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Book the Fourth
THE PASSION

CHAPTER I
SIREN LAND

IT was early on the following morning when Francesco saddled his steed and departed from the Red Tower. He did not trust himself to remain longer under the same roof with the woman whose spell boded evil to soul and body, much less to face Raniero Frangipani and to have his worst fears and suspicions confirmed. He had spent the remainder of the night awake with the shadows, dazed, unable to think, beset by weird, mocking phantoms. The woman's insatiate kisses still burned on his lips; her strange perfume still clung to the air; her passion had seared his soul. If he remained, he was lost. The spark that had slumbered in his soul had suddenly leaped into a consuming flame; the voice of the body, hushed so long, began to clamor; the long restraint threatened to break down the self-imposed barriers with its own sheer weight. A strange dizziness had seized him; everything seemed to swim in a blood-red haze. It was only by degrees that reason returned; the phantom of desire faded before the memory of Ilaria.

Almost dazed he crossed the mere, expecting every moment to hear the ferryman recalled and resolved to resist to the utmost any attempt to stop his departure.

But nothing happened. An enchanted silence encompassed the castle, unbroken even by the voices of the slowly awakening dawn.

Thousand and one thoughts, desires and fears rushed through Francesco's brain, as he rode down into the picturesque valley, which encompassed the feudal masonry where he had spent the night. And with the memory of the white arms, which had held him in their close embrace, with the memory of the thirstily parted lips, which had well-nigh kissed him to his doom, with the memory of the haunting eyes which had discoursed to him a secret he was never to know, an indescribable longing for happiness stole into his heart, a longing which made him utterly oblivious of time and space and caused him to spur his steed to greater haste in the desire to arrive at his goal.

Little as Francesco had mingled with the world, inexperienced as he was in mundane matters, his instinct had not been slow to inform him that Raniero was leading a double life, that he was deceiving Ilaria, who perchance trusted him utterly. The certainty of the indisputable fact struck him with quick pang. Was Ilaria awake to the truth? And what had been the effect of the stunning revelation?

In the ban of these conflicting emotions, in which love and doubt alternately held the balance in the scales, Francesco rode towards Circé's land.

On all sides lonely stretches of country expanded before the solitary horseman's eyes. With each onward step the scene changed, and Francesco's abstracted gaze roamed far away to the distant mountain ranges of the Basilicata, revealing reaches of fantastic peaks and stretching away in long aerial lines towards the sun-fraught plains of Calabria.

Though he pushed onward with restless determination, Francesco was compelled to devote the hours of high-noon to rest and refreshments in this cloister or that, which he came upon during his journey. For the glare of the August sun was intense, and though the nights were cool, the roads were infested by all manner of outlaws, making progress slow and hazardous.

While at a Cistercian monastery during the siesta hours on the third day of his journey, the first tidings of a battle between the hosts of Anjou and Conradino reached Francesco's ear. The armies had met at Tagliacozzo in Apulia – so a peasant had informed the monks – but the outcome of the conflict was shrouded in mystery. The monks, chiefly old men, who had long cast the vanities of the world behind them, met Francesco's eager questionings with mute shrugs. The quarrels between pope and emperor meant nothing to them.

Ever southward he rode, until, breasting the moors, he saw the strange, tumultuous magic of the Maremmas drifting into the vague distance of night.

The summer woods in the valleys were as a rolling sea, carved out of ebony. Hill rose beyond hill, each more dim and misty and alluring. A great silence held. Enchantment brooded over Terra di Lavoro.

The last day of his journey had come.

The torrid plains of Torre del Greco dreamed deserted in the glow of the noonday sun. The leaves of the palms and the branches of the mimosa hung limp and motionless. The sky was as a burning sapphire. The glare of the sun was almost insufferable, as it fell over the arid expanse of the Neapolitan Campagna to the pencilled line of the southern horizon, where a long circle divided the misty shimmering dove-color of the Tyrrhene Sea from the pale, sun-fraught sky.

The region, as far as the eye could reach, was deserted. Almost it seemed as if the spell of a magician had banished at once all life and sound. Mala Terra the inhabitants called the stretches beyond the Cape of Circé, where, grim and impregnable upon its chalk cliffs, rose Astura, the sinister stronghold of the Frangipani, silent, bleached against the background of the restless waves, which laved its base.

