The Hill of Venus Page 21

  CHAPTER II

  THE LADY OF SHADOWS

  It was early on the following day when Francesco took the direction ofthe palace. The city appeared gay and bright; the beautiful isles ofIschia and Capri, like twin outposts guarding an earthly paradise. Hehad arrived at the hour of dusk, which had soon faded into the swiftsouthern night, and much of the magic of the scene had thus beenveiled before his gaze. Now he saw and marvelled.

  All around stretched the bay in its azure immensity, its sweepingcurves bounded on the left by the rocky Sorrentine promontory, withSorrento, Meta and a cluster of little fishing villages, nestling onthe olive-clad precipices, half hidden by orange groves and vineyardsand the majestic form of Monte Angelo towering above. Farther alongthe coast rose Vesuvius, the tutelary genius of the scene, itsvine-clad lower slopes presenting a startling contrast to the darksmoke-wreathed cone of the mountain. On the right the gracefulundulations of the Camaldoli hills descended to the beautifullyindented bay of Putcoli, while Naples herself, with Portici and Torredel Greco, reposed as a marble quarry between the blue waters of thebay. Beyond, in the far background, the view was shut in by a phantomrange of snowy peaks, an offshoot of the Abruzzi mountains, faintlydiscerned in the purple haze of the horizon.

  As Francesco strode along his wonder increased step by step. He seemedto have invaded the realms of the sun, who sent his unrelenting lightrays down upon glistening pavements composed of lava, reflecting thebeams with all the brilliancy of mosaic. Notwithstanding the glare ofAugust, balconies, casements, terraces and galleries were enlivened bya gay and merry crowd. The gloomy fronts of marble and granite haddisappeared under silken hangings and garlands of flowers. Everywherethere was joy and gladness, and the bells from Santa Chiara rang asjoyously over the city and gulf as if the papal Inderdict held noterrors for these children of an azure sky.

  The situation was nevertheless acute. A Clementine court and aGhibelline populace, who defied alike the Pontiff and theirself-imposed ruler. Excommunication was hanging black over the leadersof this movement; the court was in evil moral repute, and it wasdifficult to foresee whither matters were drifting under thesesun-fraught, cloudless skies.

  Francesco requested and obtained immediate audience of the Duke ofLerma, Anjou's representative in the kingdom of Sicily. The interviewbeing terminated, and his duties outlined, he strode out into thepalace gardens, which sloped in picturesque terraces down towards thebay.

  With fevered pulses he leaned against the parapet of the broad stonewall which encircled the gardens, his eyes resting on the enchantedlandscape, the clustered towers of Naples, beyond which rose thesmoke-wreathed cone of Vesuvius. Thence his gaze wandered to the sea,which glowed from rose to violet and sapphire, all melting into unityof lapis lazuli, and finally down into the Parthenopean fields, wherethe atmosphere heaved with the pulsing intensity of high noon.

  On all sides the spell of Circe enfolded him triumphantly. Truly, hereall painful broodings might be forgotten, where thought and sightwere alike suffused with the radiance of sea and sky. It was a placeof dawns and sunsets, of lights rising amber in the East over purplehills and amethystine waters; of magic glows at evening in the westwith cypresses and yews carven in ebony against primrose skies, whilethe terraces blazed with flower-filled urns, and roses overspread thebalustrade with crimson flame.

  How vivid the life of the past weeks stood out before Francesco'seyes, 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 astart.

  An opening door,--a light foot-fall--he stood face to face withIlaria.

  She paused; stately, unsmiling, reserved. A white silence seemed toenfold her as their eyes met.

  "There is some error," she said, with a retrograde movement. "I willwithdraw--"

  "There is no error!" the words leaped from Francesco's lips. "Orperchance 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 ofthe 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 prerogativealone!"

  She shuddered. His words bit brutally into the truth. For a moment shestood rigid, searching his eyes and the very depths of his soul.

  And so, for a brief space, they faced each other in silence. Francescoacknowledged anew, and with a mortal pang, that here was a woman forwhom a man might give his life and count it naught. A woman to gainwhose love, a man might sell his soul. Ilaria had come into her own,as never in her earlier youth. Like all great beauty, hers wasserious. It had acquired a touch of majesty and mystery, a depth ofintensity 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. Hisface 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. Yether 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 aman. The woman was garbed in crimson, and there was no sign ofrecognition 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 adrooping of the head. Then with a quick touch of resentment: "Have youheard the name before?"

