He remembered he had not spoken with Ilaria. At the very thought everything grew black before his vision. Yet he could not leave with the stigma upon his soul. She at least would understand, she at least would pity him. He felt like one looking down into a self-dug grave.
He arose and stepped to the window.
It was now past the hour of high noon. The activity in the courtyard, abandoned during the heated term of the day, began gradually to revive. There was no time to be lost.
Hastily he scratched a few lines on a fragment of vellum which lay close at hand, called an attendant and bade him despatch it at once to Ilaria Caselli.
Then, weary and tired, he gathered together his scant belongings, so scant indeed as not to encumber his steed; then, his arms propped on his knees, he sat down once more and awaited the coming of dusk.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE BROKEN TROTH
