Francesco chose the wider path, and lost himself in a tangled underbrush of myrtle, stunted vines and high weeds, while the loftier forest-trees continually showered their golden dew upon him, as he passed under their odorous, lightly-swaying branches. If the life at Monte Cassino had seemed hard and uneventful, these few days in the larger, wider world had crowded experiences upon Francesco with an impetuosity that had left him a little bewildered. Hungry for a heart, his soul, bleeding under the leash of Fate, looked down upon life as from an isolation, and found it as desolate and empty as the most ascetic soul might have desired. Heartening himself, he tried to see some reasonable purpose linking all these happenings. He was being tempted and ill-used for the sake of a finer patience and stronger discipline, serving his novitiate in a rougher and more riotous house, meeting winds that had not reached him behind the walls of Monte Cassino. He had taken his discipline, his schooling and his vows as a matter that was inevitable. But the lure of the outer world, combined with the memories of the past, had thrummed incessantly and insistently against the armor of his cowl. And as, with the silence of a great resolve, he pushed slowly along his solitary path, he wondered vaguely at the ultimate goal. He had been taught that a monk should accept all the ordinances and ask no questions, clasping an austere docility like a girdle about his loins. Nevertheless, his eyes lost their lustre, as he remembered the scenes of the past night, and they fell into a vague brooding stare. Yet he no longer felt angry with those who had turned from him in disdain. For a time the fire in his heart had sunk too low even for anger. He was dull and weary and a little stunned by the night's bafflings, and the collapse of his resolves. He was fighting against destiny, and the wave was mightier than the vessel that had ventured upon it. Francesco had started out before dawn, brushing the dew from the meadow-grass and following the misty twilight track of a brook that traced its serpentine course through the forest glades. The songs of birds went throbbing through the woodland. Francesco had come to a place where four ways met, with a stone cross standing on a hillock, when out of the dusk of the forest aisles rode the portly bulk of a man, who was hardly astir so early in order to admire the beauties of the dawn, for he came along the greensward with the gait of one who combines caution with alertness. No sooner had the Duke of Spoleto laid eyes upon Francesco than he broke out into a glad roar. "Whither are you bound so lone and so early?" he bellowed after mutual greeting. "Has the soil of Rome ignited under your holy feet?" "I am bound for Viterbo," Francesco replied, glad to have the monotony of the journey and the trend of his ruminations relieved by one who had, at one time, been of such signal service to him.