ertile
lands, and the deep cobalt of the heavens a glittering, star-flecked
dome in a lighter space of which floated the half-disk of the growing
moon. Such a moon, she bethought her, as she had looked at with thoughts
of him, the night after their brief meeting at Acquasparta. She had
gained that north rampart on which he had announced that duty took him,
and yonder she saw a man---the only tenant of the wall--leaning upon the
embattled parapet, looking down at the lights of Gian Maria's camp. He
was bareheaded, and by the gold coif that gleamed in his hair she knew
him. Softly she stole up behind him.

"Do we dream here, Messer Francesco?" she asked him, as she reached his
side, and there was laughter running through her words.

He started round at the sound of her voice, then he laughed too, softly
and gladly.

"It is a night for dreams, and I was dreaming indeed. But you have
scattered them."

"You grieve me," she rallied him. "For assuredly they were pleasant,
since, to come here and indulge them, you left--us."

"Aye--they were pleasant," he answered. "And yet, they were fraught with
a certain sadness, but idle as is the stuff of dreams. They were yours
to dispel, for they were of you."

"Of me?" she questioned, her heart-beats quickening and bringing to her
cheeks a flush that she thanked the night for concealing.

"Yes, Madonna--of you and our first meeting in the woods at Acquasparta.
Do you recall it?"

"I do, I do," she murmured fondly.

"And do you recall how I then swore myself your knight and ever your
champion? Little did we dream how the honour that I sighed for was to be
mine."

She made him no answer, her mind harking back to that first meeting on
which so often and so fondly she had pondered.

"I was thinking, too," he said presently, "of that man Gian Maria in the
plain yonder, and of this shameful siege."

"You--you have no misgivings?" she faltered, for his words had
disappointed her a little.

"Misgivings?"

"For being here with me. For being implicated in what they call my
rebellion?"

He laughed softly, his eyes upon the silver gleam of waters below.

"My misgivings are all for the time when this siege shall be ended; when
you and I shall have gone each our separate way," he answered boldly.
He turned to face her now, and his voice rang a little tense. "But for
being here to guide this fine resistance and lend you the little aid I
can---- No, no, I have no misgiving for tha