Then he held me at arms' length and considered me, and his steely eyes were
blurred and moist. He muttered something to the familiar, linked his arm
through mine and drew me away, down passages, through doors, and so at last
into the busy Roman street.
We went in silence by ways that were well known to him but in which I
should assuredly have lost myself, and so we came at last to a fair
tavern--the Osteria del Sole--near the Tower of Nona.
His horse was stalled here, and a servant led the way above-stairs to the
room that he had hired.
How wrong had I not been, I reflected, to announce before the Inquisition
that I should have no regrets in leaving this world. How ungrateful was
that speech, considering this faithful one who loved me for my father's
sake! And was there not Bianca, who, surely--if her last cry, wrung from
her by anguish, contained the truth--must love me for my own?
How sweet the revulsion that now came upon me as I sank into a chair by the
window, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of that truly happy moment in
which the grey shadow of death had been lifted from me.
Servants bustled in, to spread the board with the choice meats that
Galeotto had ordered, and great baskets of luscious fruits and flagons of
red Puglia wine; and soon we seated ourselves to the feast.
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