"Let us go down among the terraces!" she said in a whisper. "Let us forget the loud, insistent clamor of the world. Let us be quite still,--as if we were among the poppy-flowers!" By some strange echoing of the mind the idyls of past days woke like the songs of birds after a storm of rain. Her whole soul yearned out with a wistfulness borne of infinite regret. Silently they walked down the flower-bordered path. The panorama from the spot was enchanting. Far below lay the blue waters of the bay; out to seaward lay ancient Baiae with her thousand palaces and the forest of masts at Puteoli; beyond these Sorento and the shimmering islands, bathed by the boundless sea. The vaporous cloud from Vesuvius hung like a cone of snow in the still blue atmosphere. The foreground was no less enchanting. All round the pavilion lay a verdant, luxuriant wilderness. The mysterious silence of noon brooded over the whole landscape; only a faint hum of life came up from the city. All else was still. Not a living creature seemed to breathe within ear-shot. He led her to where a fountain plashed in the sun and stone steps ringed a quiet pool. In the silence she bent over him, her hand on his dark hair. The tonsure burned her fingers like living fire. "Why have you done this thing?" He felt the scorn in her voice; he felt the swift repellence of her body. Francesco raised his face to that of the woman. It was very pale from the fierceness of the struggle to keep down even the suspicion of emotional sentimentality. "You ask why I have done this thing?" he spoke dryly at last. "The hour has come when I must tell you, Ilaria! Not that it can steer the vessel of our lives into different channels,--but that at last I may stand vindicated in your sight. I am the son of Gregorio Villani, Grand Master of the Order of St. John. My mother died at my birth. I was raised at the Court of Avellino. So powerful was the influence of my father, that, notwithstanding the protests of the Holy See, he placed his offspring at a Ghibelline court. There came a day when I was summoned to the bedside of my father at San Cataldo. What passed between us during that interview, neither you nor any one on earth may know. I went into his room a happy, care-free youth. I came out the shadow of my former self,--a monk. One year I lived among shadows in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. There I took the vows which made me a prisoner, far more closely bound than you can know; for death alone shall release me from a life which has grown to be a torture. I became a monk half from pity, half from fear. The pity is almost gone; the fear has left me long ago. After a time I was called to Rome. The Church I love not! I am unfit to remain in her service. The monks are to me a hateful body. Willingly, gladly, would I see my scapular replaced by the tunic for my coffin. Yet death is not for me to hope for, or even to dream of,--and in vain I ask, what holds the future?"