How long he had stood there, endeavoring to fix some purpose in his life, something that would fill out the emptiness of his existence and give him the strength to bear up under the burden of his destiny, Francesco could not have told, when a vague glittering movement on the opposite mountain slopes attracted his gaze, a glitter that told of an armed array marching and riding among the hills. Even the woods seemed peopled with shadowy forms, slowly emerging into the bright light of high-noon, while out of the stillness there leaped the cry of a horn, hawberks glimmered and armor shone. Beyond the armed array the mountains towered solemn and stupendous, fringed as with aureoles of lambent flame. The horsemen came from the North; there was a swirl of thought in Francesco's brain, then his hand went to his heart: Conradino and his iron hosts were marching on Rome! And he, who had dreamed of espousing at some day the cause of the last of the Hohenstauffen, who had hoped, by some great effort, to win the crown of life and Ilaria's love, stood here on the summit of Monte Cassino, separated by mountains, chasms and torrents from the glistening throng, which wound in one long, sinuous line towards the ravines of Camaldoli, separated by a whole world from the realization of the hopes nurtured in his childhood. He was the bondsman of the Church,--the bondsman of the Pope. It was an indisputable fact; he was being caught in constantly ever narrowing circles. Many questions would hourly assail him, questions like the hill-towns of Umbria, built on the brink of precipices, walled round with barriers of unhewn rock, seeming so near from the ravine below, where the wanderer sees every roof, every cypress tree, every pillared balcony, but which he cannot approach by scaling the unscalable, sheer precipice, but must slowly wind round from below, circling up and down endless undulations of vineyard and oakwood, coming forever upon a tantalizing glimpse of towers and walls, forever seemingly close to the heights above him, yet forever equally distant, till, at last, by a sharp unexpected turn of the gradually winding road, he stands before the gates. Thus was it with his own isolated soul, a soul unaffected by any other, unlinked in any work, or feeling, or suffering with any any other soul,--nay even with any physical thing. Thus it stood between himself and Ilaria. Thus they would forever remain alone, never move, never change, never cease absorbing through all eternity that which the eye cannot see. A soul purged perchance, of every human desire or will, isolated from all human affection, raised above the limits of time and space, hovering in a limbo of endless desire, twisting mystical half reasoning away from the peace-hungry soul! What a fate was his! What a vortex of passions he had been thrust into!