Yet he no longer felt angry with those who had turned from him in disdain. For a time the fire in his heart had sunk too low even for anger. He was dull and weary and a little stunned by the night's bafflings, and the collapse of his resolves.
He was fighting against destiny, and the wave was mightier than the vessel that had ventured upon it.
Francesco had started out before dawn, brushing the dew from the meadow-grass and following the misty twilight track of a brook that traced its serpentine course through the forest glades. The songs of birds went throbbing through the woodland.
Francesco had come to a place where four ways met, with a stone cross standing on a hillock, when out of the dusk of the forest aisles rode the portly bulk of a man, who was hardly astir so early in order to admire the beauties of the dawn, for he came along the greensward with the gait of one who combines caution with alertness.
No sooner had the Duke of Spoleto laid eyes upon Francesco than he broke out into a glad roar.
"Whither are you bound so lone and so early?" he bellowed after mutual greeting. "Has the soil of Rome ignited under your holy feet?"
"I am bound for Viterbo," Francesco replied, glad to have the monotony of the journey and the trend of his ruminations relieved by one who had, at one time, been of such signal service to him.
"And whither do you travel?" he asked in turn.
"Every road leads to Rome, or the devil," the duke roared sagaciously, "though three days of knight-errantry have brought nothing but petticoats. The world is overburdened with women!"