countenance of heavenly beauty. As he gazed at her in wonder, she leant
over him to wipe away the spume that defiled his mouth.

Ser Niccola Tuldo, turning on her eyes that still retained their savage
ferocity, cried out:

"Begone! I hate you, because you are of Sienna, the city that slays me.
Oh! Sienna, she-wolf indeed, that with her vile claws tears out the
throat of a noble gentleman of Perugia! Horrid she-wolf! unclean and
inhuman hell-hound!"

But Catherine made answer:

"Nay! brother, what is a city, what are all the cities of the earth,
beside the City of God and the holy Angels? I am Catherine, and I am
come to call you to the everlasting nuptials."

The sweet voice and beaming face shed a sudden peace and radiance over
the savage soul of Niccola Tuldo. He remembered the days of his
innocence, and cried like a child.

The sun, rising above the Apennines, was just whitening the prison walls
with its earliest rays. Catherine said:

"Look, the dawn! Up, up, my brother, for the eternal nuptials! Up, I
say!"

And raising him from the ground, she drew him into the Chapel, where Fra
Cattaneo confessed him.