It was her most winsome self that looked at him, as she said:
"Drink to me!"
Dazed, he took the cup from her. In doing so, he touched her soft, white skin. The cold draught seemed to burn like fire as he sipped the clear water. Then, surprised by impulse, he flashed the drops upward, as he had seen her do.
Her laughter sounded shrill and high as broken glass, as the dislocated cowl revealed Francesco's features.
But she immediately regained her composure, and, without a hint in her voice of the taunt in the dells of Vallombrosa, she said, nodding, as if well pleased, and as if for his ear alone:
"The White Lady is well pleased. Is not this her altar?" But another had recognized the monk, when for a moment his cowl fell away from his face; and Raniero Frangipani was regarding him with dark malice.
As if to leave a sting in the memory of their meeting, Ilaria, returning to Raniero's side, gave the latter a smile so bewitching that his scowl vanished. Remounting with his help, she signalled for the cavalcade to proceed.
The pain in Francesco's heart rose, suffocating, once more as the procession swept onward.
How he had loved her! How he loved her now!
How shall a man be sure of what is hidden in his heart? He was a monk,—and she the wife of Raniero Frangipani.