With a shudder Francesco skirted the dreary castello, and the name of Ilaria flew to his lips. Was it upon yonder lonely castle height she was waiting Raniero's return; was it up yonder the thread of her destiny was interminably spinning itself out in self-consuming, wasting monotony? Was she, who had been created for happiness, slowly pining away, remote from all she loved and held dear on earth? Or had the lure of the Siren land drawn her into the vortex of life and the passions of the sun-kissed shores? Francesco shivered despite the noonday heat, and, fondling the ears of his steed, urged it onward over the rocky expanse.

The sun was low in the heavens when Francesco came within sight of Naples. From Castellamare to Posilippo the graceful lines of the gulf rose on the horizon; the blue cone of Vesuvius was wreathed in smoke; Resina and Portici reposed snugly at its base. Eagerly Francesco's eye scanned the outlines of spires and domes as he rode towards the city. The surrounding hillsides were scarlet and purple, gold and bronze, and great masses of green where ilex-trees and acanthus grew. The wine-pressers were shouting gaily. There was so much light and life in the world, and he felt almost as if he had lost them in the shadow of the cloister.

Military rule, he saw, as he drew near, obtained in the place. To the challenge of the sentry at the gate of San Gennaro he gave his name, and "From Viterbo" repeated the soldier, calling the news back over his shoulder.

"From Viterbo!" the word passed on. Through the arched gate, Francesco could see a clustering confusion of people. There was an aspect of reckless merriment about the crowded streets.

A tall horseman, just inside the gate, beckoned, and Francesco rode slowly through the arch.

"From Viterbo?" repeated a big man significantly. "Well, friend, you bear no olive! Hardly the days these for the olive of peace to circulate in Italy!"

A snicker ran through the crowd.

"But, nevertheless, we are free to perceive that you are a messenger, and all the more welcome!"

"I know not for whom you take me!" returned Francesco. "But – "

"Are you not a messenger?" interrupted the large man.

A strange audacity possessed Francesco of a sudden.

"Certainly I am a messenger," he returned fearlessly, – "but not to your rebellious city, Messere!"

The last part of his speech was either not heard, or not heeded, for at the first there was loud applause. In the midst of the clamor, Francesco was endeavoring to make himself understood, but finding his efforts futile, he resigned himself to silence, and was carried onward with the crowd, calm as the atom at the centre of a cyclone, yet noting all the incidents of the way. He watched the streets with their luxuriant picturesqueness, so different in appearance from the severe and heroic style of Viterbo. At last Francesco accosted the big horseman, inquiring the direction of the palace. Thereupon the latter became more civil and offered to accompany the stranger in person. This innuendo Francesco thought best to decline, giving as his reason that he intended putting up at an inn, it being too late to see the Regent.

Having received the desired intelligence, Francesco abandoned himself for the nonce to the charm of the hour, the magic of the place. As he rode leisurely through the streets, crowds came and went from Santa Maria. Now and then the note of a mandolin was heard. All was life, mirth, happiness! How fair this city, – the city that seemed to be girt only by lilies! The flower-girl, nodding and smiling, distributed her violets, embedded in geraniums. The blind beggar touched his harp; in the distance were heard the rhythmic strains of a Barcarole.

Over the whole gulf a faint, transparent mist had arisen.

The magnolias shone white in the dying light. The soughing of the wind through the leafy boughs sounded like the faint music of Aeolian harps.

The dying light touched the walls of houses and palaces with mellow hues, then faded away before the swift southern night. Here and there torches gleamed; then the city grew silvery in the moonlight which flooded the heavens.

As in a dream Francesco rode in the direction indicated by the horseman. Again he was to enter the sphere of his former life; again he was to move in the sphere of a court, again he was to taste the life of the past. It was the same, – yet not the same. Then he had been happy, care-free, loving and beloved. Now he stood alone, looking from a frosty elevation upon the joys of life! Would the dark phantoms of the past vanish, here in this radiant air, under this cloudless, sun-fraught sky?

The inn, where he took lodging, was built after the manner of the thirteenth century, in a hollow square. It was of white stone, simple, harmonious, with quaint carvings and ornamentations. The Byzantine arches of the cloistered walks were its chief beauty, disclosing a vista of the garden with its orange trees and grape-vines; its waving rose bushes, which encircled the ancient fountain. A long parapet of dusky tiles left open the beautiful view of the Bay of Naples.