  Francesco ignored the irony of her tones.

  "What is he to you?" he queried sternly. His face looked pale anddrawn, his eyes shone with an almost supernatural lustre.

  "Really," she squirmed, "I knew not that I stood in need of aconfessor. I have one already,--and I do not intend to supplant himwith another!"

  "You have not answered my question!" he insisted. "To the office ofyour confessor I do not aspire. I am not suited for that exaltedposition!"

  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 ofher old hauteur, she flashed:

  "Of what do you accuse me?"

  He did not speak. But the look he gave her sent the hot blood curdlingto 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 adream.

  "What do you want of me?"

  "What is Stefano Maconi to you?" he queried more fiercely, graspingher 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 hehad changed. With a quick pang she saw how thin and haggard he hadgrown.

  "Is this the truth?" Gropingly her hands went out to him, herwitch-like eyes held his own and like the cry of a tortured soul itcame from her lips:

  "It is the truth!"

  Her voice died in a sob; her whole body was shaken with convulsivetremors, when she found herself caught up in his arms.

  For a moment she abandoned herself
wholly to his embrace, while termsof endearment fell deliriously from his lips. Again and again hekissed 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 parapetsof Avellino, had watched the sunset light fade into the night! And onenight of all, how slowly the moon had risen! How white the magnoliashad shimmered, while the distant Liris sang his slumber song! How thered roses burned in the moonlight, as she stole down the path to meethim!

  How long ago was it? Now, she could remember every detail of thatnight; how she started when a sleeping bird uttered a dream note amongthe leafy boughs, how she listened to her own heart-beats, how shefound herself caught up in Francesco's arms.

  All her youth, all her days had been poisoned by the thought of whatshe had done. Resolutely, day after day, month after month, had shefought against the demon of remorse. She had shut eyes and ears to thehaunting spectre of the past. And now, steadily, pitilessly, she wentback, step for step, through the hell of her past life, the mockerythat 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 theirshadowy grip. Why had he again come into her life? Why had he againcrossed her path?

  Staggering, he released her at last, took a backward step and coveredhis face with his hands.

  "I have tried not to lay hands on a thing that it is not mine totouch."

  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, asshe touched him lightly upon the arm, he understood.

  "I am here, the legate of Clement, carrying the Interdict, unlessNaples acknowledges the supremacy of the Church! For this I have laidaside the cowl!"

  Ilaria shivered. He was still a monk,--after all.

  There was nothing she could do to help him. That was the bitterestthing 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 usforget the loud, insistent clamor of the world. Let us be quitestill,--as if we were among the poppy-flowers!"

  By some strange echoing of the mind the idyls of past days woke likethe songs of birds after a storm of rain. Her whole soul yearned outwith 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 bluewaters of the bay; out to seaward lay ancient Baiae with her thousandpalaces and the forest of masts at Puteoli; beyond these Sorento andthe shimmering islands, bathed by the boundless sea. The vaporouscloud from Vesuvius hung like a cone of snow in the still blueatmosphere.

  The foreground was no less enchanting. All round the pavilion lay averdant, luxuriant wilderness. The mysterious silence of noon broodedover the whole landscape; only a faint hum of life came up from thecity. All else was still. Not a living creature seemed to breathewithin ear-shot.

  He led her to where a fountain plashed in the sun and stone stepsringed 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 herbody.

  Francesco raised his face to that of the woman. It was very pale fromthe fierceness of the struggle to keep down even the suspicion ofemotional sentimentality.

  "You ask why I have done this thing?" he spoke dryly at last. "Thehour has come when I must tell you, Ilaria! Not that it can steer thevessel of our lives into different channels,--but that at last I maystand 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. Iwas raised at the Court of Avellino. So powerful was the influence ofmy father, that, notwithstanding the protests of the Holy See, heplaced his offspring at a Ghibelline court. There came a day when Iwas summoned to the bedside of my father at San Cataldo. What passedbetween us during that interview, neither you nor any one on earth mayknow. I went into his room a happy, care-free youth. I came out theshadow of my former self,--a monk. One year I lived among shadows inthe Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. There I took the vowswhich 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 atorture. I became a monk half from pity, half from fear. The pity isalmost gone; the fear has left me long ago. After a time I was calledto 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 myscapular replaced by the tunic for my coffin. Yet death is not for meto hope for, or even to dream of,--and in vain I ask, what holds thefuture?"

