'Ah!' he smiled. I knew I should convince you in the end. Such knowledge gives us patience. A man may contain his soul for anything that is assured. It is the doubtful only that makes him fret and fume.' 'And you never doubted?' she asked him, wondering. 'I am too sure of myself,' he answered. 'And God knows you have cause to be, more cause than any man of whom ever I heard tell. Do you know, Lord Prince, that in these five years there is no evil I have not believed of you? I even deemed you a coward, on the word of that vain boaster Carmagnola.' 'He was none so wrong, by his own lights. I am not a fighter of his pattern. I have ever been careful of myself.' 'Your condition now proves that.' 'Oh, this, to-day ... That was different. Too much depended on the issue. It was the last throw. I had to take a hand, much though I dislike a rough-and-tumble. So that we won through, it would not much have mattered if the vamplate of that fellow's lance had brought up against my throat. There are no more fights for me, so what matter if I left my life in the last one?' 'The last one, Lord Prince!' 'And that is not my title any more. I am a prince no longer. I leave the rank behind with all the other vanities of the world.' 'You leave it behind?' She found him obscure. 'When I go back to Cigliano, which will be as soon as I can move.' 'What do you go to do at Cigliano?' 'What? Why, what the other brethren do. _Pax multa in cella_. The old abbot was right. There is yonder a peace for which I am craving now that my one task here is safely ended. In the world there is nothing for me.' 'Nothing!' She was amazed. 'And in five years you have won so much!' 'Nothing that I covet,' he answered gently. 'It is all vanity, all madness, greed, and bloodlust. I was not made for worldliness, and but for you I should never have known it. Now I have done.' 'And your dominions, Gavi and Valsassina?' 'I'll bestow them upon you, madonna, if you will deign to accept a parting gift from these hands.' 'There was a long pause. She had drawn back a little. He could not see her face. 'You have the fever, I think,' she said presently in an odd voice. 'It is your hurt.' He sighed. 'Aye, you would think so. It is difficult for one reared in the world to understand that a man's eyes should remain undazzled by its glitter. Yet, believe me, I leave it with but one regret.' 'And that?' The question came breathlessly upon a whisper. 'That the purpose for which I entered it remains unfulfilled. That I have learnt no Greek.' Again there was a pause. Then she moved forward, rustling a little, and came directly into his line of vision. 'I hear your servants, I think. I will leave you now.' 'I thank you, madonna. God be with you.'