It was a fine night, the air heavy with the vernal scent of fertile lands, and the deep cobalt of the heavens a glittering, star-flecked dome in a lighter space of which floated the half-disk of the growing moon. Such a moon, she bethought her, as she had looked at with thoughts of him, the night after their brief meeting at Acquasparta. She had gained that north rampart on which he had announced that duty took him, and yonder she saw a man—-the only tenant of the wall—leaning upon the embattled parapet, looking down at the lights of Gian Maria's camp. He was bareheaded, and by the gold coif that gleamed in his hair she knew him. Softly she stole up behind him.
“Do we dream here, Messer Francesco?” she asked him, as she reached his side, and there was laughter running through her words.
He started round at the sound of her voice, then he laughed too, softly and gladly.
“It is a night for dreams, and I was dreaming indeed. But you have scattered them.”
“You grieve me,” she rallied him. “For assuredly they were pleasant, since, to come here and indulge them, you left—us.”
“Aye—they were pleasant,” he answered. “And yet, they were fraught with a certain sadness, but idle as is the stuff of dreams. They were yours to dispel, for they were of you.”
“Of me?” she questioned, her heart-beats quickening and bringing to her cheeks a flush that she thanked the night for concealing.
“Yes, Madonna—of you and our first meeting in the woods at Acquasparta. Do you recall it?”
“I do, I do,” she murmured fondly.
“And do you recall how I then swore myself your knight and ever your champion? Little did we dream how the honour that I sighed for was to be mine.”