystine waters; of magic glows at evening in the west with cypresses and yews carven in ebony against primrose skies, while the terraces blazed with flower-filled urns, and roses overspread the balustrade with crimson flame.
How vivid the life of the past weeks stood out before Francesco's eyes, a life crowned by the memory of his arrival in this Siren City, and his strange meeting with Ilaria. It seemed like a mocking dream; yet, the pain in his heart informed him, it was true!
How long he had stood there, he did not know, when he suddenly gave a start.
An opening door,—a light foot-fall—he stood face to face with Ilaria.
She paused; stately, unsmiling, reserved. A white silence seemed to enfold her as their eyes met.
"There is some error," she said, with a retrograde movement. "I will withdraw—"
"There is no error!" the words leaped from Francesco's lips. "Or perchance there is! Well,—is it true?"
The words were uttered almost brutally.
"I do not understand!" she replied icily.
"Why are you at Naples?"
His face was a mere whiteness amid shadows.
"Why are you here?" she replied, straightening with a sharp lifting of the head.
"Perhaps I am here to spy on you!"
"The office does you honor! First, a traitor—then, a spy—"
Her words were fierce and bitter.
"What are you saying?" he flashed. "Betrayal is not man's prerogative alone!"
She shuddered. His words bit brutally into the truth. For a moment she stood rigid, searching his eyes and the very depths of his soul.
And so, for a brief space, they faced each other in silence. Francesco acknowledged anew, and with a mortal pang, that here was a woman for whom a man might give his life and count it naught. A woman to gain whose love, a man might sell his soul. Ilaria had come into her own, as never in her earlier youth. Like all great beauty, hers was serious. It had acquired a touch of majesty and mystery, a depth of intensity and significance.
"Is Raniero at Naples?" Francesco spoke at last.
She faced him defiantly, as if resenting his attitude.
"I knew not you were concerned in your former rival!"
Her utterance seemed part of the incomprehensible cruelty of life. His face was hard and white as he regarded her.
"Perchance my concern is all for my present one!"
"I do not understand—" she faltered, her hands over her bosom. Yet her tone had lost its defiant ring.
As in mute questioning her eyes were on his face.
"As I passed down the Via Forinara last night, I passed a woman and a man. The woman was garbed in crimson, and there was no sign of recognition in her eyes. The woman I knew. Who was the man?"
Ilaria's face was very pale.
"What is he to you,—the monk?"
He came a step nearer.
"Who was the man?"
She gave a little nervous laugh.
"Stefano Maconi,—one of the nobles of the court!" she said, with a drooping of the head. Then with a quick touch of resentment: "Have you heard the name before?"
Francesco ignored the irony of her tones.
"What is he to you?" he queried sternly. His face lookedpale and drawn, his eyes shone with an almost supernatural lustre.
"Really," she squirmed, "I knew not that I stood in need of a confessor. I have one already,—and I do not intend to supplant him with another!"
"You have not answered my question!" he insisted. "To the office of your confessor I do not aspire. I am not suited for that exalted position!"
There was something in his eyes that frightened her.
"And why?"—she faltered.
"I should not prove so passive a listener!"
For a moment she faced him in silence. Then, with a sudden return of her old hauteur, she flashed:
"Of what do you accuse me?"
He did not speak. But the look he gave her sent the hot blood curdling to her cheeks; ebbing back, it left them paler than before.
"You have not answered my question!" he said at last.
She lifted heavy lids and eyed him wondering, as one waking from a dream.
"What do you want of me?"
"What is Stefano Maconi to you?" he queried more fiercely, grasping her wrists, and compelling her to raise her eyes to his.
"Stefano Maconi is nothing to me!" she replied hoarsely.
Never had he spoken thus to her. As their eyes met, she noted that he had changed. With a quick pang she saw how thin and haggard he had grown.
"Is this the truth?" Gropingly her hands went out to him, her witch-like eyes held his own and like the cry of a tortured soul it came from her lips:
"It is the truth!"
Her voice died in a sob; her whole body was shaken with convulsive tremors, when she found herself caught up in his arms.
For a moment she abandoned herself wholly to his embrace, while terms of endearment fell deliriously from his lips. Again and again he kissed the pale lips, the eyes of the woman he loved better than life.