  Ilaria's head had drooped over his; her eyes wandered blindly over theground. Then a warm drop fell to the stone at her feet.

  During his recital the very soul in Francesco seemed to have witheredwith dread, and he seemed to shrivel up bodily and to grow feeble andold and wilted, as a leaf that the frost has touched.

  "The memory pains you," she said at last.

  He bit his lips.

  "Deem you, I forget when I am silent? But it is not the thing itselfthat haunts me! It is the fact that I have lost the power overmyself--"

  "You have suffered--"

  "It is the fact that I have come to the end of my courage,--to thepoint where I find myself a coward!"

  "Surely there is a limit to what one may bear--"

  "And he who has once reached that limit never knows when he may reachit again!"

  He looked up with a sudden piteous catching of the breath.

  "What will you do?" she spoke after a pause.

  He held her hands in a close, passionate clasp. A silence that seemedto have no end had fallen about them.

  "My allotted task," he said at last, in a voice more dead than alive.

  "No,--no,--no--!" she started up suddenly. "Cannot you see,--will younever understand--oh! the bitterness, the misery of it all!"

  She clung to him with all her might.

  "Come away with me! What have you to do with this dead world ofpriests and monks! They are full of the dust of bygone ages! Come outof this plague-ridden Church,--come with me into the sunlight! I loveyou--I have always loved you,--always--"

  She bent blindly towards him.

  "Take me away from here,--Francesco,--take me away from here! Since Icame here my feet seem to have grown heavy with this lotus-laden air.At times it sweeps over me like desperation,--I lose the faculty ofthinking, I lose the power over myself!"

  "I thought you were at Astura!" he said tentatively, the affair in theRed Tower flashing through his consciousness.

  She gave a quick start.

  "I am a woman, and I stand alone! I have lived in hell ever since Iset foot in Astura. Almost have I lost the courage to look life in theface. How I have wanted you!" she continued, with a wan, wistfulsmile. "Ever I see you standing against the background of a greatsilence, a silence that engulfs, that maddens, that kills! And youwill go from me, leave me a prey to this gray, suffocating loneliness,which hovers as a pall over my soul! I am nothing to Raniero! He seekshis pleasures elsewhere! The lure of the body drove him to me,--it hasvanished,--thank God even for that! I should die in his embrace. Heknows that I loathe him, that my soul spurns him! And he knows that Ilove you! Yet, though he has forfeited every right, human and divine,he grudges my love to another. For days and days he left me alonewithin the gray walls of Astura, until in a fit of desperation I leftone night, and came here, to forget. His insults began in Rome. Hewent so far as to bring his mistress to the Frangipani palace. I haveheard it whispered there is a curse on Astura. 'Astura--malaterra,--maledetta!' A beggar uttered these words, whom Raniero struckfor obstruct
ing his path, on the day when we arrived!"

  A sudden blood-red cloud seemed to come before Francesco's eyes. Witha voice bare of intonation, he recited his own adventure in the RedTower, voicing his suspicions and fears.

  Ilaria betrayed no surprise.

  "He has never forgiven Fonte Gaia," she said, with drooping head. "Andyet he was untrue to me even then! From that hour matters began togrow worse. Recklessly he cast the last semblance of decorum to thewinds. When I protested against living under the same roof with hismistress, he smilingly brought me to Astura, leaving me, as he said,in undisturbed possession. My youth destroyed, my soul poisoned, Iaccepted my fate! I am the lady of the Frangipani! Sold, and bought,and paid for!"

  Ilaria had made mere truth of the matter, neither justifying norembellishing. Her clear, bleak words were the more pathetic for theirvery simpleness.

  With a great cry, he took her in his arms, kissed her dusky tresses,kissed her flower-soft face. The dimmed sunlight, falling in uponthem, enveloped them as with a halo.

  "And you are happy here?" he spoke at last.

