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.