“Even you could fight, Agnes,” said the knight, “to save your religion from disgrace.”

“No,” said she; “but,” she added, with gathering firmness, “I could die.  I should be glad to die with and for the holy men who would save the honor of the true faith.  I should like to go to Florence to my uncle.  If he dies for his religion, I should like to die with him.”

“Ah, live to teach it to me!” said the knight, bending towards her, as if to adjust her bridle-rein, and speaking in a voice scarcely audible.  In a moment he was turned again towards the Princess, listening to her.

“So it seems,” she said, “that we shall be running into the thick of the conflict in Florence.”

“Yes, but my uncle hath promised that the King of France shall interfere.  I have hope something may even now have been done.  I hope to effect something myself.”

Agostino spoke with the cheerful courage of youth.  Agnes glanced timidly up at him.  How great the change in her ideas!  No longer looking on him as a wanderer from the fold, an enemy of the Church, he seemed now in the attitude of a champion of the faith, a defender of holy men and things against a base usurpation.  What injustice had she done him, and how patiently had he borne that injustice!  Had he not sought to warn her against the danger of venturing into that corrupt city?  Those words which so much shocked her, against which she had shut her ears, were all true; she had found them so; she could doubt no longer.  And yet he had followed her, and saved her at the risk of his life.  Could she help loving one who had loved her so much, one so noble and heroic?  Would it be a sin to love him?  She pondered the dark warnings of Father Francesco, and then thought of the cheerful, fervent piety of her old uncle.  How warm, how tender, how life-giving had been his presence always! how full of faith and prayer, how fruitful of heavenly words and thoughts had been all his ministrations!—­and yet it was for him and with him and his master that Agostino Sarelli was fighting, and against him the usurping head of the Christian Church.  Then there was another subject for pondering during this night-ride.  The secret of her birth had been told her by the Princess, who claimed her as kinswoman.  It had seemed to her at first like the revelations of a dream; but as she rode and reflected, gradually the idea shaped itself in her mind.  She was, in birth and blood, the equal of her lover, and henceforth her life would no more be in that lowly plane where it had always moved.  She thought of the little orange-garden at Sorrento, of the gorge with its old bridge, the Convent, the sisters, with a sort of tender, wondering pain.  Perhaps she should see them no more.  In this new situation she longed once more to see and talk with her old uncle, and to have him tell her what were her duties.