  She gave a shrug.

  "Here as elsewhere it is a phantom scene," she said, with her wansmile. "But if the fellowship of phantoms be ordained, it is well thatthey be like those of Naples, radiant."

  "Am I too, then, a phantom like the rest?"

  Like an echo a voice said:

  "A phantom--like the rest."

  "And is he--a phantom too?"

  She looked up into his eyes.

  "Raniero--"

  "That other--"

  Her face was very pale.

  "Why do you dwell on him?"

  "Are you not Queen of Phantoms,--Proserpina,--Lady of Shadows, you--asin the masque at Avellino?"

  She shivered in his arms. He pressed her more closely to his heart.

  "It was a long time ago!"

  "And then as now you moved in a masque, in which I have no part."

  A long silence enfolded them. She nestled close to him.

  "I am tired,--very tired," she crooned, as a child about to fallasleep. "Francesco, help me to forget the years! I am afraid!"

  "Afraid?"

  "Of myself! Sometimes I dare not be alone at night! No,--no,--it isnot that! The inner darkness! There is no weeping there,--onlysilence,--silence,--and the gathering gloom!"

  She held his hands in her own.

  "But for this," she cried with passionate pressure, "I should longhave cursed God and died--"

  Her voice died away in the empty stillness without response.

  "It is peace I crave," she said wearily, "a peace, such as broods overa sunset world!"

  "The peace of a dying day!" he replied. "The peace I seek is of a daythat stoops not to evening."

  "And this peace,--have you found it?"

  Her eyes were fixed gravely on his own.

  "I am as one who gropes in twilight by a path half seen, towards agoal he does not know. Not for me the peace of the goal! But there ispeace also of the quest: a peace I would not forego!"

  They had arisen and walked for a time in silence, seeking the remoterregions of the garden. The softened siesta lights gave to the distanthills an aspect of pearl and jasper.

  It was drawing towards sunset; red banners streaked the amethyst ofthe western sky.

  A saffron mist enveloped the curves of Vesuvius, shot with gold andcrimson, merging in dusky purple. In the plains the fertile fieldsreclaimed round the base of Castiglione gleamed russet with vines,gray with olives. Beyond the grim walls of distant Astura stretchedthe chalk-lands of Torre del Greco.

  As they walked side by side, Francesco felt the rhythmic life inDana's body. The wan, appealing face was close to his. An instant,and the passion of the sky leaped into it. Theirs was the calm of astill pool, which hovers till the wind breaks it into the myriadagitations of life. He drew her towards him; her head resting on hisshoulder, as if there she had found a home.

  The evening star shone out in the fading sky.

  The dusk was travelling towards the night.

  Creation shivered towards a deeper dream.

  The summer moon had risen, shedding its magic light over the Gulf ofNaples.

  The very soul of Francesco was thrilled by the harmony around him; theharmony in the moon's golden trail, which fell upon the waters, ablazing path, reaching from Posilippo to the rim of the horizon,harmony in the soft murmur of the sea, and the light breeze whichcarried, together with the salt freshness of the sea-air, sweetperfumes from the shores of Sorento with their lemon and orangegroves; harmony in the silvery curves of Vesuvius, wrapped in luminousmists, its rugged cone emitting a white smoke, which trailed along theupper zones of the air, the summit of the mountain flaring up fromtime to time, like dying embers consecrated to the gods, the gods whohad died, had risen again, and had again expired.

  "How wondrous lovely the night!" Francesco at last turned to hissilent companion. "All nature seems as one magic blossom--"

  "My blossom-season is past," she answered very lightly.

  "It is always blossom-season where Proserpina treads," said Francesco,his eyes fixed on the face he loved so well.

  "You look almost as you did, when we were both happy."

  "Is it so long ago? Yes, I am old, Ilaria. Our youth seems far, faraway!"

  "Perhaps I too am not old enough, to be young! Our youth--" she pausedwith a sob.

  Francesco gazed at her solicitously.

  "Even here?"

  She gave him a wan, small smile.

  "Just now, one might forget!"

  "It is a great art, to forget," said Francesco tenderly. "You need it,Ilaria! What sufferings have been yours!"

  She returned his look.

  He understood.

