She was too far-seeing, too honest to declare that she could.
"Will you promise this," Benedetto continued, "if I promise to call you to my side at a certain hour in the future ?" She did not know of what solemn and not far distant hour he was thinking, as he spoke thus.

She answered, quivering: "Yes, yes!" "In that hour I will call you," said the voice out of the shadow, "But until I call you, you must never seek to see me again." Jeanne pressed her hands to her eyes, and answered "No" in a smothered tone.

It seemed to her she was whirling in the vortex of such agonising dreams as accompany a raging fever, Piero had ceased speaking.

Two or three minutes slipped by.

She withdrew her hands from her tearful eyes, and fixed her gaze upon the cross, which shone there in front of her, beyond the pointed arches, against the dark phantoms of ancient paintings.