The fat vagrant offered him the bottle, while her companion's eyes sent him a tentative offer of friendliness, half timid, half bold. Francesco passed it by with a flash of the eyes to the horizon, and a straight setting of the chin. After having parted from the two rowdies in the fantastic cloaks, the duke and Francesco continued upon their way. "There is freedom only on the mountain-heights," the duke said, as they arrived at a crossing, marked by a huge stone cross. "If this truth ever dawns upon you, if ever your soul shrinks from the greed and hypocrisy of the world, if you tire of bloodshed in the name of the Cross and of villainy glorified by the name of Christ--the camp of the Duke of Spoleto will receive you, standing face to face with God alone." With a hearty hand-shake they parted, and Francesco followed the road pointed out to him by his companion of the morning hours. He had taken reluctant leave of the burly champion of a lost cause, whose very presence seemed to breathe the undefiled air of his great northern forests, undefiled by the trend of human feet, the echoes of human strife. And as Francesco gave a parting look to the high hills with the glitter of their birch-trees, he suddenly experienced an unexplainable melting of his resentment against Ilaria. Something that he could neither describe nor account for, came into his heart, a subtle emotion, that was like a faint perfume, or the sound of music from afar. He had hated her for her cold pride when he left his home; yet, into this tawny cloud of hate flashed the vivid streak of a sudden recollection. Every faint zephyr reminded him of her charm; transfused itself into the mellow brilliancy of her beauty, and Francesco suddenly surprised himself by taking her part against himself. And, what was more, he experienced a curiously pleasing sensation in the act, and in this impulse towards tenderness discovered things that were strange and long forgotten. It was now the drowsy noon of day, and the wood was full of shadows and of stealthy, creeping sunlight. He rested for a pace, then, refreshed by the siesta, he rode onward, other thoughts beginning to throng his mind. He was entering a sphere of action. Hitherto his life had been as that of a recluse. The peace of the cloister had enveloped him as a mighty cloak of safety. It had dominated him even to the point of total paralysis of his energies. Of the purpose of his journey he was still in ignorance. Yet, an inner voice whispered to him that it was the clarion call of the Church Militant that had called him out of his repose. There could be no further compromise between the warring factions. The death-struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline had reached its highest crest. Henceforth he would be the soldier of the Church. A chasm, no eternity could bridge, would gape between himself and the friends of his youth. Thus Fate had willed it. Hurled into a seething vortex, he was swept onward by the resistless tide.