  Ilaria saw the pain written on his brow, as he looked at her withtenderness undisguised. She felt his spirit lying openly before her,as when they were both at the Court of Avellino.

  "From the look on your forehead," she said softly, "you have livedlong in your cell, since last we met! So it was meant, I think, fromthe beginning!"

  "Assuredly so it was meant," he replied. "But I am very sorrowful, forI see not what was meant for you!"

  She smiled at him, as if to reassure.

  "If Fate has guided my life ill, not yours the fault," she saidsoothingly.

  In her, reserve still obtained, yet without a trace of her lateperplexing defiance. Asperity had given way to a great gentleness.

  "Yet," Francesco hesitated,--"I am tormented by one thought: that foryou it had perchance been better, if--"

  He paused with drooping eyes, then continued:

  "I could not profit by the dispensation of Clement and remain a trueman. But you--" and again he paused.

  A flash of her old-time perverseness lighted up Ilaria's sad eyes.

  "Why pause?" she asked, arching her brow. "You mean that which ismoral disaster for one, might be salvation for the other? And that,since my salvation should be dearer to you than your own--"

  She broke out into quizzical mirth. But she was swiftly grave again,though tremulous.

  "I, too, have lost myself in the quest of happiness," she said,clasping and unclasping her white fingers. "Dread and desire havebeaten me hither and thither! Great waves have tossed me! On the veryday of your departure from Avellino the Viceroy asked me whom I wouldwed! Your name leaped to my lips. I told him I would have none other.Even as I spoke the dread seized me! I said to myself: this thing cannever be! Then you went away--and I was engulfed in darkness. When wemet at Rome I realized what I had done! Yet in the very effort to keepyou far, I drew you near! Thus Fate had willed it! When we met atFonte Gaia, I knew what in one sunset of Avellino I had merelydreamed: my love for you lived--in all my life the one abiding light.Longing and horror racked me! She is cold, and foul, and false, thatWhite Lady--and the gifts she offers turn to poison in the grasp. Butit was that other who conquered,--your White Lady,--not mine! She wasever a generous enemy, and in taking you from me, she has given
meback my love!"

  She had been looking at him with wide piteous eyes, even as a childmight do. On a sudden she covered her face, dropped into a seat amongthe bays and myrtles, and broke into wild weeping.

  The strong sense of bondage came back with a fuller force as though tomenace her with the fateful realism of her lot. A hand seemed to sweepdown and wave her back with a meaning so sinister that she had thefeeling of standing on the brink of a mysterious sea, whose waves sangto her a song of peril, of misery and desire in the dim green twilightof some coral dungeon. The lure of the unknown beat upon her eyes,while love and hate, like attendant spirits, beckoned her onward witha weird, perpetual clamor.

  Francesco tried in vain to soothe her, calling her by all theendearing names of the past, and pressing her closely to his heart.

  "I do not understand," she cried, sobbing convulsively. "I have wishedno one ill! Ever have I desired only fairness and love, and fullnessof sweet life. And the beauty I seek is befouled by my seeking, mylove has stained my beloved; and when I clutch at life, life crumbleswithin my grasp. Wherein has my quest been wrong?"

  "Not wrong," he said unsteadily--"not wrong,--I trust!"

  She looked at him bewildered.

  "I, too, would turn from that agonizing God upon the Cross to pathswhere roses bloom," Francesco replied, heavy-hearted. "I have beenwalking amid shadows, and I have lost the way."

  She caught at his hand and drew it piteously to her lips, but made noattempt to retain it.

  "I am that Proserpina who has lost the spring," she said, raising herhaunting eyes to his. "Yet one comfort is left me still,--one stay,that shall not fail!"

  "And that?"

  There was a strange expression about her face, but she was silent.

  A shudder seized him with the swift suspicion of her meaning.

  "You shall not!" he cried almost roughly. "You shall not! I, too,--didI give way to that fierce longing,--you shall not yield to thatcrawling weakness!"

  But Ilaria interrupted him.

  "Oh! my dear, I meant not that!" she said. "Of weakness I might recklittle, of the hurt to you I should reck much. There is that in myheart for you which shall keep me safe henceforth from what wouldgrieve you!"

  "What is it then?" he asked relieved. "The comfort,--the stay,--ofwhich you spoke?"

