“I can conceive it,” she answered, very gently, her eyes downcast; “and now that I know the motives that impelled you, I almost love you for that deceit itself, for it seems to me that it holds some quality well worthy of devotion.” Such was our talk, all of a nature to help us to a better understanding of each other, and all seeming to endear us more and more by showing us how close the past had already drawn us. Later I rose and announced my intention of adventuring into Cattolica, there to procure her garments more seemly than those she wore, in which she might journey on and come into the presence of my mother. Also, there was in Cattolica a man I knew, of whom I hoped for the loan of enough money to enable me to purchase mules, to the end that we might journey in more dignity and comfort. It was then about the twentieth hour, and I hoped to return by nightfall. I took my leave of Madonna, enjoining her to rest and to seek sleep whilst I was absent; and with that I set out. Cattolica was no more than a half-league distant, and I looked to reach it in a half-hour or so. I fell into thought as I trudged along, and I was building plans for the sunlit future that was to be ours. I was a man transformed that day, and I could have sung in spite of the chill December wind that buffeted me, so full of joy and gladness was my heart. At Biancomonte I was likely to spend my days as little better than a peasant, but surely a peasant’s estate with such a companion as was to be mine was preferable to an emperor’s throne without her. The bleak landscape seemed to me invested with a beauty that at no other time I should have noticed. God was good. I swore a thousand times, the world was a good world—so good that Heaven could scarce be better. I had come, perhaps, the better half of the distance I had to travel, and I was giving full rein to my joyous fancy, when suddenly I espied ahead a company of horsemen. They were approaching me at a brisk pace, but I took no thought of them, accounting myself secure from any molestation. If it so happened that it was a search party from Pesaro, seeking two men disguised as monks who had ravished the coffin of Madonna Paola di Santafior, what should they want of Lazzaro Biancomonte? And so, in my confidence, I advanced even as they trotted quickly towards me.