Raniero hissed the words; the dilated glaring eyes were as a weapon to pierce the heart of which he spoke.
"It is true!" Francesco cried out with bitter shame. "Yet if your eyes can see, they behold in my heart the image of the purest woman, before whom all my thoughts do worship, save rebels still unconquered."
Listening on the stair without, soldier and priest nodded to each other at the sound of the "De Profundis clamavi ad te." All was going suitably in the death-chamber.
And Raniero listened, as the other knelt. A spasm seemed to pass over his face.
"Do you still hate me?" asked Francesco anxiously, when the invocation was ended. It was painful to him to think that his shadow stood between this man and eternity.
"A little," replied Raniero with that curious smile. "But I am almost sure that I shall hate you less—in a moment. You remember—I have taken from you—Ilaria!"
There was a strange note of triumph in his speech.
"Do you forgive even that?" asked Raniero with some anxiety.
"I have forgiven," said the other with bowed head.