From the mask of the converted cynic peered the eyes of a fanatic. The face was one, which might have suggested to Luca Signorelli the traits of his Anti-Christ in the Capella Nuova at Orvieto. In the deep penetrating eyes was reflected the final remorse of the wisdom, which had renounced its maker. The face was evil. Yet it was a face of infinite grief, as if mourning the eternal fall of man.
Despite the advanced hour of night the monk was still in his seat of confession, and the mighty leader of the German host, wrapt in his long military cloak, knelt before the emaciated anchorite, his face, manner and voice all betraying a great weariness of mind. A look of almost bodily pain appeared in Eckhardt's stern countenance as, at the request of the monk, who had receded within the gloom of the confessional, he recounted the phenomena of the night, after having previously acquainted him with the burden of his grief.
The monk listened attentively to the weird tale and shook his head.
"I am most strangely in my senses," Eckhardt urged, noting the monk's gesture. "I have seen her,—whether in the body, or the spirit, I know not,—but I have seen her."
"I have listened, my son," said the monk after a pause, in his low sepulchral voice.—"Ginevra loved you,—so you say. What could have wrought a change in her, such as you hint? For if she loved you in life, she loves you in death. Why should she—supposing her present—flee from your outstretched arms? If your love could compel her to return from the beyond,—why should it lack the power to make the phantom give response?"
"Could I but fathom that mystery,—could I but fathom it!"
"Did you not speak to her?"
"My lips but uttered her name!"
"I am little versed in matters of this kind," the monk replied in a strange tone. "'Tis but the natural law, which may not be transgressed with impunity. Is your faith so small, that you would rather uproot the holiest ties, than deem yourself the victim of some hallucination, mayhap some jeer of the fiend? Dare you raise yourself on a pedestal, which takes from her her defenceless virtue, cold and silent as her lips are in death?"
Every word of the monk struck Eckhardt's heart with a thousand pangs. A deep groan broke from his lips.