here I stood and in
what perils were to play the hypocrite. Largely I knew; just as I knew
that lacking strength to resist, I must seek safety in flight. And
to-morrow I would go. That point was settled, and the page, meanwhile,
turned down. And for to-night I delivered myself up to the savouring of
this hunger that was upon me.

And then, towards the third hour of night, as I still sat there, the
door was very gently opened, and I beheld Giuliana standing before me.
She detached from the black background of the passage, and the light of
my three-beaked lamp set her ruddy hair aglow so that it seemed there
was a luminous nimbus all about her head. For a moment this gave colour
to my fancy that I beheld a vision evoked by the too great intentness
of my thoughts. The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was
almost diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful.
Only in the vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood.

I stared at her. "Giuliana!" I murmured.

"Why do you sit so late?" she asked me, and closed the door as she
spoke.

"I have been thinking, Giuliana," I answered wearily, and I passed a
hand over my brow to find it moist and clammy. "To-morrow I go hence."

She started round and her eyes grew distended, her hand clutched her
breast. "You go hence?" she cried, a note as of fear in her deep voice.
"Hence? Whither?"

"Back to Mondolfo, to tell my mother that her dream is at an end."

She came slowly towards me. "And... and then?" she asked.

"And then? I do not know. What God wills. But the scapulary is not for
me. I am unworthy. I have no call. This I now know. And sooner than
be such a priest as Messer Gambara--of whom there are too many in the
Church to-day--I will find some other way of serving God."

"Since... since when have you thought thus?"

"Since this morning, when I kissed you," I answered fiercely.

She sank into a chair beyond the table and stretched a hand across it to
me, inviting the clasp of mine. "But if this is so, why leave us?"

"Because I am afraid," I answered. "Because... O God! Giuliana, do you
not see?" And I sank my head into my hands.

Steps shuffled along the corridor. I looked up sharply. She set a finger
to her lips. There fell a knock, and old Busio stood before us.

"Madonna," he announced, "my Lord the Cardinal-legate is below and asks
for you."

I started up as if I had been stung. So! At this hour! Then Messer
Fifanti's susp