most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which, although I
scarcely realized it, if at all, I had at once tasted love and battle, the
strongest meats that are in the dish of life.

For some hours, I think, had I lain there, reflecting and putting together
pieces of the riddle of existence, when my door was softly opened, and I
started up in bed to behold Fra Gervasio bearing a taper which he sheltered
with one hand, so that the light of it was thrown upwards into his pale,
gaunt face.

Seeing me astir he came forward and closed the door.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Sh!" he admonished me, a finger to his lips. He advanced to my side, set
down the taper on the chair, and seated himself upon the edge of my bed.

"Lie down again, my son," he bade me. "I have something to say to you."

He paused a moment, whilst I settled down again and drew the coverlet to my
chin not without a certain premonition of important things to come.

"Madonna has decided," he informed me then. "She fears that having once
resisted her authority, you are now utterly beyond her control; and that to
keep you here would be bad for yourself and for her. Therefore she has
resolved that to-morrow you leave Mondolfo."

A faint excitement began to stir in me. To leave Mondolfo--to go out into
that world of which I had read so much; to mingle with my fellow-man, with
youths of my own age, perhaps with maidens like Luisina, to see cities and