After Francesco's steed had been properly cared for, after he had refreshed himself with a bath and had partaken of food and drink, he felt irresistibly drawn into the vortex of gladsome humanity, which enlivened the streets towards the Vice-regal palace.

What an enchanted land this was, contrasted with the shadowy courts of Viterbo, that hill-encircled city with her dusky shrubbery, her funereal cypresses!

How fair were the flowery fields, the marble villas, encircling the bay! The wonderful glow of color seemed like fairyland enchantment! The gaily dressed crowds that thronged streets and piazzas, the brilliant processions, continuing way into the night, the mass of scarlet, blue and gold, which flashed out from under the torch-light, the music, the tumult, the laughter, the fantastic, the freedom: – here life was indeed but a merry holiday.

The night was radiant. Sky and houses and bay were aglow with her silver beams. Merry groups were passing to and fro. There was music, singing, happiness, – all the gentleness of a perfect night.

Francesco walked more slowly in the moonlight. Suddenly a couple passed him: a man and a woman. The woman wore a crimson cloak, and in passing she looked up into his face. It was only a moment's meeting; but all the color had faded from Francesco's cheeks. He looked back: they had disappeared among the throngs.

For a moment he stood still as one paralyzed. Could his eyes have deceived him? Impossible! He could never mistake that face, nor was there another like it on earth! He faltered, stopped, recovered himself, then retraced his steps in search of the two. But his efforts were utterly in vain. As one dazed he returned to the inn. The convent bells of Santa Lucia, pealing the midnight hour, found him pacing up and down within the narrow confines of his chamber. Now and then he paused and looked out into the night. Only when the noise and merriment had died to silence he sought his couch, but it was long ere sleep would come to him. For in the woman with the unknown cavalier, who had passed him without recognition, he had recognized Ilaria Caselli.

CHAPTER II
THE LADY OF SHADOWS

IT was early on the following day when Francesco took the direction of the palace. The city appeared gay and bright; the beautiful isles of Ischia and Capri, like twin outposts guarding an earthly paradise. He had arrived at the hour of dusk, which had soon faded into the swift southern night, and much of the magic of the scene had thus been veiled before his gaze. Now he saw and marvelled.

All around stretched the bay in its azure immensity, its sweeping curves bounded on the left by the rocky Sorrentine promontory, with Sorrento, Meta and a cluster of little fishing villages, nestling on the olive-clad precipices, half hidden by orange groves and vineyards and the majestic form of Monte Angelo towering above. Farther along the coast rose Vesuvius, the tutelary genius of the scene, its vine-clad lower slopes presenting a startling contrast to the dark smoke-wreathed cone of the mountain. On the right the graceful undulations of the Camaldoli hills descended to the beautifully indented bay of Putcoli, while Naples herself, with Portici and Torre del Greco, reposed as a marble quarry between the blue waters of the bay. Beyond, in the far background, the view was shut in by a phantom range of snowy peaks, an offshoot of the Abruzzi mountains, faintly discerned in the purple haze of the horizon.

As Francesco strode along his wonder increased step by step. He seemed to have invaded the realms of the sun, who sent his unrelenting light rays down upon glistening pavements composed of lava, reflecting the beams with all the brilliancy of mosaic. Notwithstanding the glare of August, balconies, casements, terraces and galleries were enlivened by a gay and merry crowd. The gloomy fronts of marble and granite had disappeared under silken hangings and garlands of flowers. Everywhere there was joy and gladness, and the bells from Santa Chiara rang as joyously over the city and gulf as if the papal Inderdict held no terrors for these children of an azure sky.

The situation was nevertheless acute. A Clementine court and a Ghibelline populace, who defied alike the Pontiff and their self-imposed ruler. Excommunication was hanging black over the leaders of this movement; the court was in evil moral repute, and it was difficult to foresee whither matters were drifting under these sun-fraught, cloudless skies.

Francesco requested and obtained immediate audience of the Duke of Lerma, Anjou's representative in the kingdom of Sicily. The interview being terminated, and his duties outlined, he strode out into the palace gardens, which sloped in picturesque terraces down towards the bay.

