"
She gave me a little fluttering, timid glance, and looked away again. Thus
we came in silence to the gallery's end, where a marble seat was placed,
with gay cushions of painted and gilded leather. She sank to it with a
little sigh, and I leaned on the balustrade beside her and slightly over
her. And now I grew strangely bold.
"Set me some penance," I cried, "that shall make me worthy."
Again came that little fluttering, frightened glance.
"A penance?" quoth she. "I do not understand."
"All my life," I explained, "has been a vain striving after something that
eluded me. Once I deemed myself devout; and because I had sinned and
rendered myself unworthy, you found me a hermit on Monte Orsaro, seeking by
penance to restore myself to the estate from which I had succumbed. That
shrine was proved a blasphemy; and so the penance I had done, the signs I
believed I had received, were turned to mockery. It was not there that I
should save myself. One night I was told so in a vision."
She gave an audible gasp, and looked at me so fearfully that I fell silent,
staring back at her.
"You knew!" I cried.
Long did her blue, slanting eyes meet my glance without wavering, as never
yet they had met it. She seemed to hesitate, and at the same time openly
to consider me.
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