"My Boy! My Boy!—your Prince!"
How may joy immeasurable be told in an instant's space, and one schooled to agony not die from the swift change to such rapture of content!
For the Bernardini had answered her: "Safe in the Palazzo Reale: and the people are clamoring for their Queen!"
And because the Dama Margherita had seen the great shining light in his eyes her heart went out to him, and she knew that the safety of the Royal infant meant a tale of loyalty and danger that Aluisi Bernardini would never tell.
But at last the Admiral and the Bernardini led Caterina forth into the piazza, pale and calm—the glory of a great gladness in her eyes—the suffering which had left deep traces in her face disguised by the exaltation of the moment so that she scarcely seemed less radiant than when she had last stood there on the day of the coronation fête with her child in her arms—as any woman of the people might have done, the tender, baby-cheek pressed close to hers.
Some of them remembered it as they fell on their knees around her, kissing her hands, offering her homage—reparation—sobbing out their devotion:
"Regina! Madonna Nostra Reale! Regina! Regina! May the Holy Mother bless her and our little King!"
She was not a thing of State and jewels, cold and distant like the proud Queen Elenà, but a tender human mother, fair and young, and her heart had been all but broken when that wicked Chief of Council had stolen away the child!—the people might gather close about her and weep and rejoice with her.