With fevered pulses he leaned against the parapet of the broad stone wall which encircled the gardens, his eyes resting on the enchanted landscape, the clustered towers of Naples, beyond which rose the smoke-wreathed cone of Vesuvius. Thence his gaze wandered to the sea, which glowed from rose to violet and sapphire, all melting into unity of lapis lazuli, and finally down into the Parthenopean fields, where the atmosphere heaved with the pulsing intensity of high noon.

On all sides the spell of Circé enfolded him triumphantly. Truly, here all painful broodings might be forgotten, where thought and sight were alike suffused with the radiance of sea and sky. It was a place of dawns and sunsets, of lights rising amber in the East over purple hills and amethystine waters; of magic glows at evening in the west with cypresses and yews carven in ebony against primrose skies, while the terraces blazed with flower-filled urns, and roses overspread the balustrade with crimson flame.

How vivid the life of the past weeks stood out before Francesco's eyes, a life crowned by the memory of his arrival in this Siren City, and his strange meeting with Ilaria. It seemed like a mocking dream; yet, the pain in his heart informed him, it was true!

How long he had stood there, he did not know, when he suddenly gave a start.

An opening door, – a light foot-fall – he stood face to face with Ilaria.

She paused; stately, unsmiling, reserved. A white silence seemed to enfold her as their eyes met.

"There is some error," she said, with a retrograde movement. "I will withdraw – "

"There is no error!" the words leaped from Francesco's lips. "Or perchance there is! Well, – is it true?"

The words were uttered almost brutally.

"I do not understand!" she replied icily.

"Why are you at Naples?"

His face was a mere whiteness amid shadows.

"Why are you here?" she replied, straightening with a sharp lifting of the head.

"Perhaps I am here to spy on you!"

"The office does you honor! First, a traitor – then, a spy – "

Her words were fierce and bitter.

"What are you saying?" he flashed. "Betrayal is not man's prerogative alone!"

She shuddered. His words bit brutally into the truth. For a moment she stood rigid, searching his eyes and the very depths of his soul.

And so, for a brief space, they faced each other in silence. Francesco acknowledged anew, and with a mortal pang, that here was a woman for whom a man might give his life and count it naught. A woman to gain whose love, a man might sell his soul. Ilaria had come into her own, as never in her earlier youth. Like all great beauty, hers was serious. It had acquired a touch of majesty and mystery, a depth of intensity and significance.

"Is Raniero at Naples?" Francesco spoke at last.

She faced him defiantly, as if resenting his attitude.

"I knew not you were concerned in your former rival!"

Her utterance seemed part of the incomprehensible cruelty of life. His face was hard and white as he regarded her.

"Perchance my concern is all for my present one!"

"I do not understand – " she faltered, her hands over her bosom. Yet her tone had lost its defiant ring.

As in mute questioning her eyes were on his face.

"As I passed down the Via Forinara last night, I passed a woman and a man. The woman was garbed in crimson, and there was no sign of recognition in her eyes. The woman I knew. Who was the man?"

Ilaria's face was very pale.

"What is he to you, – the monk?"

He came a step nearer.

"Who was the man?"

She gave a little nervous laugh.

"Stefano Maconi, – one of the nobles of the court!" she said, with a drooping of the head. Then with a quick touch of resentment: "Have you heard the name before?"

Francesco ignored the irony of her tones.

"What is he to you?" he queried sternly. His face looked pale and drawn, his eyes shone with an almost supernatural lustre.

"Really," she squirmed, "I knew not that I stood in need of a confessor. I have one already, – and I do not intend to supplant him with another!"

"You have not answered my question!" he insisted. "To the office of your confessor I do not aspire. I am not suited for that exalted position!"

There was something in his eyes that frightened her.

"And why?" – she faltered.

"I should not prove so passive a listener!"

For a moment she faced him in silence. Then, with a sudden return of her old hauteur, she flashed:

"Of what do you accuse me?"

He did not speak. But the look he gave her sent the hot blood curdling to her cheeks; ebbing back, it left them paler than before.

"You have not answered my question!" he said at last.

She lifted heavy lids and eyed him wondering, as one waking from a dream.

"What do you want of me?"

"What is Stefano Maconi to you?" he queried more fiercely, grasping her wrists, and compelling her to raise her eyes to his.

"Stefano Maconi is nothing to me!" she replied hoarsely.

Never had he spoken thus to her. As their eyes met, she noted that he had changed. With a quick pang she saw how thin and haggard he had grown.

