"All men do my bidding to-day," she said in her low, vibrant voice, offering him the cup, while her eyes flung him a glittering challenge. It was her most winsome self that looked at him, as she said: "Drink to me!" Dazed, he took the cup from her. In doing so, he touched her soft, white skin. The cold draught seemed to burn like fire as he sipped the clear water. Then, surprised by impulse, he flashed the drops upward, as he had seen her do. Her laughter sounded shrill and high as broken glass, as the dislocated cowl revealed Francesco's features. But she immediately regained her composure, and, without a hint in her voice of the taunt in the dells of Vallombrosa, she said, nodding, as if well pleased, and as if for his ear alone: "The White Lady is well pleased. Is not this her altar?" But another had recognized the monk, when for a moment his cowl fell away from his face; and Raniero Frangipani was regarding him with dark malice. As if to leave a sting in the memory of their meeting, Ilaria, returning to Raniero's side, gave the latter a smile so bewitching that his scowl vanished. Remounting with his help, she signalled for the cavalcade to proceed. The pain in Francesco's heart rose, suffocating, once more as the procession swept onward. How he had loved her! How he loved her now! How shall a man be sure of what is hidden in his heart? He was a monk,--and she the wife of Raniero Frangipani. How wondrous fair she was, glowing as a rose in the first flush of spring-time! How her sweet eyes had gleamed into his, with their subdued fire, half hidden under the long silken lashes! For a moment he saw and heard nothing. All sense of the present seemed to have vanished while the cavalcade faded from sight. Now, from the gates beyond St. John Lateran, there burst forth the pomp and panoply of the North, with a flourish of trumpets, a gleaming of chain-mail, a sparkling of pennons. Two heralds, on snow-white chargers, rode slowly through the gate, sounding their fanfares, their standards and particolored garbs displaying the Sun-Soaring Eagle of Hohenstauffen. Then, on a black stallion, docile to the hand and impatient of the spur, Conradino of Swabia hove into sight, beside the friend of his youth, Frederick of Austria. They rode in advance of the élite of the army, some two thousand men in gleaming chain-mail. Conrad and Marino Capecé followed hard on their heels with one thousand heavy infantry and a company of Saracen archers. Then came Galvano Lancia with the heavy armament, men from the North, carrying huge battle-axes in addition to their other weapons. As they slowly advanced through the great square fronting the ancient Basilica, a great shout arose from the thousands who lined the thoroughfares, a counter-blast to the clangor of the clarions. Then the whole host shouted, tossed up shield and lance, while trumpets and horns shrieked above the din.