Just then the clouds passed away, and the moon shone brilliantly, lighting up the old chapel, and exhibiting to Taddeo the tall and lithe form of her who held him captive.
One need not like Taddeo have retained the minutest peculiarities of La Felina to render it possible to distinguish her lithe stature and magnificent contour. But his reason could not be convinced, and had not the singer's hand been pressed on his lips he would have fancied that a new dream had evoked the phantom of one of whom he had never ceased to think. "Lift up your vail, Felina," said he. But at the evidence of terror which she exhibited, he resumed. "Do not attempt to deceive me. In your presence my heart could not be mistaken, for it meditates by day and dreams by night of you alone. I know not what good angel has guided you hither, in pity of the torment I have endured since I left you. An hour, Felina, in your presence, has sufficed to enslave my soul forever. Through you have I learned that I have a soul, and by you has the void in my heart been completely filled."
"He loves me!" murmured Felina, with an accent of surprise and deep pity. This however was uttered in so low a tone that the prisoner did not hear her.
"Hear me," said Rovero. "You told us at Monte-Leone's that you loved one of the four."
"True," said the singer, in a feeble voice.
"You said that for him you would sacrifice your life."
"True."
"That like an invisible providence you would watch over his life and fate: that this would be the sacred object of your life."
"I also said," Felina answered, "that my love would ever be unknown, and that the secret would die with me."
"Well," said Rovero, "I know him. This man, the ardent passion of whom you divined, to whom you are come as a minister of hope, is before you, is at your feet."