Ah! thou art silent, not from love, but fear, And true love knows no fear. Creeping, soft-footed, in the dust, It is not love, but conscious lust, Which dreads that God shall hear.’ He rose swiftly beside her, while she sat, dumbly biting a lock of her own hair. The frown of outraged passion was in her eyes. What had the fool dared in rejecting her! To touch the perfumed essence of sin with a rebuke which was like a caress—that, _pace_ his monks, was Bernardo’s rendering of the Gospel; and who shall say that, in its girlish tenderness, its earnest emotionalism, it was not the most dangerous method of all? Not every adulterous woman is fit to meet the gentle fate of Christ’s. It is not always well to doctor too much kindness with more. Surfeit, surely, is not safely cured, unless by a God, with sugar-plums. ’For shame!’ he said quietly; ’for shame! Christ weeps for thee!’ She looked up with a frozen, insolent smile. ’Yet there is no tear in all the night, prophet.’ He raised his hand. A star trailed down the sky, and disappeared behind the trees. It startled her for a moment, and in that moment he was gone, striding into the moonlight. She saw a sword gleam in the shadow of the tent. ’Carlo!’ she hissed; ’Carlo! follow and kill him!’ Messer Lanti came out of his ambush, sheathing his blade. His teeth grinned in the white glow. He sauntered up to her, and stood looking down, hand on hip. ’Not for all the bona-robas in the world,’ he said, and struck his hilt lightly. ’This I dedicate to his service from this day. Let who crosses my little saint beware it.’ He burst out laughing, not fierce, but low. ’Thou art well served in thy confessor, woman. Wert never dealt a fitter penance.’ It was significant enough that he had no word but mockery for her discomfiture. He might have spitted the seduced on a point of gallantry; for the siren, she was sacred through her calling. In the meanwhile Bernardo had left the green, had passed the low, roistering camp pitched at a respectful distance beyond, and had thrown himself upon his knees in the wide fields. ’Sweet Jesus,’ he prayed, ’O justify Thy Kingdom before Thy servant! Already my young footsteps are warned of the bitter pass to come. Be Thou with me in the rocky ways, lest I faint and slip before my time.’ He remained long minutes beseeching, while the moon, anchored in a little stream of clouds, seemed to his excited imagination the very boat which awaited the coming of One who should walk the waters. He stretched out his arms to it. ’Lord save me,’ he cried, ’or I sink!’ He heard a snuffle at his back, and looked round and up to find the fool Cicada regarding him glassily. ’Sink!’ stuttered the creature, swaying where he stood. ’Lord save me too! I am under already—drowned in Malmsey!’ Bembo rose to his feet with a happy sigh. ’_Exultate Deo adjutori nostro!_’ he murmured, ’I am answered.’