"Our dawn!"—Francesco replied, pointing to the hillock beyond.
For a time there was a great silence, as if the fates of two souls were being weighed in the scales of destiny.
It was Francesco who spoke.
"How you have suffered!"
She crept very close to him, smiling up at him with the old-time smile through tear-dimmed eyes.
"It counts for naught now! Are not you with me?"
The sky burned azure above the tree-tops. Transient sunshafts quivered through the vaulted dome of breathless leaves, as slowly Francesco and Ilaria strode towards the camp of the Duke of Spoleto on the sun-bathed hillock above the Nera.
The End.