The duke pointed into the darkening wood.
"Trust your own heart: self is the man! Through a mistaken sense of duty have you been brought nigh unto death and despair! Trust not in sophistry: the laws of men are carven upon stone, the laws of Heaven upon the heart! Be strong! From henceforth, scorn mere words! Trample tradition in the dust! Trust yourself, and the God in your heart!"
The distant voice had sunk into silence. Francesco listened for it with hands aloft.
"I must go," he said.
"Go!"—
"I must be near her through the night!"
"The moon stands full upon the hills! I will await you here!"
Dim were the woods that autumn evening, dim and deep with an ecstasy of gloom. Stars flickered in the heavens; the moon came and enveloped the trees with silver flame. A primeval calm lay heavy upon the bosom of the night. The spectral branches of the trees pointed rigid and motionless towards the sky.
Francesco had left the duke gazing out upon the shimmering sea. The voice called to him from the woods with plaintive peals of song. The man followed it, holding to a grass-grown track that curled at random into the gloom. Moonlight and shadow lay alternate upon his armor. Hope and despair battled in his face. His soul leaped voiceless and inarticulate into the darkened shrine of prayer.
The voice came to him clearer in the forest calm. The gulf had narrowed, the words flew as over the waters of Death. They were pure, yet meaningless, passionate, yet void; words barbed with an utter pathos, that silenced desire.