"Is this the truth?" Gropingly her hands went out to him, her witch-like eyes held his own and like the cry of a tortured soul it came from her lips:

"It is the truth!"

Her voice died in a sob; her whole body was shaken with convulsive tremors, when she found herself caught up in his arms.

For a moment she abandoned herself wholly to his embrace, while terms of endearment fell deliriously from his lips. Again and again he kissed the pale lips, the eyes of the woman he loved better than life.

How long, it seemed to Ilaria, since she had leaned over the parapets of Avellino, had watched the sunset light fade into the night! And one night of all, how slowly the moon had risen! How white the magnolias had shimmered, while the distant Liris sang his slumber song! How the red roses burned in the moonlight, as she stole down the path to meet him!

How long ago was it? Now, she could remember every detail of that night; how she started when a sleeping bird uttered a dream note among the leafy boughs, how she listened to her own heart-beats, how she found herself caught up in Francesco's arms.

All her youth, all her days had been poisoned by the thought of what she had done. Resolutely, day after day, month after month, had she fought against the demon of remorse. She had shut eyes and ears to the haunting spectre of the past. And now, steadily, pitilessly, she went back, step for step, through the hell of her past life, the mockery that was bitterer than death, the horror of loneliness, the slow, grinding, relentless agony of her nights and days.

The crowding phantoms of the past would not release her from their shadowy grip. Why had he again come into her life? Why had he again crossed her path?

Staggering, he released her at last, took a backward step and covered his face with his hands.

"I have tried not to lay hands on a thing that it is not mine to touch."

She pointed to his garb. A wondering look passed into her eyes.

At first he noted it not, in the thrall of his own emotions. Then, as she touched him lightly upon the arm, he understood.

"I am here, the legate of Clement, carrying the Interdict, unless Naples acknowledges the supremacy of the Church! For this I have laid aside the cowl!"

Ilaria shivered. He was still a monk, – after all.

There was nothing she could do to help him. That was the bitterest thing of all!

Silence seemed to bind the world into a golden swoon.

"Francesco," she cried, almost with a sob.

He came nearer and took her hands again.

"Let us go down among the terraces!" she said in a whisper. "Let us forget the loud, insistent clamor of the world. Let us be quite still, – as if we were among the poppy-flowers!"

By some strange echoing of the mind the idyls of past days woke like the songs of birds after a storm of rain. Her whole soul yearned out with a wistfulness borne of infinite regret.

Silently they walked down the flower-bordered path.

The panorama from the spot was enchanting. Far below lay the blue waters of the bay; out to seaward lay ancient Baiae with her thousand palaces and the forest of masts at Puteoli; beyond these Sorento and the shimmering islands, bathed by the boundless sea. The vaporous cloud from Vesuvius hung like a cone of snow in the still blue atmosphere.

The foreground was no less enchanting. All round the pavilion lay a verdant, luxuriant wilderness. The mysterious silence of noon brooded over the whole landscape; only a faint hum of life came up from the city. All else was still. Not a living creature seemed to breathe within ear-shot.

He led her to where a fountain plashed in the sun and stone steps ringed a quiet pool.

In the silence she bent over him, her hand on his dark hair.

The tonsure burned her fingers like living fire.

"Why have you done this thing?"

He felt the scorn in her voice; he felt the swift repellence of her body.

Francesco raised his face to that of the woman. It was very pale from the fierceness of the struggle to keep down even the suspicion of emotional sentimentality.

"You ask why I have done this thing?" he spoke dryly at last. "The hour has come when I must tell you, Ilaria! Not that it can steer the vessel of our lives into different channels, – but that at last I may stand vindicated in your sight. I am the son of Gregorio Villani, Grand Master of the Order of St. John. My mother died at my birth. I was raised at the Court of Avellino. So powerful was the influence of my father, that, notwithstanding the protests of the Holy See, he placed his offspring at a Ghibelline court. There came a day when I was summoned to the bedside of my father at San Cataldo. What passed between us during that interview, neither you nor any one on earth may know. I went into his room a happy, care-free youth. I came out the shadow of my former self, – a monk. One year I lived among shadows in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. There I took the vows which made me a prisoner, far more closely bound than you can know; for death alone shall release me from a life which has grown to be a torture. I became a monk half from pity, half from fear. The pity is almost gone; the fear has left me long ago. After a time I was called to Rome. The Church I love not! I am unfit to remain in her service. The monks are to me a hateful body. Willingly, gladly, would I see my scapular replaced by the tunic for my coffin. Yet death is not for me to hope for, or even to dream of, – and in vain I ask, what holds the future?"