  She smiled through her tears; the old-time smile.

  "I do not see your life," he said anxiously. "What is it--what shallit be? Till that be known to me, Ilaria, I shall not know rest orpeace. You are beautiful,--too beautiful for this licentious court!Here you cannot remain--alone!"

  "I fear the twilight," she said, with a shudder. "There is but onegoal for me, and, when the hour comes, you shall lead me there.Proserpina will turn Lady of Shadows in very truth, and move veiledthrough her rose garden."

  "But why must this thing be?" he queried with a choking sensation. "I,too, have sinned--"

  "Of sin I know nothing," said Ilaria mournfully, "I apprehend neitherthe word, nor the thing!"

  "Then why this last extremity?"

  "Will you not understand?" she interposed petulantly. "Your presencehere has shown me once for all that I may not continue to walk in theold way; I may not walk in yours, and I would not have you walk inmine! You wavered towards it of late! Once upon a time I should haverejoiced; now my spirit is full of fear."

  She crept close to him and looked up at him with tremulous lids.

  He caught her to him with all the old-time love in his eyes. Allfears, all misgivings, all doubts of the woman he loved, were utterlyblotted out in their embrace, and over Ilaria's features there flittedthe gleam of a long forgotten happiness.

  Her look was far away. Of a sudden she turned to Francesco.

  "Will you remain at Naples?"

  He gave a shrug.

  "Days--weeks--who can tell? A Ghibelline victory may turn the tide."

  "I have something to say to you," she said, her face very close tohis. "I have long wished to say it: beware of Raniero!"

  "He caught her to him with all the old-time love"]

  "I have done him no wrong!"

  She made a gesture as one throwing up a libation.

  "Fonte Gaia!"

  He felt her breath fanning his cheek.

  Seized with a sudden madness he threw his arms about her, and kissedher.

  Where the roads branched off they parted, after a long passionateembrace. Ilaria returned to the palace, while Francesco bent hisfootsteps towards the bay, shimmering in the light of the higher risenmoon.

  He heard her go singing through the garden, a soft chant d'amour thatwould have gone wondrously to flute and cithern. It died away slowlyamid the trees like an elf's song coming from woodlands in themoonlight.

  His soul was sobbing within him. He felt his purpose, his resolutionswaver. The crisis of his life had come. Alone with Ilaria at Naples!Raniero away,--indulging his lusts!

  He had feared this meeting, feared it above all things in heaven orearth!

  Again they were abroad, the gods of yore. They rode the wind; theylaughed in the far reaches of the sky; they whispered in his heart.

  To love her! To possess her!

  The thought had suddenly leaped into his brain, taking its firstclearly defined form, recoiling upon him, dazzling his eyes.

  For this he had lived; for this he had suffered!

  And now?

  A deeper question came, like a wind in a fog; a fearsome thing. Whyshould this love be sin? This love,--the one pure emotion in all hislife?

  In the spiritual darkness which encompassed Francesco, the fire of hisold love for Ilaria had leaped high upon the altar of his sacrifice.For her he had kept himself pure, for her he had starved his soul,while his love smouldered in the dark chambers of his heart.

  For hours Francesco was as a man possessed, moving through themdrearily, as through crowding phantoms, struggling to suppress animperious craving that tormented him for release.

  It was late when he retraced his steps towards his inn.

  Gigantic cypresses bordered the way, ranged like dark torch-bearers ata funeral. Their entwined tips, continually caught by the wind fromthe sea, remained bent like heads drooped in sorrow. White statues ofgods gleamed spectre-like in the dark shades. In the laurel thicketsglow-worms flickered like funeral tapers. The heavy scent of themagnolias recalled the odor of balsam used for anointing the dead. Thewaters of the fountain, trickling from an overhanging rock, fell intothe sea, drop by drop, like silent tears, as though a nymph wereweeping in the cave above, bewailing her sisters, some dark Elysium,the subterranean groves of shadows, the burial grounds of dead gods.

  But even sleep brought only one persistent vision to Francesco: areach of laughing waters, now turquoise, now sapphire, now upheavinginto a mighty translucent wave, that curled swiftly towards him, and,quivering within, the face of Ilaria, upturned to his own.