It was a golden evening when he rode into the dells of Vallombrosa. Everything seemed golden,—a soft and melting gold. The sky, the air, the motionless holm-oaks, the ground itself, overgrown with short, tawny moss, beat back a brilliant amber light. The sky flamed orange and saffron, and the distant lake of Bolsena rolled as a sea of fire. A company of pilgrims proceeded through the wood, illumined by level, golden rays, that struck under the high branches, turning the beds of fern to pale green flame, and the tree-trunks to unsubstantial light. The fever of the noon-tide had become tranquil in the evening glow. In their wake a confused mass of men and weapons flashed suddenly into the sunlight. Another procession with its gay dresses and colored tapers gleamed like a rainbow among the branches.
To Francesco, always delighting in pageantry, the charm of the scene tingled through consciousness almost as powerfully as the Masque of the Gods he had witnessed on that never-to-be-forgotten night at Avellino. And the same dull particular pain shot through his heart, intensified a thousand times, as they came nearer through the sun-lit forest-aisles,—a dark horseman, superbly clad in white velvet, and beside him the exquisitely moulded, stately form of a woman, both mounted on palfreys magnificently caparisoned, and followed by a company of young cavaliers, giddy and gay in their festal array. But every drop of blood left Francesco's heart, and his cheeks were pale as death, as in the woman who laughed and chatted so gaily he recognized Ilaria Caselli,—in the man by her side Raniero Frangipani. He would have wheeled his steed about and fled, but an ice-cold hand seemed to clutch at his heart, benumb his senses and paralyze his endeavors. His eyes were riveted on Ilaria's face; the evening air, cool and gentle, had waked a sweet color on her cheeks, and her dusky eyes seemed to reflect the dancing motes of light which permeated the ether. So bewildering, so intoxicating was her beauty, that Francesco fairly devoured her with his gaze, as one doomed to starvation would devour with his eyes the saving morsel which another's hand had snatched from him. A groan of utter misery betrayed his presence to the leaders, unseen, as otherwise he might have hoped to remain. The Frangipani passed him, without taking any notice of the monk, an accustomed sight indeed in these regions, abounding in chapels and sanctuaries and the huts of holy hermits. Whether the woman obeyed the summons of an inner voice, or whether the despairing gaze of the youth compelled her own,—as she was about to pass him, Ilaria suddenly reined in her palfrey and met Francesco's gaze. For a moment she turned white to her very eyes, then a shrill laugh rang like the breaking of a crystal through the sun-lit wood; the cavalcade cantered past, many a curious glance being turned on the monk, who in some unknown way had provoked Ilaria Caselli's sudden mirth.
The sun had set. Filmy rose-clouds brooded in an amethyst mist over the distant levels of the sea. Then, with the swiftness of the south, dusk enveloped the dells of Vallombrosa.
The procession had long vanished from sight. Still Francesco stared in the direction where Ilaria's laughter had died away, as if forced to do so by some terrible spell. When the awful pain of his heart had to a degree subsided, he felt as if something had snapped in two in its dark and desolate chambers. Could love become so utterly forgetful of its own,—could love be so utterly cruel and blind? Only a miracle could now save his soul from perishing in its own darkness!
The glory of the night had, as it were, deepened and grown richer. The purple sky above was throbbing, beating, palpitating with light, of stars and planets, and a great gold-red moon was climbing slowly over the misty plains of Romagna. Fireflies whirled in burning circles through the perfumed air, and from the convent of Vallombrosa came the chant of the Ave Maris Stella, answered from some distant cloister in the greenwood: "Vale Carissima!—Vale Carissima!"
[CHAPTER VI]
THE DUKE OF SPOLETO