Ilaria's head had drooped over his; her eyes wandered blindly over the ground. Then a warm drop fell to the stone at her feet.

During his recital the very soul in Francesco seemed to have withered with dread, and he seemed to shrivel up bodily and to grow feeble and old and wilted, as a leaf that the frost has touched.

"The memory pains you," she said at last.

He bit his lips.

"Deem you, I forget when I am silent? But it is not the thing itself that haunts me! It is the fact that I have lost the power over myself – "

"You have suffered – "

"It is the fact that I have come to the end of my courage, – to the point where I find myself a coward!"

"Surely there is a limit to what one may bear – "

"And he who has once reached that limit never knows when he may reach it again!"

He looked up with a sudden piteous catching of the breath.

"What will you do?" she spoke after a pause.

He held her hands in a close, passionate clasp. A silence that seemed to have no end had fallen about them.

"My allotted task," he said at last, in a voice more dead than alive.

"No, – no, – no – !" she started up suddenly. "Cannot you see, – will you never understand – oh! the bitterness, the misery of it all!"

She clung to him with all her might.

"Come away with me! What have you to do with this dead world of priests and monks! They are full of the dust of bygone ages! Come out of this plague-ridden Church, – come with me into the sunlight! I love you – I have always loved you, – always – "

She bent blindly towards him.

"Take me away from here, – Francesco, – take me away from here! Since I came here my feet seem to have grown heavy with this lotus-laden air. At times it sweeps over me like desperation, – I lose the faculty of thinking, I lose the power over myself!"

"I thought you were at Astura!" he said tentatively, the affair in the Red Tower flashing through his consciousness.

She gave a quick start.

"I am a woman, and I stand alone! I have lived in hell ever since I set foot in Astura. Almost have I lost the courage to look life in the face. How I have wanted you!" she continued, with a wan, wistful smile. "Ever I see you standing against the background of a great silence, a silence that engulfs, that maddens, that kills! And you will go from me, leave me a prey to this gray, suffocating loneliness, which hovers as a pall over my soul! I am nothing to Raniero! He seeks his pleasures elsewhere! The lure of the body drove him to me, – it has vanished, – thank God even for that! I should die in his embrace. He knows that I loathe him, that my soul spurns him! And he knows that I love you! Yet, though he has forfeited every right, human and divine, he grudges my love to another. For days and days he left me alone within the gray walls of Astura, until in a fit of desperation I left one night, and came here, to forget. His insults began in Rome. He went so far as to bring his mistress to the Frangipani palace. I have heard it whispered there is a curse on Astura. 'Astura – mala terra, – maledetta!' A beggar uttered these words, whom Raniero struck for obstructing his path, on the day when we arrived!"

A sudden blood-red cloud seemed to come before Francesco's eyes. With a voice bare of intonation, he recited his own adventure in the Red Tower, voicing his suspicions and fears.

Ilaria betrayed no surprise.

"He has never forgiven Fonté Gaia," she said, with drooping head. "And yet he was untrue to me even then! From that hour matters began to grow worse. Recklessly he cast the last semblance of decorum to the winds. When I protested against living under the same roof with his mistress, he smilingly brought me to Astura, leaving me, as he said, in undisturbed possession. My youth destroyed, my soul poisoned, I accepted my fate! I am the lady of the Frangipani! Sold, and bought, and paid for!"

Ilaria had made mere truth of the matter, neither justifying nor embellishing. Her clear, bleak words were the more pathetic for their very simpleness.

With a great cry, he took her in his arms, kissed her dusky tresses, kissed her flower-soft face. The dimmed sunlight, falling in upon them, enveloped them as with a halo.

"And you are happy here?" he spoke at last.

She gave a shrug.

"Here as elsewhere it is a phantom scene," she said, with her wan smile. "But if the fellowship of phantoms be ordained, it is well that they be like those of Naples, radiant."

"Am I too, then, a phantom like the rest?"

Like an echo a voice said:

"A phantom – like the rest."

"And is he – a phantom too?"

She looked up into his eyes.

"Raniero – "

"That other – "

Her face was very pale.

"Why do you dwell on him?"