Then she concluded to leave Raniero’s house and go to live with her father, that the day might not come when she should hate Raniero as much as she now loved him.
Jacopo degli Uberti was sitting at the loom with all his workmen busy around him when he saw her coming. He said that now the thing had come to pass which he had long expected, and bade her be welcome. Instantly he ordered all the people to leave off their work and arm themselves and close the house.
Then Jacopo went over to Raniero. He met him in the workshop. “My daughter has this day returned to me and begged that she may live again under my roof,” he said to his son-in-law. “And now I expect that you will not compel her to return to you, after the promise you have given me.”
Raniero did not seem to take this very seriously, but answered calmly: “Even if I had not given you my word, I would not demand the return of a woman who does not wish to be mine.”
He knew how much Francesca loved him, and said to himself: “She will be back with me before evening.”
Yet she did not appear either that day or the next.
The third day Raniero went out and pursued a couple of robbers who had long disturbed the Florentine merchants. He succeeded in catching them, and took them captives to Florence.
He remained quiet a couple of days, until he was positive that this feat was known throughout the city. But it did not turn out as he had expected—that it would bring Francesca back to him.
Raniero had the greatest desire to appeal to the courts, to force her return to him, but he felt himself unable to do this because of his promise. It seemed impossible for him to live in the same city with a wife who had abandoned him, so he moved away from Florence.
He first became a soldier, and very soon he made himself commander of a volunteer company. He was always in a fight, and served many masters.