But though she rose betimes upon the morrow, to see the holy man ere he
fared forth again, she was not early enough. In the courtyard whither she
descended to make her way to the outhouse where the two were lodged, she
met Fra Gervasio, who was astir before her.
"The friar?" she cried anxiously, filled already with forebodings. "The
holy man?"
Gervasio stood before her, pale and trembling. "You are too late, Madonna.
Already he is gone."
She observed his agitation now, and beheld in it a reflection of her own,
springing from the selfsame causes. "Oh, it was a sign indeed!" she
exclaimed. "And you have come to realize it, too, I see." Next, in a
burst of gratitude that was almost pitiful upon such slight foundation,
"Oh, blessed Agostino!" she cried out.
Then the momentary exaltation fell from that woman of sorrows. "This but
makes my burden heavier, my responsibility greater," she wailed. "God help
me bear it!"
Thus passed that incident so trifling in itself and so misunderstood by
her. But it was never forgotten, and from time to time she would allude to
it as the sign which had been vouchsafed me and for which great should be
my thankfulness and my joy.
Save for that, in the four years that followed, time flowed an uneventful
course within the four walls of the big citadel--for beyond those four
walls I was never once permitted to set foot; and although from time to
time I heard rumours of doings in the town itself, of the affairs of the
State whereof I was by right of birth the tyrant, and of the greater
business of the big world beyond, yet so trained and schooled was I that I
had no great desire for a nearer acquaintance with that world.
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