How long, it seemed to Ilaria, since she had leaned over the parapets of Avellino, had watched the sunset light fade into the night! And one night of all, how slowly the moon had risen! How white the magnolias had shimmered, while the distant Liris sang his slumber song! How the red roses burned in the moonlight, as she stole down the path to meet him!
How long ago was it? Now, she could remember every detail of that night; how she started when a sleeping bird uttered a dream note among the leafy boughs, how she listened to her own heart-beats, how she found herself caught up in Francesco's arms.
All her youth, all her days had been poisoned by the thought of what she had done. Resolutely, day after day, month after month, had she fought against the demon of remorse. She had shut eyes and ears to the haunting spectre of the past. And now, steadily, pitilessly, she went back, step for step, through the hell of her past life, the mockery that was bitterer than death, the horror of loneliness, the slow, grinding, relentless agony of her nights and days.
The crowding phantoms of the past would not release her from their shadowy grip. Why had he again come into her life? Why had he again crossed her path?
Staggering, he released her at last, took a backward step and covered his face with his hands.
"I have tried not to lay hands on a thing that it is not mine to touch."
She pointed to his garb. A wondering look passed into her eyes.
At first he noted it not, in the thrall of his own emotions. Then, as she touched him lightly upon the arm, he understood.
"I am here, the legate of Clement, carrying the Interdict, unless Naples acknowledges the supremacy of the Church! For this I have laid aside the cowl!"
Ilaria shivered. He was still a monk,—after all.
There was nothing she could do to help him. That was the bitterest thing of all!
Silence seemed to bind the world into a golden swoon.
"Francesco," she cried, almost with a sob.
He came nearer and took her hands again.
"Let us go down among the terraces!" she said in a whisper. "Let us forget the loud, insistent clamor of the world. Let us be quite still,—as if we were among the poppy-flowers!"
By some strange echoing of the mind the idyls of past days woke like the songs of birds after a storm of rain. Her whole soul yearned out with a wistfulness borne of infinite regret.
Silently they walked down the flower-bordered path.
The panorama from the spot was enchanting. Far below lay the blue waters of the bay; out to seaward lay ancient Baiae with her thousand palaces and the forest of masts at Puteoli; beyond these Sorento and the shimmering islands, bathed by the boundless sea. The vaporous cloud from Vesuvius hung like a cone of snow in the still blue atmosphere.
The foreground was no less enchanting. All round the pavilion lay a verdant, luxuriant wilderness. The mysterious silence of noon brooded over the whole landscape; only a faint hum of life came up from the city. All else was still. Not a living creature seemed to breathe within ear-shot.
He led her to where a fountain plashed in the sun and stone steps ringed a quiet pool.
In the silence she bent over him, her hand on his dark hair.
The tonsure burned her fingers like living fire.
"Why have you done this thing?"
He felt the scorn in her voice; he felt the swift repellence of her body.
Francesco raised his face to that of the woman. It was very pale from the fierceness of the struggle to keep down even the suspicion of emotional sentimentality.
"You ask why I have done this thing?" he spoke dryly at last. "The hour has come when I must tell you, Ilaria! Not that it can steer the vessel of our lives into different channels,—but that at last I may stand vindicated in your sight. I am the son of Gregorio Villani, Grand Master of the Order of St. John. My mother died at my birth. I was raised at the Court of Avellino. So powerful was the influence of my father, that, notwithstanding the protests of the Holy See, he placed his offspring at a Ghibelline court. There came a day when I was summoned to the bedside of my father at San Cataldo. What passed between us during that interview, neither you nor any one on earth may know. I went into his room a happy, care-free youth. I came out the shadow of my former self,—a monk. One year I lived among shadows in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. There I took the vows which made me a prisoner, far more closely bound than you can know; for death alone shall release me from a life which has grown to be a torture. I became a monk half from pity, half from fear. The pity is almost gone; the fear has left me long ago. After a time I was called to Rome. The Church I love not! I am unfit to remain in her service. The monks are to me a hateful body. Willingly, gladly, would I see my scapular replaced by the tunic for my coffin. Yet death is not for me to hope for, or even to dream of,—and in vain I ask, what holds the future?"