Two more paces and he was close at the woman's side. The heather crackled beneath his knees. He held his breath, crept nearer, and knelt so near that he could have kissed Ilaria's face. Her head lay pillowed on her arm. Her hair spread as in a dusky halo beneath it. Her bosom moved with the rhythmic calm of dreamless sleep. Her lips were parted in a smile. One hand was hid in the dark folds of her robe. Francesco knelt with upturned face, his eyes shut to the sky. He seemed like one faint with pain; his lips moved as in prayer. A hundred inarticulate pleadings surged heavenward from his heart. Again he bent over her and watched the pure girlish face as she slept. A strange calm fell for a time upon him; his eyes never wavered from the white arm and the glimmering hair. Vast awe held him in thrall. He was as one who broods tearless and amazed over the dead, calm face of one beloved above all on earth. Hours passed and Francesco found no sustenance, save in prayer. The unuttered yearnings of a world seemed molten in his soul. The moon waned. The stars grew dim. Strange sounds stirred in the forest-deeps; the mysterious breathing of a thousand trees. Life ebbed and flowed with the sigh of a moon-stupored sea. Visions blazed in the night-sky and faded away. Hours passed. Neither sleeper nor watcher stirred. The night grew faint. The water flickered in the mere. The very stars seemed to gaze upon the destinies of two wearied souls. Far and faint came the quaver of a bird's note. Gray and mysterious stood the forest spires. Light! Light at last! Spears of amber darting in the east. A shudder seemed to shake the universe. The great vault kindled. The sky grew luminous with gold. It was the dawn. Ilaria stirred in her sleep. Her mouth quivered, her hair stirred sudden under the heather, like tendrils of gold shivering in the sun. Even as the light increased, Francesco knelt and looked down upon her. Hope and life, glorious, sudden, seemed to fall out of the east, a radiant faith begotten of spirit-power. Banners of gold were streaming in the sky. The gloom fled. A vast expectancy hung solemn, breathless, upon the red lips of the day. A sigh, and the long, silken lashes quivered. The lips moved, the eyes opened. "Ilaria! Ilaria!" Sudden silence followed, a vast hush as of undreamed hope. The woman's eyes were silently searching the man's face. He bent and cowered over her as one who weeps. His hands touched her body, yet she did not stir. "Ilaria! Ilaria!" It was a hoarse, passionate outcry that broke the golden stupor of the dawn. A sudden light leaped lustrous into the woman's eyes, her face shone radiant in its etherealized beauty. "Francesco!" "Ah! At last!" A great shudder passed through her body. Her eyes grew big with fear. "Speak to me!" "Ilaria!" "Raniero?" "Dead!"